Party Name : Indian National Congress
Constituency : Thiruvananthapuram
State : Kerala
Member Experience : Elected to Loksabha 3 time
Last Loksabha Attended : 17
Father's Name : Shri Chandran Tharoor
Mother's Name : Smt. Lily Tharoor
Date of birth : 09 Mar 1956
Profession : Writer International Civil Servant
Positions held :
2009 Elected to 15th Lok Sabha23 May 2009 - 18 Apr. 2010 Union Minister of State, External Affairs30 Apr. 2010 Member, Standing Committee on External Affairs4 May 2010 Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Defence28 Oct. 2012 Union Minister of State, Human Resource DevelopmentMay, 2014 Re-elected to 16th Lok Sabha (2nd term)1 Sep. 2014 - 25 May 2019 Chairperson, Standing Committee on External AffairsMember, Rules CommitteeMember, Consultative Committee, Ministry of External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs29 Jan. 2015- 25 May 2019 Member, General Purposes CommitteeMay, 2019 Re-elected to 17th Lok Sabha (3rd term)13 Sept. 2019 onwards Chairperson, Standing Committee on Information TechnologyMember, Consultative Committee, Ministry of External Affairs21 Nov. 2019 onwards Member, General Purposes Committee, Lok Sabha
More Information :
Books Published
Non Fiction (i) Reasons of State: Political Development and India’s Foreign Policy under Indira Gandhi, 1966-1977 (1982); (ii) Nehru: The Invention of India (2003), a Biography of India’s First Prime Minister; a collection of literary essays; (iii) Shadows Across the Playing Field: 60 Years of India-Pakistan Cricket (1997); (iv) Bookless in Baghdad (2005), an essay collection; (v) The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone: Reflections on India; The Emerging 21st Century Power (2007); (vi) India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond (2009), with Shaharyar Khan; (vii) pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (2012); (viii) India: The Future is Now (edited) (2013); (ix) India Shastra: Reflections on the Nation in our time (2015) (x) An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India (2016); (xi) The Paradoxical Prime Minister (2018) (xii) Why I Am a Hindu (2018) (xiii) Inde (French); Fiction: (xiv) The Great Indian Novel (1989); (xv) The Five-Dollar Smile and other short stories (1990); (xvi) Show Business (1992) which received a front page accolade in the ‘New York Times’ Book Review and has since been made into a motion picture, “Bollywood”; and (xvii) Riot (2001); Illustrated books: (xviii) Kerala: God’s own Country (2002), with text by Shashi Tharoor and paintings by the renowned M.F. Husain; also translated in French, German, Italian, Malayalam, Marathi, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Spanish; (xix) India (2008), a photo book in collaboration with photographer Ferrante Ferranti
Literary, Artistic & Scientific Accomplishments
Author of 18 BooksWinner (i) A Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1991 the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award and other literary and Journalistic awards; and (ii) A Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, 2004; Named Global Leader of Tomorrow at World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos, Switzerland, 1998; awarded (i) Robert B. Stewart Prize for the Best Student, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; (ii) An honorary D.Litt.,University of Puget Sound; and (iii) Doctorate Honoris Causa, University of Bucharest, Romania; first Editor, Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, Fletcher
Social And Cultural Activities
Columnist and Writer, Indian and International Publications; served as (i) Contributing Editor and Occasional columnist, Newsweek International; and (ii) Public Speaker on Indian and Global Issues; Patron, Chandran Tharoor Foundation
Special Interests
International Affairs, Literature, Cricket, Theatre, The United Nations, Human Rights; and served The United Nations for 29 year career(1978-2007)
Favourite Pastime and Recreation
Cricket, reading, writing, theatre, movies and media
Sports and Clubs
Chairman, (i) City Cricketers, Thiruvananthapuram; (ii) India International Centre; and (iii) Kerala International Centre; and Captained, Ministry of External Affairs Cricket team, 2009-10
Countries Visited
Widely travelled
Other Information
Under-Secretary-General, Communications and Public Information, U.N., 2001-2007; Executive Assistant, Secretary General, U.N.,1997-2000; Special Asst.,USA/UN for peacekeeping, 1989-1996; Deputy Chief, Secretariat, UNCHR, 1985-89; Head, Singapore Office, UNHCR, 1981-84; and Public Information Officer, UNHCR, 1978-81;served (i) Board of Overseers, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute; (ii) Advisory Boards of the Indo-American Arts Council, the American India Foundation, the World Policy Journal, the Virtue foundation and the human rights organization `Breakthrough`;appointed an International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 2008-11; Fellow, New York Institute of the Humanities and the Patron of the Dubai Modern School; Awards (i) The Pride of India Award, the Zakir Husain Memorial Foundation, Nagpur; and (ii) The Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration, presented by Maharana of Udaipur; Member, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum, 2010-12.
