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Dr.
Shashi Tharoor is currently Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and
a member of the Indian Parliament from the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala.
"India's
place in the world is of great importance,” said Tharoor.
“India is a
country which for the longest period of time, since the days of Jawaharlal
Nehru, has had an honoured place in the world...and I wish to make my own
contribution for strengthening that very honoured place."
Shashi
Tharoor had previously been United Nations Under-Secretary-General for
Communications and Public Information where he led the Organization’s
communications strategy to ensure coherent and effective external messages and
served as an influencial speaker for the world body during the tenure of
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Dr.
Tharoor was the official candidate of India for the position of U.N.
Secretary-General in 2006 and came in second out of the seven final candidates
running for the office.
Dr. Tharoor is also a distinguished and prolific
author and human rights advocate.
While
he was United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Dr. Tharoor was an early friend and
supporter of MaximsNews.com where he was a contributor of opinion columns as
well as a friend and advisor to its editor and publisher.
Thanks
to specific intervention by Tharoor, MaximsNewsNetwork became the first
exclusively online news website to be given U.N. media accreditation and his
early support was instrumental in creating today’s global news
network.
Prior
to joining DCPI, Tharoor served as Director of Communications and Special
Projects in the Office of the Secretary-General and as Executive Assistant to
the Secretary-General (1997-2001).
As
Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations
(1989-1996), he assisted two successive heads of United Nations peacekeeping
operations in managing the challenges of unprecedented growth and evolution in
peacekeeping at the end of the cold war.
From
1991 to 1996, he led the team in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
responsible for the United Nations peacekeeping operations in the former
Yugoslavia.
In
2003, the Secretary-General appointed him United Nations Coordinator for
Multilingualism.
Tharoor's
United Nations career began in 1978 on the staff of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.
He
was Head of the UNHCR office in Singapore (1981-1984) during the peak of the
Vietnamese "boat people" crisis.
Tharoor
is also the author of numerous books, as well as numerous articles, op-eds and
literary reviews in a wide range of publications.
He is also the recipient of
several journalism and literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers'
Prize.
In
January 1998, Tharoor was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, as a "Global Leader of Tomorrow".
Tharoor
is an elected Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and a member
of the Advisory Board of the Indo-American Arts Council.
Born
in London in 1956, Tharoor was educated in India and the United States,
completing a Ph.D. in 1978 (at the age of 22) at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he also earned two Master's degrees.
Tharoor
was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in International Affairs
by the University of Puget Sound, United States.
--
By Dr. Max Stamper,
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, MaximsNewsNetwork.
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