Jyotiraditya Scindia

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Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia
J. Scindia (2012)
Union Minister of State – Ministry of Power
Incumbent
Assumed office
28 October 2012
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Preceded by Veerappa Moily
Constituency Guna
Personal details
Born (1971-01-01) 1 January 1971
Mumbai, Maharashtra
Political party Indian National Congress
Spouse(s) Priyadarshini Raje Scindia
Children 1 son and 1 daughter
Residence Jai Vilas Mahal, Gwalior
Alma mater Harvard University (B.A.)
Stanford University (M.B.A.)
Religion Hindu
Website [1]

Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (born 1 January 1971) is an Indian politician. He is a current Member of Parliament, a member of the Indian National Congress party, and the Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Power.[2][3] In the Indian parliament, Scindia, represents the Guna constituency in the state of Madhya Pradesh. He has recently been named among prospective Indian National Congress candidates for the Chief Ministership of Madhya Pradesh.[4] Madhya Pradesh is one of the poorest states in India, with two thirds of its children malnourished, with its under-five malnutrition rate higher than most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and with a large number of new mothers and infants dying shortly after childbirth, according to UNICEF.[5]

Scindia is one of the wealthiest ministers in the government of India and, in addition, a claimant to property worth Rs. 20,000 crores or $3.27 billion belonging to his late father, Madhav Rao Scindia, a titular hereditary Maharajah of Gwalior, which before 1947 was a princely state in the British Indian Empire.[6][7] Scindia was appointed Minister of State for Power in November 2012 in a cabinet reshuffle which drafted a number of younger politicians into the Indian cabinet, including two other scions of princely families, R. P. N. Singh and Jitendra Singh.[8] Scindia was tasked by the Indian Planning Commission with preventing a repetition of the July 2012 India blackout, the largest power outage in history, which affected over 620 million people, about 9% of the world population,[9][10][11][12] In May 2013, Scindia claimed that checks and balances had been put in place to prevent any recurrence of grid collapse and that India would have the world's largest integrated grid by January 2014.[13]

He is president of the regional Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) in India.[14] After the spot fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League exploded in the Indian media and after Sanjay Jagdale a member of the MPCA resigned his job as secretary fro the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Scindia spoke out against corruption in Indian cricket.[15] He is also the President of the Board of Governors of Scindia School, Gwalior, which was founded by his great-grandfather the late Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia of Gwalior in 1897 for schooling the sons of Indian princes and nobles; in 1947 the school opened its doors to the wider public and is now also wooing international students with its comparatively lower annual fee of Rs. 642,900 ($10,526).[16][17] In 2004, a story in the Chandigarh Tribune suggested the school was one of the finest private schools for boys in India.[18]

Early life

Scindia was born in Mumbai to Madhavrao Scindia and Madhavi Raje Scindia. He studied at Campion School, Mumbai and The Doon School, Dehradun.[19] He majored in Economics at Harvard University, graduating in 1993; in 2001, he received M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.[20][21]

Scindia is a grandson of George Jivajirao Scindia, the last ruler of the Maratha princely state of Gwalior. However, in the 26th amendment[22] to the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration (privy purses).[23]

Political career

Scindia was elected to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Indian Parliament) in February 2002 from Guna District - formerly represented by his father.[citation needed] He was re-elected in May 2004,[citation needed] and again in 2009, when he was also appointed Minister of State for Commerce & Industry in the Government of India.[citation needed]

Scindia is among the richest ministers in the Indian government with assets of nearly Rs 25 crore ($5 million); these include investments in Indian and foreign securities worth over Rs 16 crore ($3 million) and jewellery worth over Rs 5.7 crore ($1.1 million).[6] He has also filed a legal claim to be the sole inheritor of the property belonging to his late father worth Rs 20,000 crores ($3.274 billion); however, this has been challenged in court by his aunts.[7]

See also

References

  1. "Ministry of Power". Powermin.nic.in. Retrieved 2013-07-18. 
  2. "Jyotiradita Scindia is likely to be next CM says Kamal Nath". CNN-IBN News. 12 August 2013. 
  3. "UNICEF India State Profiles: Madhya Pradesh". United Nations Children's Fund. 2013. 
  4. 6.0 6.1 "Patel, Scindia among richest ministers in India". Rediff Business. 10 September 2010. 
  5. 7.0 7.1 Ambreesh Mishra (13 November 2010). "Scindia Feud: Castles in the heir". India Today Magazine. 
  6. Hartosh Singh Baal (5 November 2012). "The Princelings of India". International Herald Tribune. 
  7. Helen Pidd (31 July 2012). "India blackouts leave 700 million without power". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July 2012. 
  8. Hriday Sarma and Ruby Russell (31 July 2012). "620 million without power in India after 3 power grids fail". USA Today. Retrieved 31 July 2012. 
  9. "India's Mass Power Failure Worst Ever in World History". Outlook. Press Trust of India. 1 August 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012. 
  10. Sanjay Datta (20 November 2012). "Grid safety tops Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s wish list for Jyotiraditya Scindia". 
  11. Anupama Airy (13 May 2013). "India’s power grid set to be world’s largest". Hindustan Times. 
  12. "MPCA, Madhyapradesh Cricket Association, Indore | Cricket in Madhyapradesh | Cricket | Indore | MPCA | CK Naidu | Holkar Cricket | Holkar Stadium". Mpcaonline.com. Retrieved 2013-07-18. 
  13. "Scindia calls for time-frame to complete spot-fixing enquiry". Z-News, India. 24 June 2013. 
  14. Amit Roy (1 January 2006). "Public schools in India woo British Asian pupils". The Telegraph. 
  15. "The Scindia School: Fees and Funding". 2013. 
  16. "Education to excel: Scindia School in Gwalior is rated as one of the finest public schools for boys". The Tribune. May 23, 2004. 
  17. "The evolution of Honorable Shri. Jyotiraditya Scindia". Times of India. 2002-06-02. Retrieved 2009-06-21. 
  18. "Honorable Shri. Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia - Minister of State for Commerce & Industry". Department of Commerce, Government of India. Retrieved 2011-03-08. 
  19. "Jyotiraditya M. Scindia - Minister of State for Commerce & Industry". Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Government of India. Retrieved 2011-03-08. 
  20. "The Constitution (26 Amendment) Act, 1971", indiacode.nic.in (Government of India), 1971, retrieved 9 November 2011 
  21. 1. Ramusack, Barbara N. (2004). The Indian princes and their states. Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-521-26727-4. Retrieved 6 November 2011. , "Through a constitutional amendment passed in 1971, Indira Gandhi stripped the princes of the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted." (p 278). 2. Naipaul, V. S. (8 April 2003), India: A Wounded Civilization, Random House Digital, Inc., pp. 37–, ISBN 978-1-4000-3075-0, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "The princes of India – their number and variety reflecting to a large extent the chaos that had come to the country with the break up of the Mughal empire – had lost real power in the British time. Through generations of idle servitude they had grown to specialize only in style. A bogus, extinguishable glamour: in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state, and Mrs. Gandhi in 1971 had, without much public outcry, abolished their privy purses and titles." (pp 37–38). 3. Schmidt, Karl J. (1995), An atlas and survey of South Asian history, M.E. Sharpe, p. 78, ISBN 978-1-56324-334-9, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "Although the Indian states were alternately requested or forced into union with either India or Pakistan, the real death of princely India came when the Twenty-sixth Amendment Act (1971) abolished the princes' titles, privileges, and privy purses." (page 78). 4. Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai (1995), Consuming modernity: public culture in a South Asian world, U of Minnesota Press, pp. 84–, ISBN 978-0-8166-2306-8, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "The third stage in the political evolution of the princes from rulers to citizens occurred in 1971, when the constitution ceased to recognize them as princes and their privy purses, titles, and special privileges were abolished." (page 84). 5. Guha, Ramachandra (5 August 2008), India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, HarperCollins, pp. 441–, ISBN 978-0-06-095858-9, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "Her success at the polls emboldened Mrs. Gandhi to act decisively against the princes. Through 1971, the two sides tried and failed to find a settlement. The princes were willing to forgo their privy purses, but hoped at least to save their titles. But with her overwhelming majority in Parliament, the prime minister had no need to compromise. On 2 December she introduced a bill to amend the constitution and abolish all princely privileges. It was passed in the Lok Sabha by 381 votes to six, and in the Rajya Sabha by 167 votes to seven. In her own speech, the prime minister invited 'the princes to join the elite of the modern age, the elite which earns respect by its talent, energy and contribution to human progress, all of which can only be done when we work together as equals without regarding anybody as of special status.' " (page 441). 6. Cheesman, David (1997). Landlord power and rural indebtedness in colonial Sind, 1865-1901. London: Routledge. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-0-7007-0470-5. Retrieved 6 November 2011.  Quote: "The Indian princes survived the British Raj by only a few years. The Indian republic stripped them of their powers and then their titles." (page 10). 7. Merriam-Webster, Inc (1997), Merriam-Webster's geographical dictionary, Merriam-Webster, pp. 520–, ISBN 978-0-87779-546-9, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "Indian States: "Various (formerly) semi-independent areas in India ruled by native princes .... Under British rule ... administered by residents assisted by political agents. Titles and remaining privileges of princes abolished by Indian government 1971." (page 520). 8. Ward, Philip (September 1989), Northern India, Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi: a travel guide, Pelican Publishing, pp. 91–, ISBN 978-0-88289-753-0, retrieved 6 November 2011  Quote: "A monarchy is only as good as the reigning monarch: thus it is with the princely states. Once they seemed immutable, invincible. In 1971 they were "derecognized," their privileges, privy purses and titles all abolished at a stroke" (page 91)

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