Tharoor: From youngest doctorate at Tufts to beleaguered minister

Shashi Tharoor, who quit yesterday as minister of state for external affairs following an ugly financial row related to the Indian Premier League, was the youngest doctorate at 22 at Tufts University in the US.

Following is a brief bio-sketch of the former UN diplomat who went on to contest the election for secretary-general in 2006:

• Tharoor was born in London on March 9, 1956.
• He was educated in Kerala, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
• He graduated from St Stephen’s College in Delhi.
• He has two master's degrees and a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, US. He became the youngest doctorate at Tufts at 22, with a doctoral thesis on 'Reasons of State'.
• Tharoor joined the United Nations in 1978, rising to become undersecretary-general for communications and public information in 2001.
• He was nominated by India for the post of UN secretary-general in 2006. He lost to South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon. Left the UN on April 1, 2007.
• Tharoor contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket from Trivandrum in Kerala and won by a margin of 1,00,000 votes.
• He was sworn in as minister of state on May 28, 2009.