Shashi Tharoor Age, Wife, Girlfriend, Family, Caste, Biography

Bio
Profession(s)	Diplomat, Politician, Writer
Politics
Party	Indian National Congress
Political Journey	• Tharoor's Career in the United Nations started in 1978 as a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. • He was head of the UNHCR office in Singapore from 1981 until 1984. • In 1989, he was appointed as the special assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations wing in New York. • Tharoor was appointed the director of communications and special projects and executive assistant to the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1996. • He became Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and as Head of the Department of Public Information (UNDPI) in 2001. • In 2006, the Government of India nominated Shashi Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General. Tharoor finished second, behind Ban Ki-moon. • On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of UN Under-Secretary-General and left the United Nations on 1 April 2007. • In the 2009 Indian General Elections, Tharoor was the MP candidate for Congress Party from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Tharoor won the election by a margin of about 100,000. • In the Govt. of Manmohan Singh, he was sworn in as Minister of State for External Affairs, in charge of Africa, Latin America, and the Gulf on 28 May 2009. • In May 2014, Tharoor was re-elected from Thiruvananthapuram, defeating O. Rajagopal of the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of around 15,000 votes, and got the membership of the 15th Lok Sabha, sitting in Opposition. He was named Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. • Shashi Tharoor was removed from the post of Congress spokesperson on 13 October 2014 after he praised his party's opponent, Narendra Modi. • In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, he won from Thiruvananthapuram. • In October 2022, he contested the Congress party’s presidential polls; however, he lost to his rival, Mallikarjun Kharge, by more than eight times votes. [1]BBC • He won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala by 16,077 votes against the BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Awards/Nominations/Honours	• Rajika Kripalani Young Journalist Award for the Best Indian Journalist under 30 in 1976. • Federation of Indian Publishers' Hindustan Times Literary Award for the Best Book of the Year for The Great Indian Novel in 1990. • His book The Great Indian Novel carried off the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best Book of the Year in the Eurasian Region in 1991. • Excelsior Award for Excellence in the literature by the Association of Indians in America in 1998. • Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 1998. Awards won by Tharoor in early 21st Century • The Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in International Affairs from the University of Puget Sound in 2000. • Prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honor for non-resident Indians in 2004. • Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Bucharest, Romania in 2008. • Zakir Hussain Memorial "Pride of India" Award in 2009. • GQ's Inspiration of the Year Award at its Man of the Year Awards in 2009. • Sarva Deshiya Prathibha award by the Pazhassiraja Charitable Trust, Kozhikode in 2010. • "New Age Politician of the Year" Award by NDTV at its Indian of the Year awards in 2010. • Fifth IILM Distinguished Global Thinker Award in New Delhi in 2010. • Digital person of the year at the first ever Indian Digital Media Awards (IDMA) for popularizing the digital medium in India in 2010. • First Sree Narayan Guru Global Secular and Peace Award at Thiruvananthapuram in 2013. • PETA's "Person of the Year" in 2013. • In August 2022, he was honoured with the Legion of Honour (Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur) for his writing and speeches. The Legion of Honour is France's highest civilian honour.
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)	5' 9" (175 cm)
Weight (approx.)	75 Kg (165 lbs)
Eye Colour	Hazel Green
Hair Colour	Salt & Pepper
Personal Life
Date of Birth	9 March 1956 (Friday)
Age (as of 2024)	68 Years
Birthplace	London, England
Zodiac sign	Pisces
Nationality	Indian
Hometown	Kerala, India
School	• Montfort School, Yercaud, Tamil Nadu • Campion School, Mumbai
College/University	• St Xavier's College Calcutta, • St Stephen's College, Delhi, • Tufts University, USA
Educational Qualification(s)	• B.A. in History • M.A • M.A.L.D • Ph.D
Family	Father- Chandran Tharoor Mother- Lily Tharoor Brother- N/A Sister- Smita Tharoor, Shobha Tharoor-Srinivasan
Religion	Hinduism
Caste	Nair
Address	G J Condormarigold Bhakthyukasom Road, Vazhuthacaud
Controversies	• In September 2009, Shashi Tharoor was at the center of a controversy for staying at a five-star hotel for over three months at a time when the Government was talking about austerity. • Again in 2009, Tharoor commented on Twitter that he would travel “cattle class” in solidarity with all our “holy cows.” He was alleged to equate the travelling public to cattle. • Once on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, he said people should work rather than staying at home taking a holiday, thereby paying real homage to Mahatma Gandhi. • In January 2010, Tharoor disdained Nehru for his vision on Indian foreign policy by the Indian media. The critique angered his party, the Indian National Congress. After the controversy, he held a press conference describing the report as "inaccurate" and "tendentious". • In February 2010, he accompanied then Indian PM Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia where he said "We feel that Saudi Arabia has a long and close relationship with Pakistan, that makes Saudi Arabia, even more, a valuable interlocutor for us. When we tell them about our experience, Saudi Arabia listens as somebody who is not in any way an enemy of Pakistan, but a friend of Pakistan and, therefore, will listen with sympathy and concern to a matter of this nature". • In 2014, Tharoor backed up Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a social campaign initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Following this, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee lodged a complaint against him to the Congress high command for his pro-Modi stance. Following this, Tharoor was dropped as the official spokesperson of the party. • In 2016, while speaking at JNU on nationalism, Tharoor compared Kanhaiya, a student charged with sedition, with Bhagat Singh, an Indian independence fighter. This comparison generated a great controversy, even the party distanced itself from Tharoor's views. • In May 2017, the Delhi police added Shashi Tharoor's name in the suspicious accuse in the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. • On 18 August 2021, a Delhi court discharged him from all charges, including abetment to suicide, in Sunanda Pushkar's death case. [2]The Hindu • On 10 April 2024, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar sent a legal notice to Shashi Tharoor for making defamatory statements against him on a TV channel. On the channel, Tharoor accused Chandrasekhar and the BJP of bribing key voters ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. According to Chandrasekhar, Tharoor's statement was on violation of the Model Code of Conduct. [3]The Hindu • On 29 May 2024, the customs department arrested his former aide Shiv Kumar Prasad smuggling 500 grams of gold at the Delhi Airport. Shashi Tharoor later took to Twitter to clarify that the arrested person was a former staff who had been rendering part-time service to him in terms of airport facilitation assistance. [4]Hindustan Times
Girls, Affairs and More
Marital Status	Widower
Affairs/Girlfriends	Mehr Tarar
Wife/Spouse	• Tilottama Mukherji • Christa Giles • Sunanda Pushkar
Children	Son- Ishaan, Kanishk Daughter- N/A
Money Factor
Salary (as a Member of Parliament)	Rs. 1 Lakh + Other Allowances
Net Worth (approx.)	Rs. 35 Crore (as of 2019)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Shashi Tharoor

• Tharoor was born in London in Malayali Nair family. His father Chandran worked in various positions in London, Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi, including a 25-year career for The Statesman Newspaper.

• Since 1981, Tharoor has also been an acclaimed writer, having authored 15 best-selling works of fiction and non-fiction, all of which are related to India and its history, culture, film, politics, society, foreign policy, and more.

• He has also written multifarious columns for articles in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and The Times of India. He also wrote regular columns for The Indian Express (1991–93 and 1996–2001), The Hindu (2001–2008), and The Times of India (2007–2009).                     

• His bibliography includes The Great Indian Novel (1989), The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1990), Show Business (1992), Riot (2001). All these books are based on Fiction.                                                         

• Reasons of State (1985), India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997), Nehru: The Invention of India (2003), Bookless in Baghdad (2005), The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India – The Emerging 21st-Century Power (2007), Shadows Across the Playing Field: Sixty Years of India-Pakistan Cricket (2009) (with Shaharyar Khan), Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century (2012), India: the Future is Now, Wisdom Tree (Editor)(2013), India Shastra: Reflections on the Nation in our Time (2015), An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India (2016), Inglorious Empire (2017) are some books based on Reality.