Ram Niwas Mirdha

Ram Niwas Mirdha, 2005

Ram Niwas Mirdha , Hindi राम निवास मिर्धा (born August 24, 1924 in Jasol , Barmer District , Rajasthan , †  January 29, 2010 ) was an Indian politician .

biography

The son of a police officer studied at the University of Allahabad after attending school and graduated with a Master of Arts (MA). He then completed a postgraduate degree in law at Lucknow University with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). He later completed a degree at the Institute for International Studies in Geneva , where he graduated .

He began his political career in 1953 as a candidate for the Indian National Congress with the election to the legislative assembly of Rajasthan ( Rajasthan Legislative Assembly ), of which he was a member until 1967. After serving as Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Transport in the government of Chief Minister Mohan Lal Sukhadia from 1954 to 1957, he was elected Speaker of the State Legislative Assembly in 1957 and held this office until 1967.

In 1967 he was elected a member of the House of Lords ( Rajya Sabha ) and represented the interests of Rajasthan there until 1991.

In June 1970 he was appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of the Interior by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi , where he was responsible for personnel and administrative reforms until October 1974. After a cabinet reshuffle, he was then Minister of State for Defense Production, before he was Minister of State for Supply and Rehabilitation after another government reshuffle from December 1975 until the end of Gandhi's tenure on March 24, 1977.

After the Congress party's defeat in the elections, he was then Vice President of the House of Lords between 1977 and 1980.

In January 1983 he was reappointed to the government by Prime Minister Gandhi, where he was Minister for Water Resources until August 1984. He was then Foreign Minister for a short period between August and December 1984 . In this capacity he was head of the delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in September 1984 . After the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October 1984, he was appointed communications minister in his cabinet by her son and new Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in January 1985.

After another government reshuffle , he was Minister for the Textile Industry with cabinet rank from October 1986 until the end of Rajiv Gandhi's tenure on December 2, 1989 . At the same time he was the minister responsible for health and family welfare.

In the 1991 elections he was elected a member of the House of Commons ( Lok Sabha ), in which he represented the interests of the constituency of Barmer (Rajasthan) until the 1996 election . During that time, in 1992, he was Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee to Investigate Irregularities in Insurance and Banking Transactions. In addition, from 1993 to 1997 he was India's representative on the Executive Board of UNESCO .

Ram Niwas Mirdha was also active in many other social and socio-political institutions and was chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi , the Indian National Academy for the Arts, from 1976 to 1980 and 1990 to 1995 . In addition, he was president of the Indian Heritage Society , the Federation of Indian Association for the United Nations (Indian Federation of United Nations Association) and the Indian Society of International Law .

His younger son Harendra Mirdha was also a member of the Legislative Assembly and from 1998 to 1994 Minister of Public Works in the Rajasthan state government.

Web links

• THE TIMES OF INDIA: "Congress leader Ram Niwas Mirdha passes away" (January 29, 2010)