By IANS,
New Delhi : Shashi Tharoor, who Sunday quit as the minister of state for external affairs following an ugly IPL financial row, was the youngest doctorate at 22 at Tufts University in the US.
The following is the brief bio of the former UN diplomat who went on to contest election for the UN Secretary General in 2006:
– Tharoor was born in London March 9, 1956.
– Educated in Kerala, Mumbai and Kolkata. Graduated from St. Stephen’s college in Delhi.
– He has two masters 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 doctoral thesis on “Reasons of State”.
– He joined the United Nations in 1978, rising to become under secretary 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 April 1, 2007.
– Tharoor contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election on a Congress party ticket from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and won by a margin of 100,000 votes.
– He was sworn-in minister of state May 28, 2009.