Jayant Sinha
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Jayant Sinha (born 21 April 1963) is an Indian politician who is the Member of Indian Parliament and formerly the Minister of State for Finance and the Minister of State for Civil Aviation in the Government of India. Sinha is currently the Chairperson for Standing Committee on Finance and a member of the Public Accounts Committee for 2019–20. He has also been an investment fund manager and management consultant. In May 2014, he was elected to the
Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
, representing the
Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
from
Hazaribagh Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is the divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is considered as a health resort and is also popular for Hazaribagh ...
, Jharkhand. In the 2019 general elections, Sinha was re-elected as Member of Parliament from the same constituency with a record majority. Sinha's prior business experience includes twelve years with
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...
as a partner in the Boston and Delhi offices. At McKinsey, Sinha co-led the global Software and IT Services practice. He was most recently a partner at
Omidyar Network Omidyar Network is a self-styled "philanthropic investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over $1.5billion to n ...
. Sinha led ON's overall investment strategy and operations in India. He also spent several years as a Managing Director at Courage Capital, a global special situations hedge fund.


Personal life

He was born in a religious
Chitraguptvanshi Kayastha Chitraguptavanshi Kayastha, also referred as ''North Indian Kayastha'', is a subgroup of Hindus of the Kayastha community that are mainly concentrated in the Hindi Belt of North India. In Hindu texts and traditions, they are described to have desc ...
family in
Giridih Giridih is headquarters of the Giridih district of Jharkhand state, India. The city of Giridih is known for its industrial and health sectors, as well as its scenic beauty. Giridih houses the Giridih Coalfield which is one of the oldest coalfi ...
, Jharkhand, where his father,
Yashwant Sinha Yashwant Sinha (, born 6 November 1937) is an Indian administrator and politician. He served as the Minister of Finance from 1990 until 1991 under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and again from March 1998 to July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal B ...
, was stationed as an IAS officer. In his youth, Jayant lived in Bihar, Delhi and Germany. He was educated at St. Michael's High School, Patna and St. Columba's School, Delhi. In 1980, Jayant passed the JEE while in the 11th grade on his first attempt, and was admitted to
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is a public institute of technology located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technolo ...
. He was awarded the IIT Delhi's Distinguished Alumni Award in October 2015. While at IIT, Sinha met his future wife Punita, and they were married in 1986. They have two sons. After graduating from IIT Delhi in 1985, Sinha enrolled at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, and completed a Master of Science in Energy Management & Policy in 1986. Later, Sinha also attended
Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...
, and obtained an MBA with Distinction in 1992.


Political career

Jayant Sinha has participated in Indian politics and policy-making since the 1990s. When his father became Finance Minister under
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...
(1998-2002), Sinha provided policy inputs on several new initiatives such as the mortgage interest tax deduction and the Saral form to file income tax returns with ease and improve tax compliance. Sinha has been active in Hazaribagh, assisting his father's election campaigns since 1998. He has also worked on a variety of projects in
Hazaribagh Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is the divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is considered as a health resort and is also popular for Hazaribagh ...
and
Ramgarh district Ramgarh district is one of the 24 districts in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It was also a military district during the British Regime, referred to then as Ramgarh district. Introduction and geography Ramgarh was made a district on 12 Sep ...
s such as fostering self-help groups, distributing solar lanterns, improving drinking water quality, and getting village roads built. During the 2014 election campaign, Sinha worked with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
to help frame national economic policy, including organizing and hosting an international business leaders' forum with Mr. Modi in February 2014. Sinha has been an active contributor to the BJP's efforts to develop new campaign management technologies and systems. In 2014, Sinha contested Lok Sabha elections from the Hazaribagh seat in his home state of Jharkhand. He won the elections with a huge margin of 1,59,128 votes, getting a total of 4,06,931 in his favour. After joining parliament, Sinha was a member of four parliamentary committees - Public Accounts Committee, Standing Committee on Finance and Subordinate Committee on Legislation and of the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. In 2019, Sinha contested for the second time from Hazaribagh constituency and registered 728,798 votes out of the 1,070,929 votes cast.


Ministerial career


Ministry of Finance

Sinha was sworn-in as Minister of State in the
Union Council of Ministers The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the ''Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by t ...
on 9 November 2014. Subsequently, he assumed charge at the Ministry of Finance in the Indian Government, working with Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...
. There, he helped in driving landmark initiatives such as PM Mudra Yojana, Social Security Platform, devising the Indradhanush package for public sector banks, launching the India Aspiration Fund to promote entrepreneurship, and strengthening India's capital markets. He piloted key legislations, namely the Insurance Bill, Bankruptcy Bill, Negotiable Instruments Act and Regional Rural Banks Bill in the Parliament. He also helped in preparing the Union Budgets of 2015-16 and 2016–17, which were widely hailed as two of the most significant and visionary budgets in recent years. Sinha is often credited with devising and driving innovative financing institutions, such as the National Infrastructure and Investment Fund, Long Term Irrigation Fund, India Aspiration Fund and Higher Education Financing Agency.


Ministry of Civil Aviation

After the
Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Ec ...
, Sinha moved to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 6 July 2016. His appointment came just after the government unveiled the first-ever National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP). His work in the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been widely appreciated and has led to the complete transformation of India's aviation ecosystem. India is now the world's third largest domestic aviation market and has seen 50 months of unprecedented double digit passenger growth. It is the fastest-growing large aviation market in the world. The Regional Connectivity Scheme was formulated under Sinha's guidance and is the flagship scheme of the NCAP. On 27 April 2017, PM
Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
launched the Regional Connectivity Scheme
UDAN ''Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik'' (Hindi for "Let the common citizens of the country fly"), known by its acronym ''UDAN'' (Hindi for "flight") is a regional airport development program of the Government of India and part of the Regional Connectivi ...
(Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme from the Jubbarhatti airport in
Shimla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the States and union territories of India, northern Indian state of Himachal Prade ...
. At the launch of the scheme, Mr Sinha said the citizens would reap the benefit of development of remote areas, enhance trade and commerce and more tourism expansion.
UDAN ''Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik'' (Hindi for "Let the common citizens of the country fly"), known by its acronym ''UDAN'' (Hindi for "flight") is a regional airport development program of the Government of India and part of the Regional Connectivi ...
has already added more than 35 airports to the existing 70 operational airports thus dramatically expanding the Indian aviation network and bringing air travel to Tier 2 and 3 cities such as
Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. Bikaner city is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Formerly the capital of ...
, Adhampur, and
Kanpur Kanpur or Cawnpore ( /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (help·info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations o ...
. UDAN operates at three levels to ensure route profitability: reducing operating costs as much as possible, providing a market discovered subsidy for half the seats and guaranteeing a three-year exclusivity on routes. The second bidding round (UDAN 2) prioritized helicopters leading to bids for more than 50 heliports in hilly areas and islands. The focus in UDAN 3 is on tourism destinations such as Kajuraho and on international routes for cities such as
Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...
. The air traveller experience has been transformed during Sinha's tenure. He worked with security and customs agencies to reduce the use of unnecessary forms, eliminate baggage stamping, and enable e-boarding. Sinha developed the innovative AirSewa grievance redressal and flight information mobile app. With this app, air passengers can register their complaints about any member of the aviation ecosystem including airlines, airports, security, immigration, or customs. Passengers get an acknowledgement of their complaint and the government monitors satisfactory closure of their complaint. He has been a strong propagator of using technology to connect to the people directly and AirSewa concept originated from his handling of passenger grievances on various social media channels. Under his leadership, a Passenger Charter has been released to strengthen and formalize passenger rights. A first of its kind safety-oriented National No-Fly list has been formulated to prevent unruly behaviour during flights bringing down such incidents sharply. Sinha led the preparation of the NABH (Next Gen Airports for BHarat) Nirmaan program which was announced in Budget FY 18-19 and aims to strengthen airport infrastructure for a billion passenger trips. This would represent a five-fold capacity increase from the approximately 200 million trips in FY 17-18. He has been instrumental in introducing a revised public-private-partnership model for airport privatization and six airports have been offered for PPP. As part of the NABH Nirmaan program, over $15 billion of airport investments are currently underway in India. To ensure that Indian airports reflect local art and culture, Sinha worked with the
Airports Authority of India The Airports Authority of India, or AAI, is a public sector enterprise under the ownership of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing civil aviation infrastruct ...
to constitute a Design Council comprising India's top architects and artists. The Design Council provides a Design Brief incorporating a strong ‘sense of place’ for the design of airport terminals. This has resulted in much-praised terminal designs in
Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
,
Agartala Agartala () is the capital city of the Indian state of Tripura, and is one of the largest cities in northeast India. The city is governed by the Agartala Municipal Corporation. The city is the seat of the Government of Tripura. It is located on ...
,
Leh Leh () ( lbj, ) is the joint capital and largest city of Ladakh, a union territory of India. Leh, located in the Leh district, was also the historical capital of the Kingdom of Ladakh, the seat of which was in the Leh Palace, the former res ...
,
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
,
Patna Patna ( ), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...
, and so on. Sinha also played a crucial role in conceptualising the framework for the strategic privatization of
Air India Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the sa ...
including the creation of an innovative SPV structure to manage Air India's non-core assets. Sinha has also worked with the Air India Board to formulate the MaharajahDirect strategy for Air India to become a competitive global airline. Sinha led the formulation of the DigiYatra technology standards which brings together the aviation sector to implement a digital ecosystem for seamless, all-digital travel across all Indian airports and airlines. DigiYatra is being implement in Bengaluru airport in January 2019 and several AAI airports in March 2019. This is the first national digital traveller system in the world and is being studied for implementation in other countries as well. Sinha chairs the Drone Task Force and led the efforts to introduce India's world-leading drone regulations, which are based on his DigitalSky framework. The next set of drone regulations are intended to expand drone usage to cross the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), payload, and automation thresholds. The DigitalSky framework went live on 1 December 2018. The goal of the Drone Task Force is to ensure that India becomes a world leader in the design, manufacture, and safe usage of drones. In October 2016 Jayant Sinha signed an MoU between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship for training of people in the various trades associated with the civil aviation sector to meet the potential of 60 lakh jobs in the next ten years. Later on 28 February 2017, MoS for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha inaugurated India's first ever integrated heliport in Rohini, New Delhi along with the then Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju. On September 2018 Jayant Sinha announced the digital sky policy that will enable the government of India to digitise the entire sky and control the drone ecosystem. This policy under the tenure of Jayant Sinha was in two phases. In the first phase, the platform will register pilots, devices and services providers. The second phase will include automation, bi-modal control and setting up of dedicated air corridors. Jayant Sinha Minister of State for Civil Aviation added that once we digitise the sky, we will be able to give people rights to use certain slices of it for some period of time. Industry experts believed that the policy has broken new ground with digital sky platform and NPNT (no permission, no take-off).


Development of Hazaribagh

On 23 February 2017 MP from
Hazaribagh Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is the divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is considered as a health resort and is also popular for Hazaribagh ...
Jayant Sinha laid the foundation stone for three medical colleges in
Dumka Dumka ( Santali: ᱫᱩᱢᱠᱟᱹ), the headquarters of the Dumka district and Santhal Pargana region, is a city in the state of Jharkhand, India. It was made the headquarters of the Santhal Pargana region, which was carved out of the Bha ...
,
Palamau Palamu district is one of the twenty-four districts of Jharkhand state, India. It was formed in 1892. The administrative headquarter of the district is Medininagar (formerly DaltonGanj), situated on the Koel River. History The Palamu district ha ...
and
Hazaribagh Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is the divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is considered as a health resort and is also popular for Hazaribagh ...
along with the Chief Minister of
Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...
Mr.
Raghubar Das Raghubar Das (born 3 May 1955) is an Indian politician who served as the sixth Chief Minister of Jharkhand. He was sworn in as the 6th chief minister of Jharkhand on 28 December 2014. He belongs to Bharatiya Janata Party and has twice served as ...
.


Professional career

After his graduation from Harvard Business School, Sinha joined
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...
in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, and was elected Partner in 1999. At McKinsey, Sinha co‐led the Global Software & IT Services Practice. Sinha returned to India in 2002 with McKinsey, before leaving to join Courage Capital, a global special- situations hedge fund, to lead their India tech and investing efforts. After Courage Capital, Sinha joined
Omidyar Network Omidyar Network is a self-styled "philanthropic investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over $1.5billion to n ...
, founded by Pam and
Pierre Omidyar Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 199 ...
. Till December 2013, he was a partner at ON and the Managing Director of Omidyar Network India Advisors. He also served on Omidyar Network's five - member global executive committee. During his time there, Omidyar's India portfolio grew to over 35 companies and organizations totaling investments worth over $100 million. He also helped in funding the Indian Impact Investing Council. Sinha has served on the boards of several companies and organizations, including Daily Hunt, d.light, iMerit and Janaagraha. He was invited to serve on the International Advisory Board of the
International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of t ...
, Washington DC.


In the media

Sinha has been quoted widely in the global media for his views on business and economic policy, including in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, and CNBC. His essays and op-eds have been published in several major publications, including the Harvard Business Review and the Financial Times. Articles written by Jayant Sinha, such as the Paradox of Fast Growth Tigers in the McKinsey Quarterly 'Strategies That Fit Emerging Markets' in the Harvard Business Review and 'It is time for India to rein in its robber barons' in the Financial Times have widely been quoted in scholarly works and are used as reference material in business schools. In November 2017 an investigation conducted by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalism The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with ...
cited his name in the list of politicians named in "
Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsch ...
" allegations.


Social media

In 2018, Jayant Sinha triggered controversy by allegedly garlanding 8 lynching convicts who murdered a Muslim. His father,
Yashwant Sinha Yashwant Sinha (, born 6 November 1937) is an Indian administrator and politician. He served as the Minister of Finance from 1990 until 1991 under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and again from March 1998 to July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal B ...
, criticised his actions publicly in multiple platforms. Sinha got involved in this matter in April 2018 after the Fast-Track Court sentenced all 11 adult accused to life imprisonment for murder on 21 March 2018. He and local BJP leaders had provided the accused the legal assistance and eight of them were released on bail on 4 July 2018 after spending a year in jail. The Hon'ble Ranchi High Court, which is the first court of appeal, has suspended the sentence of the eight accused and released them on bail while admitting their case. High Court order, inter alia, reads: "...it is only apparent that the appellants were the members of the mob, and in view of lack of evidence of specific assault against them, we are inclined to release the appellants on bail". Sinha restated his position immediately through a series of tweets, explaining that (a) he condemned all violence and vigilantism; (b) the rule of law is supreme; (c) the guilty should be punished, but the innocent should get justice as well; and (d) he did not, in any way, condone vigilantism, and sincerely regretted if that's the impression that he gave. Through his media interviews, Sinha has repeatedly stated that his intervention is the matter was not to condone vigilantism but to ensure justice for all.


References


External links


Jayant Sinha - Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinha, Jayant India MPs 2014–2019 Indian management consultants IIT Delhi alumni Harvard Business School alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni 1963 births Living people People from Bihar People from Hazaribagh district Lok Sabha members from Jharkhand McKinsey & Company people Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Jharkhand Narendra Modi ministry India MPs 2019–present People named in the Paradise Papers