Parakala Prabhakar (born 2 January 1959) is an Indian political economist and social commentator. He served as Communications Advisor, held a

cabinet rank The ministerial ranking, Cabinet ranking, order of precedence in Cabinet or order of precedence of ministers is the "pecking order" or relative importance of senior ministers in the Government of the United Kingdom, UK government. Use The mi ...

position in Andhra Pradesh Government between July 2014 and June 2018. For several years he presented a current affairs discussion programme on television channels of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. His programmes, Pratidhwani on ETV2 and Namaste Andhra Pradesh on NTV. He was also a former spokesman and one of the founding general secretaries of Praja Rajyam Party. In the early 2000s, Parakala was the spokesperson of the Andhra Pradesh unit of the BJP. He is the spouse of the incumbent union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India,

Nirmala Sitharaman Nirmala Sitharaman (born 18 August 1959) is an Indian economist and politician serving as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India since 2019. She is a member of the Rajya Sabha, upper house of the Indian Parliament, since 2014. S ...

Personal life

Parakala was born in a prominent Telugu Brahmin family in

Narsapuram Narasapuram, or Narsapur, is a city in West Godavari district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a municipality and mandal headquarters of Narasapuram mandal in Narasapuram revenue division. The city is situated on the banks of the Va ...

. His mother, Parakala Kalikamba was a

Member of Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. S ...

in Andhra Pradesh, while his father, Parakala Seshavatharam, was a long time Legislator and served in three successive Cabinets in the state of Andhra Pradesh in the 1970s and early 1980s. Parakala completed his doctorate from the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. He did his Master of Arts (M.A.) and Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) from

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

(JNU), New Delhi. Prabhakar married

in 1986, who became the Minister of

Finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

and

Corporate Affairs ''Corporate Affairs'' is a 1990 American film starring Peter Scolari and Mary Crosby. Plot An executive discovers that his former lover has given their company's CEO a fatal heart attack while having sex. Production Roger Corman arranged for ...

of the Government of India in Narendra Modi's cabinet. They have a daughter.

References

4
Review of The Crooked Timber of New India — Essays on a Republic in Crisis: India after 2014
The Hindu June 08, 2023 , Updated June 09, 2023

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prabhakar, Parakala Living people Jawaharlal Nehru University alumni Alumni of the London School of Economics 1959 births People from West Godavari district Praja Rajyam Party politicians Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Andhra Pradesh