Vayalar Ravi (born 4 June 1937
) is an Indian politician, who served as the Union Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs from 2006 to 2014. He is a former member of the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

Political life

Ravi was born in

Vayalar Vayalar is a village in Cherthala taluk, Alapuzha district, Kerala state, India. Location Vayalar is 5 km from Cherthala, Kerala. Vayalar is bounded on the east by the Vayalar kayal which is a part of the famous Vembanad backwate ...

Cherthala Cherthala, , (formerly Shertalai, Shertallai or Shertallay) is a Municipal town and a Taluk located at National highway 66 in the district of Alappuzha, in the state of Kerala, India. Cherthala is the satellite town and industrial hub of Ala ...

, Alappuzha District,

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

. He was the first General Secretary of the

Kerala Students Union The Kerala Students Union (abbreviated KSU) is a students organization in Kerala, India. It functions as the student wing of the Indian National Congress in the state. KSU was founded in 1957 at Alappuzha, with M. A. John as its main organiser ...

(KSU), the students' wing of

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

in Kerala."New Minister for NRI affairs"
nriol.com.Profile at Ravi website
Ravi was elected to the

5th Lok Sabha List of Members of the 5th Lok Sabha, ( 15 March 1971 — 18 January 1977) elected February–March 1971.The term of the House was extended two times by one year at a time. However, the House was dissolved after having been in existence for a ...

in 1971 from Chirayinkil in

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

district; he was re-elected to the

6th Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house in the Parliament of India. The 6th Lok Sabha, which ran from 23 March 1977 to 22 August 1979 was elected in February and March 1977. 11 sitting members from Rajya Sabha were elected to 6t ...

in 1977, serving until 1979. He was elected to the

Kerala Legislative Assembly The Kerala Legislative Assembly, popularly known as the Kerala Niyamasabha, is the State Assembly of Kerala, one of the 28 states in India. The Assembly is formed by 140 elected representatives. Each elected member represents one of the 140 c ...

in 1982, and he served as Home Minister of Kerala from 1982 to 1986 before resigning from that position due to a disagreement with Chief Minister

K. Karunakaran Kannoth Karunakaran (5 July 1918 – 23 December 2010) was an Indian politician and member of the Indian National Congress (INC). He served as the Chief Minister of Kerala four times during the late 1970s through the mid 1990s. He is the ...

. He was re-elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly in 1987, serving until 1991. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 1994 and again in April 2003. He became Union Cabinet Minister for Overseas Affairs on 30 January 2006. After the Congress reelection in 2009, Ravi was re-inducted to the Cabinet for the second UPA government and retained the portfolio of Overseas Indian Affairs. He was given the additional responsibility of Ministry of Civil Aviation on 19 January 2011. He resigned from the office after

Rashtriya Lok Dal Rashtriya Lok Dal (abbreviated as RLD) (translation: National People's Party) is a political party in India founded by Chaudhary Ajit Singh. He was carrying on the political legacy of his father and former Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Ch ...

leader Ajit Singh succeeded him.

Personal life

Ravi met his wife Mercy, while they were both active in the

and he married her after a brief courtship.

Mercy Ravi Mercy Ravi (18 March 1945 – 5 September 2009) was a member of Kerala Legislative Assembly and the wife of the Indian politician Vayalar Ravi. She was also a renowned social worker and author. Early life and education She was born in 1945 i ...

died on 5 September 2009 following a kidney failure, aged 64. In February 2010, Vayalar Ravi along with Indian Ambassador Shamma Jain were injured in a car accident in

Monrovia Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As the ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

, while on an official visit to African countries.

References

External links

ambedkar.org

Deshmukh's portfolios given to Vayalar Ravi
, - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Ravi, Vayalar Members of the Cabinet of India Malayali politicians 1937 births Living people Indian National Congress politicians from Kerala India MPs 1971–1977 India MPs 1977–1979 Rajya Sabha members from Kerala People from Alappuzha district Lok Sabha members from Kerala Kerala MLAs 1987–1991 Kerala MLAs 1982–1987 Civil aviation ministers of India Indian National Congress (U) politicians