Everything about Shashi Tharoor totally explained
Shashi Tharoor (
Malayalam:
ശശി തരൂര്; born
9 March 1956 in
London) was an
Indian diplomat at the
United Nations. In 2006, he was the official candidate of
India for the office of
United Nations Secretary-General, and came second out of seven official candidates in the race. Tharoor served as the
UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of Secretary-General
Kofi Annan. He is an author, journalist, and fellow of the
USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Tharoor is an Indian national, from the state of
Kerala.
History
In India, Tharoor studied at Montfort School in Yercaud,
Bombay Scottish School and
Campion School in
Mumbai, attended High School at
St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in
Kolkata and graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
history from
St. Stephen’s College,
Delhi. While at St. Stephen’s Tharoor was actively involved in the Debating Society, which is where he cultivated his
Received Pronunciation accent, Quiz Club, and Students’ Union, of which he was the elected President. He then completed a Ph.D at
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at
Tufts University,
Massachusetts, where he also earned two Master’s degrees.
Since 1978, Tharoor has been working for the
United Nations, serving with the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose
Singapore office he headed during the “
boat people” crisis. He began as a senior official at the
United Nations headquarters in
New York in 1989, where, until late 1996, he was responsible for
peacekeeping operations in the former
Yugoslavia.
From January 1997 to July 1998, he was executive assistant to
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He was was appointed director of communications and special projects in the office of the Secretary-General, and in January 2001, he was appointed by the Secretary-General as interim head of the Department of Public Information. On
1 June 2002, he was confirmed as the Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information. In this capacity, he's responsible for the communication strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the UN. In 2003, the Secretary-General appointed him United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism.
Tharoor resigned from the post of Under Secretary General on
February 9,
2007.
Campaign for Secretary-General
On
June 15,
2006, the
Government of India announced its backing for Tharoor’s candidacy as
Kofi Annan’s successor for the post of
UN Secretary General.
Tharoor came second (behind
Ban Ki-moon) in each of the four
straw polls conducted by the UN
Security Council on 24 July, 14 September, 28 September and 2 October. In the fourth poll, Ban emerged as the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members, each of whom has the power to veto candidates. After the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy, telling reporters he was “confident that Ban will win.”
Post-UN career
In February 2007, it was reported in the Indian press that Tharoor might be inducted into council of ministers of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for External Affairs. In the same month, it was reported in an American gossip
blog that Tharoor was a finalist for the position of dean of the
USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles. Dr. Tharoor—in addition to a variety of other activities in his private life—is chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures, a company promoting investment in
Kerala, India..
Personal
He married Tilottama Tharoor, a journalist and scholar, at the age of 21, from whom he's now divorced. He is the father of twin sons, Ishaan and Kanishk, who have recently graduated from
Yale. One of the twins, Ishaan lives in
Hong Kong and works for
Time magazine and the other brother, Kanishk, is a resident of
London working for
openDemocracy. Recently he got remarried to Christa Giles, a Canadian who is Deputy Secretary of the United Nations Disarmament Commission.
Tharoor is known for his passionate interest in cricket, especially Indian cricket, about which he's written in such publications as
The Cricketer International,
The Illustrated Weekly of India and
The Hindu. An outstanding actor and debater in school and college, Tharoor won numerous prizes at inter-collegiate “winter festivals” and similar competitions. He played Antony to Mira Nair’s Cleopatra in a 1974 production of
Antony and Cleopatra. At
St. Stephen’s in the early 1970s he founded the Quiz Club, which is still in existence; he also revived the Wodehouse Society, which is no longer in existence. Upon election as President of the College Union (campaign slogan: “Shashi Tharoor
jeetega zaroor”) he relinquished the editorship of the campus humour magazine “Kooler Talk.” He was invited by St. Stephen’s College to deliver the college’s 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture in 2005. He is an elected Fellow of the
New York Institute for the Humanities and a member of the Advisory Board of the Indo-American Arts Council. He also serves on the Board of Directors of
Breakthrough, an international human rights organization.
At the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1976, he founded and was the first chair of the editorial board of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations .
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