Subramanian Swamy

Subramanian Swamy (born 15 September 1939) is an Indian politician from the state of Tamil Nadu. He is also an economist and a former cabinet minister. He was the President of the Janata Party. He merged his party on 11 August 2013 with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Swamy had served as a member of the Planning Commission of India and Cabinet Minister of India. He has written on foreign affairs of India dealing largely with China, Pakistan and Israel. He is also a published author.

Earlier in November 1978, Swamy was member of the Group of Eminent persons called to Geneva to prepare a report of the United Nations (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)) on Economic Co-operation between Developing countries (ECDC). Swamy also simplified trade procedures and formulated a new export strategy which became the forerunner of trade reform adopted subsequently. In 1994, Swamy was appointed as Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade by then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. This was perhaps for the first time that an Opposition Party member was given a Cabinet rank post by the ruling party. He also serves as chairman of the Board of Governors of the SCMS Group of Educational Institutions in Kerala.

Karan Thapar

Karan Thapar is an Indian journalist and a television commentator and interviewer. He was associated with CNN-IBN and hosted The Devil's Advocate and The Last Word. He is currently associated with Headlines Today and hosts the shows To the Point and Nothing But The Truth.

Early life and Education

Karan Thapar is the youngest child of former Chief of the Army Staff General Pran Nath Thapar and Bimla Thapar. Historian Romila Thapar is his cousin.

He is an alumnus of The Doon School and the Stowe School. While at Doon, Thapar was the Editor-in-chief of The Doon School Weekly. He graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. In the same year, he was also President of the Cambridge Union. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in International Relations from St Antony's College, Oxford.

Career

He began his career in journalism with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and later worked as their Lead Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television where he worked for the next 11 years. He then moved to India where he worked with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst others BBC, Doordarshan and Channel News Asia.