Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley (born 28 December 1952) is an Indian politician and lawyer who is the current Finance Minister, Minister of Corporate Affairs and Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Cabinet of India. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley previously held the cabinet portfolios of Commerce and Industry and Law and Justice in the Vajpayee government (1998–2004) and briefly served as the Minister of Defence in the Narendra Modi government. From 2009 to 2014 he served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. He is a Senior Advocate of the Delhi High Court.

Early life and career

Jaitley was born on December 28, 1952 in New Delhi to Maharaj Kishen Jaitley, a lawyer and social activist Ratan Prabha. He studied at St. Xavier's School, New Delhi from 1957–69. He graduated in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi in 1973. He passed his Law degree from the University of Delhi, in 1977.

Jaitley was an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) student leader in the Delhi University Campus in the seventies and rose to be the President of the Students Union of Delhi University in 1974.. During the period of proclamation of Internal Emergency (1975–77) when civil liberties were suspended, he was under preventive detention for a period of 19 months. He was a prominent leader of a movement against corruption launched in the year 1973 by Raj Narain and Jayaprakash Narayan. He was the Convenor of the National Committee for Students and Youth organisation appointed by Jai Prakash Narayan. He was also active in civil rights movement and helped found PUCL Bulletin along with Satish Jha and Smitu Kothari. After being released from jail he joined the Jan Sangh.

Arun

Arun is a local government district in West Sussex, England. It contains the towns of Arundel, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and takes its name from the River Arun, which runs through the centre of the district.

History

Arun was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, merging the Urban Districts of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, the municipal borough of Arundel and parts of Chichester and Worthing Rural Districts.

Governance

The council has been under the control of the Conservative Party since its first election in 1973. The last elections to the council were held on 5 May 2011. Following those elections and subsequent by-elections, the composition of the council is as follows:

Arun District Council is a non-metropolitan district council formed of 56 councillors from across the following 26 wards:

Civil parishes

The following 31 civil parishes are located within the district:

Geography

Arun District occupies the central southern area of West Sussex, and is bordered by Chichester District to the west, Horsham District to the north and Worthing borough and Adur District to the east. The district is bisected by the River Arun, and is divided between a broad rural area in the north of the district that contains Arundel and a host of small villages, part of which sits within the South Downs National Park, and an urban coastal strip that includes Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.

Rajya Sabha

Coordinates: 28°37′0″N 77°12′30″E / 28.61667°N 77.20833°E / 28.61667; 77.20833

The Rajya Sabha or Council of States is the upper house of the Parliament of India. Membership of Rajya Sabha is limited by the Constitution to a maximum of 250 members, and current laws have provision for 245 members. Most of the members of the House are indirectly elected by state and territorial legislatures using single transferable votes, while the President of India can appoint 12 members for their contributions to art, literature, science, and social services. Members sit for staggered six-year terms, with one third of the members retiring every two years.

The Rajya Sabha meets in continuous sessions, and unlike the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, is not subject to dissolution. The Rajya Sabha has equal footing in all areas of legislation with Lok Sabha, except in the area of supply, where the Lok Sabha has overriding powers. In the case of conflicting legislation, a joint sitting of the two houses can be held. However, since the Lok Sabha has twice as many members as the Rajya Sabha, the former would normally hold the greater power. Joint sittings of the Houses of Parliament of India are rare, and in the history of the Republic, only three such joint-sessions have been held; the latest one for the passage of the 2002 Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Anand Sharma

Anand Sharma (Hindi: आनंद शर्मा; born 5 January 1953) is the former Union Cabinet Minister in charge of Commerce and Industry and Textiles in the Government of India. Since June 2014, Sharma is the Deputy Leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.

Early life and education.

Anand Sharma is the son of P. A. Sharma and Prabha Rani Sharma and was born in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. He was educated at R.P.C.S.D.B. College, Shimla and Faculty of Law, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla.

Career

Sharma was a prominent leader in the student and youth movement in India, a founder member of the Congress Party's students wing the NSUI. He was also a former President of the Youth Congress. Sharma asserts that the country needed investment in the manufacturing sector and the cost of credit must be brought down for this purpose. In February 2012, Sharma led a business delegation of more than 120 people to Pakistan for improving trade ties. During this visit, he discussed the revision of the existing visa bilateral agreement, signed in 1974, with his Pakistani counterpart Makhdoom Muhammad Ameen Faheem, to facilitate travel by bona fide businessmen from both the countries.