Maneka Gandhi Biography
Maneka Gandhi is the Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development in the Government of PM Narendra Modi. She is also an animal rights activist, environmentalist, and widow of the Indian politician Sanjay Gandhi.
She has been a minister in four governments, and has authored a number of books in the areas of etymology, law and animal welfare. Maneka Gandhi is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi Family.
Maneka Gandhi Age
Maneka Gandhi was born as Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, on 26 August 1956 in New Delhi, India. She is 62 years old as of 2018.
Maneka Gandhi Family
She was born to Tarlochan Singh Anand and Amardeep Kaur Anand. Tarlochan Singh Anand was an Indian Army officer Lt. Col. She was born in Delhi into a Sikh family. She went to Lawrence School and later Lady Shri Ram College for Women. She subsequently studied German at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Maneka Gandhi
Maneka Gandhi Spouse(Death)|Maneka Gandhi Kids
She was married to Sanjay Gandhi on 23 September 1974. Sanjay Gandhi was the son of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The two met at a cocktail party thrown by Maneka’s uncle Major-General Kapur to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of his son Veenu Kapur in 1973.
The Emergency saw the rise of Sanjay into politics and Maneka was seen with him almost every time on his tours as she helped him in campaigns. It is often said that during the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi had total control over his mother and that the government was run by the PMH rather than the PMO. Maneka founded the news magazine Surya which later played a key role in promotion of the Congress party after its defeat in the 1977 election following the Emergency. She went to court to fight an attempt by the government in power at the time to confiscate her passport and won a landmark decision on personal liberty. In the case of Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, the court found that “Democracy is based essentially on free debate and open discussion, for that is the only corrective of government action in a democratic setup.”
She gave birth to a son in 1980 named Feroze after his paternal grandfather. Her mother-in-law added the name Varun. Maneka was just twenty-three years old and her son just 100 days old, when her husband, Sanjay, died in an air crash.
Maneka Gandhi Career
Maneka’s relationship with Indira Gandhi gradually disintegrated after Sanjay’s death and they would continually argue with one another. She was eventually forced out of 1,Safdarjung Road, the prime minister’s residence after a fallout with Indira.She founded the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch along with Akbar Ahmed Dumpy. The party primarily focused on youth empowerment and employment. It won four out of five seats in the Elections in Andhra Pradesh. Maneka Gandhi published ‘The Complete Book of Muslim and Parsi Names’, in recognition of her husband’s Zoroastrian faith. She later published ‘The Book of Hindu Names’. Maneka Gandhi contested the Amethi constituency from Uttar Pradesh for the 1984 general election for the Loksabha but lost to Rajiv Gandhi. In 1988, she joined V.P. Singh’s Janata Dal and became the General Secretary. In November 1989 Gandhi won her first election to Parliament and became a Minister of State as the Minister for Environment.
Maneka Gandhi Activism
She is a self-described environmentalist and animal rights leader in India. She has earned international awards and acclaim. She was appointed chairwoman of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) in 1995. Under her direction, CPCSEA members carried unannounced inspections of laboratories where animals are used for scientific research were conducted.
She has filed Public Interest Litigations that have achieved the replacement of the municipal killing of homeless dogs with a sterilisation programme, the unregulated sale of airguns and a ban on mobile or travelling zoos. She currently chairs the Jury of International Energy Globe Foundation which meets annually in Austria to award the best environmental innovations of the year. She is a member of the Eurosolar Board and the Wuppertal Institute, Germany.
She started the organisation People for Animals in 1992 and it is the largest organisation for animal rights/welfare in India. Maneka Gandhi is also a patron of International Animal Rescue. While she is not a vegan, she has advocated this lifestyle on ethical and health grounds. She also anchored the weekly television program Heads and Tails, highlighting the suffering meted out to animals due to their commercial exploitation. She has also authored a book under the same title. Her other books were about Indian people names. She is a cast member for the documentary A Delicate Balance.
Maneka Gandhi Criticism
Gandhi has often been criticized for her comments. In June 2017, during a Facebook Live session, she commented that men do not commit suicide. She received negative responses to the comment and spent the rest of the chat answering questions related to this, with chatters pointing out that 68% of the suicide cases reported in India were committed by men. In March 2017, she said that an early curfew for girls in hostels helped young women control their “hormonal outbursts” and received a backlash for the comment.
Maneka Gandhi News
Maneka Gandhi, Varun Gandhi Swap Seats As BJP Treads Carefully In UP
Sources say one of the reasons is that the BJP was less sure of Varun Gandhi’s chances in Sultanpur this time.
The mother-son duo of Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi will swap seats, according to the BJP’s latest list of candidates contesting in Uttar Pradesh in next month’s national election.
Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, who holds Pilibhit, will shift to her original constituency of Sultanpur. Sultanpur’s lawmaker Varun Gandhi, 38, will contest from Pilibhit.
“I would like to thank the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji and Hon’ble BJP President Shri @AmitShah Ji for reposing their faith in me. I’m honoured to be returning to Pilibhit – with which I have a familial bond – and hope to make it a meaningful, issue-based election,” Varun Gandhi tweeted.
The straight swap was reportedly Maneka Gandhi’s idea.
Sources say one of the reasons is that the BJP was less sure of Varun Gandhi’s chances in Sultanpur this time.
Sultanpur is next door to the Amethi constituency of his cousin and Congress president Rahul Gandhi. In 2014, Varun defeated a strong Congress candidate, Amita Singh.
Maneka Gandhi, 62, is the wife of Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and the brother of Rajiv Gandhi.
She broke away from the Gandhi family and the Congress after Sanjay Gandhi’s death in a small plane crash in 1980, and is estranged from her sister-in-law Sonia Gandhi.
Varun Gandhi, younger to his cousins Rahul and Priyanka, fought his first election from Pilibhit in 2009. His mother shifted to Aonla, next to Pilibhit.
Over the past few years, he has been vocal in his criticism of the BJP leadership.
The national election will be held in seven rounds from April 11 to May 19 and the results will be declared on May 23. Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats, will vote in all the rounds.
Adopted From www.ndtv.com