Meet Nirmala Sitharaman, feisty defender of Modi govt to filling big shoes

Nirmala Sitharaman, who joined the likes of Arun Jaitley and Manmohan Singh by serving a full term as Finance Minister and is credited with carrying forward second-generation reforms, created a record by being the first woman to be sworn in as minister for the third consecutive term of the Modi government. Being a fiery spokesperson of the BJP, she was inducted into the Cabinet when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of the NDA government in 2014. As a staunch defender of the Modi government's economic policies and executor, she created a record when she was appointed as the first female Raksha Mantri, or Defence Minister, in 2017. Prior to that, she was industry and commerce minister. When her mentor Arun Jaitley took ill, Sitharaman was given the charge of the finance portfolio in the newly re-elected Modi government after the 2019 general elections, when BJP won its highest seats of 303. She became the first full-time woman Finance Minister in Independent India. Earlier, ..