Dinesh Trivedi
Dinesh Trivedi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister of Railways | |
| Assumed office 13 July 2011 | |
| President | Pratibha Patil |
| Prime Minister | Manmohan Singh |
| Preceded by | Manmohan Singh |
| Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare | |
| In office 22 May 2010 – 12 July 2011 | |
| Succeeded by | Sudip Bandyopadhyay |
| Member of Parliament | |
| Assumed office May 2009 | |
| Constituency | Barrackpore |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 4 June 1950[1] New Delhi, Delhi, India[1] |
| Political party | Trinamool Congress |
| Spouse | Dr. Minal Trivedi[1] |
| Children | 1 |
| Residence(s) | New Delhi Kolkata |
| Alma mater | St. Xavier's College, Calcutta University of Texas, Austin |
| Profession | Pilot Politician |
| Signature | File:Signature Dinesh Trivedi.PNG |
| Website | http://www.dineshtrivedi.com/ |
Dinesh Trivedi (born 4 June 1950) is an Indian politician from the All India Trinamool Congress party, a current Member of Parliament in the lower house representing Barrackpore, West Bengal and the current Minister for Railways in the cabinet.[2][3] He is also the Chairman of the Indo-European Union Parliamentary Forum (IEUPF).[4]
Early life
Trivedi is the youngest child of the Gujarati couple, Hiralal and Urmila, who migrated to India from Karachi during India's partition, where all his other siblings were born.[3] His parents lived in a number of places before coming to New Delhi, where he was born.[3] His father then started working for the Hindustan Construction Company in Kolkata.[3] Trivedi attended prestigious boarding schools in Himachal Pradesh, before graduating in commerce from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta.[3] He then took a loan of Rs.20,000 and completed his MBA from the The University of Texas at Austin.[3] He also trained to be a pilot, a dream that he had since he was ten.[3] He is a trained sitar player and enjoys classical music.[5] He also applied to train as an actor at the Film Institute, Pune, but didn't follow it up as he then believed it not to be a serious job, as reported by Rediff.com.[3] He was also drawn towards a picture of Swami Vivekanand in an advertisement by the Ramkrishna Mission, and decided to be a monk, but did not do so due to strong advice by his family and a Swami in Chicago.[3] He dons rings with safire, emerald and coral on his right hand to ward off the ill-effects of the mangal griha (planet Mars).[3][6]
Early career
After his MBA in 1974, he worked in Chicago for two years for the Detex Company, before returning to India, where he worked for a logistics provider Lee and Muirhead.[3] In 1984, he quit the job to start his own air freight company based in Kolkata. He also started a consumer protection centre.[3]
Petitioner
Trivedi has filed many petitions.[3] He says, "I was so fed up of corruption then. I thought I can't progress here. But, my father told me to learn to fight corruption, make your way." Trivedi shot into prominence when he asked the Supreme Court to make the Vohra report on the criminalization of politics in India public. This petition gave a push to the Right to Information movement.[3]
Career as a politician
Trivedi joined the Congress party in the 1980s, but switched over to the Janata Dal in 1990.[7] Later, in 1998 he joined Mamata Banerjee when she started the Trinamool Congress party and became its first general secretary.[3]
He was a member of the Upper House in the Indian Parliament from 1990 to 2008.[7] In the 2009 elections he contested for the Trinamool Congress party and won from Barrackpore to join the lower house in the Parliament.[7] He joined the cabinet as the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare in 2009.[7] In 2011, he offered to resign as a minister in support of Anna Hazare.[8] In 2011, after Mamata Banerjee quit as the railway minister to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal, he was elevated as the Cabinet Minister for Railways.[7]
Railway minister
As the Railway minister, he has advocated instituting a rail regulator to fix rail fares, a policy that is diametrically opposite to the one by earlier railway ministers.[9] According to him, “There is lot of room (for a regulatory authority). If you want to de-politicise, you must have some kind of regulator which deals with the fare and freight and quality ... I am personally in favour of regulatory body for the Railways which will benefit it in the long run. But it all depends on Parliament and the government. If they feel then it can be done.”[9] He has also advocated depoliticizing the Railways[10] and would like to restructure the Indian Railway Board.[9] He said, “Restructuring is a continuous process. It is now operation oriented, it should be customer oriented. Unless we know what customer wants then it will be difficult for us to carry forward.”[9] Trivedi believes that the Indian Railways can add 2% to India's GDP[3] and is willing to go against his party's line of not hiking the fares.[11] However, he believes the government must modernize the railways, for which a fare hike would not be able to generate adequate funds, and has publicly criticized the Prime Minister for not providing funds. | NAME =Trivedi, Dinesh | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH =4 June 1950 | PLACE OF BIRTH =New Delhi | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH = }}
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
loksabhawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Lok Sabha". 164.100.47.132. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Sheela Bhatt (12 July 2011). "Trivedi, a man of many parts". Rediff.com. New Delhi. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
- ^ "Indo-EU parliamentary forum launched". The Times of India. 3 April 2005. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
- ^ Phadnis, Aditi (24 January 2012). "Coffee with BS: Dinesh Trivedi". Business Standard. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
- ^ Hashmi , Lubna (13 July 2011). "Dinesh Trivedi: An extraordinary man of Expression". aajkikhabar.com. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
- ^ a b c d e "Who is Dinesh Trivedi". NDTV. 15 November 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
- ^ "Dinesh Trivedi: Trained pilot who will drive Indian railways". Asian Age. 12 July 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
- ^ a b c d "Trivedi for regulatory body in railways". Business Line. Jan. 31, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi pitches for regulator to suggest fare hike". Economic Times. 31 January 2012. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
etwas invoked but never defined (see the help page).