Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Kumar Mukherjeeis the 13th and current President of India, in office since July 2012. In a political career spanning six decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial portfolios in the Government of India. Prior to his election as President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012, and the Congress party's top troubleshooter...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth11 December 1935
CityMirati, India
CountryIndia
In the 1980s, we were advised, why don't you follow Reaganomics or Thatcherite economics. We said, yes, there are good points, let's see how we can fit them in the Indian economy. Every country has its own way of moving forward.
I feel that when the reforms in UN take place and the Security Council will be expanded in the permanent membership category, India will have a place, I hope so, but first it is to be expanded.
I have seen vast, perhaps unbelievable, changes during the journey that has brought me from the flicker of a lamp in a small Bengal village to the chandeliers of Delhi.
Let Jammu and Kashmir lead the way in the building of a new future for India. Let it set an example to the rest of India and the world by showing how the entire region can be transformed into a zone of peace, stability and prosperity.
Propelled by freedom of faith, gender equality and economic justice for all, India will become a modern nation. Minor blemishes cannot cloak the fact that India is becoming such a modern nation: no faith is in danger in our country, and the continuing commitment to gender equality is one of the great narratives of our times.
As Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, had said in Shakespeare's immortal words, 'I must be cruel only to be kind.
I come from a political family. My father was a freedom fighter. He was a prominent leader of the locality and member of the Congress party. He spent 10 years in British prisons. In the evening, in our living room, the only subject we used to discuss was politics. So politics was not unfamiliar to me.
I personally believe that the office of the President of India is not to be sought. It is to be offered.
The invention of the concept of sustainable human development and that of so-called human security, as opposed to territorial security of nation- states, and its promotion by the UN is in clear contradiction to all that we, the Group of 77, and the UN Charter itself consider inalienable, namely national sovereignty and security.
No problems are ever resolved by violence. It only aggravates the pain and the hurt on every side.
Our federal Constitution embodies the idea of modern India: it defines not only India but also modernity.
There is no humiliation more abusive than hunger.
I am comfortable at the height where destiny has put me.
India is a land of plenty inhibited by poverty; India has an enthralling, uplifting civilization that sparkles not only in our magnificent art, but also in the enormous creativity and humanity of our daily life in city and village.