Shashi Tharoor is the former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations. Following his long career at the UN, which included key responsibilities in peace-keeping after the Cold War, Shashi returned to India and was elected to Parliament in 2009. He is currently the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs in India and a third-term Lok Sabha MP.
On top of his parliamentary career, Shashi is a best-selling author of both novels and non-fiction. His classic The Great Indian Novel is now required reading on post-colonial literature courses around the world, and his An Era of Darkness has become a seminal examination of British imperial rule in India. Until 2013 Shashi was India's most-followed politician on Twitter, until being overtaken by Narendra Modi. He was the first Indian to reach 10,000 and 100,000 followers on the medium, and currently has 7.6 million followers.
"One of India’s most articulate liberals and a leading voice of those who reject the aggressively fundamentalist strains of Hindu nationalism.” Financial Times