Dr Shashi Tharoor is an author, politician and former international civil servant. He is currently a second-term Lok Sabha MP representing Thiruvananthapuram and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. He previously held the positions of Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India. Before this, he worked for nearly 30 years in the United Nations serving as a peacekeeper, refugee worker and administrator at the highest levels, serving as Under-Secretary General during Kofi Annan’s leadership of the organization. Dr Tharoor is also an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction. His fifteenth book India Shastra, a collection of essays on contemporary India, was published in December last year. He has also written three novels, The Great Indian Novel (1989), Riot (2001) and Show Business (1992), which has since been made into the motion picture Bollywood. Before embarking on his political career, Tharoor also served on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute and has been on the Advisory Boards for multiple humanitarian and justice organisations, including the role of International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva between 2008-2011.