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Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Rajeev Chandrasekhar (born 31 May 1964) is an Indian politician, entrepreneur, and technocrat. He currently serves as the Minister of State for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Ministry of Jal Shakti. From 2006 to 2024, he was a member of parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing Karnataka. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He has served as its national spokesperson and vice-chairman of the Kerala faction of the BJP-led coalition National Democratic Alliance. Chandrasekhar served as Member of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, Member of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Member of the Joint Committee on Data Protection Bill, 2019 and Member of the Consultative Committee on MoE & IT, Ministry of Communications, Member of the Indian Council for World Affairs. In March 2024, he was announced as the BJP candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram Constituency for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.

Chandrasekhar served as a member of the Parliament, Standing Committee on Defence, Consultative Committee on Finance, the Central Advisory Committee for the National Cadet Corps, Co-chairman of District Development Coordination & Monitoring Committee, Bangalore Urban District. He served as member Rajya Sabha Select Committees for the GST and Real Estate bills. Chandrasekhar is the founder and Advisor to the Board of Jupiter Capital Pvt. Ltd.

Early life and education

Rajeev was born to Malayali Nair parents in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. His father M. K. Chandrasekhar was an Air Commodore of the Indian Air Force and was the trainer of Rajesh Pilot.

Chandrasekhar studied in various schools across India, and studied electrical engineering at Manipal Institute of Technology. He obtained his master's degree in computer science in 1988 from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He was handpicked by Vinod Dham to join Intel and worked there from 1988 to 1991. At Intel he was part of the architectural team that designed the i486 processor. He completed an advance management program from Harvard University.

Career

Entrepreneur

In 1991, after returning to India, Chandrasekhar married and joined his father-in-law's company, BPL Group. In 1994, he founded BPL Mobile. It was one of the major telecom companies in India then with licenses over places such as Mumbai. In July 2005, he sold his 64 per cent stake in BPL Communications to Essar Group for US$1.1 bn.

Chandrasekhar founded Jupiter Capital in 2005, with an initial investment of US$100 million. The investment firm has investments and managed assets of over US$800 million in technology, media, hospitality, and entertainment.

In April 2013, Chandrasekhar was awarded an honorary doctorate by Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, for his work as an entrepreneur.

As per the affidavit submitted by Chandrasekhar before Election Commission of India in 2018, he has an annual income of 28 crores and family assets valued at 65 crores. He also held equity shares in six unlisted companies: Vectra Consultancy Services, SPL Infotech PTE, Jupiter Global Infrastructure, Minsk Developers, RC Stocks & Securities and Sanguine New Media. In addition to this he indirectly has stakes in Axiscade Engineering Technologies, Jupiter Capital Private Limited, Mistral Technology Assystem Axiscades, Tayana Digital, Hindustan Infrastructure Projects & Engineering Pvt Ltd.

Media

In late 2006, Chandrasekhar entered into a media foray due to investments made in Asianet Communications Ltd. through his firm Jupiter Capital Private Limited. In late 2008, he entered into a joint venture with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp as Asianet Star Communications. In 2008 May, he started Asianet News Online Private Ltd. (ANOPL) which holds media outlets Asianet News, Suvarna News, and online portal Newsable. In 2016, through ANOPL, he invested nearly 60 crores in ARG Outlier Media, the holding company of Republic TV. In May 2019, ANOPL diluted the share holding in Republic TV after Chandrasekhar became a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha as Bharatiya Janata Party member in 2018.

Politics

Chandrasekhar is the Minister of Information Technology in the Modi government. Earlier he was a national spokesperson of BJP. he was announced as the BJP candidate from the Trivandrum constituency for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Kerala.

Member of Parliament

Chandrasekhar was an Independent member of Rajya Sabha representing Karnataka from April 2006 to April 2018. In April 2018, he was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka for a third six-year term as a BJP member.

Minister of State

In the Second Modi ministry Chandrasekhar became a Minister of State following the cabinet reshuffling in July 2021.

Personal life

Rajeev is married to Anju Chandrasekhar (m. 1991), the daughter of T. P. G. Nambiar, the founder of BPL Group and resides in Koramangala, Bengaluru. They have a son, Ved, and a daughter Devika. His mother Anandavalli Amma and father M. K. Chandrasekhar also reside in Bengaluru.

Honours, awards and international recognition

Honoured by Army's Western Command GOC-in Commendation for his work for the Armed Forces and Veterans.
India Today magazine ranked him #41st in India's 50 Most Powerful People of 2017 list.