Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

New foreign minister Sinha seen as steady hand

Yashwant Sinha, a newcomer to international relations, takes over as India's foreign minister during a high-stakes military standoff with Pakistan.

But analysts felt the dapper and smooth-speaking Sinha, 64, who sports a pencil-thin moustache, was up to the task as the nuclear-armed neighbours face off.

Sinha swapped portfolios with Jaswant Singh in a midterm cabinet shuffle aimed at reviving the fortunes of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

"He's a rather urbane person so in terms of dealing with the world, he'll be good," defence strategist Kanti Bajpai said.

Sinha, a bureaucrat-turned-politician, dubbed himself a "fiscal terrorist" in his quest to discipline the country's unruly finances and was one of the few Indian finance ministers to present five budgets.

But he earned the nickname of "Rollback Sinha" for toning down some of his tough reforms under political pressure and it was his last budget that spelled his doom as finance minister.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was left with no choice but to shift him, analysts said.

Sinha pledged to keep India's foreign policy on an even keel.

"The policy has been peace with honour," he told reporters. "Peace with honour will continue to be the policy of India."

Analysts also expected no change in the policies Singh pushed such as warmer ties with the United States following the Cold War when India allied itself with the former Soviet Union.

"There'll be a difference in terms of personality but no change in policies," former foreign secretary J N Dixit said.

Singh, a former army officer, lived and breathed diplomacy and had been at the forefront of an Indian drive to mobilise world opinion against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir.

Analysts also noted the Cabinet Committee on Security, India's influential defence policy-making committee made up of the defence, foreign and finance ministers along with the prime minister would still have a firm grip on decisions.

"While he'll be his own man, he has all these people to draw on as well," Bajpai said.

Sinha, who is married with three children, was born on November 6, 1937. He was a latecomer to politics, teaching political science at Patna University in eastern India before joining the elite India Administrative Service in 1960.

While a civil servant he served in Frankfurt in the 1970s as consul general. He left the civil service in 1984 to join the centrist Janata Party and later he teamed up with other parties before finding a berth with the BJP as party spokesman in 1996.

He was named finance minister in 1998 but the last couple of years were bruising, marred by scandals in the stock market and at the largest fund manager, state-owned Unit Trust of India.

ALSO READ:
Ex-soldier Singh to push economic reforms
Jaswant is new FM; Sinha moves to MEA
More Money Headlines