Meet Indian Origin & Youngest Prime Minister of Britain- Rishi Sunak
On the day of Diwali, the biggest festival of Hindus, the world got the news that Rishi Sunak, a Hindu, is going to be the next prime minister of Britain. Rishi Sunak was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on October 25, 2022. He is the Conservative Party’s Leader and the United Kingdom’s first British Asian and Hindu Prime Minister. The 42-year-old, youngest prime minister in two centuries, Sunak has the support of 193 MPs in the UK parliament. Sunak was the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022, as well as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020. Since 2015, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond (York).
Quick Facts:
Name: Rishi Sunak
Nationality: British
Net Worth: USD 823 million (Almost double than that of king Charles)
Education: Schooling from Winchester College, B.A. (majored in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE)) at Lincoln College in Oxford, MBA from Stanford University.
Occupation: Politician
Designation: P.M of United Kingdom
Date of Birth: May 12, 1980
Age: 42
Place of Birth: Southampton, Briton
Marital Status: Married
Spouse’s Name: AkshataMurty
Children: 2 daughters- Krishna Sunak, Anoushka Sunak
Spoken Languages: English, Hindi & Punjabi
Hobbies: Watching movies, Cricket & tennis, and Horse Riding
Early Life
Sunak was born on May 12, 1980, in Southampton, Hampshire, to Yashvir and Usha Sunak, Hindus of Indian Punjabi heritage who were born in Africa. Usha Sunak was born in Tanganyika (which later became part of Tanzania), and Yashvir Sunak was born and raised in the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (current-day Kenya). Yashvir Sunak is a general practitioner (GP) in the National Health Service (NHS), and Usha Sunak currently serves as the director and pharmacist at the Sunak Pharmacy in Southampton and holds a degree from Aston University.
Rishi Sunak is the oldest of the three siblings. His sister Raakhi (Williams) works in New York as the chief of strategy and planning at the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, while his brother Sanjay is a psychotherapist.
Sunak attended the prep school Stroud School in Romsey and the boys’ independent boarding school Winchester College, where he served as head boy. During his summer break, he worked as a waiter in a Southampton curry house. He majored in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Lincoln College in Oxford, where he received a first-class degree in 2001. He worked at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters as an intern while he was a student. He earned his MBA in 2006 from Stanford University.
Career
Sunak served as a financial institution Goldman Sachs analyst from 2001 until 2004. He then went to work at the Children’s Investment Fund Management, a hedge fund management firm, where he was made a partner in September 2006. He left his position in November 2009 to work with former co-workers at Theleme Partners, a brand-new hedge fund firm that started operations in October 2010 and has $700 million under management. His boss at both hedge funds was Patrick Degorce. He worked as a director for the investing firm Catamaran’s Ventures, owned by Indian tycoon N. R. Narayana Murthy, between 2013 and 2015.
In October 2014, Sunak won the Conservative primary over Wendy Morton to become their nominee for Richmond (Yorks). William Hague, a former party leader, first secretary of state, and foreign secretary, previously held the position. In the general election of 2015, he won the seat as the constituency’s MP with a majority of 19,550 (36.2%) votes. Between 2015 and 2017, he was a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.
In the general election of 2017, Sunak won re-election with an increased margin of 23,108 (40.5%) votes. He served as the parliamentary under-secretary of state for local government from January 2018 to July 2019. On July 24, 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson named Sunak as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, reporting to Chancellor Sajid Javid. The next day, he became a member of the Privy Council.
Sunak was elected with an improved majority of 27,210 (47.2%) in the 2019 general election again. Throughout the election season, Sunak participated in the seven-way election debates hosted by the BBC and ITV on behalf of the Conservatives. As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Sunak was promoted to chancellor on February 13, 2020. After Liz Truss announced her resignation on October 20, 2022, Sunak was considered a potential candidate for the shortened leadership election, along with Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson, who had stepped down as prime minister before Liz Truss’s appointment.
Sunak confirmed his intention to run for office on October 23. After Johnson declared himself out of the running and Mordaunt withdrew, Sunak was chosen as the new Conservative Party leader and later was elected as the country’s prime minister. On October 25, 2022, King Charles III appointed Sunak Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, making him the country’s first British Asian prime minister. Sunak, a Hindu, chose the Bhagavad Gita as the basis for his oath of office in the Commons.
Personal Life
He wed AkshataMurty in August 2009, the daughter of Infosys’s founder and billionaire Indian, N. R. Narayana Murthy. One of the wealthiest women in Britain, Murty owns a 0.91% interest in Infosys, which will be worth over $900 million (£746 million) in April 2022. Having two daughters, Sunak and Murty met while both were students at Stanford University. Sunak is teetotaller. He has been a former East London Science School governor. Cricket, tennis, and horse racing are all things Sunak enjoys. He also has a Labrador named Nova.
