Praveen Chakravarty

Indian politician

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Praveen Chakravarty

President
All India Professionals Congress

Incumbent

Assumed office
15 November 2023
Preceded by| Shashi Tharoor
Personal details
Born| India
Political party| Indian National Congress
Occupation| venture capital and banking
Website| www.praveenchakravarty.in

Praveen Chakravarty is an Indian politician belonging to the Congress Party. He took over as chairperson of the All India Professionals' Congress from Shashi Tharoor on 15 November 2023.[1] He is the Chairman of the Data Analytics department, appointed by Rahul Gandhi.[2] He is the brains behind SHAKTI, a project that was created to modernise the Congress party.[3] He along with P.Chidambaram drafted the NYAY scheme for the party's 2019 election manifesto with help from Nobel Laureate Prof. Abhijit Banerjee among others.[4][5]

Chakravarty was a political economist scholar in a think tank, an investment banker and angel investor before entering politics.[6] It was widely reported that Chakravarty will be the Congress candidate for Member of Parliament of the Upper House in 2021 from the state of Tamil Nadu.[7]

Praveen Chakravarthy was appointed as a member of Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) which was constituted by Indian National Congress on 2 February 2025 to monitor the conduct of free and fair elections by the Election Commission of India.[8]

## Early life

[edit]

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Praveen Chakravarty was born in Tamil Nadu, Chennai, and is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and has an MBA from Wharton School.

## Career

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Praveen Chakravarty started his career with IBM in Japan and moved to Microsoft. He switched to investment banking in New York and San Francisco, after receiving his MBA from Wharton School. Chakravarty moved to India to set up Thomas Weisel's India operations and 2 years later, captured headlines in a high-profile move to BNP Paribas as managing director with his entire team from Thomas Weisel.[9] 4 years later, in a sudden move that caught everyone by surprise, he joined Nandan Nilekani's team at Aadhaar.

He is a co-founder of Mumbai Angels and is ranked among the top five angel investors in the country by a survey.[10] He was also a contributing editor at BloombergQuint where he hosted a popular monthly column called "Noise To Signal".[11]

Chakravarty has served on many corporate boards. He was the founding board member of many successful startups[which?].

He then became a scholar in a think tank[which?] and published extensive research on India's economic divergence among its states.[12]

Chakravarty is a prolific[citation needed] writer on India's political economy and has co-authored articles with former Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister P.Chidambaram.[citation needed]

He was a founding trustee of the data journalism non-profit, IndiaSpend and was a board member of legislative research firm, PRS Legislative.[citation needed]

## References

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1. ^ "Praveen Chakravarty takes over from Shashi Tharoor to head All India Professionals' Congress". The Hindu. 15 November 2023. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 22 January 2024.
2. ^ "Economist Praveen Chakravarty Named Congress' Data Analytics Head". The Quint. 5 February 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
3. ^ Prime, E. T. "Talk to the hand: Can nerds help revive the Congress party?". The Economic Times. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
4. ^ "NYAY". Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2019 - via YouTube.
5. ^ "The inside account of Abhijit Banerjee's Nyay connection". 16 October 2019.
6. ^ "About". Noise To Signal. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
7. ^ Nair, Sobhana K. (13 September 2021). "Congress eyes Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
8. ^ "Congress forms panel to monitor 'conduct of free and fair elections'". The Hindu. 2 February 2025. Archived from the original on 3 February 2025. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
9. ^ Business Standard (8 September 2011). "BS People: Praveen Chakravarty". business-standard.com. `{{cite news}}`: `|author=` has generic name (help)
10. ^ "Praveen Chakravarty – VCCircle". vccircle.com.
11. ^ "BNP Paribas Honcho Praveen Chakravarty Boarding UID Project – VCCircle". vccircle.com.
12. ^ "Praveen Chakravarty". Economic and Political Weekly: 7–8\. 5 June 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2021.