Farooq Abdullah is the former Union Minister for Renewable Energy. He has held the position since May 31, 2009.

 

Farooq Abdullah was born on October 21, 1937 in Soura, a neighborhood in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital. He completed his MBBS from SMS Medical College in Jaipur. He started his political career in 1982 when he became J&K's Chief Minister. He has served as the Chief Minister of the State thrice and has twice been elected to the Lok Sabha. He has also served on various government committees.

 

Abdullah comes from a family of politicians. His father, Sheikh Abdullah, the founder of State political party of J&K – ‘Jammu & Kashmir National Conference’, was one of the most prominent political figures of the State. He led Kashmir's freedom struggle. Sheikh Abdullah became J&K's Chief Minister in 1947, after the  State provisional accession to India. 

 

 The NC initially espoused a Muslim-centric ideology. However, as he grew closer to Jawaharlal Nehru, his politics grew more secular. Since India's founding, the Abdullahs' relationship with the Nehru-Gandhi clan has taken several colorful turns. They've gone from friendliness to hostility to their current state: a mutually beneficial alliance. 

 

This saga continued when Farooq Abdullah became Jammu and Kashmir's Chief Minister in 1982, following his father's death. (His son, Omar Abdullah, currently serves as the state's Chief Minister.) In the early years of Farooq's tenure as CM, he rejected Congresses’ overtures. This created hostility between the National Conference and Congress. 

 

 As he has aged, however, Abdullah has grown more pragmatic. He formed an alliance with Congress in 1987 and later supported the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance central government. Many Kashmiris saw these alliances as a betrayal, contravening the National Conferences' founding principle: Independence for Kashmir.  

 

After publicly severing ties with the NDA in TK, the National Conference rejoined the Congress United Progressive Alliance coalition in TK. 

 

As minister, Abdullah made significant contributions in the Renewable Energy sector. One of his main feats was the launching of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, which aims to achieve capacity addition of 20,000 mw of Solar power by 2022. He also took initiatives such as Generation based Incentives and introduction of Renewable Energy Certificate for promoting renewable energy sector in India. This was his first stint as a Union Minister.

  

Official Biography