Ravi Shankar Prasad

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ravi Shankar Prasad

• He was always a leader since his childhood, he was the Assistant General Secretary of the Students Union and member of the Senate, Arts and Law Faculties, and Finance Committee of the Patna University.

• He developed an interest in law from his father; as he was a lawyer at Patna High Court and the former president of Bharatiya Jan Sangh (RSS).

• He used to participate in Hindi and English debate competitions in his college and bagged many accolades on the State and National level debate competitions.

• He was an active member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) since his student life, he protested against Indira Gandhi‘s Government and was put behind the bars during the emergency (1975), imposed by Indira Gandhi.

• In 1980, he started practising at the Patna High Court.

• In 1999, he got the designations of ‘senior advocate’ at the Patna High Court, and in 2000, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India.

• In the Fodder Scam, the then Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was exposed, Ravi Shankar Prasad who was a lawyer then, played an important role in arguing PIL against him.

• He represented ‘Ram Lalla’, the deity, in Ayodhya Ram temple suitcase as a lawyer.

• He also worked as an activist of Human Right and Civil Liberty.

• When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India, Prasad was given the following charges; Minister of State in the of Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and Ministry of Coal and Mines (2001-2003). During his tenure, he incepted the venture capital investment and good marketing of Indian Films, reforms in the Radio, and Television.

• In April 2002, he was sent to Durban (South Africa) as the leader of Indian Delegation for the Non-Aligned Ministerial meet.

• He led the Indian Delegation as the leader in the Commonwealth Law Minister Summit in St. Vincent (West Indies).

• He took the Indian delegation to Film Festivals in London, Venice, and Cannes.

• In October 2006, he represented India at UNO in 61st UN General Assembly in New York.

• Some major works done by him while holding these posts were; taking initiatives to ensure speedy justice to people, responsible for amending the Representation of People’s Act to mitigate criminalisation of Politics, promoted e-commerce in India, established an $18 billion programme for bringing ‘digital revolution’ to expand broadband internet reaching about 250,000 villages by 2016, etc.

• He was a member of the Jansangh in Bihar and was the President of the party for 10 years.