Manish Sisodia

Some Lesser Known Facts About Manish Sisodia

• He belongs to Shahpur Fagauta village in Hapur district, Uttar Pradesh; however, he completed his higher education in New Delhi.

  

• After completing his diploma in Journalism, he worked as a radio jockey at All India Radio in July 1996, where he hosted the ‘Zero Hour’ show. In 1997, he joined Zee News, where he worked as a reporter, news producer and news reader. Later, in 2005, he left Zee News.

  

• Before getting into politics, he and Arvind Kejriwal knew each other for 12 years.

  

• In the early 2000s, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia founded a non-profit activism organisation named ‘Parivartan.’

• He also established a Non-Governmental organisation, ‘Kabir’ in Delhi to spread awareness among people regarding the right to information Act.

• According to sources, he was one of the key members of the group that drafted the Right to Information Act.

• He was also a founder member of an organisation, India Against Corruption, and actively participated in making Anna Hazare‘s Janlokpal Aandolan, a successful and gigantic movement of the year 2011. He was also arrested for his participation in the protests.

  

• He played a key role in drafting the first version of the Jan Lokpal bill.

• He, along with Arvind Kejriwal, established the Public Cause Research Foundation in the year 2006.

• In November 2012, he founded Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) along with Arvind Kejriwal and some others.

• In 2015, he was invited to an India Today show titled ‘Third Degree.’

• On 14 February 2015, he became the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi. After he became the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi during the Third Kejriwal Cabinet, he took care of 18 departments of the Government of Delhi such as finance, education, tourism, PWD, power, home, urban development, labour, employment, and public works department. ^[18]NDTV

• In 2015, after he was chosen as the Finance Minister of Delhi, he doubled the public education program’s funding. He reconstructed and renovated many schools in Delhi by providing modern tech-based teaching equipment, football fields, field hockey turfs, auditoriums, and science laboratories. For increasing the quality of education and enhancing the performance of students, the Delhi Government suggested that schools in Delhi must organise mega PTMs (Parent Teacher Meetings), where parents and teachers can interact thoroughly.

• In 2016, he confronted the limelight when he and the famous Indian writer Chetan Bhagat had an argument on Twitter related to Sisodia’s visit to Finland.

  

• In 2017, he presented the Delhi Education model at the Global Education conference held in Moscow, Russia, in front of educators, who belonged to 40 countries.

• On 17 November 2017, a Hindi socio-political documentary titled ‘An Insignificant man’ was released, which was based on the life story and political journey of the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal. Manish Sisodia also appeared in the documentary.

• In 2018, he attended the Harvard India Conference at the Harvard Kennedy School in Massachusetts, United States, where he gave a keynote speech about Delhi’s education model.

  

• In 2018, he visited IIM Ahmedabad and discussed the topic of Indian Education with the students.

• In 2018, The Delhi Government launched ‘Mission Buniyaad’ a statewide program to enhance the fundamental learning of students.

• In 2019, he published a book titled ‘Shiksha: My Experiments as an Education Minister.’ He released the book on 9 September 2019 in which he wrote about his journey as the education minister of Delhi and education reforms made by his political party AAP.

  

• In a 2019 interview, Manish Sisodia and Seema Sisodia talked about the first film they watched together and said that it was the popular Hollywood film ‘Titanic’ (1997), which they watched together.

• In September 2021, the Government of Delhi launched a student entrepreneurship program titled ‘Business Blasters,’ which was created to develop a business mindset among students and help them in starting up their own businesses for which around three lakh students received Rs 2000 as seed money. On 5 March 2022, 126 finalist students of the first edition of the program were given an opportunity to showcase their businesses at the Business Blasters Expo 2022.

• In December 2021, he went to a 3-day RewirEd Summit held in Dubai and presented Mindset Curriculum in front of educationists from different countries. On his 3-day trip to Dubai, he had a meeting with the education ministers of various countries including Estonia, Italy, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia and discussed the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum.

• In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he supported the cancellation of the CBSE Board Exam 2020-21 of Class 10 considering the safety of students.

• In May 2022, he presented the education model of Delhi at the Education World Forum 2022 held in London in front of 122 education ministers and public representatives from countries all around the world.

  

• His education policy was praised by The New York Times in August 2022.

• He established 3 Universities in Delhi – Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship University (DSEU) in 2020, Delhi Sports University (DSU) in 2021, and Delhi Teachers University in 2022.

• During his tenure as the Finance Minister of Delhi, he presented an annual budget of Rs 75,800 crores for the year 2022-23.

• In February 2023, Manish Sisodia was arrested by CBI in the liquor scam. He was accused of irregularities in the implementation of the now-withdrawn excise policy 2021-22. ^[19]The Economic Times After his arrest, Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Bhagwant Mann, the Chief Minister of Punjab, and Raghav Chadha, spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party, visited Manish Sisodia‘s house to meet his family members. In an interview, while talking about Manish Sisodia’s arrest, Arvind Kejriwal said that Manish Sisodia is an honest man and the allegations against him are false. His wife, Seema Sisodia, is suffering from multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease which affects the central nervous system of the body, and his son, Meer Sisodia, lives abroad for studying. He said,
  

  Manish ji’s wife is suffering from a serious illness — multiple sclerosis. In this disease, the brain’s control over the body gradually decreases. Manishji’s son studies abroad. She is alone now. I told her that Manish ji is a brave person and every Indian is proud of Manishji. We are like a family and we will take care of her. Manish ji is an honest and brave man dedicated to the welfare of the country. The case against him is false. The entire country is watching how he ensured good education for the poor. He is the first person in the history of 75 years who worked for the education of poor people. Across the entire country, the respected and the honest are put behind the bars. And those who are looting the banks are the friends. No action is taken against them. They are not even served notice because they are friends.” ^[20]Hindustan Times

• He consumes alcohol occasionally.