Tharman Shanmugarathnam, the 66 year old President-elect of Singapore has been greeted by the Tamil Chamber of Commerce on the eve of his inauguration. In a congratulatory note to Shanmugarathnam, the economist-turned-politician, Chozha Naachiar Rajasekhar, president of Tamil Chamber of Commerce, recalled the former’s ancestral ties with Tamil Nadu.
The President-elect of Singapore is the son of a Tamil pathologist cum cancer specialist and has a series of recognitions from international educational institutes like Harvard School and Cambridge University. Tharman Shnamugaratnam bowled over the Indian audience last year when he delivered the first Arun Jaitley Memorial Lecture at New Delhi, attended among others by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.