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p p p Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Honble Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gass, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, was born on 15 February, 1952 in Delhi. He did B.A. in History from Hindu College, Delhi University in 1971. (Hons) and stood first in merit. He completed his M.A. in 1973. (History) in first class. He was the Prime Minister in the Hindu College Parliament and was also a powerful orator. He also taught at St. Stephens College, Delhi. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1974. During his career spanning 39 years, he served in senior positions in the Ministries of External Affairs and Defense and held diplomatic level posts in the United Kingdom and Brazil and also served as Indias Permanent Representative to the United Nations in both Geneva and New York . Prior to this he has also served in the Indian Missions in Tokyo and Colombo. Shri Hardeep Singh Puri has extensive experience in multilateral diplomacy. He also served as a member of the Indian delegation including Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the GATT/United Nations at Geneva on three occasions from 2002 to 2005. He has a long-standing association with expertise in trade policy matters and has served on several dispute settlement panels at the GATT and WTO. He was the President of the United Nations Security Council in August 2011 and November 2012 and was also the Chairman of the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the United Nations Security Council in the year 2011-12. He retired from the Indian Foreign Service on 28 February 2013 and joined the International Peace Institute (IPI), New York, a not-for-profit think tank with headquarters in New York and offices in Vienna and Manama. He was a senior advisor from June to December 2013. He was the Vice President of IPI and also the Secretary General of the Multilateral Independent Commission (ICM). He left IPI on March 31, 2016. He has also written a book titled Perilous Inventions – The Security Council and the Politics of Causes which was published by HarperCollins in September 2016. He also gave many lectures on important forums and many of his articles and papers have also been published. He delivered a public lecture on India and Western Liberal Democracies at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library on January 23, 2017. He also authored the book Indias Trade Policy Dilemma and the Role of Domestic Re which has been published by Carnegie India in February, 2017. He was also appointed Chairman of the Governing Council for Developing Countries and Chairman of the Governing Body of Research and Ination Systems (RIS). He is also a visiting faculty member of the Graduate Institute in Geneva. He was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers on 3 September 2017 and took charge as Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on 4 September 2017./p/p/p/p