Presidents of India - A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, President of India, K. R. Narayanan, Pratibha Patil (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 30. Chapters: A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, President of India, K. R. Narayanan, Pratibha Patil, List of Presidents of India, R. Venkataraman, Mohammad Hidayatullah, Rajendra Prasad, List of Presidents of India by longevity, Zail Singh, Zakir Hussain, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Shankar Dayal Sharma, V. V. Giri, Basappa Danappa Jatti, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Excerpt: Kocheril Raman Narayanan ) (Malayalam: 27 October 1920 - 9 November 2005), also known as K. R. Narayanan, was the tenth President of India. He was the first Dalit, and the first Malayali, to have been President. Born in Perumthanam, Uzhavoor village, in the princely state of Travancore (present day Kottayam district, Kerala), and after a brief stint with journalism and then studying political science at the London School of Economics with the assistance of a scholarship, Narayanan began his career in India as a member of the Indian Foreign Service under the Nehru administration. He served as ambassador to Japan, United Kingdom, Thailand, Turkey, People's Republic of China and United States of America and was referred by Nehru as "the best diplomat of the country." He entered politics at Indira Gandhi's request and won three successive general elections to the Lok Sabha and served as a Minister of State in the Union Cabinet under former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Elected as the ninth Vice-President in 1992, Narayanan went on to become the President of India in 1997. Narayanan is regarded as an independent and assertive President who set several precedents and enlarged the scope of the highest constitutional office. He described himself as a "working President" who worked "within the four corners of the Constitution"; something midway between an "executive President" who has direct power and a "rubber-stamp President" who endorses government decisions wi...