Rajeev Chandrasekhar: The journey of former Air Force officer's son from Intel to Union Minister of State

Bengaluru: A tech entrepreneur and a BJP Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has worked on areas such as urban governance and veteran and armed forces issues.

Serving his third term in the Upper House, the 57-year-old son of a former Air Force officer, entered politics in 2006. In the previous two terms, he was an independent.

Chandrasekhar founded BPL Mobile in 1994. He, however, exited the cellular sector in 2005, with BPL valuing at USD 1.1 billion at the time. In 2005, he founded Jupiter Capital, an investment and financial services firm.

Jupiter Capital, which was established with an initial investment of USD100 million, today has investments and managed assets of over USD one billion ranging from technology to transportation, logistical services to hospitality and entertainment, sources close to him said.

Chandrasekhar served as the youngest President of industry chamber FICCI in 2008-09.

Born on May 31, 1964, he holds Bachelors in electrical engineering, and Masters in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Chicago. On completing Masters in 1986, he worked at Intel as Senior Design Engineer and a CPU architect on the “80486 and Pentium Microprocessors” till 1991.

Also a philanthropist, his “Flags of Honour Foundation” looks after the families of Armed Forces martyrs, and the “Namma Bengaluru Foundation” partners with city residents and works at grass-roots to highlight and improve the civic and administrative conditions of Bengaluru, according to sources.

Chandrasekhar had also approached the courts to intervene on behalf of citizens in the case of Sec 66A, Aadhaar privacy issues and voting rights for Armed Forces, they said.