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Kiran Bedi
Kiran Bedi
Kiran Bedi
Kiran Bedi
kiran-bedi
Place of Birth Amritsar, Punjab
Father's Name Prakash Lal
Mother's Name Prem Lata
Political Party BJP
Education BA (Hons) English, 1968
MA Political Science, 1970
LL.B., 1988
Ph.D., 1993
Alma Mater Punjab University, University of Delhi and IIT Delhi.
Spouse name Brij Bedi (m. 1972-2016)
Children Saina Bedi
Occupation Politician, social activist, retired police officer
Positions held
Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry (Assumed office 29 May 2016)
Officer, Indian Police Service ( 1972-2007)
About Kiran Bedi
Kiran Bedi is an Indian politician belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
She is currently the Lieutenant Governor of the union territory of Puducherry. Bedi
took to politics after retiring from Indian Police Service (IPS) in 2007. She was
the first Indian woman to join the officer’s ranks of IPS in 1972. During her stint
in the IPS, she had served in the position of the Director General at the Bureau of
Police Research and Development. Bedi is also noted for her role as a social
activist. The winner of the Magsaysay Award in 1994, Kiran Bedi has been one of the
active members of the Anna Hazare-led civil society that launched a movement for
the enactment of a strong anti-corruption law, the Jan Lokpal Bill. She formally
joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 15 January, 2015 and was selected as the
party's chief ministerial candidate for the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.
She earned her degree in law from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi in 1998
while in service as the Director General of Police. Subsequently, she went on to
obtain a doctorate from the Department of Social Science at the Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) Delhi in 1993.
During her career in Indian Police Service, she served as the chief of New Delhi
Traffic Police, DIG of Police in Mizoram, Advisor to the Lt. Governor of
Chandigarh, Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau, and Civilian Police
Advisor for United Nations Peacekeeping operations. She was honoured with the
United Nations Medal for her work.
Kiran Bedi introduced a number of reforms in the management of Tihar Jail, Delhi
when she was the Inspector General of Prisons during the years 1993-1995. The
various programmes introduced by her under this mission witnessed positive changes
in the lives of prisoners. This short stint of her is remembered as a golden period
in the history of the prison and won her the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 1994 and the
Jawahar Lal Nehru Fellowship. The last position that Kiran Bedi held in the IPS was
that of the Director General of India's Bureau of Police Research & Development.
She was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law in acknowledgment of her
“humanitarian approach to prison reforms and policing” in May 2005. Two years
later, Kiran Bedi decided to voluntarily retire from the police services and the
Government of India granted her permission to do so. On December 25, 2007, she
retired to dedicate herself to social issues.
In August 2011, Kiran Bedi joined the India Against Corruption movement led by
social activist Anna Hazare. She was a prominent face of the movement along with
Arvind Kejriwal but parted ways with him when the latter decided to establish a
political party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The results of the elections translated into a near whitewash of BJP at the hands
of its rival, the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), reducing it to a mere three out of the 70
seats. Bedi lost to AAP's S.K. Bagga falling 2,277 votes short of him.