New Delhi: Author and philanthropist Dr. Sudha Murty was sworn-in as a member of the Rajya Sabha  (RS) in New Delhi on Thursday in the presence of Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is also the RS Chairman.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal also attended the event at Parliament, where Sudha Murty’s husband and Infosys Founder N.R. Narayana Murthy accompanied her. 73-year-old Sudha Murty, the former Chairperson of Infosys Foundation and the author of several books, mostly for children, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha on Mar. 8 marking International Women’s Day. She took the oath of office in Kannada.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared on his social media account, praising her inspiring contributions to various fields, including social work. Sudha Murty said, “I’m happy, at the same time I feel I have been given more responsibility. I’ll work at my level best. On a personal level, I am happy that I’m getting a bigger platform to work for the poor.”

When asked about whether this could be considered a step into the political arena, Sudha Murty was clear that she did not consider herself a politician. She is also renowned for her contributions  to Kannada and English literature and is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar, the Padma Shri (2006) and the Padma Bhushan (2023).

Sudha Murty, who was the first woman engineer to have worked with TELCO, is famously known to have provided the seed capital of Rs. 10,000 to her husband to start Infosys, which now has a market cap of over 80 billion dollars. Her daughter Akshata is married to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.