Government of India
H.E. Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare
Ghulam Nabi Azad became India’s Minister of Health and Family Welfare in May 2009, some four decades after first entering public life. As health minister, Mr Azad has pointed to priorities which include the expansion of the National Rural Health Mission, a project which mobilized half a million health workers across India, and the launch of a similar National Urban Health Mission, which aims to serve the urban poor. He has been praised for policies which advocate a late marriage age, especially for girls, and for returning to the issue of population control.
Mr Azad entered political life in 1973 and has assumed leadership roles in many political organizations, including the All India Muslim Youth Conference and All India Congress Committee, where he was nominated to the position of general secretary a record nine times. Mr Azad also served as the chief minister of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir following two years as the Parliamentary Affairs Minister of India in the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
H.E. Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of two PMNCH Co-Chairs on the PMNCH Board.