Born heir apparent (Yuvaraj) to Maharaja Hari Singh and Maharani Tara Devi of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Karan Singh was catapulted into political life at the early age of eighteen when, in 1949, he was appointed Regent by his father on the intervention of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Thereafter he was head of the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir for the next eighteen years as Regent, as elected Sadar-i-Riyasat and lastly as Governor. His was a unique instance of the last representative of the old order becoming, by the will of the people, the first representative of the new. During these years he fulfilled his delicate and onerous duties with commendable success.

In 1967, Dr Karan Singh was inducted as a member of the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. At 36, he was the youngest person ever to become a Central Cabinet Minister in India. He was elected soon thereafter to the Lok Sabha from the Udhampur Parliamentary Constituency in Jammu and Kashmir on behalf of the Indian National Congress by an overwhelming majority, and was re-elected from there in 1971, 1977 and 1980. He is now a member of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of Parliament) from Jammu & Kashmir.

Dr Karan Singh assigned the portfolio of Tourism and Civil Aviation, which he held for six years and where he created a marked impact by his vision and dynamism. In 1973 he moved to the Ministry of Health and Family Planning. Family Planning emerged as major national commitment after he announced the National Population Policy in 1976. In 1979 he assumed the portfolio of Education and Culture. During these tenures as minister, Dr Karan Singh neither drew any salary nor lived in government accommodation.

Dr Karan Singh was the only former ruler of a princely state to voluntarily surrender his privy purse. He put the entire sum into the Hari-Tara Charitable Trust, named after his parents, in the service of the people of India. He converted his Amar Mahal Palace in Jammu into a Museum and Library containing a priceless collection of Pahari miniatures and modem Indian art, as well as his personal library of over twenty thousand volumes. Dr Karan Singh also looks after several other trusts in Jammu and Kashmir including the Dharmarth Trust which administers over a hundred Hindu shrines and temples.

Dr Karan Singh passed the Senior Cambridge examination from the Doon School, Dehra Dun in the first division, and later graduated from the Jammu and Kashmir University, of which he was himself the Chancellor. In 1957 he took the