Uma Gajapathi Raju

Uma Gajapathi Raju, also known as, Uma Ramesh Sharma Ramesh Sharma is a well-known Indian producer. He >> Read More... , is an Indian politician. She served in the Indian Parliament. She was born on November 17, 1953, in Palghat, Kerala. She received her education from Madras University. She married Pusapati Ananda Gajapathi Raju on August 18, 1971. They had two daughters before divorcing in 1989 and then she married Ramesh Sharma, a film director in 1991. In 2016, Anand Ganapathi Raju passed away.

She works as a political and social activist. For one year, she served as the Joint Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee. Uma's then-husband, Anand Gajapathi Raju, was a minister in Andhra Pradesh's N T Rama Rao's administration. However, he left the Telugu Desam Party in 1989 to join the Congress, just before Uma won the Lok Sabha election that same year. She was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha as a member of the Indian National Congress from the Visakhapatnam seat in 1989. In 1990, she was a member of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's Consultative Committee. She finished second in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections in Visakhapatnam to the Telugu Desam Party candidate.

In 1989, she worked for the Indian Trade Fair Authority as the Director and a member of the Film Festival Selection Committee for the International Film Festival. She has also served on the Nehru Implementation Committee's Cultural Sub-Committee. She joined the board of directors of Moving Picture Co India Ltd. in 1989 and left in 2010. For the past eight years, she has served as the anchor of Door Darshan's prime-time news program, India This Week.

Apart from politics, she also had worked as the Executive Producer for many documentaries, some of which have won multiple awards, including her husband Ramesh Sharma's Emmy-nominated film the “Jihadi- The Murder of Daniel Pearl” and “The Journalist.” She is always enthusiastic about flood and drought assistance, orphanage promotion, environmental preservation, and eradication of malaria programs. Sanchita Raju, her daughter was a named spokesman of the BJP's Delhi unit in 2018.