Sam Pitroda

Sam Pitroda (Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda) is an Indian telecommunications engineer, innovator and Congress leader who chairs the Indian Overseas Congress. He was born on 16 November 1942 in Titlagarh, in what is now Odisha.

He studied physics and electronics at Maharaja Sayajirao University and electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the United States, and began working for GTE in Chicago in 1966. In 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi invited him back to India, where he started the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), an autonomous telecom research organisation. He chaired the National Knowledge Commission from 2005 to 2009. In October 2009 he became adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, with Cabinet rank. He received the Padma Bhushan in 2009 and was named chair of the National Innovation Council in 2010.

Pitroda stepped down as Indian Overseas Congress chairman in May 2024 after remarks that the Congress called unacceptable. The party reappointed him on 26 June 2024.

He is in the news after telling NDTV on 14 November 2026 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not personally tap phones, while saying his own phone is tapped, as The Federal reported.

Sources: Wikipedia, Business Today, The Federal