Saifuddin Soz

Saifuddin Soz (born November 23, 1937) is an Indian professor and a long-time Member of the Parliament of India. Soz hails from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. He had been India's Minister of Water Resources in India's 14th Lok Sabha and Minister of Environment and Forests in the 1990s. In January 2006, he was nominated to the Congress Working Committee, the executive committee of the Indian National Congress.
He worked his way to completing a Master's degree in economics from the University of Kashmir, where he later held the position of registrar. He held teaching positions in many colleges affiliated with the University of Kashmir. Soz moved to the Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (BOSE), a government department responsible for administration of schools. Soz sought voluntary retirement from government service to enter politics in 1983. At that time, he was Secretary of the BOSE.
In 1983 Lok Sabha election, Soz contested and won the Baramulla seat as a candidate of the ruling Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party. He also represented the JKNC and the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha, He became India's Minister of Environment and Forests in the cabinet of Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral.
In 2003, Soz joined the Congress party and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2004. In January 2006, he was inducted into the ministry of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of Water Resources. Soz was appointed President of the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh (state) Congress Committee in 2008.
Soz has written and edited several books including: Kashmir Crisis, Why Autonomy to Kashmir, Secularism - an Interpretation, 'Daj' etc.
He has written essays and short stories in Kashmiri, several articles in reputed newspapers and journals on a variety of subjects like Islam and modernism, rights of women, secularism, literature, education and economics. He is also the recipient of several literary awards including Soviet Land Nehru Award, All India Basic Literature Competition Award and Competition for Literature for Neo-Literates Award.