Derek O'Brien

Derek O’Brien (born 13 March 1961) is an Indian politician, television personality and quiz master. He is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of India's Parliament) from West Bengal and member of the All India Trinamool Congress. He is the chief national spokesperson as well as leader of the Trinamool Congress Parliamentary party in the Rajya Sabha. Prior to his Parliamentary career, he became well known as the quizmaster for the Bournvita Quiz Contest and other shows. Personal background O’Brien comes from an Irish family and can trace his paternal origins to an Irish soldier who came to India in the early 1860s and whose descendants married into the Bengali community. O’Brien is based in Kolkata and speaks, reads and writes Bengali as his mother tongue. O’Brien's grandfather, Amos O’Brien, was the first Christian to serve as head of the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, and also taught at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack. O'Brien went to St. Xavier's Collegiate School in Kolkata and for a short period, St. Columba's School in Delhi, and then spent two years at Scottish Church College, Kolkata. O’Brien is the oldest of three sons of Joyce and Neil O'Brien (19342016). Neil O'Brien worked in publishing and retired as the chairman and managing director of Oxford University Press India as well as leading the Anglo-Indian community for two decades. He is married to Tonuca Basu, who is practising medicine in Brooklyn, New York. He was earlier married to Rila Banerjee and the couple have a daughter Aanya.