Mr S. Rajaratnam was born in Sri Lanka. He received his early education in Kuala Lumpur and later attended the Raffles Institution in Singapore. In 1937, he pursued a degree in law at King's College, London. However, as a result of World War 11, he was unable to receive funding from his family and hence had to discontinue his studies. He then turned to journalism to earn a living. He joined the Malayan Tribune in 1948, and The Straits Times in 1954 where he worked until 1959 when he became a Minister in Lee Kuan Yew's Cabinet.

Mr Rajaratnam was one of the founding fathers of modern Singapore alongside Mr Lee Kuan Yew and other People's Action Party colleagues like Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Hon Sui Sen and Mr Lim Kim San. He spent 29 years in Mr Lee's Cabinet, and held the following ministerial positions from 1959-1988:

After his retirement from politics in 1988, Mr Rajaratnam was appointed a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; a position he held until 1997. He was awarded the Order of Temasek (First Class) in the 1990 National Day Honours.

As Singapore's first foreign minister after Independence, Mr Rajaratnam was instrumental in getting Singapore admitted into the United Nations and later the Non-Aligned Movement in 1970. He built up the foreign service from scratch, established diplomatic links with other countries and secured recognition for Singapore's sovereignty internationally. Those were difficult times with foreign policy challenges posed by the Indonesian Confrontation and differences with the Malaysian Government. His courage combined with his diplomatic skills and his power of persuasion enabled him to defend Singapore's interest. He was also focused on ensuring that Singapore would succeed in a changing global environment. More broadly, his vision of Singapore as a global city helped to shape our foreign policy.

Mr Rajaratnam also made an indelible mark as one of the five "founding fathers" of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1967. He played a major role in nurturing this regional organisation in its infancy as well as during troubled times. When Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1978, Mr Rajaratnam helped to mobilise ASEAN opposition and to draw the international community's attention to the aggression.

Domestically, Mr Rajaratnam's legacy was just as significant. A firm believer in multi-racialism, he drafted the Singapore National Pledge in 1966 following the communal riots of 1964. His vision of establishing a common Singaporean identity regardless of race, language or religion helped pave the way for the tolerant and accommodating Singaporean society which we are all proud of. As the Minister for Labour, Mr Rajaratnam helped to implement tough labour laws to stabilise the country's economy and to attract investments.

Mr Rajaratnam was a man of ideas with the imagination to look beyond the horizon.

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