Krishna Bose has been a Member of Parliament in India in the 11th (1996-1998), 12th, (1998-1999) and 13th (1999-2004) Lok Sabhas. During the term of the 13th Lok Sabha (1999-2004) she served as Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs in India which oversees the conduct of India’s foreign policy.
Krishna Bose is an eminent writer, educationist and parliamentarian. Educated at Calcutta University, she taught for 40 years at the City College (for women) of Calcutta where she was Head of the Department of English and for 8 years the Principal. She is a leading contemporary writer of Calcutta with many books and articles. Her books include Itihaser Sandhane (Calcutta: Ananda, 1972), Charanarekha Taba (Calcutta: Ananda, 1982), Prasanga Subhaschandra (Calcutta: Ananda, 1992), 1947: Smriti-Bismriti (Calcutta: Ananda, 1995), Netaji: A Biography for the Young (Delhi: Rupa, 1995), Ek Nambar Bari (Calcutta: Ananda, 1997) and Je Taranikhani (Calcutta: Ananda, 2001). Her most recent book titled An Outsider in Politics has been published in August 2008 by Penguin. A regular participant in radio and television programmes on current affairs, she is also an accomplished classical musician.
In the 1996 general elections Krishna Bose ran for public office for the first time as a candidate of the Indian National Congress and was elected a Member of Parliament from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal. She was re-elected in the 1998 and 1999 general elections as a candidate of the Trinamool Congress of which she is a prominent leader. She has served on a number of parliamentary committees, including the Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, the Consultative Committee on Information and Broadcasting, the Committee on Women's Empowerment and the Consultative Committee on External Affairs. From December 1999 to May 2004, she served as the Chairperson of the powerful Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. Her predecessors as Chairs of this Committee were I.K. Gujral and A.B. Vajpayee.
Actively involved in public work, Krishna Bose is President of the Trust of the Institute of Child Health, Calcutta, Chair of the Council of the Netaji Research Bureau, the President of Vivek Chetana - a non-profit organization for disadvantaged women and children, and a member of the international P.E.N.
Krishna Bose has travelled widely in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Her late husband Dr Sisir Kumar Bose (1920-2000) was an important participant in the Indian independence movement and a leading pediatrician of post-independence India. Her elder son, Sugata Bose, is Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University, and her younger son, Sumantra Bose, is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics.