However, he was unable to receive funding from his family to continue his studies due to World War II; instead, he turned to journalism to earn a living.

[8] In 1954, Rajaratnam co-founded the People's Action Party (PAP) together with Lee Kuan Yew, Toh Chin Chye, Goh Keng Swee and others.

During his tenure as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rajaratnam helped Singapore gain entry into the United Nations and later the Non-Aligned Movement in 1970.

He built up the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and helped to establish diplomatic relations with other countries and secure international recognition of Singapore's sovereignty.

He carried out the foreign policy of international self-assertion to establish Singapore's independence during the period when the country faced significant challenges including the Konfrontasi conflict in the 1960s and the withdrawal of British troops in the early 1970s.

[10] Rajaratnam opposed the inclusion of Sri Lanka for ASEAN membership in 1967 based on the country's domestic situation which was unstable and not good for a new organisation.

[12] Throughout his political career, Rajaratnam had played a key role in the pragmatic and technocratic PAP government that radically improved Singapore's economic situation, alongside huge developments in social development on the island with massive expansion of healthcare programmes, pensions, public housing and maintaining an extremely low unemployment rate.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when the government began implementing several policies to promote the use of "mother tongue" languages and ethnic-based self-help groups such as Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) and Yayasan Mendaki, Rajaratnam expressed his opposition to these policies which, in his view, ran counter to the vision of establishing a common Singapore identity where "when race, religion, language does not matter".

Feher's grandmother was a member of the wealthy Csáky clan who had lost their fortune due to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War.

Piroska, disgruntled by the rise of Nazism, moved to the United Kingdom where she worked as an au pair and teacher and eventually met Rajaratnam.

[15] The couple moved to Malaya at the conclusion of the Second World War but Rajaratnam's parents disapproved of their new daughter-in-law, even telling her that they would not accept "half-caste" descendants.

[17] After Rajaratnam retired from politics in 1988 as part of the leadership transition, he served at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies as Distinguished Senior Fellow from between 1989 and 1997.

Some of his former colleagues, Toh Chin Chye, S. Dhanabalan, Othman Wok, Lee Hsien Loong, S. R. Nathan and Tharman Shanmugaratnam, paid their last respects at his home.

In recognition of his contributions as one of the nation's founding fathers, Rajaratnam was accorded a state funeral at the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay on 25 February 2006.

Launched on 21 October 2014, the S$100-million S. Rajaratnam Endowment was set up by Temasek Holdings to support programmes that foster international and regional cooperation.

[4] The showcase was inaugurated by Lawrence Wong, the Prime Minister of Singapore, during the launching of the second volume of the biography of S. Rajaratnam, The Lion’s Roar, authored by Irene Ng.