Sunanda Pushkar (27 June 1962 – 17 January 2014) was an Indian-born Canadian businesswoman and the wife of former International diplomat serving under the UN and politician Shashi Tharoor.

She was a sales director in the Dubai-based TECOM Investments, and a co-owner of the India-based Rendezvous Sports World (RSW), a cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League.

Sunanda Pushkar (née Dass) was born on 27 June 1962 in a Kashmiri Pandit family of landlords and army officers native to Bomai, Sopore.

She started an event management business called Expressions, and became well known for her networking with sponsors and artists for fashion shows.

According to Sunanda, she became a partner in an IT firm called "Valley Resources" through sweat equity, after a San Francisco-based friend introduced her to the founders.

After four months of unemployment and financial difficulties, Sunanda did a course in emotional intelligence, and joined a company called Noble House International.

[17] When she was dating Tharoor, Sunanda started getting media attention in India, as it became known that she had been given sweat equity worth ₹700 million in Rendezvous Sports World.

There were allegations that Tharoor had misused his ministerial position to ask for a free stake in the company, and that Sunanda was acting as a proxy for him.

In her defence, Sunanda argued that she had been invited to join Rendezvous because of her "extensive international experience as a business executive, marketing manager and entrepreneur".

However, she continued to hold the stake, after she was told that there is no provision under the Board of Control for Cricket in India's IPL rules for surrender of shares at that stage.

However, Sunanda later stated that the account had not been hacked and that she had posted the messages to expose what she believed to be Mehr's stalking of her husband.

The note stated that the couple was happily married, and that some personal comments not intended for publication had been misrepresented after being posted to Twitter.

[25] On 17 January 2014, a day after the Twitter controversy, Pushkar was found dead in room number 345 of the Leela Palace hotel in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, where the couple were temporarily living while their house was being renovated and painted.

[33] On 1 July 2014, controversy over her death deepened when AIIMS doctor Sudhir Gupta claimed that he was pressured to give a false report in the case.

On 20 May 2015, a trial court allowed Delhi Police to conduct lie detector test on three suspects related to her death.

[38] In May 2018, Tharoor was charged with abetment to suicide of his wife and marital cruelty under sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code.