S Jaishankar Signs In As Foreign Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw Takes Charge Too

Newly sworn-in Union Ministers S Jaishankar and Ashwini Vaishnaw today assumed office, days after the grand swearing-in ceremony in Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the oath of office along with 71 ministers of the new coalition government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet has retained the known faces in the big four ministries – Amit Shah has retained the Home portfolio, Rajnath Singh Defence, Foreign ministry has been retained by S Jaishankar and the Finance ministry by Nirmala Sitharaman.

The plum portfolios of I&B and railways will be handled by Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The Council of Ministers comprises 30 Cabinet Ministers, five Ministers of State with Independent Charge, and 36 Ministers of State.

In this new cabinet, significant representation has been given to states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with Bihar securing four cabinet berths and Uttar Pradesh receiving nine ministerial positions. Forty-two ministers are from the Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC), and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities. However, there is no Muslim representation in the new cabinet.

PM Modi, 73, will head a coalition government in his third term, or Modi 3.0, for the first time since he became Prime Minister in 2014 after 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule.

He is the second Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to be elected for a third term in a row.