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Indian PM reshuffles cabinet

Promotes younger vein, drops tainted ones

Pallab Bhattacharya, New Delhi
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday reshuffled his cabinet, removing seven ministers and promoting younger politicians.
The top four ministries of Finance, Defence, External Affairs and Home, respectively headed by Pranab Mukherjee, AK Antony, SM Krishna and Palaniappan Chidambaram, were left untouched.
Senior Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal of parliamentary affairs ministry is getting an additional charge of water resources from his party colleague Salman Khursheed.
The prime minister shifted M Veerappa Moily, another Congress leader, from law to corporate affairs and brought Khursheed in his place.
The shake-up came at a time when the government has been pulled up by the Supreme Court in a number of cases ranging from the telecom scam to attempts to recover black money and accused of wilful mismanagement and inertia.
In the telecom scam, the Prime Minister's Office was asked to explain alleged inaction. The resignation offer of Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam over the weekend considered the final straw.
However, Khursheed, a lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh, besides getting Law portfolio, retains his responsibility for the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
Trinamool Congress lawmaker Dinesh THvedi, an industrialist, has been promoted to the cabinet rank from his position of a junior minister in health and family welfare. He gets the key portfolio of railway which his party chief Mamata Banerjee headed before becoming West Bengal chief minister in May this year.
Another Trinamool Congress lawmaker who madehisdebutinthe federal council of ministers is Sudip Bandopadhyay, the chief whip in Lok Sabha. He is now the minister of state for health and family welfare.
However, Sudip's party colleague Mukul Roy, a close aide to Mamata, has been divested of his portfolio of
railway as junior minister and shifted to the shipping ministry in the same rank.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has been elevated to the rank of a cabinet minister and given the charge of Rural Development Ministry.
Ramesh's party colleague Jayanthi Natarajan has been inducted into the ministry for the first time as a minister of state with independent charge and given charge of environment and forest ministry.
TWo more junior ministers — V Kishore Chandra Deo and Beni Prasad Verma — were moved to full cabinet rank and made heads of tribal affairs and panchayati raj and steel ministries respectively.
The minister for northeastern Indian, BK Handique, has been eased out of the ministerial council and his place as junior minister with same portfolio has gone to Paban Singh Ghatowar, who, like the former, is also from Assam.
Three prominent and new faces —
Mumbai lawmaker Milind Deora, Jitendra Singh and Rajiv Shukla, a known name in Indian cricket administration, — have been made ministers of state for the first time in ministries of Communication and Information Technology, Home and Parliamentary Affairs respectively.
Milind Deora's father and senior Congress leader Murli Deora, who was a cabinet minister heading corporate affairs, has been dropped from the ministry.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was a federal cabinet minister, has been shifted from rural development ministry to science and technology and earth sciences.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma has been entrusted with the additional charge ofTextiles ministry following the resignation of DMK lawmaker Dayanidhi.
Four other ministers who were shown the door are MS Gill, Kanti Lal Bhuria, A Sai Prathap and Arun S Yadav.