Narendra Modi government 2.0 took shape on Friday with BJP president Amit Shah, who played a key role in his party’s electoral triumph, making his debut in the central government as India’s new home minister while incumbent Rajnath Singh was moved to defence.
Joining them in the ‘Big Four’ are Nirmala Sitharaman, the outgoing defence minister, who is India’s new minister for finance and corporate affairs and surprise inductee, former foreign secretary S Jaishankar, who got the External Affairs portfolio.
Both Sitharaman, the first full-time woman Finance minister of India, and Jaishankar, a rare instance of a career diplomat taking charge of the External Affairs ministry, have studied in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
With the induction of Shah and Jaishankar, there are two new faces in the all-powerful Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is the final decision-making body on matters related to country’s security, including defence policy and internal security.
Besides the prime minister, the ministers of Defence, Home, External Affairs and Finance are members of the committee.
In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Ramesh Chand, member of Niti Aayog; DK Mittal, former financial services secretary; Siraj Hussain, former agriculture secretary; Nisha Desai Biswal, US-India Business Council; Sumant Sinha, chairman and director of Renew Power Ventures and Anil Padmanabhan, deputy editor of Mint discussed about the new cabinet members and the challenges ahead for the Modi government.