Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has picked his closest aide Amit Shah as Home Minister in the new government, today, after PM Modi and the ministers were sworn in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, yesterday.

Rajnath Singh will be Defence Minister while Nirmala Sitharaman moved from Defence to become Finance Minister.

Career diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is the Foreign Minister and Vellamvelly Muraleedharan from Kerala will be the Minister of State at the Ministry of External Affairs.

Nitin Gadkari is the Minister of Road Transport and Highways. Smriti Irani, who was tipped to be rewarded with a high-profile ministry for her incredible victory in Amethi over Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, is the Minister for Women and Child Development.

Who is Subrahmanyam Jaishankar?

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (born 9 January 1955) is an Indian politician and a former diplomat who is serving as the current Minister of External Affairs in the Government of India.

He has served as Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018. He joined Indian Foreign Service in 1977. He had previously served as Indian Ambassador to the United States (2014–2015), China (2009–2013) and the Czech Republic (2001–04), and as High Commissioner to Singapore (2007–09).

Jaishankar also played a key role in negotiating the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.

On retirement he joined Tata Sons as President, Global Corporate Affairs. In 2019, Jaishankar was conferred with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country.

On 30 May 2019, he was sworn in as a cabinet minister in the second Modi ministry.

He is the first former Foreign Secretary to head the Ministry of External Affairs as Minister of External Affairs.

Who is Vellamvelly Muraleedharan?

Muraleedharan came a long way to become a minister in the Modi cabinet. For his loyalists, it was a pleasant surprise and for his distracters a pain. He was chosen by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah as a strategy to win Kerala for the future.

Born in a Congress family in Thalassery, a Communist stronghold in Kannur district, Muraleedharan joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) during his student days.

Muraleedharan headed the local unit of the ABVP during Emergency. His oratory skills and leadership qualities helped him to rise in the party lines. He is a graduate in English literature and language from Brennen College in Thalassery.

After the death of his father, he joined the industries department as a lower division clerk for a short period. Later, he quit his job and joined the BJP as a full-time worker and moved to Kozhikode.

He left for Mumbai when he was appointed as ABVP’s national general secretary in 1994. In 1999, he was appointed as vice chairman of Nehru Yuva Kendra. He was elected as the BJP’s state unit chief for two terms from 2010 to 2015. Muraleedharan was elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra in 2018.