New Delhi: Nine new union ministers took oath on Sunday September 3 as they were inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. All of the nine ministers are members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
BJP MPs Anant Kumar Hegde from Karnataka, Ashwini Kumar Choubey from Bihar, Shiv Paratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh, Virendra Kumar from Madhya Pradesh, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Satya Pal Singh, Alphons Kannanthanam took oath at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The rejig in the Union Cabinet is the third since 2014 after Narendra Modi took oath as the Prime Minister.
Pradhan, Sitharaman, Goyal, Naqvi become cabinet ministers
Four Ministers of State including Piyush Goyal were on Sunday promoted to the cabinet in a reshuffle and expansion of the council of ministers.
The four ministers are Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Minister Goyal, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
They were sworn in as cabinet ministers by President Ram Nath Kovind at a swearing in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Who is Satya Pal Singh
A scholar of Vedic studies and Sanskrit, Satya Pal Singh is a Lok Sabha MP from Baghpat, UP. He was born in Basauli village of Baghpat and has an illustrious career in academia.
Singh has an MSc and MPhil in Chemistry, MBA in Strategic Management from Australia, MA in Public Administration as well as a PhD in Naxalism.
An IPS officer of the 1980 batch of the Maharashtra cadre, Singh has been recognised with medals like the Antrik Suraksha Sewa Padak and a Special Service Medal for extraordinary work in the Naxalite areas of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in 1990 by the government.
Singh is known for breaking the backbone of organised crime syndicates in Mumbai in the 1990s as the financial capital’s commissioner of police. He also served as the commissioner of Pune and Nagpur police.
He has also written best-selling books, including on topics like tribal conflict resolution and Naxalism.
