http://scroll.in/article/811258/the-daily-fix-cabinet-reshuffle-is-modis-way-of-admitting-government-was-off-track
Cabinet reshuffle is Modi's way of admitting government was off track 2 hours ago Updated 2 hours ago Rohan Venkataramakrishnan Reshuffled Deck Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted to editors at an interaction on Monday that what was being called a Cabinet reshuffle would, instead, be an "expansion". It did end up being that, with 19 new faces being inducted into Council of Ministers – 17 of whom have never been Central ministers before. But Modi took the reshuffle part seriously too. Late in the evening, when the portfolio allocations were finally announced, there were plenty of shocks. Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani's purported demotion grabbed the headlines, after the vocal politician was shunted off to the Textile Ministry (with conciliatory murmurs about her getting some opportunity to help on the Uttar Pradesh campaign). Prakash Javadekar, earlier the Environment Minister, replaced her in the HRD ministry. But there was plenty more: Jayanta Sinha was moved out of the Finance Ministry; "Call drop" minister Ravi Shanker Prasad went to Law from Telecom – which was given to technocrat Manoj Sinha; Venkaiah Naidu, who has been terrible at floor management, gave the Parliamentary Affairs charge over to Ananth Kumar and took over Information & Broadcasting from Arun Jaitley, who is left with only Finance. And Anil Madhav Dave is the new environment minister. The Cabinet Secretariat has the full list here (<http://cabsec.nic.in/showpdf.php?type=council_cabinet_cabinetministers>). The government wants to send the message that it will only tolerate doers, not talkers. The list bears this out somewhat: Naidu, Irani, Sinha and Prasad are inveterate talkers who have always been very vocal and visible, even if their ministries haven't exactly excelled. But the only elevation was given to Javadekar, not other ministers of state like Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who many believe are as good doers as any other in the Council. There are other ways to see the reshuffle: Nods to upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and even Mumbai's municipality, taking power away from people like Jaitley and putting it even more firmly in the hands of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Twenty give months, and right before an important Parliamentary session, Modi has acknowledged that the government was drifting. Will this major reshuffle steer it back onto a productive path. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
