Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.
Modi, 68, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony at the forecourt of majestic Rashtraparti Bhavan.
In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
The saffron party which has a lot at stake in the last two phases of polling scheduled for March 4 and 8 has moved its war room to Varanasi, entrusting Union ministers and senior leaders with the task of strengthening the campaign with the prime minister in the vanguard.
Full list of the rejigged Union Council of Ministers
Apart from Smriti, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar took over as law and parliamentary affairs ministers respectively.
A beleaguered Vijay Mallya may have walked free on bail within hours of his arrest but the event, which he nonchalantly dismissed as "usual Indian media hype", had rival parties claiming credit for it and engaging in recrimination.
The agency said it searched a Mumbai-based operator who was running 700 shell companies with 20 dummy directors and had "converted Rs 46.7 crore for Chaggan Bhujbal", the jailed ex-Maharashtra deputy chief minister.
In the third reshuffle since coming to power, Prime Minister Modi raised the strength of his Council of Ministers from 73 to 76.
Breaking a long tradition, the PMO has ensured that specific divisions in each ministry are allocated to junior ministers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inducted 19 new ministers into his Cabinet on Tuesday has carried out major changes in the portfolios of his top ministers.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
Former India cricket captain Bishen Singh Bedi said the appointment "defies all logic".
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
Hours after 21 ministers took the oath of office and became a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministry, speculation began on which minister would be handed which portfolio. However, all speculation ended after the list was announced.
The strong Modi wave, disillusionment with the Akhilesh Yadav-led government in the state and the division of the anti-Modi vote will help the BJP leader edge closer to the PM's chair, observes Sharat Pradhan.
'Like 2014, 2017 was also Modi's election.' 'Every voter you met, apart from those who are BJP cadres, everybody said they would vote for Modi, not the BJP.' 'The one and only factor is the Modi juggernaut. He is the one who turned the tide.' 'The wave which he created in 2014, and to maintain it for three years, is a huge task in itself.'
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