Business News

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi largely reposed faith in the team from his previous administration, retaining the same Big Four cabinet members who comprise the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) as portfolios were announced on Monday evening. He entrusted most senior ministers from the last term with same responsibilities, while including new faces and allies in departments vacated by those who lost polls or were moved to home states. Leaving no doubt that his main target is completion of projects initiated in the previous government as part of road map for next 25 years, the PM has broadly chosen the same leaders who have been engaged in driving this strategy.Amit Shah retains home, Rajnath Singh stays defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman continues in finance and S Jaishankar keeps external affairs portfolio, setting at rest speculation that the CCS could see new members.Some Portfolios ShuffledHis core team of ministers have also retained their portfolios. Nitin Gadkari (road transport and highways), Piyush Goyal (commerce and industry), Dharmendra Pradhan (education), Sarbananda Sonowal (ports, shipping and waterways), Virendra Kumar (social justice and empowerment), Ashwini Vaishnaw (railways, electronics and information technology), Hardeep Puri (petroleum and natural gas) and Bhupender Yadav (environment, forest and climate change) will continue running the ministries they were handling in the last five years. Some of them have shed additional portfolios that were allocated when others left the council of ministers in the past.Vaishnaw has also got charge of the information and broadcasting ministry, which was headed by Anurag Thakur in the last administration.There is some continuity in the team of ministers of state (MoS) with independent charge as well. Rao Inderjit Singh (statistics and programme implementation, planning); Jitendra Singh (science and technology, earth sciences, PMO), Arjun Ram Meghwal (law and justice, parliamentary affairs) will continue with the same responsibilities with minor changes.110883578Incoming heavyweights with important portfolios include JP Nadda, whose stint as BJP president is ending. He will head the health and family welfare ministry that he was in charge of before moving to take charge of the party. He has also been given charge of chemicals and fertilizers. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been entrusted with agriculture, farmers' welfare and rural development. Chouhan had won praise in the past for his farm welfare measures in Madhya Pradesh. These ministries were handled by Narendra Singh Tomar before he shifted to MP and became speaker of the Vidhan Sabha there.Former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal has been given charge of housing and urban affairs as well as power. With Smriti Irani losing the elections from Amethi, Annpurna Devi steps in as minister of women and child development.Kiren Rijiju, whose wings appeared to have been clipped in the last government, has made a comeback with charge of parliamentary affairs. His role will be important as the BJP lacks a majority in the Lower House on its own and depends on its NDA allies to make up the numbers. He will also head the minority affairs ministry that Irani was in charge of. Gujarat BJP chief CR Patil will handle the Jal Shakti ministry.The BJP sought to accommodate its NDA allies. Former Karnataka chief minister and JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy got the heavy industries and steel ministries, which have usually gone to allies in previous UPA and NDA dispensations. HAM-S president and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi got the micro, small and medium enterprises ministry while Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JDU) will handle panchayati raj as well as fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying.LJP-RV chief Chirag Paswan got charge of the food processing industries ministry. K Ram Mohan Naidu, TDP leader and the youngest member of Modi's team at 36 years, will head the civil aviation ministry, taking over from Jyotiraditya Scindia. The portfolio has lost some of its heft after the privatisation of Air India but is seen as a good training ground for Naidu.Some of the ministers from the last term have had portfolios shuffled. Pralhad Joshi will now be minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution along with new and renewable energy. Giriraj Singh moves to textiles. Scindia gets communications, development of the northeastern region. Others include Gajendra Shekhawat (culture and tourism) and Mansukh Mandaviya (labour and employment, youth affairs and sports). Telangana BJP chief G Kishan Reddy will head the coal and mines ministry. With Arjun Munda losing the Lok Sabha polls, Jual Oram is back as head of the tribal affairs ministry.Among the allies, Jayant Chaudhary (RLD) is minister of state (independent charge) of skill development and entrepreneurship as well as education, while Jadhav Prataprao is minister of state (independent charge) of Ayush and MoS for health and family welfare.While the NDA council of ministers does not have any Muslim face, it has accommodated Sikh and Christian leaders to show balance. Ravneet Singh Bittu, the Sikh leader who defected from Congress to BJP only to lose from Ludhiana, has been made minister of state for food processing and railways. George Kurian, BJP Kerala unit general secretary, is MoS, minority affairs and fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying.Jitin Prasada, the UP minister and former union minister in the Congress-led UPA, is a junior minister in the commerce and industry as well as electronics and IT departments.Suresh Gopi, who stirred a controversy over reported remarks that he didn't want to be a minister, is MoS for petroleum and natural gas along with tourism. He subsequently said the comments had been misrepresented.West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar is junior minister for education and development of the northeastern region while former Telangana party head Bandi Sanjay Kumar is junior minister for home affairs.

New Delhi: Nirmala Sitharaman, in her second term as finance minister, hit the ground running on Monday. Instead of one, she released two tax devolution instalments - totalling ₹1,39,751 crore - to 28 states, for bolstering their development and capital spending. The minister earlier reviewed the economic and fiscal situation of states with finance secretary TV Somanathan and economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth, soon after the first meeting of the newly formed Cabinet on Monday evening. The interim budget for FY25 earmarked ₹12.20 lakh crore toward the devolution of taxes. With this release, the total devolved so far this fiscal year stands at ₹2,79,500 crore. Sitharaman returns to North Block amid a broad focus on continuity by the NDA government. Her immediate task is the full budget for FY25. Also Corporate Affairs Minister The budget, likely early next month, is expected to detail the Narendra Modi government's vision for the next five years. It will also be keenly watched for the next-generation reforms the finance minister promised in the interim budget of February.The main focus areas for Sitharaman will be sustaining high growth, making it more inclusive and creating employment. Rationalising GST is expected to be high on the agenda, as will be easing tax compliances.India clocked 8.2% expansion in FY24, underscoring its status as the world's fastest-growing major economy. The focus will now be on catapulting the country to a higher growth trajectory, in line with the Viksit Bharat (developed India) vision, but with increased attention to jobs creation and lifting private investment.Sitharaman presented a vote on account in February without any pre-poll largesse, targeting a fiscal deficit of 5.1% of GDP in FY25. She will need to balance fiscal pressures in the new coalition government and a growing chorus for cash transfers to alleviate rural distress - in the wake of such pledges by opposition parties. The BJP-led NDA won 293 seats in the 543-seat lower house of Parliament. The BJP secured 240 seats on its own, falling short of the majority 272 mark.Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, has held key portfolios in the Modi governments, serving as defence minister as well as minister for commerce and industry with independent charge. She will also hold the corporate affairs ministry, according to a statement from the President's office on Monday.During her first stint at the finance ministry, Sitharaman, 64, steered the economy through the Covid-19 pandemic, rolling out the Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) Bharat package and measures such as production-linked incentive schemes for several sectors, without losing sight of fiscal prudence. Stepping up capital spending to support the economy until private investment gained pace aided in the sharp economic recovery.

Jyotiraditya Scindia has emerged a big winner in the Narendra Modi 3.0 Cabinet, bagging the ministries of communications and Northeast Development.The 53-year old son of late Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia has previously served as civil aviation minister in the earlier Modi cabinet since 2021. In February 2022, he was named the PM’s special envoy to Romania to oversee the evacuation of Indian nationals trapped in Ukraine during the latter’s war with Russia.One of Scindia’s immediate challenges as he takes charge of the plum communications ministry is overseeing India’s 5G spectrum auction — the telecom sector’s most watched event — which gets underway on June 25.His other key responsibility will be retaining India’s three-private player telecom market structure and ensuring cash-strapped Vodafone Idea — in which the government is the biggest stakeholder — survives.Another key challenge for Scindia is efficiently steering the notification of rules under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, within 100 days of the new government taking charge. This is particularly vital as the new telecom rules will define the modalities around spectrum pricing for administrative allocation of satellite spectrum. These rules will also outline the specific conditions for satellite spectrum usage.Scindia also steps into the telecoms hot seat when global satcom biggies such as Eutelsat OneWeb, Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon Kuiper are to be given satellite spectrum via the administrative route. In fact, he will need to take the call around granting satcom service permits to Starlink and Jeff Bezos-led Amazon Kuiper in the coming days.Among other key responsibilities, Scindia needs to lead the charge in improving the overall quality of telecom services in the interest of consumers. Sector regulator Trai is already working on new guidelines for improving QoS.Sector experts are also hopeful that the new telecoms minister will take steps to cut the high telecom regulatory levies in the run up to the upcoming Union budget.Scindia’s return to the Modi Cabinet 3.0 is with a difference. This time, he returns as a Lok Sabha member after pulling off a big win from Guna in Madhya Pradesh.A graduate of Harvard and Stanford, he was previously a Rahul Gandhi confidant in the Congress. He later joined the BJP after leading a group of Congress MLAs in abandoning the then Kamal Nath government in MP during the Covid pandemic. He was then nominated to the Rajya Sabha immediately, but hung on for over a year to become a minister.Earlier as an MP from Guna in 2004-14, he was a minister in the then Manmohan Singh government and had eventually played a vital role on the opposition benches under the first BJP government. He had left the Congress back in 2020 amid differences with the party leadership and his surprise defeat in the 2019 elections.