<p class="title">Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday broke another glass ceiling when she was appointed the Union Finance Minister – the first woman to hold the crucial portfolio as a full-time minister. Earlier, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi held the portfolio as an additional charge.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman, 59, the Defence Minister in the previous NDA government, succeeds Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who had opted out of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new cabinet owing to ill health.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman and Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur assumed their respective offices at the North Block on Friday afternoon, soon after President Ram Nath Kovind allocated portfolios to the ministers who had taken oath of office and secrecy on Thursday evening.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman has assumed charge of the finance ministry at a time when the industry is expection a stimulus from the government to kickstart the flagging economy. Her first task would be to get down to prepare the Union Budget which will be presented to Parliament in July.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Before being elevated as the Defence Minister, Sitharaman had served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs in the previous Modi government. She was also Minister for Commerce and Industry with independent charge.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A former alumna of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sitharaman has worked with a consulting firm in London before joining politics. After returning to India, she served as deputy director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman earlier served as a national spokesperson of the BJP (BJP) and known as an articulate and aggressive spokesperson, who attacked the then Congress government over its policies.</p>.<p><strong>Cabinet Ministers</strong></p>.<p>Raj Nath Singh<br />Amit Shah<br />Nitin Jairam Gadkari<br />D. V. Sadananda Gowda<br />Nirmala Sitharaman<br />Ram Vilas Paswan<br />Narendra Singh Tomar<br />Ravi Shankar Prasad<br />Harsimrat Kaur Badal<br />Thaawar Chand Gehlot<br />Subrahmanyam Jaishankar<br />Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’<br />Arjun Munda<br />Smriti Zubin Irani<br />Harsh Vardhan<br />Prakash Javadekar<br />Piyush Goyal<br />Dharmendra Pradhan<br />Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi<br />Pralhad Joshi<br />Mahendra Nath Pandey<br />Arvind Ganpat Sawant<br />Giriraj Singh<br />Gajendra Singh Shekhawat<br /> <br /><strong>Ministers of State (Independent Charge)</strong></p>.<p>Santosh Kumar Gangwar<br />Rao Inderjit Singh<br />Shripad Yesso Naik<br />Jitendra Singh<br />Kiren Rijiju<br />Prahalad Singh Patel<br />Raj Kumar Singh<br />Hardeep Singh Puri<br />Mansukh L Mandaviya<br /> <br /><strong>Ministers of State</strong></p>.<p>Faggansingh Kulaste<br />Ashwini Kumar Choubey<br />Arjun Ram Meghwal<br />General (Retd.) V. K. Singh<br />Krishan Pal<br />Danve Raosaheb Dadarao<br />G Kishan Reddy<br />Parshottam Rupala<br />Ramdas Athawale<br />Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti<br />Babul Supriyo<br />Sanjeev Kumar Balyan<br />Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao<br />Anurag Singh Thakur<br />Angadi Suresh Channabasappa<br />Nityanand Rai<br />Rattan Lal Kataria<br />V Muraleedharan<br />Renuka Singh Saruta<br />Som Parkash<br />Rameswar Teli<br />Pratap Chandra Sarangi<br />Kailash Choudhary<br />Debasree Chaudhuri</p>
<p class="title">Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday broke another glass ceiling when she was appointed the Union Finance Minister – the first woman to hold the crucial portfolio as a full-time minister. Earlier, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi held the portfolio as an additional charge.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman, 59, the Defence Minister in the previous NDA government, succeeds Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who had opted out of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new cabinet owing to ill health.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman and Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur assumed their respective offices at the North Block on Friday afternoon, soon after President Ram Nath Kovind allocated portfolios to the ministers who had taken oath of office and secrecy on Thursday evening.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman has assumed charge of the finance ministry at a time when the industry is expection a stimulus from the government to kickstart the flagging economy. Her first task would be to get down to prepare the Union Budget which will be presented to Parliament in July.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Before being elevated as the Defence Minister, Sitharaman had served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs in the previous Modi government. She was also Minister for Commerce and Industry with independent charge.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A former alumna of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sitharaman has worked with a consulting firm in London before joining politics. After returning to India, she served as deputy director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitharaman earlier served as a national spokesperson of the BJP (BJP) and known as an articulate and aggressive spokesperson, who attacked the then Congress government over its policies.</p>.<p><strong>Cabinet Ministers</strong></p>.<p>Raj Nath Singh<br />Amit Shah<br />Nitin Jairam Gadkari<br />D. V. Sadananda Gowda<br />Nirmala Sitharaman<br />Ram Vilas Paswan<br />Narendra Singh Tomar<br />Ravi Shankar Prasad<br />Harsimrat Kaur Badal<br />Thaawar Chand Gehlot<br />Subrahmanyam Jaishankar<br />Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’<br />Arjun Munda<br />Smriti Zubin Irani<br />Harsh Vardhan<br />Prakash Javadekar<br />Piyush Goyal<br />Dharmendra Pradhan<br />Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi<br />Pralhad Joshi<br />Mahendra Nath Pandey<br />Arvind Ganpat Sawant<br />Giriraj Singh<br />Gajendra Singh Shekhawat<br /> <br /><strong>Ministers of State (Independent Charge)</strong></p>.<p>Santosh Kumar Gangwar<br />Rao Inderjit Singh<br />Shripad Yesso Naik<br />Jitendra Singh<br />Kiren Rijiju<br />Prahalad Singh Patel<br />Raj Kumar Singh<br />Hardeep Singh Puri<br />Mansukh L Mandaviya<br /> <br /><strong>Ministers of State</strong></p>.<p>Faggansingh Kulaste<br />Ashwini Kumar Choubey<br />Arjun Ram Meghwal<br />General (Retd.) V. K. Singh<br />Krishan Pal<br />Danve Raosaheb Dadarao<br />G Kishan Reddy<br />Parshottam Rupala<br />Ramdas Athawale<br />Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti<br />Babul Supriyo<br />Sanjeev Kumar Balyan<br />Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao<br />Anurag Singh Thakur<br />Angadi Suresh Channabasappa<br />Nityanand Rai<br />Rattan Lal Kataria<br />V Muraleedharan<br />Renuka Singh Saruta<br />Som Parkash<br />Rameswar Teli<br />Pratap Chandra Sarangi<br />Kailash Choudhary<br />Debasree Chaudhuri</p>
