Gen (retd) VK Singh: MoS Road, Transport and Highways

Gen (retd) VK Singh has been awarded the Minister of State for Road, Transport and Highways in the 17th Lok Sabha under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The former four-star general in the Indian Army has served as the Minister of State for External Affairs in the NDA-led Government of India formed in 2014.

During his military career, the ex-serviceman served as the 24th Chief of Army Staff from 2010 to 2012. He also became the first serving Indian military Chief of Staff to take the Government of India to court, with regard to a dispute over his date of birth and subsequent retirement.

However, after his retirement, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and was elected as the Member of Parliament of the Lok Sabha in the 2014 general election, from the Ghaziabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh, having defeated Raj Babbar of the Indian National Congress (INC) by a margin of 5, 67,260 votes - a seat from which he was re-elected in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.

On 11 March 2011, Singh was inducted into the United States Army War College (Class of 2001 graduate) International Fellows Hall of Fame. He is the 33rd International Fellow and the first Indian Armed Forces officer to be inducted. The army veteran also has several military award and recognition to his name including the Param Vishisht Seva Medal and the Yudh Seva Medal.

The President appointed Narendra Modi as Prime Minister and administered the Oaths of Office and Secrecy to the Members of the Council of Ministers. Here’s a quick lowdown at the new Modi Cabinet.

Cabinet Ministers

Raj Nath Singh
Amit Shah
Nitin Jairam Gadkari
D. V. Sadananda Gowda
Nirmala Sitharaman
Ram Vilas Paswan
Narendra Singh Tomar
Ravi Shankar Prasad
Harsimrat Kaur Badal
Thaawar Chand Gehlot
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’
Arjun Munda
Smriti Zubin Irani
Harsh Vardhan
Prakash Javadekar
Piyush Goyal
Dharmendra Pradhan
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi
Pralhad Joshi
Mahendra Nath Pandey
Arvind Ganpat Sawant
Giriraj Singh
Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

Ministers of State (Independent Charge)

Santosh Kumar Gangwar
Rao Inderjit Singh
Shripad Yesso Naik
Jitendra Singh
Kiren Rijiju
Prahalad Singh Patel
Raj Kumar Singh
Hardeep Singh Puri
Mansukh L Mandaviya

Ministers of State

Faggansingh Kulaste
Ashwini Kumar Choubey
Arjun Ram Meghwal
General (Retd.) V. K. Singh
Krishan Pal
Danve Raosaheb Dadarao
G Kishan Reddy
Parshottam Rupala
Ramdas Athawale
Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
Babul Supriyo
Sanjeev Kumar Balyan
Dhotre Sanjay Shamrao
Anurag Singh Thakur
Angadi Suresh Channabasappa
Nityanand Rai
Rattan Lal Kataria
V Muraleedharan
Renuka Singh Saruta
Som Parkash
Rameswar Teli
Pratap Chandra Sarangi
Kailash Choudhary
Debasree Chaudhuri