Signalling both change and continuity, India’s new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
A day after the much anticipated portfolios were announced and two days after Modi and 71 ministers were sworn in at a grand ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan, there were flowers and felicitations aplenty in the corridors of power. Some said it with prayers and a few slogans were heard too. NDA 3.0 ‘took office’ a week after election results threw up a majority for the alliance with 293 seats, above the halfway mark of 272, with the BJP getting 240.
In a seamless transition from the previous government to the present one, the four big frontline portfolios stay the same -- Amit Shah for Home, S Jaishankar for External Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman for Finance and Rajnath Singh for Defence.