Ashwini Vaishnaw is MoC and Devusinh Chauhan the Minister of State for Communications

The first Cabinet reshuffle since the Narendra Modi-led government took office saw 12 ministers getting axed, seven junior ministers being promoted as Cabinet ministers, and 36 new faces being inducted to the council of ministers at the swearing in ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Several important ministries in the Indian government now have new leaders with the administration unveiling a new-look cabinet. Some top cabinet ministers have new portfolios—the new Cooperation Ministry will be headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal lost railways but has been put in charge of textiles, earlier under Smriti Irani. Many have been elevated from minister of state to cabinet rank and given new portfolios to manage.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad resigned just an hour ahead of the reshuffle. He held the portfolio of Law & Justice, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Ministry.

Ashwini Vaishnaw has been appointed as Minister of Communications; and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology; and Railways. Devusinh Chauhan is the Minister of State in the Ministry of Communications and Rajeev Chandrasekhar the Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Ashwini Vaishnaw is a Rajya Sabha MP for Odisha. A former IAS officer of the 1994 batch, he handled important responsibilities over 15 years and was particularly known for his contribution to the PPP framework in Infrastructure.

Post that, the 50-year-old has held leadership roles across major global companies such as General Electric and Siemens. He has an MBA from Wharton School, Pennysylvania University and MTech from IIT Kanpur.

During his stint as an IAS officer, Vaishnaw worked as the District Magistrate-cum Collector of Balasore and Cuttack districts. His bureaucratic acumen, in fact, came to the fore when the super cyclone hit Odisha in 1999 killing at least 10,000 people.

As collector of the coastal Balasore district, Vaishnaw collected information on the cyclone from a US Navy website and sent reports to the chief secretary at regular intervals. His information helped the state government to take advanced measures in order to save lives.

Vaishnaw worked in Odisha till 2003, before being appointed as deputy secretary in the office of former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. He was later appointed as Vajpayee’s private secretary after the NDA lost the election in 2004.

A product of IIT, Vaishnaw, quit government service in 2008 and went to Wharton University in USA to pursue an MBA. On his return, after working for top firms, he set up his own automotive components manufacturing units in Gujarat.

Interestingly, in April, Vaishnaw was nominated as a member of the Press Council of India, for three years.

Devusinh Jesingbhai Chauhan is a member of parliament to the 16th Lok Sabha from Kheda (Lok Sabha constituency), Gujarat. He won the 2014 Indian general election being a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate.

Chauhan did his Diploma Course in Electrical Engineering from the Government Polytechnic College in Porbandar (Gujarat). From 1989 to 2002, Devusinh Jesingbhai Chauhan worked as an engineer with All India Radio (AIR). In 2014, he won the Indian general election being a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate

Other ministers

The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has directed the allocation of other portfolios among the following members of the Council of Ministers as:

Cabinet Ministers

Ministers of State (Independent Charge)

Ministers of State

CT Bureau