Modi Cabinet 2.0 Highlights: Portfolios allocated, first meeting held

Rajnath Singh to visit the National War Memorial in Delhi on Saturday before formally taking charge as the Defence Minister.

The Modi 2.0 government in its first Cabinet meeting Friday approved a new scheme, which assures minimum monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to all shopkeepers, retail traders and self employed persons after attaining the age of 60 years, fulfilling its poll promise. The decision taken at the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here will benefit 3 crore retail traders and shopkeepers. Five crore traders are expected to join the scheme in the next three years, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said while briefing reporters at a press conference. "All shopkeepers and self employed persons as well as retail traders with GST turnover below Rs 1.5 crore and aged between 18-40 years can enrol for the scheme," an official statement said.

Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Javadekar said the first two days of the session will be devoted to swearing-in of the newly elected MPs while the Lok Sabha speaker will be elected on June 19. The President's address to the joint sitting of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will take place on June 20, he said. The economic survey will be tabled on July 4 followed by the presentation of the budget on the next day. The session will have a total of 30 sittings. It will be the first budget of the Modi government in its second term and will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The interim budget for the year 2019-20 was presented by then Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on February 1.

"Cabinet has cleared a special scheme for Control of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis. The diseases of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis are very common among the livestock – cow-bulls, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs," says Javadekar.

Union Cabinet has cleared pension scheme for traders. Three crore retail traders and shopkeepers will benefit from this decision, says Union Minister Prakash Javadekar.

"Cabinet has approved the extension of Pradhan Mantri-Kisan yojana to all farmers. Nearly 14.5 crore farmers will benefit from the scheme," says Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar.

Cabinet meeting ends.

Parliament session for the budget to be held from 17th June to 26th July. Election for Speaker will be on 19th June, reports ANI quoting sources.

Cabinet ends:

The Prime Minister has approved the following changes:- *The rates of scholarship have been increased from Rs. 2000 per month to Rs. 2500 per month for boys and from Rs. 2250 per month to Rs. 3000 per month for girls. *The ambit of the Scholarship Scheme is extended to the wards of State Police officials who are/were martyred during terror/naxal attacks. The quota of new scholarships for wards of state police officials will be 500 in a year. The Ministry of Home Affairs will be the nodal Ministry in this regard.

The National Defence Fund (NDF) was set up in 1962 to take charge of the voluntary donations in cash and kind received for promotion of the national defence effort, and to decide on their utilisation. Currently the fund is being used for the welfare of the members of the Armed Forces, Para Military forces and Railway Protection Force, and their dependents. The fund is administered by an Executive Committee with the Prime Minister as the Chairperson and the Defence, Finance and Home Ministers as Members.

The ambit of the Scholarship Scheme is extended to the wards of State Police officials who are/were martyred during terror/naxal attacks. The quota of new scholarships for wards of state police officials will be 500 in a year. The Ministry of Home Affairs will be the nodal Ministry in this regard.

The rates of scholarship have been increased from Rs. 2000 per month to Rs. 2500 per month for boys and from Rs. 2250 per month to Rs. 3000 per month for girls.

PM’s scholarship scheme goes through major changes. Wards of police personnel who were martyred in terror or Maoist attacks will receive enhanced scholarships.

Modi pays tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.

In the fist cabinet decision, PM Modi has approved Hiking Scholarship Amount Under National Defence Fund. This will help kins of defence personnel martyred in action.

Prime Minister has approved the following changes: Ambit of the Scholarship Scheme is extended to the wards of State Police officials who are/were martyred during terror/naxal attacks. The quota of new scholarships for wards of state police officials will be 500 in a year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the following changes: Rates of scholarship have been increased from Rs. 2000 per month to Rs. 2500 per month for boys and from Rs. 2250 per month to Rs. 3000 per month for girls.

First decision of PM Narendra Modi on assuming his office is approval to a major change in the ‘Prime Minister’s Scholarship Scheme’ under the National Defence Fund, say reports.

Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani and Arvind Sawant have arrived for the Union Cabinet meeting. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and MoS PMO Dr Jitendra Singh have already arrived for the Union Cabinet meeting.

First Cabinet Meeting of Narendra Modi's second tenure as PM about to begin at South Block. PM Modi has arrived, other ministers are arriving one by one.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived for the first cabinet meeting. The meeting is expected to begin shortly.

Former chief minister of J&K Mehbooba Mufti congratulated Nirmala Sitharaman as she took charge as the Finance minister.

Australian foreign minister Marise Payne congratulated India's new minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar who took oath in Modi's new cabinet on Thursday.

Ram Vilas Paswan takes charge as the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

Prakash Javadekar takes charge as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi takes charge as the Union Minister for Minority Affairs, in New Delhi.

Piyush Goyal takes charge as Minister of Railways and Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar takes charge as Minister of External Affairs.

As the portfolios for the new ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet were announced on Friday, Jammu and Kashmir politician Omar Abdullah urged them to update their Twitter handles.

Dharmendra Pradhan takes charge as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Steel.

Gajendra Singh Shekhawat takes charge as the Minister for Jal Shakti, at Shram Shakti Bhavan, in New Delhi.

Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ takes charge as Minister of Human Resource Development.

Nirmala Sitharaman takes charge as Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Minister of Minority Affairs.

Dharmendra Pradhan Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas; and Minister of Steel.

Pralhad Joshi will be new Parliamentary Affairs Minister and will also get Coal and Mines.

Arjun Munda Minister of Tribal Affairs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal has been appointed as the Minister of Food Processing Industries.

Kiren Rijiju has been appointed as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports and Minister of State in the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

Nitin Gadkari will continue to be the Minister for Road Transport and Highways.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to be the Minister of Minority Affairs, Pralhad Joshi to be the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs; Minister of Coal; and Minister of Mines.

Full list of Portfolios

Prakash Javadekar has been appointed as Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has been appointed as the Minister of External Affairs.

Rajnath Singh appointed as the new Defence Minister, Amit Shah new Home Minister, S Jaishankar new External Affairs Minister.

Is the cabinet allocation delayed because JD(U) lobbying for three ministerial berths with BJP.

The official page of the Cabinet Secretariat will be releasing the list of portfolios shortly.

The new cabinet is expected to hold its first meeting in the evening today and the allocation of portfolios will also be done soon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisensa, who met today, "discussed various aspects of improving India-Sri Lanka cooperation."

At 14%, or 78 of all 542 seats, the 17th Lok Sabha saw the highest representation of women ever, but only three women found a place in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new cabinet on Thursday.

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan offered prayers at the Jagannath temple in Delhi's Hauz Khas Village on Friday.

'Sushma leaves a lasting legacy as External Affairs Minister'.

Last minute deliberations are underway to decide on the portfolios. The same would be announced in sometime from now.

The portfolios were decided early Friday morning. Post the swearing in, several leaders met at the residence of Amitt Shah to decide on the portfolios. The meeting was attended by Piyush Goyal and Dharmender Pradhan. The meeting concluded only at 1 am.

V Sadananda Gowda may retain Statistics and Program Implementation, while Thanwar Chandra Gehlot could be made the social justice and empowerment minister.

Ravishankar Prasad is likely to be retained as the Law Minister. Arjun Munda likely to get MSME, while Narendra Singh Tomar could be the Parliamentary Affairs, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Minister.

Smriti Irani is expected to be made the Women and Child Development Minister. Ram Vilas Paswan may get Consumer Affairs Minister, while Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank could be made the minister for health and family welfare.

Nirmala Sitharaman could retained defence, while Jaishankar may be made the Minister for External Affairs.

Rajnath Singh is likely to retain the Home Ministry, while Amit Shah may be made Finance and Corporate Affairs, media reports said.

The UAE government lit up the iconic ADNOC building in Abu Dhabi on the occasion of the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi and Council of Ministers to symbolise the close bonds of friendship and cooperation between the two nations.

Despite a high number of women in Parliament, only six have got berths in the government. The number is expected to increase in the next re-shuffle.

First Cabinet meeting will be held today. In all there are 57 in Team Modi 2.0

With the big day over, the focus now is on the portfolios. The portfolios were to be released late Thursday night, but it was put for later today.

Speculation is rife that Amit Shah may get either Home or Finace.

Is Shah is made the Home Minister, then Rajnath Singh may get Defence.

Many cabinet ministers from the previous cabinet were made part of the new government, but some promiment names like Rajyavardhan Rathore, Sushma Swaraj, Jayant Sinha, Anupriya Patel and Anantkumar Hegde, were among those who missed the bus.

JP Nadda who was the health minister in previous Modi government also did not take oath today. It is being said that Nadda may take over as the BJP president after Amit Shah was inducted into the cabinet. Swaraj did not contest the elections citing health reasons, and about her being part of the cabinet, it is being said that the party had left the decision to her.

Swaraj today thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving her an opportunity to serve people of India as External Affairs Minister. Taking to Twitter over an hour after the swearing-in ceremony ended, Swaraj prayed that the Modi government in its second term functions with glory. "Prime Minister-ji -- as External Affairs Minister, you have given me opportunity in the last five years to serve the countrymen and Indians abroad and accorded me a lot of respect at personal level. I am grateful to you. I pray to God that our government functions gloriously," she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Renuka Singh Surguja, Som Prakash and Rameshwar Teli have taken oath.

Ratan Lal Kataria and V Muralidharan have been sworn in as ministers.

Anurag Thakur, Suresh Angadi and Nityanand Rai have been administered the oath of office.

Babul Supriyo, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan and Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre have been sworn in as ministers.

Purushottam Rupala, Ramdas Athawale, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti also take oath.

Krishan Pal Gurjar, Raosaheb Danve and Kishan Reddy have taken oath.

Arjun Meghwal, V K Singh have also taken oath of office.

Mansukh Mandaviya, Mangal Singh Kulaste and Ashwini Kumar Chaubey have been administered the oath of office. Earlier Amit Shah took oath and would now be part of the Modi Cabinet.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Rajkumar Singh and Hardeep Singh Puri have also been sworn into the Modi government.

Jitendra Singh and Kiren Rijiju too have been sworn in. Rijiju was a junior home minister in the Modi government 1.

Inderjit Singh, Shripad Yesso Naik are the latest to take oath at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Santosh Kumar Gangwar have been administered the oath of office.

Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena has been administered the oath of office. Giriraj Singh who trounced Kanhaiya Kumar has also taken oath.

Prahlad Joshi and Dr Mahendranath Pandey have also been sworn in.

Dharmender Pradhan has taken oath. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was the next to take oath.

Prakash Javadekar has been administered oath of office. Piyush Goyal was the next to take oath.

After Smriti Irani, it was Dr. Harshvardhan who took oath of office.

Smriti Irani who defeated Rahul Gandhi at Amethi has taken oath.

Jaishankar was the foreign secretary from January 2015 to January 2018. He has held positions like the high commissioner to Singapore, and ambassador to China and the United States of America.

Arjun Munda, Ramesh Pokhriyal have been administered the oath of office.

Ramesh Pokhriyal has been sworn in. Earlier former foreign secretary S Jaishankar took oath of office.

S Jaishshankar has been administered the oath of office. He is a former foreign secretary of India.

Thawar Chand Ghelot is part of the Modi Cabinet again. He was a minister in the previous NDA government.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the SAD has been administered the oath of office.

Ravi Shankar Prasad will also be part of the Modi Cabinet. He has been administered oath of office.

Naren Singh Tomar has been sworn into the Modi government.

Ram Vilas Paswan has been administered the oath of office. Rajyavardhan Rathore is not being sworn in as a minister today.

Nirmala Sitharaman has been administers the oath of office. The others to take include Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah Nitin Gadkari and Sadananda Gowda.

Sadananda Gowda has been administers the oath of office. The others to take include Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari.

Nitin Gadkari has been administers the oath of office. Earlier Amit Shah was sworn in.