Meira Kumar resigns as Union minister

Meira Kumar tonight resigned as Union Water Resources Minister just two days after taking charge after she was chosen by the Congress as the party candidate for the post of Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Meira's resignation was immediately forwarded by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to President Pratibha Patil for acceptance.

President Pratibha Patil accepted the resignation of the first woman to hold the post of the Lok Sabha Speaker, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson tonight. The prime minister will be holding the Water Resources portfolio till alternative arrangements are made.

Indian Council of Ministers - 2009

Indian Council of Ministers - As of 30th May 2009 (With Party and State information)

 

Name	Ministry	Party	State
Dr Manmohan Singh	Prime Minister	INC	Assam
Pranab Mukherjee	Union Finance Minister	INC	West Bengal
P Chidambaram	Union Home Minister	INC	Tamil Nadu
A K Antony	Union Defence Minister	INC	Kerala
S M Krishna	Union External Affairs Minister	INC	Karnataka
Mamata Banerjee	Union Railways Minister	AITC	West Bengal
Anand Sharma	Union Commerce Minister	INC	Himachal Pradesh
M Veerappa Moily	Union Law and Justice Minister	INC	Karnataka
Kapil Sibal	Union HRD Minister	INC	NC Territory of Delhi
Ambika Soni	Union Information and Broadcasting Minister	INC	Punjab
M K Azhagiri	Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister	DMK	Tamil Nadu
Dayanidhi Maran	Union Textiles Minister	DMK	Tamil Nadu
Jaipal Reddy Sudini	Union Urban Development Minister	INC	Andhra Pradesh
Sushil Kumar Shinde	Union Power Minister	INC	Maharashtra
Pawan Kumar Bansal	Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister	INC	Chandigarh
G K Vasan	Union Shipping Minister	INC	Tamil Nadu
Murli Deora	Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister	INC	Maharashtra
A Raja	Union IT and Communications Minister	DMK	Tamil Nadu
Kamal Nath	Union Road Transport and Highways Minister	INC	Madhya Pradesh
Sharad Pawar	Union Agriculture, Food & Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Minister	NCP	Maharashtra
Mukul Wasnik	Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister	INC	Maharashtra
Mallikarjun Kharge	Union Labour and Employment Minister	INC	Karnataka
Kantilal Bhuria	Union Tribal Affairs Minister	INC	Madhya Pradesh
Ghulam Nabi Azad	Union Health and Family Welfare Minister	INC	Jammu and Kashmir
Vayalar Ravi	Union Overseas Indian Affairs Minister	INC	Kerala
Meira Kumar	Union Water Resources Minister	INC	Bihar
B K Handique	Union Minister for Mines and Development of North East Region	INC	Assam
C P Joshi	Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj	INC	Rajasthan
Dr Farooq Abdullah	Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy	NC	Jammu and Kashmir
Vilasrao Deshmukh	Union Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises	INC	Maharashtra
Virbhadra Singh	Union Steel Minister	INC	Himachal Pradesh
M S Gill	Union Minsiter for Youth Affairs & Sports	INC	Punjab
Subodh Kant Sahay	Union Minsiter for Food Processing Industries	INC	Jharkhand
Kumari Selja	Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation; Tourism	INC	Haryana
Praful Patel	MoS Independent Charge, Civil Aviation	NCP	Maharashtra
Prithviraj Chavan	MoS Independent Charge, Science, Technology, Earth Sciences & MoS in PMO; Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions and Parliamentary Affairs	INC	Maharashtra
Salman Khurshid	MoS Independent Charge, Minority and Corporate Affairs	INC	Uttar Pradesh
Sriprakash Jaiswal	MoS Independent Charge, Coal, Statistics and Programme Implementation	INC	Uttar Pradesh
Jairam Ramesh	MoS Independent Charge, Environment and Forest	INC	Andhra Pradesh
Krishna Tirath	MoS Independent Charge, Women and Child Development	INC	NC Territory of Delhi
Dinsha Patel	MoS Independent Charge, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises)	INC	Gujarat
Sachin Pilot	MoS, Communications and IT	INC	Rajasthan
Shashi Tharoor	MoS, External Affairs	INC	Kerala
Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia	MoS, Commerce and Industry	INC	Madhya Pradesh
Ajay Maken	MoS, Home Affairs	INC	NC Territory of Delhi
Harish Rawat	MoS, Labour and Employment	INC	Uttarakhand
K H Muniyappa	MoS, Railways	INC	Karnataka
Daggubati Purandeswari	MoS, Human Resource Development	INC	Andhra Pradesh
M M Pallam Raju	MoS, Defence	INC	Andhra Pradesh
Panabaka Lakshmi	MoS, Textiles	INC	Andhra Pradesh
Dinesh Trivedi	MoS, Health and Family Welfare	AITC	West Bengal
Preneet Kaur	MoS, External Affairs	INC	Punjab
Namo Narain Meena	MoS, Finance	INC	Rajasthan
M Ramchandran	MoS, Home Affairs	INC	Kerala
E Ahammed	MoS, Railways	MUL	Kerala
V Narayanasamy	MoS, Planning and Parliamentary Affairs	INC	Puducherry
Srikant Jena	MoS, Chemicals and Fertilisers	INC	Orissa
Jitin Prasad	MoS, Petroleum and Natural Gas	INC	Uttar Pradesh
A Sai Prathap	MoS, Steel	INC	Andhra Pradesh
Gurudas Kamat	MoS, Communications and IT	INC	Maharashtra
Mahadev Khandela	MoS, Road Transport and Highways	INC	Rajasthan
Prof K V Thomas	MoS, Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution	INC	Kerala
Saugata Ray	MoS, Urban Development	AITC	West Bengal
Sisir Adhikari	MoS, Rural Development	AITC	West Bengal
Sultan Ahmed	MoS, Tourism	AITC	West Bengal
Mukul Roy	MoS, Shipping	AITC	West Bengal
Mohan Jatua	MoS, Information and Broadcasting	AITC	West Bengal
S S Palanimanickam	MoS, Finance	DMK	Tamil Nadu
D Napoleon	MoS, Social Justice and Empowerment	DMK	Tamil Nadu
Dr S Jagathrakshakan	MoS, Information and Broadcasting	DMK	Tamil Nadu
S Gandhiselvan	MoS, Health and Family Welfare	DMK	Tamil Nadu
Bharatsinh Solanki	MoS, Power	INC	Gujarat
Tusharbhai Chaudhary	MoS, Tribal Affairs	INC	Gujarat
Prateek Prakashbapu Patil	MoS, Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises	INC	Maharashtra
Pradeep Jain	Mos, Rural Development	INC	Uttar Pradesh
Arun Yadav	MoS, Youth Affairs and Sports	INC	Madhya Pradesh
R P N Singh	MoS, Road Transport and Highways	INC	Uttar Pradesh
Vincent Pala	MoS, Water Resources	INC	Meghalaya
Agatha Sangma	MoS, Rural Development	NCP	Meghalaya

Agatha Kongkal Sangma - Minister of State for Rural Development

Agatha Kongkal Sangma

Portfolio: Minister of State for Rural Development

Party: Nationalist Congress Party

Constituency: Tura

Agatha Kongkal Sangma, daughter of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma, is the youngest minister in the Council of Ministers. She is a law graduate registered with the Delhi Bar Council. She is also an amateur photographer. She got a feel of grassroots politics following her father during election campaigns. She has won the Tura Lok Sabha seat for the second term. She is the youngest from the politics savvy Sangma family after her father and two elder brothers to have entered into the electoral politics

RPN Singh - Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways

RPN Singh

Portfolio: Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Kushi Nagar

R P N Singh hails from the royal family of Kushi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. He was an MLA from the same seat till recently. He defeated BSP stalwart Swami Prasad Maurya who is the state unit president of his party.

Sri Prakash Jaiswal - Minister of State for Coal; Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent charge)

Sri Prakash Jaiswal

Portfolio: Minister of State for Coal; Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent charge)

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Kanpur

As Minister of State for Home in the previous UPA Government, Sri Prakash Jaiswal (64) was the spokesperson of the government on internal affairs. He is a three-time MP from Kanpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh. He began his political career in 1989 as the Mayor of Kanpur city. He also served as secretary, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee and also as president for Congress district committee.

Anand Sharma - Commerce and Industry Minister

Anand Sharma

Portfolio: Commerce and Industry Minister

Date of birth: January 5, 1953

Party: Indian National Congress

Sharma, who served as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Information and Broadcasting has got a second term in the Union Ministry. A Rajya Sabha member from Himachal Pradesh, he was one of the founder members of NSUI and had served as state president and national general Secretary. He was first elected to Parliament in 1984 at the age of 31, and became Indian Youth Congress president in 1985. Sharma had worked closely with the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He was chief spokesman of the party for six years. He was elevated to the union council of ministers with additional responsibility of foreign affairs in January 2006.

Mahadeo Singh Khandela - Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways

Mahadeo Singh Khandela

Portfolio: Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways

Date of birth: September 21, 1947

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Sikar

Jat leader Mahadev Singh Khandela will be the new Jat face in the Union Cabinet from Rajasthan. Khandela won from Sikar defeating CPI (M) candidate Amra Ram and sitting BJP MP Subhash Maharia. He will be the Minister of State in the Union Cabinet.

Khandela, from a small village in Sikar district, won four state Assembly elections on a Congress ticket. This is his first time in the Lok Sabha.

Bharat Solanki - Minister of State for Power

Bharat Solanki

Portfolio: Minister of State for Power

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Anand

Bharat Solanki, a two-time MP from Anand, was state Congress president during the 2007 Assembly elections. He resigned from the post after the Congress once again lost the polls to BJP. Solanki is the son of former Gujarat Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki, who is a member of Congress Working committee. 

Prithviraj Chavan - Minister of State

Prithviraj Chavan

Portfolio: Minister of State for Science and Technology; Earth Sciences and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office; Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Parliamentary Affairs (Independent Charge)

Date of birth: March 17, 1946

Party: Indian National Congress

Chavan represents Maharashtra in the Rajya Sabha. An intellectual politician, Chavan is idealistic and a thorough professional. He was Minister of State in the Prime Ministers Office. Although Chavan belongs to a political family, both his parents were MPs from Karad in Maharashtra and his father a minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's Cabinet. He studied at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and having qualified as a design engineer, got a UNESCO fellowship to study in Germany. He is also an MS from the University of California in Berkeley. Chavan came to the Rajya Sabha in 2002.

Sudini Jaipal Reddy - Urban Development Minister

Sudini Jaipal Reddy

Portfolio: Urban Development Minister

Date of birth: January 16, 1942

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Miryalguda (Andhra Pradesh)

The Congress leader was born in Madgul, district Mahbubnagar in Andhra Pradesh. He did his MA (English) and Bachelor of Journalism and studied at the prestigious Osmania University in Hyderabad. He is an Agriculturist by profession. Reddy is disabled and uses crutches. He contested the 1980 Lok Sabha elections unsuccessfully from Medak against Indira Gandhi. A unique facet of his political career has been that he acted as the spokesman for all the parties of which he has been a member. He is known for the quality of his debates in the parliament and was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 1998.

Sharad Pawar - Agriculture, Food & Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Minister

Sharad Chandra Govindrao Pawar

Agriculture, Food & Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Minister

Date of birth: December 12,1940

Party: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)

Constituency: Baramati (Maharashtra)

Sharad Pawar entered the Maharashtra legislative assembly for the first time in 1967 from Baramati, representing the undivided Congress Party. After 12th Lok Sabha was dissolved and elections to 13th Lok Sabha were due, Pawar, along with P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar demanded that the Congress Party needed to project someone born in India as the Prime Ministerial candidate and not the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi. When his demands were not met, he founded the Naionalist Congress Party in 1999. He has previously held the posts of Defence Minister of India and Chief Minister of Maharashtra and currently serves as Minister of Agriculture. Pawar also served as the Chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India from 2005 to 2008.

Ambika Soni - Information and Broadcasting Minister

Ambika Soni

Portfolio: Information and Broadcasting Minister

Date of birth: November 13, 1942

Party: Indian National Congress

Soni was in charge of Ministry of Tourism and Culture in the previous government. She was involved in a row involving the Sethusamudram project when her department filed an affidavit questioning the existence of Lord Rama. She also faced embarrassment after she said that industrialist Vijay Mallya participated in the auction for Mahatma Gandhi's personal items in New York at the behest of the Government of India, a claim which was rejected by Mallya saying that it was his personal decision.

Vayalar Ravi - Overseas Indian Affairs Minister

Vayalar Ravi

Portfolio: Overseas Indian Affairs Minister

Date of birth: June 4, 1937

Party: Indian National Congress

Vayalar Ravi is currently the Union Cabinet Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs. Ravi was born in Vayalar, Alappuzha District, Kerala. He was the Founder President of the Kerala Students' Union (KSU), the students' wing of Indian National Congress in Kerala. 

He was elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly in 1982, and he served as Home Minister of Kerala from 1982 to 1986 before resigning from that position due to a disagreement with Chief Minister K Karunakaran. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 1994 and again in April 2003.

Kamal Nath - Road Transport and Highways Minister

Kamal Nath

Portfolio: Road Transport and Highways Minister

Date of birth: November 18, 1946

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Chhindwara

Kamal Nath was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980. He served as Union Minister of State for the Environment and Forests (Independent Charge) from 1991 to 1995,then as Union Minister of State for Textiles (Independent Charge) from 1995 to 1996. From 2001 to 2004, he was the General Secretary of the INC. Kamal Nath was named the FDI Personality of the Year 2007 by the FDI magazine and the Financial Times Business for his "active efforts to attract foreign businesses to India, boost exports, and promote trade and investment".

Kapil Sibal - Human Resource Development Minister

Kapil Sibal

Portfolio: Human Resource Development Minister

Date of birth: August 8, 1948

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Chandni Chowk

Sibal has held several important positions in the Government. He was the Additional Solicitor General of India from 1989 to 1990. Kapil Sibal led the first Indian expedition to the Arctic and was responsible for setting up an Indian Research Station %u2018Himadri%u2019 there in July, 2008. He represented India in the Annual Meetings of the World Economic Forum in 2005 and 2009 held at Davos, Switzerland.

Palaniappan Chidambaram - Home Minister

Palaniappan Chidambaram

Portfolio: Home Minister

Date of birth: September 16,1945

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Sivaganga

Currently holding the Home portfolio, Chidambaram is among the most prominent Cabinet ministers of the ruling-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Union government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. From May 2004 to November 2008, he was the Finance Minister of India. However, after the resignation of Shivraj Patil, Chidambaram was made the Home Affairs Minister. He was also a Cabinet Minister with the Finance portfolio for a brief period in the United Front coalition government from 1996 to 1998. Prior to this, he held other portfolios. A former staunch socialist, Chidambaram has been fully supportive of the calibrated economic reforms, ushered in since 1991. He was a trade union activist in his early years.

Pranab Mukherjee - Finance Minister

Pranab Mukherjee

Portfolio: Finance Minister

Date of birth: December 11, 1935

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Jangipur

A well-respected figure within the Congress party, Mukherjee is often described as "a number-crunching politician with a phenomenal memory and an unerring survival instinct". He rose through a series of Cabinet posts to become the Finance Minister of India from 1982 to 1984. In a political career spanning nearly four decades, he has won many laurels. In 1984, he was rated as the best Finance Minister of the World according to a survey of Euromoney magazine. In 1997 he was voted Outstanding Parliamentarian. Currently he's in charge of External Affairs as well as Finance Minstry. The veteran leader played a central role in the implementation of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.

Vincent Pala - Minister of State for Water Resources

Vincent Pala

Portfolio: Minister of State for Water Resources

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Shillong

An engineer by profession, Vincent Pala entered politics only this year. He won from Shillong seat in Meghalaya.

Pradeep Jain - Minister of State for Rural Development

Pradeep Jain

Portfolio: Minister of State for Rural Development

Party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Jhansi

Pradeep Jain was an MLA from Jhansi earlier. He wrested the Lok Sabha seat from the Samajwadi Party. He was associated with youth Congress. He is the only Congress MP elected from the drought-prone Bundelkhand region. Jain is the kind of young people Rahul Gandhi believes will help rebuild the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.

Shashi Tharoor - Minister of State for External Affairs

Shashi Tharoor

Portfolio: Minister of State for External Affairs

Date of birth: March 9, 1956

Party: Indian National Congress 

Constituency: Thiruvananthapuram

Diplomat, author, journalist, human-rights advocate, and now a politician - Tharoor is adept at playing many a role with grace and grit. Chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Shashi Tharoor was the official candidate of India for the succession to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006, and came a close second out of seven contenders in the race. 

His career began in 1978, when he joined the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, and included key responsibilities in peace-keeping after the Cold War and as a senior adviser to the Secretary-General, as well as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. Tharoor was a surprise candidate in the Lok Sabha polls and won the Thiruvananthapuram seat by a huge margin against his nearest rival.