New Ministers Take Charge Day After Massive Cabinet Revamp

A day after the reboot of the union cabinet, a number of new (and promoted) ministers took charge of their assignments this morning, including Ashwini Vaishnaw - the new Railways and IT minister, Anurag Thakur - the Information and Broadcasting, and Sports minister, and Meenakshi Lekhi - the junior minister in the External Affairs and Culture ministries.In a short video shared by news agency ANI, Mr Vaishnaw - who faces the daunting task of heading two of the more high-profile ministries - can be seen seated at his new office at Rail Bhawan (Indian Railways' head office) in Delhi and interacting with his officers. "Indian Railways is a major part of PM Modi's vision. His vision for the railways is to transform the lives of the people... that everyone - common man, farmers and the poor - get the benefits. I will work for that vision," Mr Vaishnaw said. Ashwini Vaishnaw, a former IAS officer of the 1994 batch, holds an MBA from Wharton and and MTech from IIT (Kanpur), a government statement released yesterday said. The Railway Ministry was earlier headed by Piyush Goyal, who will now lead the ministries of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Textiles.