Council of Ministers
This is a list of current members of the Council of Ministers of the Government of India. All ministers are based in offices of their respective Union Ministries in New Delhi.
All Cabinet members are mandated by the constitution to be members of either House of the Parliament of India. In a departure from the norm the current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is a member of the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. He remained so for the duration of his entire first term (2004–2009) too. Most, but not all, previous Prime Ministers
have been elected members of the Lok Sabha.
There are three categories of ministers, in descending order of rank:
- Union Cabinet Minister – senior minister in-charge of a ministry. A cabinet minister may also hold additional charges of other Ministries, where no other Cabinet minister is appointed
- Minister of State (Independent Charges) – with no overseeing Union cabinet minister for that portfolio
- Minister of State (MoS) – junior minister with to overseeing cabinet minister, usually tasked with a specific responsibility in that ministry. For instance, an MoS in the Finance Ministry may only handle taxation.
Read more about this topic: Cabinet Of India
Famous quotes containing the words council of, council and/or ministers:
“There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“I haven’t seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were asked this week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company’s behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)