After 15 months, Modi to physically meet his cabinet ministers today

After 15 months, the Union Cabinet will physically meet for the first time today at 11 am. The cabinet had, however, been meeting regularly almost every week through video conferencing, even during the COVID-19-induced lockdown.

New Delhi: After almost a year and three months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the cabinet's first physical meeting today at 11 am. Modi's last physical meeting with his cabinet ministers was in April last year when the COVID-19 had just begun wreaking havoc in the country. The Union cabinet had, however, been meeting regularly almost every week through video conferencing, even during the lockdown. Today's meeting, invariably, will be the first for the fresh faces in the cabinet.

At 4 pm today, Modi will also address the Council of Ministers, albeit via video conferencing. Today's meeting will be the second of its kind in a week. Modi had on July 7 inducted 43 new ministers, who officially met for the first time on July 8. News agencies reported that the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament, scheduled to commence on July 19, could be one of the reasons for the frequent convening of these meetings.

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Following the cabinet reshuffle, Smriti Irani, Bhupender Yadav and Sarbananda Sonowal are now the members of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs headed by the Prime Minister himself. Former IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and former Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan are no longer a part of this committee. Arjun Munda, Virendra Kumar, Kiren Rijiju and Anurag Thakur are the new members in the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs while Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Narayan Rane, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prime Minister Modi himself are the members in the Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth.