The Union Council of Ministers has been reshuffled with eight new faces in it. The new Ministers were administered oath of office and secrecy by the President Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil at an impressive function at Rashtrapati Bhavan this evening.In the reshuffle, three ministers were elevated to the cabinet rank and the resignation of the seven ministers has been accepted. Jairam Ramesh is the new Rural Development Minister who replaces Vilasrao Deshmukh. M Veerappa Moily has been shifted from Law to Corporate Affairs and Salman Khursheed brought in his place.Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi has been elevated to the Cabinet rank and given the Railways portfolio, Beni Prasad Verma is now a Cabinet Minister for Steel, a portfolio he earlier held as Minister of State with Independent charge.The other new faces in the Council of Ministers are Jayanthi Natarajan- Environment and Forests, Paban Singh Ghatowar-Development of North Eastern Region, Sudip Bandopadhyaya -Health and Family Welfare, Jitendra Singh -Home, Milind Deora-Communication and IT and Rajiv Shukla -Parliamentary Affairs.Ministers who have been dropped from the Cabinet are- M S Gill (Statistics and Programme Implementation), B K Handique(DONER), Kantilal Bhuria (Tribal Affairs), Murli Deora (Corporate Affairs) and Dayanidhi Maran (Textiles). With this the strength of the Council of Ministers has gone up to 68.Additional charge of Textiles has been given to Anand Sharma and P K Bansal, Water Resources. Anand Sharma retains Commerce and Industry and Bansal Parliamentary Affairs. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal continues to hold additional charge of Telecom, while Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi continues to hold additional charge of Civil Aviation.Veteran Parliamentarian from Andhra Pradesh V Kishore Chandra Deo makes his entry into the Cabinet for the first time, making him the second minister from the state after S Jaipal Reddy. Charan Das Mahant has also made a debut as MoS in Agriculture and Food Processing.Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has been shifted to Science and Technology and Earth Sciences. Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed has also been given the additional charge of HRD. Minsters of State V Narayanasamy and Ashwani Kumar shed Parliamentary Affairs portfolios which have gone to new entrant Rajiv Shukla and Harish Rawat, who retains MoS for Agriculture and Food Processing.Minister of State for Shipping and Railways Mukul Roy, has been divested of the Railways portfolio gets parliamentary affairs. Ministers of State for Steel and Rural Development A. Sai Prathap and Arun Yadav were also dropped from the Council of Ministers.There is no change in portfolios of Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs ministries.The Vice President Mohd. Hamid Ansari, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, senior Cabinet Ministers, UPA Chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj were among the dignitaries who were present at the swearing in ceremony.