Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to induct V Kishore Chandra Deo and seven other new faces in the Council of Ministers and elevated three others to the Cabinet rank. The other new faces are Jayanti Natarajan and Pawan Singh Ghatwar, Milind Deora, Rajeev Shukla, Charandas Mahant and Jeetendra Singh. Resingnations of seven Ministers including that of Textiles Minister Dayinidhi Maran and Statistics and Programme Implementation Minister Dr. M S Gill have been forwarded to President for acceptance. Three Ministers of State – Beni Prasad Verma, Dinesh Trivedi and Jairam Ramesh have been elevated to the Cabinet rank. According to a Press Release issued by the PMO, Dinesh Trivedi of Trinamool Congress is to succeed Ms. Mamata Benerjee in Railways, Kishore Chandra Deo gets Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj and Jairam Ramesh, Rural Development. Portfolios of five Ministers have been changed. While Salman Khursheed is being given Law and Justice besides Minority Affairs, Vilasrao Deshmukh is being shifted to Science and Technology and Earth Sciences. M Veerappa Moily is the new Cabinet Minister for Corporate Affairs, Anand Sharma: Commerce and Industry and additional charge of Textiles; P K Bansal: Parliamentary Affairs and additional charge of Water Resources. E Ahmed will be Minister of state for Human Resource Development besides External Affairs. Srikant Jena with Independent charge, will hold the charge of Chemicals and Fertilizers in addition to Statistics and programme implementation; Gurdas Kamat gets Drinking Water and Sanitation. V Narayanasamy: Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; and Prime Minister’s Office; Harish Rawat: Agriculture and Food Processing Industries and Parliamentary Affairs; Mukul Roy: Shipping; Ashwani Kumar: Planning, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences. Other Ministers whose resignations have been forwarded for acceptance are: Murli Deora, B K Handique, Kanti Lal Bhuria, A Sai Prathap and Arun S Yadav. There is no change in the major Ministeries. Pranab Mukherjee continues to hold Finance, P Chidambarm: Home, A K Antony: Defence and S M Krishana: External affairs. Kapil Sibal will continue to hold Human Resource Development in addition to IT. The new Ministers will be administered the oath of office and secrecy at Rashtrapati Bhawan at 5 PM.