There will be 14 ministers below the age of 50 in the new cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be announced this evening. It will have a perfect balance of castes, regions and experience, government sources have said. The rainbow cabinet will have ministers who are seasoned administrators to anchor and guide their departments -- 46 have experience in the Central government, four are former Chief Ministers and 18 are former ministers in state governments. The council of ministers will also have a mix of experienced professionals -- with 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers, seven civil servants, seven with research degrees and three with degrees in business.
There will be 11 women ministers from across nine states.
Today's reshuffle is the first in PM Modi's second term. The Union Cabinet, which can have 81 members, currently has 53 ministers. The probables include former Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narayan Rane.
The reshuffle is taking place after a detailed performance evaluation of the ministers by the Prime Minister. Based on it, sources said Kiren Rijiju and Hardeep Singh Puri are likely to be promoted.
In the new ministry, there will be record 12 ministers belonging to the Scheduled Castes, who are from eight states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Two of the ministers will part of the cabinet. Besides, 27 of the minsters belong to Other Backward Classes, five of whom will be in the cabinet.
There will also be a record eight ministers -- three of them in the cabinet -- who belong to the Scheduled Tribes and come from Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Assam.
The new ministry also cuts across communities. There will be one Muslim, one Sikh, one Christian and two Buddhist ministers. Three of the cabinet ministers are religious minorities.
