The Indian government reshuffled its cabinet with an eye on the upcoming elections in 2014. The reshuffle came with the swearing in of 22 new ministers with many existing ministers either being promoted to cabinet position or given independent positions. Dr M M Pallam Raju has been appointed as the cabinet minister for the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). He comes from Ministry of Defense. Kapil Sibal earlier served as the cabinet minister at the ministry of HRD. Dr Raju was first elected to the Parliament in 1989 and was the youngest MP in the 9th Lok Sabha. Re-elected to the 14th Lok Sabha in 2004 and 15th Lok Sabha in 2009, he was Minister of State for Defence (Raksha Rajya Mantri (RRM)) in the Council of Ministers. He is a Member of Parliament from Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. Apart from that, Shashi Tharoor has been appointed as Minister of State, for Human Resource Development (HRD). Earlier he served as Minister of State for the Ministry of External Affairs, but resigned in less than a year after a controversy. Kapil Sibal continues to serve as cabinet minister, looking after the ministry of communications and information technology. While Milind Deora, who serves as the minister of state for telecom and IT, has been given the additional portfolio of the shipping ministry.
