PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh on Tuesday brought about some minor changes in his cabinet. The beleaguered leader in an attempt to bring the government back on track amidst spiralling corruption charges made Salman Khursheed the new law minister and handed over the environment ministry to Jayanthi Natarajan. Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh will now be helming the ministry of rural development and railways will be chugging as per the directions of Trinamool Congress’ Dinesh Trivedi. Ramesh was constantly slammed by his peer groups over lack of development and the recent POSCO episode in Orissa.  

The cabinet reshuffle also has some new faces with B.P Verma and Kishore Chandra taking care of steel and tribal affairs ministry respectively.

Snubbing the Prime Minister over the train accidents left the image of junior minister Mukul Roy dented as he was divested of the railways ministry. Roy still gets to keep the shipping portfolio.  

Former law minister Veerappa Moily has been transferred to the corporate affairs portfolio. The corporate sector too, under Moily has not been able to flourish much as there are numerous cases against the government, which the Supreme Court has challenged.  

Meanwhile, the errant ministers comprising of MS Gill, BK Handique, Kanti Lal Bhuria, A Sai Prathap and Arun S Yadav have been axed and the resignations of Murli Deora and Dayanidhi Maran are yet to be accepted by the President. So far, the space created by DMK’s Dayanidhi  Maran and A. Raja have not found any suitors.