The Big Story: Reshuffled Deck

Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted to editors at an interaction on Monday that what was being called a Cabinet reshuffle would, instead, be an "expansion". It did end up being that, with 19 new faces being inducted into Council of Ministers – 17 of whom have never been Central ministers before. But Modi took the reshuffle part seriously too. Late in the evening, when the portfolio allocations were finally announced, there were plenty of shocks.

Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani's purported demotion grabbed the headlines, after the vocal politician was shunted off to the Textile Ministry (with conciliatory murmurs about her getting some opportunity to help on the Uttar Pradesh campaign). Prakash Javadekar, earlier the Environment Minister, replaced her in the HRD ministry.

But there was plenty more: Jayanta Sinha was moved out of the Finance Ministry; "Call drop" minister Ravi Shanker Prasad went to Law from Telecom – which was given to technocrat Manoj Sinha; Venkaiah Naidu, who has been terrible at floor management, gave the Parliamentary Affairs charge over to Ananth Kumar and took over Information & Broadcasting from Arun Jaitley, who is left with only Finance. And Anil Madhav Dave is the new environment minister.

The Cabinet Secretariat has the full list here.

The government wants to send the message that it will only tolerate doers, not talkers. The list bears this out somewhat: Naidu, Irani, Sinha and Prasad are inveterate talkers who have always been very vocal and visible, even if their ministries haven't exactly excelled. But the only elevation was given to Javadekar, not other ministers of state like Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who many believe are as good doers as any other in the Council.

There are other ways to see the reshuffle: Nods to upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and even Mumbai's municipality, taking power away from people like Jaitley and putting it even more firmly in the hands of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Twenty give months, and right before an important Parliamentary session, Modi has acknowledged that the government was drifting. Will this major reshuffle steer it back onto a productive path.

The Big Scroll

Why the Cabinet reshuffle signals the rise and rise of Amit Shah (and a fall for Arun Jaitley). Cabinet expansion: Anandiben may gain as Modi ignores his rule on barring ministers older than 75. "Single biggest reform in education": Twitter trolls Smriti Irani after she is dropped from HRD.

For the rest of the day's biggest headlines, go check out The Latest.

Political Pickings
1. Reshuffle: One Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Gujarat, Mansukhbai Vasava, who was Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, says people from the Centre and his state complained about him, and so he was dropped as a minister. Which is usually how it's done.
2. Reshuffle: The BJP-Shiv Sena sibling rivalry continued into the Cabinet changes, which didn't include any new Sena leaders being made ministers. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said he "won't be hapless before someone".
3. Reshuffle: Whose party is it anyway? Anupriya Patel might be the young new face in the Cabinet, aimed at bringing in votes in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, but she's still fighting with her mother over her party, named ironically, Apna Dal.
4. The Telangana government has complained to the Centre that Andhra Pradesh committed cyber-theft, stealing an online application format for investors that was aimed at improving its Ease of Doing Business ranking.
5. Tej Pratap Yadav, son of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, is carrying on the grand tradition of his party: threatening journalists.


Punditry
1. Ranjit Hoskote in the Indian Express looks back at the work of KG Subramanyam, who was always willing to depart from orthodoxy.
2. A leader in Mint says Raghuram Rajan is right, the Reserve Bank of India Governor post should have a tenure longer than three years.
3. Rafael Behr in the Guardian has a long-read on how the Remain campaign managed to lose the Brexit vote.

Giggles

Don't Miss
Vinita Govindarajan reports on the sense of unease in Chennai after five gruesome murders, even though the crime rate has actually been coming down.

But coming off the back of a string of crimes, including the murders of a Right to Information activist, who challenged building violations, and that of a lawyer for the transgender community – both of whom were hacked in public spaces in broad daylight – the media and Opposition parties questioned whether Chennai had lost its reputation as one of the safest cities in India and criticised the state government for not tackling crime seriously.

“There are many antisocial elements and the government is pushing everything below the carpet,” said U Vasuki, member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and general secretary of the All India Women’s Democratic Association. “Only the steps taken by the police and the government, not only in this particular case, but in general for the protection of women, only that will instil confidence among the public.”