Amit Khare returns to I&B, Health Secy Preeti Sudan gets extension in reshuffle

Amit Khare has earlier headed the I&B ministry and is well versed with the issues involved. His earlier charge as secretary, schools, has been given to Anita Karwal, who was CBSE chairperson

Updated on: Apr 26, 2020, 17:34:04 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi effected a massive bureaucratic reshuffle amid the coronavirus crisis with 1985-batch Jharkhand cadre officer Amit Khare returning as secretary, information and broadcasting ministry, health secretary Preeti Sudan given a three-month extension and additional secretary PMO Tarun Bajaj taking over as secretary, department of economic affairs.

Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Amit Khare has been given charge of the information and broadcasting ministry

In view of the serious challenges being faced by the news media, be it print or TV, as also the advertising and film industry in face of the coronavirus crisis, the charge of I&B has been entrusted to Amit Khare, who retains charge as higher education secretary in the HRD ministry.

Khare has earlier headed the I&B ministry and is well versed with the issues involved. His earlier charge as secretary, schools, has been given to Anita Karwal, who was CBSE chairperson. Karwal is a 1988-batch Gujarat cadre officer.

Other important postings are Arvind Kumar Sharma, the powerful additional secretary at the PMO, who has been appointed as secretary, micro, small and medium enterprises ministry.

Rajesh Bhushan, who was secretary, rural development, has been appointed as OSD, health and family welfare ministry. He will succeed Preeti Sudan after she completes her extended tenure at the health ministry.

Tarun Kapoor, vice chairman Delhi Development Authority, will take over as petroleum secretary.

Apurva Chandra will take over as Special Secretary and Director General (Acquisitions) at the defence ministry.

Anand Kumar, a 1984 batch officer of the Kerala cadre, will move from the department of new and renewable energy to head the department of culture.

Rameshwar Prasad Gupta, a 1987-batch Gujarat cadre officer who was special secretary in NITI Aayog, has been appointed secretary in the ministry of environment, forest and climate change.

Rajesh Verma, an Odisha-cadre officer of the 1987 batch, who was special secretary in the department of agriculture, has been appointed secretary, ministry of corporate affairs.

Aramane Giridhar, an Andhra Pradesh cadre officer of the 1988 batch, who was additional secretary at the Cabinet Secretariat, has been elevated as secretary, ministry of road transport and highways.

Nagendra Nath Sinha will be the new secretary of rural development department. He is at present secretary, department of border management in the Home Ministry.

Pradip Kumar Tripathi, special secretary and establishment officer in the department of personnel and training, will be secretary in the steel ministry. He is a 1987-batch IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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