Oil-for-food scam
Indian PM retains FM slot
From Meerza Iqbal Baig

NEW DELHI—Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh retained the key foreign affairs ministry Friday in a cabinet reshuffle after dumping a scandal-hit colleague from the portfolio last week, a senior official said.
Natwar Singh was stripped of his post as foreign minister more than a week ago after being named in Iraq’s oil-for-food scandal but remained minister without portfolio in the council of ministers.
The premier, who took over foreign affairs, has promised Natwar Singh his job back if a probe clears him of allegations naming him as a beneficiary of oil allocated to a Swiss-based firm in the UN oil-for-food program. The allegations were in a report by former US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker.
The premier carried out the minor shuffle before the start next week of a new parliamentary session, the senior government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It was the prime minister’s first since Congress won power in May 2004. The powerful information and broadcasting ministry went to Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, a trusted aide of ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, in addition to being parliamentary affairs minister.
Jaipal Reddy was shunted from the information ministry to the low-profile urban development ministry. There was media speculation his shift was linked to controversy over a regulatory framework for channels beaming into the country that has drawn the anger of global broadcasters.
No new faces were brought into the cabinet.
Other changes involved increasing the responsibilities of existing ministers after vacancies created by deaths and resignations, the official said.
There were no changes to key financial portfolios in the country which has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
Media reports say Singh has postponed any major cabinet changes until after results next week from an election in the eastern state of Bihar, India’s second most populous state, where the fate of the party of a key government ally hangs in the balance.