Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week reshuffled his cabinet in an attempt to revamp his administration in his second term. Out of the 77 cabinet ministers holding their office, including some who were present previously and some fresh faces, 11 are women.
This is the highest number of women in the Union Council of Minister for the time in the last 17 years. However, when it comes to representation in the Union Executive, the numbers are still quite unimpressive, given the Modi government's own record of 25 per cent of women ministers in his first Union Cabinet in 2014.
Currently, the share of women, holding important portfolios in the Cabinet is only 7 per cent. The 11 women cabinet ministers also have varying portfolios making it difficult to actually determine the female representation in the ruling government officials.
Women In Modi Cabinet 2.0
During the process, many ministers were dropped off and many were promoted. Former Ministers such as Remesh Pokhriyal had also resigned from their posts right before the reshuffling.
Seven women joined PM Modi's council recently, adding to the four existing women ministers - Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Renuka Singh Saruta. The others included Pratima Bhowmick, Meenakshi Lekhi, Anupriya Patela and Annapurna Devi.
The Union Executive, which persists to be a male-dominated area still, has only 14 per cent of ministerial posts and make up 7 per cent of the Cabinet for women. According to a report by The Print, the average female share in ministerial appointments is 23 per cent across 156 countries while India remains at 14 per cent.
Out of the total women ministers, only two ministers hold the cabinet portfolio as of now- Sitharaman as the finance minister and Irani as women and child development minister.
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