UPA's second inning: Five key ministers take charge

The UPA government got down to business in its second term with five of the six key Cabinet ministers alloted portfolios assuming charge of their respective offices today and setting out their priorities.

P Chidambaram, A K Antony and Sharad Pawar returned to the Home, Defence and Agriculture ministries they were in-charge during Manmohan Singh's first term while Pranab Mukherjee came back to the Finance Ministry, a portfolio he had held 25 years back in the Indira Gandhi government.

S M Krishna, the former Karnataka chief minister and ex-Maharashtra governor, assumed office as the new External Affairs minister after making his Cabinet debut.

All the ministers convened meetings of their top officials to get a quick update on pressing issues.

Mamata Banerjee, who was given the Railways portfolio, is in Kolkata and was yet to assume charge. Only six of the 19 Cabinet ministers who took oath along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last Friday have been allocated portfolios.

Dressed in a light grey bandgala suit, Krishna stepped into his South Block office in the midst of developments like the Gurudwara clash in Austrian capital Vienna and its violent fallout in Punjab, North Korea conducting a second nuclear test and a new Nepal prime minister being sworn in ending weeks of political uncertainty.

Chidambaram said a 100-day action plan will be implemented from June 1 and that Naxalism, terrorism and insurgency in the North-East were the key challenges. Mukherjee said his top-most priority is to bring the economy back to high growth path while Antony spoke of ensuring military preparedness.