NEW DELHI, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- India's Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee is to become the country's next foreign minister in a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The foreign minister's post has been vacant since its last incumbent, K. Natwar Singh, was forced to resign after his name was linked to the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, the Press Trust of India reported. Mukherjee's successor in the defense ministry has not been named.
Among other changes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a member of the minority Sikh community in mostly Hindu India, promoted A.K. Anthony, currently the chief minister of the southern state of Kerala, to a federal minister with cabinet rank, the report said.
"I have got the invitation to join the government.... Regarding the portfolio I do not know anything. It is for the Prime Minister to say," Anthony was quoted as saying.
