{"id":23900,"date":"2017-09-05T10:57:26","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T09:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=23900"},"modified":"2017-09-05T10:57:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T09:57:26","slug":"india-appoints-female-defence-minister-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/05\/india-appoints-female-defence-minister-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"India Appoints Female Defence Minister For First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>In a cabinet reshuffle, India has appointed Nirmala Sitharaman as its first full time woman defence minister.<\/h2>\n<p>The appointment of Ms Sitharaman on Sunday, who was previously a minister of state for commerce and industry, has been widely welcomed.<\/p>\n<p>She had previously also worked as spokesperson for India\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).<\/p>\n<p>Indira Gandhi, former prime minister who remains the first and only female to hold the position, also held the defence portfolio, but in conjunction with others.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst 58-year-old Sitharaman hailed her appointment as an indication of the growing status of women in the country, there have been critics to her elevation from some; citing her lack of experience, particularly at a time of heightened sensitivity with a delicate relationship with neighbours Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>Correspondents in India say Sitharaman has the difficult tasks of developing the Indian armed forces into a modern power and implementing the massive military budget the government invests.<\/p>\n<p>India now has six cabinet rank women ministers, of the 27 total cabinet positions, the highest number in more than a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a cabinet reshuffle, India has appointed Nirmala Sitharaman as its first full time woman defence minister. The appointment of Ms Sitharaman on Sunday, who was previously a minister of state for commerce and industry, has been widely welcomed. She had previously also worked as spokesperson for India\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Indira Gandhi, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":23901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}