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Ethnic Indians get posts

SINGAPORE: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday appointed an ethnic Indian lawyer, K. Shanmugam, as Law Minister and concurrently as Second Minister for Home Affairs, also of Cabinet status. Mr. Shanmugam will be inducted into both these posts on May 1.

Announcing changes to the Cabinet line-up, Mr. Lee retained three other ethnic Indians. Of them, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security S. Jayakumar will continue to hold these offices while handing over Law to Mr. Shanmugam.

Finance will remain with Tharman Shanmugaratnam. He will relinquish Education. Vivian Balakrishnan is being retained as Minister for Community Development, Youth, and Sports. He will shed his concurrent position as Second Minister for Information, Communications, and the Arts. Prof. Jayakumar will continue to oversee foreign affairs of an inter-ministerial purview and look after matters relating to international adjudication and legal negotiations.

Balaji Sadasivan will stay on as Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs but relinquish his parallel position in the Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Arts. Another ethnic Indian, S. Iswaran, will be Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry.

President S. R. Nathan holds the highest constitutional position in Singapore.

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