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Journalism of Courage
Boris Johnson is set to induct three Indian-origin ministers ministers in his Cabinet. Priti Patel, Alok Sharma and Rishi Sunak have been appointed to key posts in what is being hailed the most diverse cabinet in British history. Johnson has announced that he would deliver Brexit by October 31.
Priti Patel
Priti Patel, who hails from Tarapur in Gujarat’s Anand district, was appointed Britain’s new Home Secretary. She will be in charge of immigration, crime and policing, counter-terrorism and drugs policy. She is an old Eurosceptic and a powerful backer of Brexit, and one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s main supporters within the Conservative Party. She also has a hard-right record and has thrown her weight behind a tougher asylum regime and a stricter immigration policy.
Born in London in March 1972 to Sushil and Anjana Patel, she went to school in Watford. She studied economics at Keele University, before completing her postgraduate studies at the University of Essex.
The family was a victim of the expulsion of Ugandan Asian minorities that was ordered by Idi Amin, the former President of Uganda, in 1970s, her relatives said.
Alok Sharma
Agra-born Sharma is the UK’s new Secretary of State for International Development– the British government department which administers foreign aid. He is the fifth occupant of the cabinet post in the past four years.
A Member of Parliament from the Reading West constituency since 2010, Sharma in his most recent role was the Minister of State for Employment under former PM Theresa May. He has also worked as the Prime Minister’s infrastructure envoy to India.
Although he campaigned for the Remain side in the 2016 referendum, Sharma has been a supporter of Boris Johnson.
Aged 51, Sharma is a chartered accountant and has a degree in Applied Physics. He worked in corporate finance for 16 years.
Rishi Sunak
39-year-old Sunak has been appointed as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Born in the UK to a general practitioner father and pharmacist mother, Sunak made news in India upon his marriage to Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy and author Sudha Murthy.
Sunak previously worked as a top-level investment executive managing multimillion pound ventures, and has degrees from Oxford and Stanford universities. In 2015, he was elected to the British Parliament from the Richmond (Yorkshire) constituency.
A staunch pro-Brexit campaigner during the 2016 Referendum, Sunak in 2018 became the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Sunak has called for closer ties with India and other Commonwealth countries.
