Cabinet rejig took place today where nine new members were inducted in the Union Cabinet. Amongst other things, Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who got promoted to cabinet rank from Minister of State, broke the ceiling of becoming India’s first full time woman Defence Minister.
https://twitter.com/DDNewsLive/status/904263579242659840
While many hailed it as a great and important step in gender balance representation in the top ranks in Indian politics, feminists and liberals on Twitter immediately went into action to dismiss it.
It all started with how Sitharaman is not the first woman to head Defence.
https://twitter.com/sardesairajdeep/status/904265565279322112
Conveniently forgetting that handling the portfolio which you allocate to yourself when you are the Prime Minister of a country isn’t same as being a full time minister.
https://twitter.com/sagarikaghose/status/904253509918310400
Which was immediately followed by,
https://twitter.com/sagarikaghose/status/904256755286155264
And then, someone had to bring in the fact that Sitharaman holds an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
https://twitter.com/saliltripathi/status/904253223359393793
https://twitter.com/abhisar_sharma/status/904251422622990337
And of course, there was a lot of hope, positivity and optimism exuded by the same.
https://twitter.com/sagarikaghose/status/904279107185270784
Seems like not being able to know the inside information before official announcement is not going down too well for some people.