Home minister Amit Shah

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Defence minister Rajnath Singh

External affairs minister S Jaishankar

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah , who played a crucial role in the return of his party's government at the Centre, is the new home minister in Modi 2.0 Cabinet while Rajnath Singh has moved to defence, another high profile ministry. Outgoing defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman is the new finance and corporate affairs minister while surprise inductee, former foreign secretary S Jaishankar , has been allocated the critical ministry of external affairs.With the new Modi cabinet taking final shape after allocation of portfolios, the focus now shifts on the challenges ahead for the newly-inducted ministers as they take charge of their departments. Here are the priorities before the Big Four:With the SC insistent on government sticking to the July 31 deadline for completion of the NRC exercise, the Amit Shah-led home ministry will have to expedite settlement of claims and objections to meet the same. The home ministry under Shah will also face the challenge of convincing people in Assam and other states that the contentious Citizenship Bill will not affect the indigenous people.As home minister, Shah will also be leading the BJP's agenda in key areas such as internal security and policies that will influence sensitive relations between religious groups. The other priorities before Shah would be to carry forward the tough-on-terror policy in J&K and keeping development initiatives going.Sitharaman will take over the finance ministry when there is pressure from industry for the government to provide some stimulus to halt a worrying slowdown in India's $2.7 trillion economy. The government is already considering rolling out a slew of 'big-bang' economic reforms in the first 100 days of Modi's second term, with a focus on privatisation of state assets and relaxation of labour and land rules for businesses, a top official said. Sitharaman will also have to work towards improving the health of public finances and further simplify GST.Sitharaman will also present Modi 2.0 government's maiden Budget on July 5 that should look to take out the country from slowing growth, create jobs, attract investments and tackle banking sector woes.The Rajnath-led MoD will have to shed its hesitancy to undertake concrete reforms desperately required in the defence arena, from right-sizing the 15-lakh strong armed forces and formulating a coherent national security strategy to boosting the private sector’s role in arms production and plugging critical operational military gaps through faster acquisitions.Ahead of the Union Budget due in July, Rajnath must also seek to hike the defence outlay to 2% of GDP for requisite military modernisation and deterrence against China and Pakistan.Another area crying out for reform is defence production, with India continuing to languish in the strategically-vulnerable position of being the world’s largest arms importer. “The new Raksha Mantri (defence minister) should get cracking on several fronts…threats from China, Pakistan and hybrid warfare will remain major strategic challenges. Some work has already been done on finalizing an overarching national security strategy,” said a top official.The highly-rated career diplomat, who is now head of India's foreign affairs, will have to deftly navigate a trade war between the United States and China and rising tensions between the US and Iran. Another challenge for him will be to further strengthen India's ties with China, badly hit by the Doklam standoff in mid 2017.A major focus of the ministry under his leadership is likely to be on further boosting India's trade and defence ties with the US, Russia, France, Japan and the European Union as well as with the countries of the neighbourhood. Getting the long-awaited membership of the UN Security Council and Nuclear Suppliers Group are expected to be other areas of interest of the new government.Among his immediate priorities will be to take a call on whether or not India should allow resumption of the Saarc summit process. The summit is due in Islamabad.