NEW DELHI: Manish Tewari, until now national spokesperson for the Congress party, has become the new Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister as Minister of State with independent charge.

The new I&B Minister will hardly have time to settle down as the four metros of India move nearer to the digitisation deadline of 31 October. Tewari will have to be firm as several local cable operators have sounded a possible law and order problem with a large number of consumer homes still not having digital set top boxes (STBs). They have been asking for an extension of the deadline but the government has resisted claiming that the STB penetration has touched as high as 85 per cent, a figure various industry experts have found hard to digest.

Tewari, like his predecessor Ambika Soni who resigned on Saturday to devote her energies to strengthening the party ahead of the General Elections in 2014, hails from Punjab. Soni is a Rajya Sabha member from the states, while Tewari is a member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Ludhiana.

Soon after the swearing in by President Pranab Mukherjee, Tewari said he would contact the outgoing Minister before saying anything about digitisation for which the deadline is 31 October. "I have not applied my mind to it so far. I will talk to all the stakeholders. First I will talk to the outgoing Minister Ambika Soni?.

S Jagathrakshakan, who was until now Minister of State for I&B, has been moved to New and Renewable Energy.

The I&B Ministry does not have a Minister of State at a time when cable TV digitisation is on the anvil. Furthermore, the Ministry has a vital role to play ahead of the elections.

Tewari, 47, is a first-time member of the Lok Sabha and was elected in May 2009. It is for the first time since independence of the country that Ludhiana has got representation in the central Government. As an MP, he has been member of several Parliamentary Committees.

His father late Vishwanath Tewari, a professor of Punjab University, was a freedom fighter and also a Member of Parliament and was killed by terrorists a few months before Operation Blue Star. His grandfather Tirath Singh had been a Minister in the Congress Government in Punjab.

Manish is married to Dr Naaznin B. Shafa, a Parsi who was also involved with the National Students Union of India (NSUI) along with him.

Tewari is a popular face on television as he has argued vociferously and impeccably for the Congress party on several issues.

Commencing his association with the party in 1981 through the NSUI while still in DAV College in Chandigarh, he became National President of the NSUI in 1988 and a member of the All India Congress Committee in 1991. He became Secretary of the AICC in 1997 and National President of the Indian Youth Congress in the following year when he was also made the national spokesperson for the Congress. His predecessor in the Ministry, Soni, had also held the post of President of the Indian Youth Congress in the mid-seventies.

His interests include pro bono legal assistance to the poor, and watching historical and period movies. He has contributed numerous articles on current and topical issues such as energy security, national and international security, nuclear disarmament, terrorism etc. to periodicals and addressed national and international seminars and conferences on these subjects

As a student, Tewari had been involved in swimming and running; and captained the Chandigarh and Punjab University teams to various National and Inter University Swimming and Water Polo Championships.

Tewari is widely traveled and has been to around 30 countries.

Meanwhile, eminent Telugu film actor K Chiranjeevi, the only other new face to be sworn in as MoS with Independent Charge, has been given the Tourism portfolio.

Kapil Sibal, who had been holding dual charge of Communications and Information Technology as well as Human Resource Development Ministries, has now been divested of HRD which has gone to M M Pallam Raju who has been promoted to Cabinet Rank.

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