Minister of Defence (India) Minister of Defence (India) The Minister of Defence is the head of the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India. They are often assisted by a Minister of State for Defence and less-commonly, the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of Defence. The defence minister additionally serves as President of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, and as Chancellor of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and of the National Defence University. The first defence minister of independent India was Baldev Singh, who served in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet during 1947–52. Nirmala Sitharaman, the current defence minister of India is
Prime Minister of India Congress. Subsequently, Morarji Desai—a former deputy prime minister—became the first non-Congress prime minister of the country. The government of Prime Minister Desai was composed of groups with opposite ideologies, in which unity and coordination were difficult to maintain. Ultimately, after two and a half years as PM; on 28 July 1979, Morarji tendered his resignation to the president; and his government fell. Thereafter, Charan Singh—a deputy prime minister in Desai's cabinet—with outside, conditional support from Congress, proved a majority in Lok Sabha and took oath as prime minister. However, Congress pulled its support shortly after, and Singh had to resign;