India names new finance minister in reshuffle

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram was switched to the finance portfolio on Tuesday, the prime minister's office said, in a reshuffle that will see him charged with re-firing the country's spluttering economy.

"There has been a small reallocation of portfolios... Chidambaram has been appointed finance minister," a senior official in the premier's office, Mr Sharat Chandra, told AFP.

In other moves, under-fire Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde was promoted to the home ministry on a day when India suffered an unprecedented power cut that left half the country without electricity.

There was no place in the cabinet for political pin-up Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, who had recently indicated he was ready to play a bigger role in politics.