Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee will now run the foreign ministry, after a Cabinet reshuffle that brings in three new faces.
The new defense minister will be A.K. Antony, a former chief minister of the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Also sworn in as junior ministers were M.H. Ambareesh, a film actor-turned Congress politician, and Jayprakash Narain Yadav of the government's coalition partner, Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The crucial foreign ministry post fell vacant last November when then-minister Natwar Singh was charged with receiving kickbacks in the investigation of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.
This reshuffle takes the number of ministers in the three-level Cabinet to 80. It has 34 ministers, seven deputy ministers and 39 junior ministers.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.