Canadian politician Anita Anand was on Tuesday appointed Canada country’s new Defence Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, over a month after his Liberal Party returned power in the snap polls and amid calls for major military reforms.
Anand, 54, will replace long-time Defence Minister Indian-origin Harjit Sajjan, whose handling of the military sexual misconduct crisis has been under criticism.
Sajjan has been appointed Minister of International Development Agency, a report in a daily said.
Anand is the second woman in Canada to be appointed Defence Minister..
Anita Anand was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Her parents were both physicians; her mother Saroj D. Ram (now deceased) was an anesthesiologist, and her father S.V. (Andy) Anand was a general surgeon.
Her father was from Tamil Nadu and her mother was from Punjab. Anand has two sisters: Gita Anand, who is an employment lawyer in Toronto, and Sonia Anand, who is a medical doctor and researcher at McMaster University.
The family relocated to Ontario in 1985 and Anand and her husband John raised their family in Oakville. The couple has four children.
Brampton West’s Kamal Khera, another Punjabi, has been named Minister of Seniors.
Where as Bardish Chaggar, another Punjabi, Indo-Canadian minister, has been dropped from the new Cabinet.
