PERSONS JUNE 2011

PERSONS JUNE 2011

• Raj Kumar Singh took over as Union Home Secretary of India. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cleared his appointment. Singh succeeded Gopal Krishna Pillai who completed his two-year tenure. 
• Christine Lagarde, French finance minister Christine Lagarde was appointed as the chief of International Monetary Fund.Lagarde became the first womanto head the International Monetary Fund. Lagarde succeeded Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from the IMF in May to defend him against charges of sexual assault against a New York hotel maid. 
• Jose Graziano da Silva, the former Brazilian Food Security Minister, will be the eighth Director General (DG) of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Jose Graziano da Silva, who has served as a senior regional official for FAO since 2006, will take up the post of DG on January 1 next year. Graziano da Silva is the first person from Latin America to head the United Nation's (UN) global body on agriculture. 
• The Union government appointed M V Tanksale, executive director of the country's No. 2 state-run lender Punjab National Bank (PNB), as the new chairman and managing director of Central Bank of India. He will remain in office till 31 July 2013. 
• Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha- on 27 June 2011,he was appointed Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff (CISC). Sinha's name for the post was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, almost two months after the top tri-services post fell vacant. 
• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) approved the appointment of 1974-batch IFS officer Ranjan Mathai, presently Ambassador in Paris, as Foreign Secretary. He will succeed Nirupama Rao, IFS, on her retirement on 31 July 2011 to office for a term of two years. 
• Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, former Rwandan Minister for women's empowerment, became the first woman to be found guilty of genocide and incitement to rape by an international tribunal. Judges at the U.N. court for Rwanda sentenced Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life in prison for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and rape. Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty on seven of the 11 genocide charges she faced for atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region in 1994. 
• Ban Ki-moon-The United Nations General Assembly on 21 June 2011 agreed to appoint former South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-moon to a second consecutive term as the Secretary-General of the 192-member Organization. Ban’s second term will run from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2016. He has been in office since January 2007. He had succeeded Kofi Annan of Ghana. Ban is the eighth person to serve as UN chief. 
• Prof. Suresh Tendulkar -Eminent economist, who played a significant part in moulding the government’s economic policy, died of a cardiac arrest in Pune on 21 June 2011. At the time of death, he was one of the directors of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India. Prof. Tendulkar was a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) from 2004 to 2008. He was the Chairman of PMEAC from 2008 to 2009 when C. Rangarajan vacated the chief’s position to enter the Rajya Sabha. Prof. Tendulkar’s worked extensively on poverty and estimation of people below poverty line (BPL). In his report submitted in November 2009 as Chairman of an expert group on the methodology for estimation of poverty constituted by the Planning Commission, he estimated that every third Indian is living in poverty and the number of the poor has shot up by nearly 10 per cent to over 37 per cent. 
• Kothapalli Jayashankar- Former Vice-Chancellor of Kakatiya University and ideologue for the separate movement died on 21 June 2011. He had been a guiding force for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in channelising the aspirations of its cadres, particularly the youth, for creation of a separate State of Telangana. He played a key role in the TRS' negotiations with the Centre on 9 December 2009 that led to the announcement by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram that the Government of India would begin the process of creating a separate State. He worked as a member of National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector during 2004–2006. 
• Sheikh Dr. Abu Muhammad Ayman al-Zawahiri –He was appointed as the Amir (supreme leader) of the Al-Qaeda. He was Osama bin-Laden's long-standing lieutenant to lead al-Qaeda. The general command of al-Qaeda announced the appointment and this announcement was made public on 16 June 2011. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a 1959-born former Egyptian surgeon. Saif al-Adel (an Egyptian), the head of the al Qaeda Shura council, was acting as the interim leader of the al-Qaeda; after the death of Osama Bin Laden on 2 May 2011, till the appointment of Ayman al-Zawahiri. 
• M F Husain-Celebrated Indian artist (painter), died in London on 9 June 2011. He was popularly known as MF and was regarded as ‘Picasso of India’. He was 95 years old.M F Husain was born on September 17, 1915 in Pandharpur of Solapur District of Maharashtra. In 1952, MF Husain's first solo exhibition was held at Zurich and soon he became popular in Europe and USA. Husain went on to become one of the highest paid painters in India. His paintings have fetched millions of dollars at the auction. In 1966, MF Husain was honored with Padma Shree by the Government of India. MF Husain’s first film was ‘Through the Eyes of a Painter’ in 1967. The film won a Golden Bear when it was shown at the Berlin Film Festival. He has also made two Hindi movies, (1) ‘Gaja Gamini’ and (2) ‘Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities.’ 
• Nataraja Ramakrishna-Popular kuchipudi classical dancer, known for reviving and introducing Andhra Natyam and Perini Shivatandavam, died on 7 June 2011.Ramakrishna was born in Bali, Indonesia, where his parents had migrated from East Godavari. The family later returned to India and Ramakrishna started showing interest in classical dance forms. At the age of 18, he was given the title of Nataraja in Nagpur, which got added to his name Ramakrishna.He is well known for introducing the dance form of Perini Shivatandavam which highlighted the role of warriors under King Ganapathi Devudu of the Kakatiya dynasty. He was also credited with the revival of the Andhra Natyam dance form, a devotional temple dance tradition performed in Andhra Pradesh for over 400 years until it went virtually extinct.He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1992. He also received a doctorate from the Andhra University and a Bharata Kala Prapoorna apart from the NTR State Award. 
• Suzanne Al Houby-Palestinian-born and UAE-based mother of two, Suzanne Al Houby, on 21 May 2011 became the first Arab woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak. Originally from Jaffa, Palestine, 40-year-old Al Houby reached the 8,848-metre peak at after spending 51 days scaling Mount Everest as part of a four-person team, three of whom successfully reached the summit. Since Mount Everest was first scaled by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, approximately 100 women have accomplished the feat. 
• Devi Prasad-A prominent artist, died in South Delhi on 1 June 2011. He was also a pioneering studio potter, painter, designer, photographer, art educator and peace activist all rolled into one. After completing graduation from Shantiniketan he joined Mahatma Gandhi's Sevagram. He stayed at Sevagram until 1962 where he developed an art school and edited a journal. He was awarded the Lalit Kala Ratna award by Lalit Kala Akademi 2007.