PERSONS JUNE 2017

PERSONS JUNE 2017

• Imran Khawaja: Imran Khawaja appointed as International Cricket Council (ICC) as Deputy Chairman. He is a senior lawyer and serving in the ICC Board for several years. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket was founded in 1909 as the Imperial Cricket Conference.
  
• N Vohra: Jammu and Kashmir Governor N Vohra appointed as the President of the India International Centre (IIC) one of the premier cultural institutions in the country. He is succeeded by Soli Sorabjee, former President of IIC. The India International Centre (IIC) is a well known non-official organization located in New Delhi, India.
  
• Narendra Kumar Sinha: He is a 1980 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, on 30th June assumed charge as the Information and Broadcasting Secretary. He will take charge in place of Ajay Mittal, who has been appointed as the Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training. Prior to this appointment, Mr Sinha was Secretary, Ministry of Culture.
  
• KK Venogopal: Senior advocate KK Venugopal is the new Attorney General for India. President Pranab Mukherjee has approved his appointment and formal orders are expected soon. Mr Venugopal, will succeed Mukul Rohatgi, who stepped down earlier this month, saying he wishes to get back to private practice.
  
• RK Pachnanda: R K Pachnanda takes charge as Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). He is the 29th Chief of the ITBP. He also served in all the major central paramilitary forces and agencies namely CRPF, CISF, BSF, NDRF, SPG, CBI and now the ITBP.
  
• Atmasthanandaji: Swami Atmasthanandaji, the president of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission passed away on 18th June. Swami Atmasthanandaji, was born in 1919 at Sabajpur, near Dhaka. He received mantra diksha, spiritual initiation, from Swami Vijnananandaji, a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math on January 3, 1941 at the age of 22 years.
  
  In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji, the then president of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows, and in 1949 Sannyasa vows and the name Atmasthananda. Swamiji was also appointed Secretary of the relief operations of the Math and Mission.
  
  Under his stewardship, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Swami Atmasthanandaji was elected president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission on December 3, 2007. He was the 15th President of the Order.
  
• Ramnath Kovind: Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind will be NDA nominee for Presidential election. Mr Kovind, who hails from Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, is a senior lawyer and BJP leader. Ramnath belongs to Scheduled Caste community and has worked extensively for upliftment of backward sections of society.
  
  About Ramnath Kovind
  Born: October 1, 1945 (Age: 71 years)
  Village: Paraunkh, UP
  Profession: Advocate who practised in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court for 16 years and a politician from Bharatiya Janata Party
  1998-2002:
  President of BJP Dalit Morcha and President of All-India Koli Samaj
  1994-2000 and 2000-2006:
  He stepped into politics in 1994 when he was elected as a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh. He served for two consecutive terms for 12 years till March, 2006.
  August 8, 2015:
  Appointed as the Governor of Bihar
  
• Shashi Shanker: Shashi Shanker will be the next chairman and managing director of India’s biggest oil and gas producer, ONGC. Government headhunter, Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB), selected Mr. Shanker to head Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) from October 1.
  
  Mr. Shanker is currently director (technical and field services), ONGC. He will replace Dinesh K. Sarraf, who retires on September 30 upon attaining superannuation.
  
• Dalveer Bhandari: India has re-nominated Justice Dalveer Bhandari as its candidate for another term as judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  
  Justice Bhandari was elected in April 2012 during simultaneous balloting in both the General Assembly and the Security Council to a seat on the ICJ. His current term runs through February next year.
  
  India filed Justice Bhandari's re-nomination with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, ahead of the July 3rd deadline.
  
  The ICJ elections will be held in November and if elected, he will serve a term of nine years.
  
  During his term at the ICJ, Justice Bhandari has been engaged actively in the work of the Court. He has delivered individual opinions in eleven cases covering a broad spectrum of subjects such as maritime disputes, whaling in Antarctica, crime of genocide, nuclear disarmament, financing of terrorism and violation of sovereign rights. ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations based in The Hague in the Netherlands.
  
• Vladimir Voronkov: The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Russian diplomat Vladimir Voronkov to head the newly established UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT). The Vladimir Voronkov has been given the rank of Under-Secretary-General. It is developed to oversee the counterterrorism efforts of 36 UN-funded programs under the ambit of a variety of UN agencies, 12 inter-agency working groups, Interpol, and the World Customs Organisation.
  
• Palbinder Kaur Shergill: An Indian-origin Sikh woman human rights activist has been appointed a judge of the Canadian Supreme Court of British Columbia in New Westminster, the first turbaned Sikh to be appointed to the judiciary of the country.
  
  Palbinder Kaur Shergill, a sole practitioner with Shergill & Company, has extensive trial and appellate experience and has appeared before courts and tribunals across Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
  
• Adaw West:Adam West, the actor whose career was defined by his superhero role in the hit 1960s television series “Batman,” has died.
  
  Donning a cape, cowl and bat gloves, West catapulted to fame after portraying the superhero Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne on the popular campy television series that premiered in 1966 and ran three seasons until its 1968 cancellation.
  
• C. Narayan Reddy: Eminent Poet and Jnanpith Award recipient Dr. C Narayana Reddy passed away on 12th June.
  
  Born in Karimnagar district, Hanmajipeta (Now in Siricilla district) of Telangana in 1931, he received the highest literary award of the country, Jnanpith, for his ' Viswambhara' in 1988. Prior to that, the Government honoured his with Padmasri and Padma Bhushan for his scholarly writings.
  
  Popularly known as ‘CiNaRe’, he was proficient in Telugu, Urdu and Hindi and several other languages and wrote hundreds of books in all forms of literature. He also wrote lyrics for hundreds of Telugu Films.
  
• Leo Varadkar: Leo Varadkar, a 38-year-old Indian-origin doctor, became Ireland's youngest prime minister.
  
  Varadkar, the country's first Indian-origin premier, officially took over from Enda Kenny as Taoiseach, as the Irish prime ministerial title is known, after a parliamentary vote in Dublin confirmed him as the leader by 57 votes to 50, with 47 abstentions.
  
• Jerry Brown: California Governor Jerry Brown has been named as a special envoy to states at the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, further elevating his international profile as a leader on the issue as President Donald Trump backs away from a key international agreement.
  
• PN Bhagawathi passed away
  Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) PN Bhagwati passed away years in New Delhi on 15th June. The 17th Chief Justice of India, Bhagwati remained on the highest judicial post between July 1985 and December 1986.
  
  He was a former Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court and was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in July 1973. As a Supreme Court judge, Bhagwati introduced the concepts of public interest litigation (PIL) and absolute liability to the Indian judicial system.
  
  As a champion of PILs, he had ruled there was no need for a person to have any locus standi (the right or capacity to bring an action or to appear in a court) to knock the doors of a court on the issue of fundamental rights. He was also instrumental in furthering the cause of prisoners when he ruled that they too enjoyed fundamental rights.
  
• Sher Bahadur Deuba: Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba has been elected new prime minister of Nepal. Out of 593 parliamentarians, 388 voted in his favor. He will be 40th prime minister of Nepal.
  
  Deuba will take charge of prime ministership fourth time. The veteran Nepali Congress leader first became prime minister in 1995 and later in 2001 and 2004. He was first elected member of parliament in 1991 from Dadeldhura district. Deuba started his political career as student leader.
  
  Election for new prime minister was held due to resignation by the CPN (Maoist Centre) Chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal from the post of prime minister. Dahal had resigned on May 24 as per the power sharing understanding with the coalition partner Nepali Congress.
  
• Sam Pitroda: Noted technocrat Sam Pitroda has resigned from Odisha government’s technical advisor post. Pitroda, who enjoyed the status of a cabinet rank minister as technical advisor to Odisha government had sent his resignation letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was accepted.
  
• Ananya: Ananya Kamboj, a eighth standard student from Vivek High chool, Mohali has been selected to represent India as a young journalist at the global Football For Friendship (F4F) social programme in Russia.
  
  The F4F programme, supported by Gazprom and FIFA, focuses on the development of children's football, fostering tolerance and respect for different cultures and nationalities among children from different countries. India joins the programme for the first time and will participate alongside 60 other countries.
  
• Itsuki Morita: A 6-year-old boy has set a new Guinness record for being the world's youngest club DJ after he played an hour-long set at a restaurant in Japan.
  
  Itsuki Morita, who has just started attending elementary school in Japan, played a number of tracks using professional DJ decks in front of a big crowd of both adults and other kids in Tokyo.
  
• N. Ganeshan: Ganeshan the assigned Competitions Manager of the ITTF, has become a member of the prestigious Umpires and Referees Committee (URC), the technical arm of the ITTF.
  
  Ganeshan is the first official from India to become a member of the committee which looks into the technical aspects of the game. The term of a URC member is two years. Ganeshan will also be the technical commissioner from Asia for a four-year term.
  
  He was recently nominated chairman of the South Asian Federation technical committee. Ganeshan is also a member of the technical committee of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Federation. He has officiated in several international tournaments as Competitions Manager and referee, including the 2016 World Championships and 2014 Commonwealth Games.
  
• Shashi Shekar Vempati: Shashi Shekar Vempati has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati. He will have a tenure of five years from the date of assumption of office. According to an official release, he was appointed on the recommendation of the three member committee headed by Vice President M. Hamid Ansari. Mr. Vempati is currently serving as a part time member of the Prasar Bharati Board since February, 2017.
  
• Dasari Narayanarao: Former union minister and renowned film director Dasari Narayana Rao passed away in Hyderabad. Born in 1942 in Palakollu in Andhra Pradesh, Dasari directed 151 pictures in Telugu and other languages and had several super hit films to his credit. He entered into Guiness book of Records for directing highest number of films.
  
  He also worked as script writer, lyricist and produced more than 50 films. Winner of several awards, he introduced several artists and technicians to the Telugu film industry.
  
  Dasari joined Congress Party in early 2000 and served as minister of State for coal in the cabinet of Manmohan Singh government during UPA -1. He was one among the accused in the coal scam and CBI registered a case against him in 2013.