PERSONS MAY 2013

PERSONS MAY 2013

• Shashi Kant Sharma---- The President of Indian Union, Pranab Mukherjee on 21 May 2013 appointed Shashi Kant Sharma as the new Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. Shashi Kant Sharma will succeed Vinod Rai who superannuates on 21 May 2013 after completing tenure of five and a half years as the Head of the Constitutional Financial body. He is the IAS officer of 1976 Bihar Cadre and at present was holding the post of Defence Secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Government of India. 

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• T M Soundararajan( 91)---- Tamil playback singer T M Soundararajan died at his residence in Chennai on 25 May 2013 after a brief illness. He had been awarded various honours including the Padmashri and the state government’s Kalaimani. He hailed from Madurai. He was a playback singer for nearly four decades in Tamil cinema. He almost sang for all the leading actors. He had rendered over 5000 cinema and devotional songs. He had last sung in the theme song of the world classical tamil conference in 2010, composed by AR Rahman.TMS also had sung devotional songs, especially on Lord Muruga, with his most famous 'Ullam uruguthayya' (The heart melts) instantly evoking devotion.

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• Yuichiro Miura (80)---- The 80-year old mountaineer from Japan reached Mount Everest’s summit on 23 May 2013. With this, he became the oldest man to climb the highest mountain peak of the world. Yuichiro Miura climbed the Everest at the age of 70 and 75 as well. As the oldest man to climb Mount Everest, he replaced Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan who climbed the Everest at the age of 76 years in 2008. 

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• Arunima Sinha (25) ---Arunima became the first Indian amputee to conquer Mount Everest on 21 may 2013. Arunima Sinha is former national level volleyball player and had lost one of her legs after being thrown off a moving train of Padmawati Express for resisting a chain-snatching attempt by some criminals, when she was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi on 12 April 2011. She scaled the 8848 metre-high summit of the world’s highest peak at 10.55 a.m. as IST on 21 May 2013. 

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• Avinash Chander – The man behind India’s 5,000-km range Agni missile and its smaller range variants on 31 May, was appointed as the new Director General of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). A former director of Advanced System Laboratory in Hyderabad and project director of Agni, he was the chief controller in charge of missiles and strategic systems at DRDO headquarters before taking over as the DRDO chief from V K Saraswat, who spearheaded the surface-to-surface Prithvi missile programme. Chander has successfully delivered three long-range weapon systems in the Agni series, which are under various stages of induction in the armed forces.

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• Indian-American Arvind Mahankali, triumphed on 30 may, in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, New York, correctly spelled 'knaidel,' the word for a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. The bee tested brain power, composure and, for the first time, knowledge of vocabulary. Arvind finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012, and both times, he was eliminated on German-derived words. This time, he got one German word in the finals, and the winning word was from German-derived Yiddish, eliciting groans and laughter from the crowd. He spelled both with ease. Arvind becomes the sixth consecutive Indian-American winner and the 11th in the past 15 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the title in 1999 and was later featured in the documentary ``Spellbound.'' Arvind's family is from Hyderabad in southern India.

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• Rituparno Ghosh---- Noted filmmaker on 29 May died of cardiac arrest at his south Kolkata residence. He was 49.Winner of 12 national and some international awards, Ghosh was suffering from pancreatitis and died of heart attack at 7.30am, his family said.Ghosh shot to fame by his direction of a children's film 'Hirer Angti' in 1994. His film 'Unishe April' won national award winner in 1995.His other widely acclaimed films include 'Dahan', 'Asukh', 'Chokher Bali', 'Raincoat', 'Bariwali', 'Antarmahal' and 'Noukadubi'.

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• The Ministry of Women and Child Development appointed Kushal Singh as the Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in New Delhi on May 29.She was selected by the Committee that was headed by Krishna Tirath, Minister of Women and Child Development. Kushal Singh held various high level posts in the Central Government as well as the Government of Rajasthan. She was the Chief Secretary of the Government of Rajasthan. She also held the post of the Chairperson Board of Revenue, Rajasthan Pollution Control Board and the Commissioner for Disabled Persons, Government of Rajasthan.

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• Laxman Singh Rathore---- The Director General of Meteorology & Permanent Representative of India with World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was elected as the Member of Executive Council of WMO during the 65th Executive Council of WMO meeting, which is ongoing at Geneva. 

• He had served a term as the Vice President of Commission of Agriculture Meteorology of WMO and was also elected to serve the Executive Council in an individual capacity. The council includes 37 Heads/Directors/Director Generals of National Meteorological Services and also the President and three Vice-Presidents who are elected by Congress. The Executive Council of WMO is an executive body of this organisation. The council meets yearly to implement the decisions of Congress, coordinate the programmes, examine the utilization of budgetary resources, consider and take action on recommendations of Regional Associations and Technical Commissions and guide their work programme, provide technical information, counsel and assistance in the fields of activity of the Organization and study and take actions on matters affecting international meteorology and related activities. 

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• Nirbhay Sharma----- On 16 May 2013 appointed as governor of Arunachal Pradesh as the term of present incumbent Gen (Retd) J J Singh ended in January 2013. He served eight tenures in Jammu and Kashmir and the north east in various command assignments beside holding important assignments in Military Operations, Planning, Crisis Management, Material Management and UN Peace Keeping Missions. He was heading the Army division when the Uri- Muzaffarabad road was opened and his men were involved in the construction of 'Aman Setu', a bridge connecting the two sides of Kashmir. He was also a part of the Airborne Assault Group, the first Indian Army Unit to enter Dacca (Dhaka) during 1971 war.

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• Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar---- The dhrupad vocalist passed away on 8 May 2013 following brief illness at his Gurukul near Panvel. He was 80 years of age. Drupad is the oldest existing north Indian classical music form. Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar was born in Udaipur, Rajasthan on 15 June 1932. He was also the court musician of Maharana Bhupal Singh of Udaipur. He played a prominent role in reviving the dhrupad tradition in the 20th century along with his brother late Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, the legendary rudra veena player. Ustad Fariduddin won various prestigious honours and awards such as Tagore Award, Tansen Samman and Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship. He was also conferred upon with the Padma Shri- India's fourth highest civilian honor in 2012, but he turned it down. He also remained a distinguished guest faculty at the Dhrupad Sansar of IIT Bombay for 5 years.

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• Asghar Ali Engineer (73) ---- Noted Islamic scholar died on 14 May 2013 after a prolonged illness in Mumbai. From 1980, he edited the journal named the Islamic Perspective and during 1980s he published a series of books on Islam and communal violence in India. His books were based on his investigations in the post-independent India. The USA International Student Assembly and the USA Indian Student Assembly honoured him with Distinguished Service Award in 1987.For communal harmony, he received Dalmia Award in 1990 He was the Chairman of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) founded in 1993 after the 1992 Babri Mosque destruction He edited Indian Journal of Secularism He received the National Communal Harmony Award in 1997 He won the USA Award from the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia in 2003.

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• The Chennai-born Mittu Chandilya named as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AirAsia’s Indian operations on 15 May. Air Asia India (Private) Ltd., a joint venture between Air Asia, Tata Sons and Telstra, will start a low cost airline in India by the year-end with Chennai as its hub. Mr. Chandilya will assume office effective June 1, 2013.

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• Raha Moharrak became the first Saudi woman and also the youngest Arab to make it to the top of Everest. She is 25 years old. She is part of a four-person expedition which comprises the first Qatari man and the first Palestinian man as well who are attempting to reach the summit. The expedition is trying to raise fund for education projects in Nepal. Moharrak is a university graduate currently based in Dubai and hails from Jeddah. She had to overcome a lot of barriers to achieve her goal.

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• Samina Baig----- on 19 May 2013 became the first Pakistani woman to scale Mount Everest. She did this along with Nunshi and Tashi Malik, the first Indian twin sisters to scale the Everest.After reaching to the top of Everest, all three women hoisted Indian and Pakistani flags along side, depicting a message of collaborative action, friendship and peace. The Nepal Mountaineering Department officials confirmed the feat, while at the same time, also explaining that 35 foreigners along with 29 Nepalese Sherpa guides scaled the Everest after climbing from highest camp on South Col, which is the pass between Mt. Everest and another neighbouring mountain.

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• Nunshi and Tashi Malik---- Two 21-year old Indians from Dehrahdun became first twins to scale Mount Everest on 19 May 2013. They were among 135 other people, who reached the top of the Mount Everest, which is the highest mountain of the world at 8,848 meter above sea level. It is interesting to note that these twins reached the top of Mount Everest with two sherpas, who were also twins. Both these twin sisters were staying on mountains in that region in order to get acquainted with the atmosphere. Along with them, 11-member joint Indian and Nepal army expedition reached that summit. 

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• Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta is new CJ of AP High Court

• Hyderabad: Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta of the Uttarakhand High Court has been appointed Chief Justice of the AP High Court. Following assent from President Pranab Mukherjee, the Centre on 17th May notified the new CJ's appointment. 

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• Born on May 7, 1953, and brought up in Kolkata, Justice Sengupta started his legal career as a lawyer in April 1981 and practised civil, criminal and constitutional matters at the Calcutta High Court. He was appointed permanent judge in the same court in 1997. He also held the positions of the Executive Chairman of the West Bengal State Legal Services Authority and the acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court in October 2012.

• Roberto Azevedo ----Roberto Azevedo of Brazil on 8 May 2013 was named as the Head of the World Trade Organisation. He will take charge of his office from Pascal Lamy of France in the Geneva-based Body in September 2013. Azevedo is the first Latin American to be appointed as the head of the WTO since it was created in 1995. The process of electing the WTO Head took a period of about six months. WTO was established with the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement/ Marrakesh Declaration at Marrakesh, Morrocco in 1994. WTO came up as a replacement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was overseeing the rules of commerce since 1948. GATT covered only the trade of goods, whereas WTO deals with trade of inventions, designs and services too.

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• Ray Harryhausen (92)----- The master of visual effects and stop-motion animation, died on 7 May 2013 in London, UK. Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation films such as Clash of the Titans, and Jason and the Argonauts were his outstanding achievements. He was an inspiration for various film directors such as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson of the Lord of the Rings. In 1992, he received special Oscar for his work with special effects in days just before computer-generated imagery. He was inducted in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005. He won the annual British Fantasy Society Wagner Award in 2008 for the lifetime contribution to animation. In 2003, he was honored with star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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• Profulla Borua (75)---- The veteran Indian journalist died in Guwahati, Assam after prolonged illness on 6 May 2013. Profulla Borua severed as Editor for quite a few prominent Assamese newspapers. From 1969 to 1986, he was the editor of Janambhumi, the prominent newspaper of 0 North East. He was also the editor of Dainik Asam from 1987 to 1995. 

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• Sanaullah Ranjay---- The Pakistani prisoner who was attacked by a jail inmate in Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu died due to multi-organ failure at the PGI Hospital in Chandigarh on 9 May, 2013. Sanaullah was attacked by a fellow inmate, who was a former Indian army soldier on 3 May 2013 after the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian Prisoner in Jinnah Hospital, Lahore after he was attacked by his jail inmates in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Pakistan. Sanaullah was in prison for the past 17 years on militancy related charges. He was a resident of Sialkot, Pakistan and was serving a life term in India after being convicted under the TADA provisions. He was arrested in 1999.

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• Sunil Chopra----A leading NRI in the UK has been elected as the Deputy Mayor of a London Borough. Councilor Sunil Chopra, has been elected as the Deputy Mayor of Southwark for 2013-14.Delhi-born Chopra, General Secretary of the Indian Overseas Congress, London, is the first and only Indian-origin elected councilor in London Borough of Southwark Council, which has only 1.5 per cent Indian-origin people.

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• Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, the Dhrupad vocalist passed away on 8th May 2013 following brief illness at his Gurukul near Panvel. He was 80 years old. 

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• Drupad is the oldest existing north Indian classical music form. Ustad was born in Udaipur, Rajasthan on 15 June 1932. He was also the court musician of Maharana Bhupal Singh of Udaipur. He played a prominent role in reviving the Dhrupad tradition in the 20th century along with his brother late Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, the legendary rudra veena player. 

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• Ustad Fariduddin was the master of srutis. He was renowned for his Drupad vocal not just in India, but across the world. He performed in various popular music festivals in India and abroad. He won several honours and awards such as Tagore Award, Tansen Samman and Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship. He was also conferred with the Padma Shri - India's fourth highest civilian honor in 2012, but he turned it down. He also remained a distinguished guest faculty at the Dhrupad Sansar of IIT Bombay, the facility which was started under the Cell for Human Values to create an appreciation about Indian classical arts and culture among the students and staff of the institution.

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• Staffan de Mistura ----Italy appointed Staffan de Mistura the Deputy Foreign Minister of Italy as the Special Envoy to India on Marines Issue. The Prime Minister of Italy Enrico Letta did his appointment to the post. Staffan de Mistura's appointment as the special envoy was done to work out for a fair outcome of the case against the two Italian Marines facing trial for killing two Indian fishermen on the coast of Kerela in February 2012. He has been a frequent visitor to India from the Italian side, since the two marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone were arrested in the case.

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• Sarabjit Singh (49) ---- The Indian national and a death row prisoner in the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail died on 2 May 2013 at the Lahore's Jinnah Hospital in Pakistan. He was on the life-support system since 26 April 2013 after being attacked by the inmates in the jail. Sarabjit Singh is an Indian national who was born in Bhikhiwind Province of Punjab and had spent 23 years in Pakistani jail, after being convicted of involvement in the serial bomb blasts of 1990 in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. He was arrested from Kasur Border for illegal crossing the border in Pakistan in August 1990. In May 2012, his fifth mercy petition was dismissed.

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• G. Satheesh Reddy, a navigation scientist, has been appointed Director, Research Centre Imarat (RCI), a premier missile laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). He will assume charge on 1 May. Mr. Reddy, who did his B.Tech (ECE) from JNTU, Anantapur and M.S. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from JNTU Hyderabad, joined DRDO in July 1986 and has been serving RCI right from its inception. A press release said that Mr. Reddy has contributed enormously towards development in critical areas of inertial systems, embedded computers, real time software, guidance and control technologies along with associated avionics systems. He has been conferred with many awards for his innovative efforts, including Young Scientist Award, AGNI award for excellence in self reliance, DRDO Scientist of Year Award in 2010 and FAPCCI’s Outstanding Engineer Award for 2011. He was conferred the DRDO Performance Excellence Award twice for his contribution towards success of BrahMos and Dhanush missions. Path Breaking Research/ Outstanding Technology Development Award was also given on two occasions. Mr. Reddy is the Vice-Chairman of the Aeronautical Society of India and has been inducted into various professional bodies.

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• Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, an IAS officer of the 1979 batch on 1 May 2013 was appointed as Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh government. He will be succeeding Minnie Mathew who retired on 1 May 2013 after completing a three-month extension. Prasana Mohanty obtained his Master’s and doctorate degrees from Boston University and completed his post-doctorate work in Finance Policy and Urban Affairs from the Harvard. Prasana Kumar Mohanty has worked in various capacities in different parts of the State. He was the collector of Guntur, Commissioner of Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, and Commissioner and Special Officer of (erstwhile) Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. He had also won the Prime Minister’s Award for best civic services and it was during his tenure from 1999 to 2001 that Hyderabad got a facelift as it emerged a metropolis. He was Joint Secretary and Mission Director in the Union Urban Affairs Ministry in 2006 and later elevated to become Secretary and Mission Director.

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• Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa was elected as the new president of Asian Football Confederation on 2 May 2013. He replaced Mohamed Bin Hammam. Bahraini Sheikh Salman won 33 votes out of 46 in Malaysia to beat his rival Yousuf Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates as well as Worawi Makudi of Thailand. Sheikh Salman claimed the vacant seat on executive committee of FIFA as well, which was held by Bin Hammam. On this seat, Sheikh Salman defeated Qatar World Cup organising chief Hassan Al Thawadi. It is important to note that Bin Hammam was given a lifetime ban in 2011 by FIFA on the basis of allegations that he tried to buy the votes. He eventually retired from football in July 2012 after his suspension was annulled. Sheikh Salman took over last 20 months of term of Bin Hammam as the AFC president. Next elections will be held in January 2015. The position of AFC president gives a person the control of all major football events in Asia.