PERSONS NOVEMBER 2009

PERSONS NOVEMBER 2009

• U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated Indian-American Rajiv Shah to head the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
  
• Oxford fellowship has been given a philosophy student of Indian origin, Amia Srinivasan. With this fellowship she joined the band of scholars that includes the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.
  
• Asok Chavan sworn as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
  
• P.S. Veeraraghavan, a rocket technologist, took over as Director of Vikram Sarabahi Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, from K. Radhakrishnan. Mr. Veeraraghavan was till now Director of ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU), Thiruvananthapuram.
  
• Srikumar Banerjee, a leading expert in Materials and Technology in the country and director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has been appointed as chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)
  
• Vinita Kamte wrote a book titled “TO THE LAST BULLET” in search of truth behind her husband, 26/11 martyr Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte’s death. It was co-authored by senior journalist Vinita Deshmukh.?
  
• Veteran journalist Naresh Chandra Rajkhowa, who broke the news about the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet through Tawang in March 1959, passed away.
  
• International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato has appointed Siddharth Tiwari as Director of the IMF's Office of Budget and Planning (OBP).
  
• Carnatic vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and playback singer Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna has been appointed as the ''Asthana Vidwan'' of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) for the third time. Dr Balamuralikrishna, who performed in more than 25,000 concerts worldwide and made over 400 compositions in various languages including Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu, has now become the official singer in the Lord's court.
  
• Belgium PM Herman Van Rompuy was elected as the first President of EU. Ashton was appointed theEU's first High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and security policy.
  
• Ameed Karzai sworn in as the president of Afghanistan.