PERSONS NOVEMBER 2011

PERSONS NOVEMBER 2011

• B.K. CHATURVEDI-To push through power reforms and unlock the power sector, the UPA-II Government set up an expert group to suggest restructuring of power utilities of seven major States, including Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The expert group headed by Planning Commission member (Energy) B. K. Chaturvedi is expected to submit its report by March 2012. The group was entrusted with the responsibility to make an assessment of the cumulative losses of distribution utilities of seven major States, including Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. The plan for reforms follows a recent government report that revealed that the accumulated losses of the power utilities across the country ran into Rs.1.50-lakh crore and annual losses were around Rs.55.000 crore.
  
• K.V.KAMATH - Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) constituted advisory committee for SEBI Investor Protection and Education Fund. The committee consist of eight member. The committee is to be headed by Infosys chiarman KV Kamath. The committee will recommend investor education and protection activities that may be undertaken directly by the board, or through any other agency, for utilisation of the SEBI Investor Protection and Education Fund for the purposes stated in the SEBI regulations, 2009. The committee will look at investor education and protection activities that SEBI could undertake directly or through any other agency.
  
• SHIVARAJ PATIL-President Pratibha Devisingh Patil constituted a 12-member committee to study and recommend measures for increasing productivity, profitability and sustainability of the agriculture sector in India. The committee will work under the Chairmanship of Governor of Punjab and Rajasthan, Shivraj Patil. The committee will deliberate on the need for formulating requisite policy initiatives and legislative measures and prospects for investment in the agriculture and allied sectors among others.
  
• USTAD SULTAN KHAN -Renowned sarangi maestro and singer, died on 27 November 2011. He belonged to the Indore Gharana of singing. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian honour in 2010. He won numerous musical awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award that he won twice. He was presented the President's Award, as well as the Gold Medalist Award of Maharashtra and the American Academy of Artists Award in 1998.India lost two other renowned musicians in 2011 with the death of Jagjit Singh and Bhupen Hazarika.
  
• INDIRA GOSWAMY- Eminent Assamese litterateur and Jnanpith award winner, popularly known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami passed away in Guwahati on 29 November 2011. Dr. Goswami authored several bestseller Assamese novels and short story collections in her lifetime. Goswami had served as a professor of modern Indian languages at Delhi University. Classics such as The Pages Stained with Blood and The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker were written during her stint in Delhi University. Goswami was an expert in Ramayani studies.Her autobiography was Adha Lekha Dastavej. Her treatise Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra is considered a literary masterpiece. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award for her powerful novel Mamare Dhara Tarowal Aru Dukhan Upanyasa in 1982 and the Jnanpith Award in 2000. Dr. Goswami in 2004 mediated between the Centre and the ULFA and succeeded in convincing both the government and the ULFA to come forward for negotiations. Her initiative led to the formation of the Peoples' Consultative Group (PCG) by the ULFA to prepare the ground for peace talks.
  
• Sherry Rehman - Former Pakistani Information Minister was on 23 November 2011 designated to become Pakistan’s next Ambassador in the U.S. She succeeded Husain Haqqani who resigned over the Memogate controversy. Analysts perceived her selection for this post as a sign of consensus between the civil and military leadership of the country after a tense week that followed the Memogate controversy.
  
• Aamir Khan was chosen to be the latest celebrity face of UNICEF in India. The actor is to be appointed the national ambassador of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund on 30 November 2011. UNICEF had earlier appointed Amitabh Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra as the face of the organisation.
  
• Cyrus P. Mistry(43) was on chosen to succeed Tata group chairman Ratan Tata as the group’s new chairman in 2012. He has currently been appointed as the Deputy Chairman and will take over when Ratan N Tata formally retires in December 2012 on reaching the age of 75.Youngest son of construction tycoon Pallonji Mistry, Cyrus P. Mistry is currently the Managing Director of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. He is also on the board of Tata Sons, the holding company which controls the Tata Group. Pallonji Mistry owns a significant stake in the Tata Group.For the second time a non-Tata is to take over as the group's chairperson. Before Cyrus Sir Nowroji Saklatwala had been the group's chairman between 1932 and 1938.
  
• Sukh Ram - A Delhi court on 18 November 2011 held this former telecom minister guilty of misusing his official position when he was a member of the PV Narasimha Rao Cabinet and giving undue favour to a cable supply company. Sukh Ram was awarded five years of rigorous imprisonment for accepting a bribe of Rs. three lakh and showing undue favour to a private firm in 1996. Apart from the five-year jail term, he will also have to pay a fine of Rs. 4 lakh. He was a part of the Congress at the Centre when the scams took place.During his tenure as Telecom Minister in P V Narasimha Rao's Cabinet he had given a contract worth Rs. 30 crore to a private firm, Haryana Telecom Limited (HTL), to supply 3.5 Lakh Conductor Kilometers (LCKM) of Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables to the telecom department.
  
• Har Gobind Khorana - Pioneering Indian American biochemist, who won the 1968 Nobel Prize for medicine, died in Massachusetts on 9 November 2011. Khorana is known to have revolutionised biochemistry with his pioneering work in DNA chemistry. He had won the Nobel Prize in 1968, sharing it with two others, Robert W. Holley of Cornell University and Marshall W. Nirenberg of the National Institutes of Health, for unraveling the nucleotide sequence of RNA and deciphering the genetic code. He was born on 9 January 1922, in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan).
  
• Peter Roebuck- Renowned cricket writer and commentator, committed suicide at a hotel in South Africa on 12 November 2011 after being questioned on allegations of sexual assault by the police. England-born Roebuck was in South Africa to cover the ongoing Test series between South Africa and Australia. He would be best remembered in India for his indictment of Ricky Ponting and the Australian team, whom he called a pack of wild dogs, for their behaviour in the controversial Sydney Test in 2008.
  
• Silvio Berlusconi- Italy's Prime Minister, resigned as on 12 November 2011 after he was stripped of a parliament majority due to his unsuccessful handling of the fierce financial crisis. Berlusconi's latest popularity rating was at an all-time low of just 22 per cent. Economist Mario Monti will head an emergency Italian government following the departure of Silvio Berlusconi.
  
• A Telugu speaking NRI Upendra J.Chivukula has been elected to the Legislative assembly of New Jersey, US, for he sixth time. Hailing from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. Mr.Upendra, a candidate of the Democratic Party.
  
• G.N. Asthana took over as General Manager of the South Central Railway (SCR) on Wednesday. He was the General Manager of west West Central Railway before the new posting.
  
• Nabam Tuki- was sworn in as the seventh Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh on 1 November 2011. He replaced Jarbon Gamlin. Gamlin resigned from office on 31 October 2011.Gamlin had taken over as chief minister on 5 May 2011 following the death of Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu in a helicopter crash. Arunachal Pradesh went through political instability since July 2011 after a group of Congress legislators led by Tuki revolted against Gamlin's leadership. .
  
• Otto Perez Molina -Retired general and former intelligence director of the Conservative Patriotic Party of Guatemala won the presidential election on 6 November 2011 by defeating tycoon-turned-political populist Manuel Baldizon of the Democratic Freedom Revival party. Pérez Molina, is the first former military leader elected president in Guatemala in the 25 years after the end of brutal military rule. Otto Perez Molina succeded Álvaro Colom as Guatemala’s President.
  
• Lucas Papademos -Senior banker, was appointed prime minister of an interim Greek unity government on 10 November 2011. The interim government seeks to cement a European debt deal and ward off national bankruptcy. He replaced outgoing Prime Minister George Papandreou midway through a four-year term.His appointment came after four days of power-sharing talks. Papademos following his appointment called for unity and promised to seek cross-party co-operation to keep Greece firmly in the 17-nation eurozone.
  
• Bhupen Hazarika-Legendary singer-composer and Padma Bhushan awardee Bhupen Hazarika died in Mumbai on 5 November 2011. Hazarika was a multi-talented personality. He was a poet, music composer, singer, actor, journalist, author and filmmaker.Bhupen Hazarika was born on 8 September 1926, in Sadiya, Assam. He was the chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademi from 1999-2004.He was chosen as a member of the Assam Legislative Assembly from 1967-72.He was awarded the National Award in 1975 for Chameli Memsaab. He also won the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 1992. The legendary composer was conferred the Indian Music Director award for best music Internationally for the film Rudaali at the Asia Pacific International Film Festival 1993 held in Japan.He won President's medal for his films Shakuntala (1960), Pratidhwani (1964) and Lotighoti (1967). He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987.
  
• Joe Frazier- the former heavyweight boxing champion died on 7 November 2011 after a battle with liver cancer. Frazier is most famous for defeating bitter rival and another boxing legend Muhammad Ali in the 1971 Fight of the Century. World heavyweight champion, Frazer had started life as a sharecropper’s son growing up in South Carolina and punched meat in a Philadelphia slaughterhouse. Known as Smokin' Joe, he won 32 fights in all, 27 by knockouts, losing four times - twice to Ali in furious bouts and twice to George Foreman. He also recorded one draw.
  
• Asha Bhosle -Legendary Bollywood playback singer, on 20 October 2011 entered the Guinness World Records for the most number of single studio recordings. Asha recorded up to 11000 solo, duets and chorus backed songs and several others in over 20 Indian languages since 1947.The 78-year-old was conferred with the Guinness honour at the Asian awards function held in London.
  
• Kamalesh Sharma -Commonwealth Secretary General, was re-appointed to the coveted post on 30 October 2011. The Commonwealth Leaders agreed to re-appoint him at the 21st Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth in Australia. Sharma who served as a veteran Indian diplomat was re-appointed for a four-year term beginning in April 2012.Sharma was first elected to as the Secretary General of Commonwealth during the biennial summit of the 54-nation grouping in Kampala, Uganda, in 2007.
  
• Ivian Sarcos -A human resources graduate from Venezuela, was crowned Miss World 2011 at the 61st Miss World contest at a glittering beauty pageant at Earls Court exhibition Centre in London on 6 November 2011. The runner-up was Miss Philippines, Gwendoline Ruais, and Miss Puerto Rico, Amanda Perez, claimed third place.