PERSONS NOVEMBER 2014

PERSONS NOVEMBER 2014

• C.K. Prasad: The former Supreme Court judge Chandramauli Kumar Prasad has been selected to be the next Chairman of the Press Council of India. Justice Prasad retired in mid-July.
  
• Doval: The government on 24th November named National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval as its Special Representative on boundary talks with China, paving the way for the dialogue to resume at this level. India and China had established in 2003 the mechanism of Special Representatives to thrash out a resolution to the vexed boundary question. The two sides have so far held 17 rounds of talks, making some progress.
  
• Hagel: US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has resigned under pressure after less than two years in the top military post. His resignation is the first Cabinet-level casualty which has come close on the heels of Democratic Party loosing majority in the Senate and the Obama administration's struggle in dealing with the militant group Islamic State.
  
  Last month, it was reported that Hagel was sharply critical of the US strategy against Islamic State and in relation to the Syria regime. President Barack Obama confirmed Hagel's resignation
  
• Murali Deora: Former petroleum minister Murli Deora died on 24th November. Deora, was member of legislative council in Maharashtra between 1982 and 1985.
  
• Sitara Devi: Kathak queen Sitara Devi died on 25th November. Born in 1920 in Kolkata, Sitara Devi drew from the themes, poetry and choreography collected by her father in her choreographies.
  
  She was honoured with the Legends of India Lifetime Achievement Award 2011 for her contribution to the classical dance genre for over six decades.
  
• Sania Mirza: Indian tennis star Sania Mirza was on 25th November appointed the UN Goodwill Ambassador for the South Asian region by UN Women at an event held to mark the International Day to End Violence against Women
  
  Sania, India's most successful women's tennis player and the first Indian to break into the World Tennis Association's top 50 rankings, is the first South Asian woman to be appointed the goodwill ambassador in the organization’s history. In her capacity as the goodwill ambassador, she intends to educate women about gender equality.
  
  According to the latest UN report on gender violence in India, six out of 10 men have admitted to perpetrating violence against their wife or partner in various forms. The picture is even grimmer with the national average of 919 for 1,000 males.
  
  Explaining the reason for the UN Women's choice of making Sania their voice in South Asia, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women deputy executive director Lakshmi Puri said: "Sania is a woman of achievement and represents girls' and women's struggle for equality."
  
• Anoop Mishra: Anoop Mishra, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary, will be the new Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced the appointment on 26th November.
  
• Hughes: Australia Test batsman Phillip Hughes has died two days after being struck on the top of the neck by a ball during a domestic match in Sydney.
  
• Keshari Nath Tripathi: West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi was on 27th November sworn in as the Governor of Bihar. The term of the former Bihar Governor, D.Y. Patil, expired
  
• Raychaudhuri: Tapan Raychaudhuri, a distinguished historian of modern India’s economic and intellectual history, passed away. Among his many publications are Bengal Under Akbar and Jahangir (1969), Jan Company in Coromandel (1962), Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal (1988), and The Cambridge Economic History of India (co-edited with Irfan Habib). After his retirement, Professor Raychaudhuri wrote his memoirs Bangal Nama in Bengali. He later wrote his memoirs again, this time in English, calling it The World in Our Time (2012).
  
• P.D. James: P.D. James classic British detective story writer passed away
  
• Avinash Chander: Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) chief Dr. Avinash Chander will retire on November 30 but will continue to occupy the position on contractual basis till May, 2016.
  
• Jiang Yi-Huah: Taiwan's premier Jiang Yi-Huah resigned on 29th November after his Beijing-friendly ruling party suffered a landslide defeat at the island's biggest ever local elections. Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, but Beijing still claims the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.
  
• T.R.K. Rao: T.R.K. Rao has assumed charge as Director (Commercial) of NMDC Ltd, a Navaratna enterprise, under the Ministry of Steel.
  
• Hormuzd Masani: Hormuzd Masani, secretary-general of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Mumbai, has been re-elected to the Executive Board of the International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations (IFABC) for the fourth successive time. Mr. Masani will also be the Treasurer of the IFABC, again for the fourth consecutive term. The Executive Board has representatives from Australia, Sweden, Poland, Spain, the U.K., Switzerland and Romania.
  
• Sutirtha Bhattacharya:The Public Enterprises Selection Board has finalized Sutirtha Bhattacharya, a 1985 Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer, as the new chairperson and managing director of Coal India Limited. 
  • Coal India limited is government mining company, its head quarters is at Kolkata
  • It is the largest coal producer company in the world. It contributes 81% of the coal production in India.
  • In April 2011, CIL was conferred the Maharatna status by the Union government of India
  • To take care of energy requirements of India, the Central Government of India did a nationalization of coal industry in the 1970s. By 1972, it acquired most of the coking coal mines in India (226 coking coal mines) through Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL). Similarly, it acquired all 711 non-coking coal mines in India through Coal Mines Authority Limited (CMAL)
  
  
• Prachi Mishra: International Monetary Fund economist Prachi Mishra has joined the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This is the first lateral entry in the central bank in the promotion grade. Mishra, who joins as chief general manager, will be part of the economic and policy research department. Michael D Patra is the executive director of the department, which is headed by Deputy Governor Urjit Patel.
  
  Her key role will be to strengthen the economic and policy research of the central bank. Mishra, who joined earlier this week, has already spoken to the researchers to get a sense of the kind of work that is done and identifying gaps.
  
• RK Dutta: A day after the Supreme Court removed CBI Director Ranjit Sinha from the 2G spectrum case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named Additional Director RK Dutta as his replacement in the agency’s probe team.
  
• Pandian: M.S.S. Pandian, an eminent social scientist who wrote extensively on the Dravidian Movement, south Indian politics, cinema, caste, identity and several other socially relevant issues, passed away after a sudden heart attack on 10th November.
  
• Rajiv Mehrishi: Economic Affairs Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has been nominated as the Finance Secretary. He will replace Arvind Mayaram who has been transferred to Ministry of Minority Affairs. Mehrishi is a 1978 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Rajasthan cadre. He was appointed Economic Affairs Secretary last month.
  
• Ratan Tata: Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata was inducted on the board of Interpol Foundation to contribute to two new global initiatives aimed at combating organized crime and terrorist activities by the international police organization.
  
  The initiatives include protecting cultural property and modernizing channels of international judicial cooperation. The other board members include HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver, Credit Agricole Chairman Jean-Marie Sander, Abraaj Capital Chairman and CEO Arif Naqvi and Renault-Nissan Alliance Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn. The board is headed by Prince Albert II of Monaco and former Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Elias Murr. The other initiatives of the Foundation include I-Checkit, which protects airlines, hotels, banks from threats of identity frauds.
  
• Nikki: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley interacted with politicians and industry alike as she began her 10-day visit to the country from Chandigarh. In Punjab, Ms. Haley — who was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa and who is the second Indian-American governor in the U.S. after Bobby Jindal — said her main objective is to establish aerospace, pharma, tourism and agro-processing industries. The Governor spoke about how South Carolina has been able to create new jobs in the aerospace and hospitality sectors.
  
• Farhan: Bollywood actor-director Farhan Akhtar has become the first man in UN Women’s history to be appointed its Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia. In his new role, he will serve as an advocate for UN Women’s newly-launched HeForShe initiative for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
  
  The U.N. organization, dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment, chose Farhan for raising his voice against gender inequality and violence against women and girls in India through his Men against Rape and Discrimination (MARD) campaign. UN Women’s other Goodwill Ambassadors include British actor Emma Watson, Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand.
  
• Charles Rivkin: He is US assistant Secretary of state economic and business. At present he is visiting in India. Rivkin made a strong case for India to put in place a special law for the protection of IPR to help improve bilateral relationships and growth of two economies.
  
• Srivari Chandrasekhar: CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) chief scientist Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar is among the scientists chosen for the Infosys Science Foundation's Infosys Prize 2014. Dr Chandrasekhar will receive the award at a ceremony which will be held on January 5, 2015, in Kolkata, where Shri Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, will felicitate the winners. The award carries a personal purse of Rs 55 lakh, 22 carat gold medal and a citation.
  
  While the 2014 Prize in Physical Sciences has been awarded to Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar, Chief Scientist of CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad, the winners in other categories are: Jayant Haritsa (Professor, Supercomputer Education & Research Centre, IISc, Bengaluru), Shamnad Basheer (Founder and Managing Trustee, Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access,Bengaluru ), Shubha Tole (Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, TIFR, Mumbai ), Madhu Sudan (Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New England), Esther Duflo (Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, J-PAL, Boston, USA ). Dr Chandrasekhar is the first synthetic chemist to win the Infosys prize.
  
  About Infosys Prize:
  The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists in India. The Infosys Prize ranks among the highest monetary awards in India that recognizes scientific research .The prize for each category includes a gold medallion, a citation certificate, and prize money of Rs. 55 Lakh (over US$ 90000). The Prize was originally given across five categories: Engineering and Computer Science, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences. A sixth category - the Humanities - was added in 2012.
  
• Vijay Kelkar: Thirteenth Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Laxman Kelkar has been appointed as Chairperson of the Finance Ministry’s think tank National Institute of Public Finance & Policy (NIPFP). He replaces the former Reserve Bank Governor C. Rangarajan.
  
  Prior to this, he was Adviser to the Union Finance Minister from 2002 to 2004. He was also the Union Finance Secretary in 1998-1999. He was nominated as Executive Director of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka on the Board of the International Monetary Fund in 1999. He has also held various positions in government, public and private sectors.
  
• Mallikarjun Kharge: Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has been inducted into the three-member selection committee which will select the Chief Information Commissioner. As per file nothings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the panel, has nominated Defense Minister Arun Jaitely besides Kharge to the committee. The decision to include Kharge has been taken on the advice of Law Ministry as there was lack of clarity on the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.
  
• Amrapurkar: Veteran actor and social activist Sadashiv Amrapurkar passed away on 3rd November. Amrapurkar made his mark as an actor and director in Marathi theatre and was best known to the national audience for his roles in movies like 'Ardha Satya', 'Sadak', 'Ishq'. His negative characters in number of Hindi movies also made a mark on the viewers.
  
• Hasmukh adhia: The government on 3rd November appointed Hasmukh Adhia as the new financial services secretary replacing G S Sandhu. Sandhu, has been made chairman of the National Authority Chemical Weapons Convention.
  
• Fabiola Gianotti: Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti was chosen on 4th November to lead the Cern particle physics research centre, the first woman to head up the globally renowned laboratory. Gianotti, who joined CERN near Geneva in 1987, was project leader from 2009 to 2013 of the Atlas collaboration, one of two teams tasked with finding the Higgs boson particle, for which scientists had been searching for over 40 years.
  
  Gianotti was selected by the centre's ruling council and her new role will be officially confirmed in December. She will replace Rolf Heuer, who presided over the launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) used to find the Higgs boson.
  
  At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature.
  
  The instruments used at CERN are purpose-built particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before the beams are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. Founded in 1954, the CERN laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 21 member states.
  
• Rajdeep sardesi: Veteran Journalist and TV anchor, wrote a book known as ‘The Election that changed India’
  
• Modi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 5th November made his debut among the world's most powerful people, ranked 15th on the Forbes list topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin who pipped his US counterpart Barack Obama for a second year in a row.
  
  The list of 72 most powerful people in the world also included the names of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani at 36th, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal at 57th and Microsoft's Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella at 64th. This year there are 12 newcomers on the list, including Modi and Egypt President Abdel el-Sisi.
  
  Alibiba founder and China's richest man -- Jack Ma also makes a first appearance on the list after his record-breaking USD 25 billion initial public offering in September, as does terror group Islamic State's chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A notable omission from the list is Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, who was the highest ranked Indian last year at 21. The next Indian after Modi on the list is Ambani at 36th.
  
• Anita Kapur: Senior IRS officer Anita Kapur has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex authority of the Income-Tax Department. Kapur, a 1978-batch officer of the Income-Tax cadre, was till now serving as Member (Legislation and Computerization and Income-Tax) in CBDT. She took over the top charge after her appointment was announced by the government as incumbent CBDT Chairman K V Chowdary retired on October 31.
  
• Sachin Tendulkar: Former Indian cricketer, Bharata Ratna Sachin Tendulkar autobiography Playing It My Way was released on 5th November.
  
• Parsekar: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Laxmikant Parsekar, who was Health Minister in the Manohar Parrikar government, was on 8th November sworn in as the 11th Chief Minister of Goa. Governor Mridula Sinha administered the oath of office and secrecy to Mr. Parsekar and nine Ministers, including two from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, the BJP’s ally. The Goa Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the state of Goa in western India. It consists of 40 members.