PERSONS OCTOBER 2015

PERSONS OCTOBER 2015

• Jimmy Morales:In Guatemala, a former television comedian with no political experience has been elected the new President. Jimmy Morales easily won the top office after a corruption scandal toppled the country's last leader.
• Narendra Modi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 10th most admired personality globally, as per a new survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) that has ranked the late South African President Nelson Mandela on the top.
  
  Mahatma Gandhi is ranked as the fourth most admired leader, according to a survey of more than 1,000 millennials. The respondents were spread across 285 cities in 125 countries.
  
  After Mandela, the WEF's Global Shapers Annual Survey 2015 found that Pope Francis is the second most admired leader. Others in the list are Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk (3rd rank), Microsoft Founder Bill Gates (5th ), US President Barack Obama (6th), Virgin Group Founder Richard Barson (7th), Apple Founder Steve Jobs (8th), Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus (9th) and US investor Warren Buffett (11th).
  
  Out of the 1,084 respondents, 3 per cent voted for Modi as well as for Yunus while 20.1 per cent favoured Mandela. All the survey respondents are members of the WEF's Global Shapers Community aged between 20 and 30 years. In the list of 11, three personalities are not alive - Mandela, Gandhi and Jobs.
• Vidya Devi Bhandari: In Nepal, Vidya Devi Bhandari from the ruling CPN-UML was on 28th October elected as country's first woman President after she defeated her rival from Nepali Congress by more than 100 votes.
  
  Bhandari, the Vice-president of CPN-UML and widow of late general secretary of the party Madan Bhandari, secured 327 votes against 214 votes of her rival Veteran Nepali Congress leader Kul Bahadur Gurung. The new President will succeed incumbent Ram Baran Yadav who was elected as the first President of Nepal in 2008 after the country was declared a Republic. With the promulgation of the Constitution on September 20, it was required to elect a new President within a month of the commencement of the Parliament session.
• Najib Shah: The government on 28th October appointed senior Indian Revenue Service officer Najib Shah as Chairman, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). Shah was appointed as Member of the indirect taxes board in May this year. Earlier, he was also posted as Director General, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. He was acting Chairman of CBEC after Srivastava retired in May this year.
• Munawwar Rana: Urdu poet Munawwar Rana joined the league of writers returning their awards protesting the growing intolerance in the country. He also said that he will not accept any government recognition in future.
• Justin Trudeau: Justin Trudeau has been elected as Canada's new Prime Minister. Trudeau, son of country's former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, recorded a stunning victory in the general elections. His Liberal Party won 185 of the 338 seats in the next House of Commons ending Conservative Party's outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's nine-year reign.
• Alok Rawat: Former Secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances Alok Rawat has been appointed as a member of the National Commission for Women, NCW. He is the the first male member in the five member Commission.
• Brett McGurk: U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Brett McGurk as his new envoy to the coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. McGurk, a long-time White House adviser on Iraq, has been the deputy to General John Allen, who led the global coalition's campaign against Islamic State since its inception last year. Allen, who served in the U.S. Marines for more than 37 years, is retiring from public service next month.
• Rajeev Kher: Former Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher has been appointed as a member at the Competition Appellate Tribunal, where two posts of members have been lying vacant for more than a year. Compat, which hears appeals against rulings of fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI), comes under the Corporate Affairs Ministry. Kher was appointed as a member late last month. At present, Justice G S Singhvi is the Chairman of Compat.
  
  Besides chairman, the tribunal has two members. The two posts have been vacant since August 2014 when Rahul Sarin had retired. Prior to that, another member Parvin Tripathi superannuated in May last year. While Kher has become a member, another post remains vacant at the tribunal.
• K P Sharma Oli elected Prime Minister of Nepal
  In Nepal, K P Sharma Oli was on 11th October elected as the next Prime Minister of the country. He defeated incumbent Sushil Koirala. The contest became necessary after parties failed to forge a consensus amid violent protests over the country's new Constitution.
  
  In voting held in Parliament, CPN-UML chairman Oli garnered 338 votes, 39 more than the 299 that he needed to be elected as the prime minister. On the other hand, Nepali Congress president Koirala could only secure 249 votes.
  
  Oli was backed by UCPN-Maoist, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum-Democratic and some fringe parties. Four Madhes parties in the United Democratic Madhesi Front had supported Sushil Koirala.
• Ghulam Nabi Khayal: Noted Kashmiri writer and poet Ghulam Nabi Khayal has joined the authors returning their Sahitya Akademi awards in the wake of Dadri lynching incident. He said that he had decided to return the award as the minorities in the country are feeling unsafe and threatened.
  
  Khayal said the government has failed in fulfilling its duty of protecting the minorities as enshrined in the Constitution of the country. This is the first time that a Kashmiri writer has decided to return the literary honour in protest. On 10th October, Gujarat-based writer Ganesh Devy returned his Sahitya Akademi Award to express solidarity with the writers, who have recently given up their awards.
• Dalip Kaur Tiwana: Eminent Punjabi writer Dalip Kaur Tiwana announced that she will return her Padma Shri in protest against the rising communal tension in the country. She wrote in a letter to the Central government that, to kill those who stand for truth and justice put us to shame in the eyes of the world and God.
  
  Tiwana thus joins the 23 writers and poets who have returned their prestigious Sahitya Akademi awards. She was conferred with the Padma Shri in 2004. She was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1971.
  
  Earlier, Maya Krishna Rao has returned her Sangeet Natak Akademi award. Joining the bandwagon of protesters, several writers have returned their State Sahitya Akademi awards, and 5 litterateurs have resigned from Sahitya Akademi posts.
  
  Meanwhile, the Sahitya Akademi has convened an emergency meeting of its executive board comprising 24 writers representing different Indian languages on October 23rd to discuss the issue of a string of writers returning their Akademi awards in protests against growing intolerance in society. Sahitya Akademi President Vishwanath Pratap Tiwari said the meeting has been called to discuss the issue of resignations of the writers.
• Mandakranta Sen: Noted Bengali poet Ms. Mandakranta Sen returned her Sahitya Academi Young Writers Special Award to protest against what she described as intolerance and communalism in the society. Ms. Sen received the award in 2004 for her body of work in Bengali poetry.
• Kundhavi Kadiresan: Kundhavi Kadiresan has been appointed as the Assistant Director-General of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. An economist who has spent most of her professional career with the World Bank Group, Ms. Kadiresan brings a strategic perspective and pragmatic approach to the developmental challenges facing the world. Ms. Kadiresan will lead the prioritisation of FAO’s work across the region in close consultation with technical specialists of the organisation. She replaces Hiroyuki Konuma who retired from FAO earlier this year.
• Bhoopal Reddy: Sahitya Akademi award winner and Telugu writer M. Bhoopal Reddy has announced that he is going to return his award to express solidarity with fellow awardees who have already done so to protest the “growing intolerance in the country” as manifest in incidents such as the murder of writer M.M. Kalburgi.
  
  Mr Bhoopal Reddy, who won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book for children Uggupalu in 2011, is the first Telugu writer to declare his intention to return the award.
  
  The writer has also decided to also return his Ugadi Puraskaram award given by the Telangana Government to register his protest against the “indifference” of State Government to the growing number of farmer suicides. He had his education in Hyderabad and did his post-graduation in Telugu from Osmania University and got his doctorate for a treatise on the poems and writings of Potlapalli Rama Rao.
• G.R. Chandak: G.R. Chandak, senior scientist of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has been appointed as the Director, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), a Centre of Excellence under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). Dr G.R. Chandak at present is a group leader at the CCMB.
• Kashi Nath Singh: Noted Hindi novelist Kashi Nath Singh has announced to return his Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the Dadri lynching incident and the killing of Kannada writer MM Kalburgi. Singh had received the award in 2011 for his novel, 'Rehan Par Ragghu'. He is best known for his novel, 'kashi ka Assi', which was later adapted by a Bollywood film, 'Mohalla Assi'.
• Katyayani Vidyamhe: After M. Bhoopal Reddy, renowned Telugu writer Katyayani Vidmahe has become the second litterateur from the State to return her Sahitya Akademi award, protesting against the growing intolerance in the country.
• Edidha Nageswara Rao: Producer of landmark movies like Shankarabharanam, Sagarasangamam and Swatimutyam , Edida Nageswara Rao passed away on 4th October
  
  Born on April 24, 1934, late Nageswara Rao started his career as a theatre artiste, film actor, dubbing artiste and turned into a film producer by launching Poornodaya Movie Creations.
  
  Joining hands with eminent director K. Vishwanath, Edida Nageswara produced his maiden move Siri Siri Muvva ,in 1978. In all, he produced 10 movies which turned out to be very popular.
• Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon: In one of the largest philanthropic gifts by a member of the Indian-American community, a couple has donated $100 million to New York University’s engineering school, which will now be renamed after them in recognition of their gift. Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon’s gift to the New York University’s School of Engineering will principally support faculty hiring and academic programmes and is intended to build on the engineering school’s existing practice of cross-disciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship. The school will be renamed the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
• Jack Dorsey: Twitter Inc named Jack Dorsey as its permanent CEO but said it would look elsewhere for a chairman, seeking to allay concerns about its co-founders dual role as head of the mobile payments company Square.
• Vidyasagar: Nethi Vidyasagar Rao was unanimously elected as Deputy Chairman of Telangana Legislative Council on 6th October.
• Hoesung Lee: Hoesung Lee, 69, a Korean professor of economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development, was on 6th October elected as head of the Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change at its 42nd session in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He succeeds R.K. Pachauri, of India, who stepped down in February after a female researcher accused him of sexual harassment.
  
  Mr. Lee was elected by 78-56 votes in a run-off with Jean-Pascale van Ypersele of Belgium. A total of six candidates had been nominated for the post.
  
  Mr. Lee, until now one of the vice-chairs of the IPCC, served as executive member of the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences; a member of the Asia Development Bank President’s advisory board; a council member of the Global Green Growth Institute; and an editorial board member of the U.K.-based Climate Policy.
  
  He was the founding president of the Korea Energy Economic Institute and the former president of the International Association for Energy Economics. He has been serving the IPCC in various capacities, including as Working Group III Co-Chair since its Second Assessment Report of 1992.
• A.R. Rahman: Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman has been named the Cultural Ambassador for Seychelles.
• Shekhar Basu: Renowned scientist Shekhar Basu has been appointed as the Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission. Basu is presently Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Chief executive of the Nuclear Recycle Board will replace R K Sinha who superannuates on 23rd of October. He will have tenure till he attains the age of 64 years.
  
  Mr Basu, who was instrumental in setting up reprocessing and waste management facilities at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam is a recipient of Padma Shri. He has been credited for commissioning land-based Nuclear Submarine Propulsion Plant at Kalpakkam.
• Shashi Desh Pande: Award-winning author Shashi Deshpande on 9th October resigned from the Sahitya Akademi General Council expressing disappointment over the literary body's silence on the issue of Kannada writer M M Kalburgi.
  
  In her letter to Akademi chairperson Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, the author said she hoped that the Akademi will get involved with important issues that affect Indian writers' freedom to speak and write. Deshpande, who won the Sahitya Akademi award for her novel "That Long Silence" in 1990 is the fourth writer renouncing their coveted prizes. Hindi writer Uday Prakash returned his Sahitya Akademi award which was followed by Nayantara Sahgal and Ashok Vajpeyi.
• Ravindra Jain: Veteran music director and lyricist Ravindra Jain passed away on 9th October.
  
  A soulful musician, an accomplished lyricist and renowned vocalist Ravindra Jain began his musical journey in Bollywood in the 1970s.
  
  'Chor Machaye Shor', 'Geet Gaata Chal', 'Chitchor', 'Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se', 'Nadiya ke Paar', 'Ram Teri Ganga Maili', 'Do Jasoos' and 'Henna' are some of his works that brought him fame.
  
  Mr. Jain composed music for almost 150 movies in his lifetime apart from working with Sagar Films for their television series.
  
  His popular and unforgettable work on the small screen includes Ramanand Sagar's "Ramayan", "Shri Krishna", "Alif Laila" and Mahabharat.
  
  Mr. Jain had won the Filmfare Award for Best Music for ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’ in 1985 and also the Maharashtra government’s Lata Mangeshkar Lifetime Achievement Award.
  
  He was also conferred the Padmashri Award this year.
• Dilip Chenoy and Atul Bhatnagar:The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a body promoting skill development. Its managing director and CEO Dilip Chenoy and COO Atul Bhatnagar resigned.
  
  The Union government, which has taken the skill development initiative on top priority, was not happy with the functioning of the Corporation as it was not in pace with the demand and was lagging in strengthening private partnership that was not shaping up.
  
  The government has laid major emphasis on skill development and wants to create skilled manpower that could not just be of use within the country but also abroad.
  
  NSDC facilitates or catalyses initiatives that can potentially have a multiplier effect and the approach is to develop partnerships with multiple stakeholders and build on current efforts. It aims at scaling up efforts necessary to achieve the objective of skilling/up-skilling 150 million people by 2022.
  
  The National Skill Development Corporation, (NSDC) is a one of its kind, Public Private Partnership in India. It aims to promote skill development by catalysing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions. It also acts as a catalyst in skill development by providing funding to enterprises, companies and organisations that provide skill training. It was set up as part of a national skill development mission to fulfill the growing need in India for skilled manpower across sectors and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skills.
• Viren Dangwal: Renowned Hindi poet Viren Dangwal passed away in Bareilly. Dangwal's famous collection ' Dushchakra me Shrista' earned him the Sahitya Academy award in 2004.
• Kartik Chandran: Kartik Chandran, an Indian-American Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia Engineering, has been named a 2015 MacArthur Fellow with a “genius grant” of $625,000 (Rs. 4.09 crore).
  
  Mr. Chandran, an IIT-Roorkee graduate, has won the fellowship for his work in “transforming wastewater from a pollutant requiring disposal to a resource for useful products, such as commodity chemicals, energy sources, and fertilizers.”
  
  He joins a distinguished group of 24 talented people who have all demonstrated exceptional originality and dedication to their creative pursuitsas well as a marked capacity for self-direction. The fellows may use the $625,000 stipend as they see fit.