PERSONS SEPTEMBER 2015

PERSONS SEPTEMBER 2015

• Syed Ahmed: Manipur Governor Syed Ahmed died at a private hospital in Mumbai. He was sworn in as the Governor of Manipur on May 16, 2015. Mr Ahmed, a former Congress leader from Maharashtra, was shifted to Manipur from Jharkhand, where he was appointed Governor on August 26, 2011 when the UPA Government was in power at the Centre.
  
  Besides dabbling in politics, where he started his career in Congress, Mr Ahmed also had a flair for writing, especially in Urdu. Mr Ahmed held two master's degrees (in Hindi and English) and a doctorate in Urdu.
  
  He has written an autobiography 'Pagdandi se Shahar Tak'. His other literary works included 'Maktal se Manzil', 'Kafas se Chaman' and 'Jange-Azaadi Me Urdu Shayari'.
  
• Kallen Pokkudan: Noted environmentalist Kallen Pokkudan, known for his crusade against destruction of mangroves, died on 27th September.
  
  Mr. Pokkudan, popularly known as Kandal Pokkudan, had single-handedly revived mangrove (Kandal in Malayalam) forests in the coastal areas of the district. Environmental activists said he had been involved in mangrove conservation as a one-man army since 1989. He had planted over one lakh mangroves.
  
  Born in a Dalit family at Ezhome in 1937, Mr. Pokkudan had been a fellow traveller of the CPI(M) and had been involved in agitations of agricultural workers. He also wrote a few books on mangroves including an autobiographical book ‘Kandalkadukalil Ente Jeevitham (My life among the mangrove forests). He had won the State government’s Vanamithra Award and Harithavyakthi Award. He had also played a role in the films ‘Papilio Buddha’ and ‘Sthalom’.
  
• Siva Kumar: Director of Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment, Avadi, P Sivakumar has been elevated as "Distinguished Scientist" in recognition to his services. He was involved in development of various products, including the Arjun MBT Mark-II, Carrier Command Post Tracked Vehicle, unmanned ground vehicles. Sivakumar was also a fellow of National Academy of Engineering.
  
• Jagmohan Dalmiya: Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was admitted to hospital few days back after he complained of chest pain, passed away at a hospital in Kolkata on 20th September.
  
  In 1992 Dalmiya, took charge as the BCCI secretary. At that time cricketing board was then in deficit of Rs 80 lakh.
  
  Damiya entered the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1997 as president. His commercial skills and flair for striking deals turned round the cash-strapped ICC's fortunes.
  
  In 2006, the BCCI expelled him on charges of embezzling funds from the 1996 World Cup. He was banned from BCCI meetings; a first information report was filed against him.
  
  But Dalmiya refused to stay away from the game. In 2007, he successfully challenged the criminal cases filed by the BCCI before the Bombay High Court. The board was forced to revoke his suspension in 2010.
  
  Cricket and Dalmiya
  Joined BCCI in 1979, became treasurer in 1983
  Became BCCI Secretary in 1990.
  Headed organizing committee for 1996 World Cup
  First Asian President of ICC from 1997 to 2000
  Served as BCCI President from 2001 to 2004
  In June 2013, he was appointed interim president of BCCI. Served till October 2013, when N. Srinivasan, who had stepped aside, resumed the Presidency
  March 2, 2015, he became BCCI president after a gap of over 10 years
  
• Sadhan Gupta: Independent India’s first visually-challenged MP Sadhan Gupta has died following age-related illness. He was the veteran Communist and eminent lawyer
  
  In 1953, the CPI (M) leader became India’s first visually-challenged Parliamentarian when he won from the Kolkata south-east constituency. He was re-elected to Parliament for the second consecutive term and remained an MP till 1962. Later on in 1986, he became the first visually-challenged Advocate General of West Bengal. Mr. Gupta was also the founder-president of the National Federation of the Blind and the first president of the Indian chapter of Disabled Peoples’ International.
  
• Yudhvir Singh Malik:Yudhvir Singh Malik, who presided over the ban of Nestlé India’s Maggi noodles as chief executive officer of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in June, has been transferred to NITI Aayog. He is a Haryana cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1983 batch, as additional secretary of the NITI Aayog, a new post.
  
  This follows cancellation of the appointment of Keshni Anand, another 1983 batch Haryana cadre IAS officer, to the post. In July, former agriculture secretary Ashish Bahuguna was named chairman of FSSAI, several months after the post was left vacant. The food sector had seen widespread anger and disgruntlement due to pan-India recall of Maggi noodles, the signature brand of Swiss food major Nestle. On June 5, FSSAI had ordered the withdrawal of Maggi noodles, as some states had found monosodium glutamate (MSG) and excessive lead after testing a few samples of the product. The regulator said Maggi noodles was “unsafe and hazardous for human consumption”.
  
• Mukesh Ambani: Industrialist Mukesh Ambani was named India's richest for ninth year in a row with a net worth of USD 18.9 billion even as his wealth dipped by USD 4.7 billion in a year, while ecommerce giant Flipkart's founders made their debut on the country's top 100 rich list.
  
  As per Forbes magazine's latest India rich list released tonight, Ambani was followed by Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi as second richest with a net worth of USD 18 billion, while Wipro's Azim Premji retained his third place with USD 15.9 billion. Flipkart's co-founders Sachin and Binni Bansal made their debut at 86th position with a net worth of USD 1.3 billion each.
  
  The combined wealth of India's 100 richest persons remained largely unchanged at USD 345 billion, as compared to USD 346 billion in 2014, Forbes said
  
  The magazine said the Indian economy was estimated to grow at 7 per cent this year, but the wealth of many of India's 100 richest have gone down due to decline in the stock markets and depreciation in rupee value over the past one year
  
  As many as 10 of them saw their net worth dip by over USD 1 billion each in one year, including Lakshmi Mittal, whose net worth dipped to USD 4.6 billion (ranked 8th with USD 11.2 billion). His rank also slipped three places.
  
• Matthias Mueller: Volkswagen has named Matthias Mueller, the head of the group's Porsche unit, to be the new CEO and to lead the world's top-selling automaker past a growing emissions-rigging scandal
  
  The appointment comes after the previous CEO, Martin Winterkorn, quit the job this week over the scandal, which has damaged the company's reputation and threatens its business.
  
  Meanwhile, Swiss authorities said that they have temporarily banned the sale of new Volkswagen brand diesel-engine models potentially equipped with software capable of tricking environmental tests.
  
  Volkswagen has admitted to cheating on diesel car emissions test in the US by using software on 482,000 cars. It has said some 11 million cars worldwide have the software.
  
• Satyabhama: Kalamandalam Satyabhama, a pioneer who accorded Mohiniyattam a well-knit structure for the first time, died early on 13th September at a private nursing home at Ottappalam
  
  A Padma Shri awardee, her contributions to the realm of Kerala’s performing arts remain immense. Satyabhama’s career with the Kerala Kalamandalam marked a crucial phase in preserving and reinventing Mohiniyattam.
  
  An acclaimed choreographer and widely venerated guru, she also proved her administrative skills as the first woman vice-principal and later the principal of her alma mater, the Kerala Kalamandalam, founded by Vallathol Narayana Menon, to promote Kathakali and other performing art forms.
  
  Her disciples, including foreigners, are a legion who are torchbearers of the coveted ‘Kalamandalam sailee’ (school) of Mohiniyattam.
  
• Ashok Sridharan: Ashok Sridharan, a mayoral candidate of Chancellor Angela Merkel-led Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has comprehensively won the election in Bonn, becoming the first person of Indian-origin to occupy the mayor's office in a major German city. Sridharan, who is the son of a migrant from India and a German mother, will take over the reins of the city administration from the outgoing SPD mayor Juergen Nymptsch on October 21.
  
• Malcolm Turnbull: Malcolm Turnbull was on 15th September sworn-in as Australia's new Prime Minister; becoming the country's fifth premier in eight years after an internal revolt in the ruling Liberal Party forced Tony Abbott to quit. Soon after taking oath of office as the 29th Prime Minister of the country, the 60-year-old conservative leader vowed to bring a new style of consultative leadership to Australia.
  
• Tony Abbott ousted: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was dramatically ousted from power by challenger Malcolm Turnbull in an internal party vote. In the hastily-arranged late night party leadership ballot, 57-year-old Abbott, who had been plagued by poor opinion polls, received 44 votes to Turnbull's 54. Malcolm Turnbull is expected to be sworn in after Abbott writes to the Governor General and resigns.
  
  Turnbull earlier resigned from the cabinet this afternoon and challenged the leadership of Tony Abbott. Turnbull blamed the prime minister was incapable of providing the economic leadership the country needs.
  
• E Sreedharan: ‘Metro Man' E Sreedharan has been invited to the United Nations' High Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport (HLAG-ST). Sreedharan, the Principal Advisor to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, has been invited by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to serve on his HLAG-ST. The service is for a period of three years and Sreedharan has accepted the offer.
  
• P.V. Chandran: P.V. Chandran was elected president of the Indian Newspaper Society for 2015-16 on Friday. The annual general meeting of the INS here chose him to succeed Kiran B. Vadodaria. Mr. Chandran represents Grihalakshmi , a Malayalam magazine published by the Mathrubhumi group of publications, of which he is a whole-time director.
  
  Somesh Sharma ( Rashtradoot Saptahik ) is the new deputy president, Akila Urankar ( Business Standard ) vice-president and Mohit Jain ( The Economic Times ) honorary treasurer, said a media release issued by V. Shankaran, INS secretary-general. A 41-member executive committee was also elected.
  
• Chandrashekhar Patil: Kannada writer Prof. Chandrashekhar Patil, who hails from Dharwad and was a close associate of M.M. Kalburgi, has announced that he would return the prestigious Pampa Award conferred on him in 2009, in protest against the murder of his friend. Prof. Patil said that this was the least he could do as a writer to protest “the environment created in the country stifling dissent and freedom of expression,” that led to the murder of Kalburgi.
  
• Ramesh Chand: Renowned farm expert Professor Ramesh Chand has been appointed as new member of Niti Aayog. Mr Chand has been working as Director of National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NIAP) in New Delhi since 2010. He is also a member of a task force on agriculture development under Niti Aayog. The task force headed by Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagriya, which was formed in March this year, is mandated to recommend strategies for re-invigorating agriculture in all its aspects and to formulate strategies for reforms, innovation and technology diffusion. Besides Mr Chand, economist Bibek Debroy and former DRDO chief V K Saraswat are other two full-time members.
  
• Indians in Forbes list: Seven Indians, including three Infosys co-founders and a Dubai-based education entrepreneur, feature in the latest Forbes Asia edition in a new group of philanthropists from 13 countries for their noteworthy contributions.
  
  Infosys co-founders Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, Nandan Nilekani and SD Shibulal feature in the Forbes Asia's 9th list of philanthropists in the Asia-Pacific region for their individual contributions to health and education sectors.
  
  Rohan, son of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, also feature in the list. He donated a whopping USD 5.2 million to Harvard University Press for promoting ancient Indian literary classics. He represents his father as a philanthropist.
  
  Kerala-born entrepreneur Sunny Varkey also features in the list. In June 2015, Varkey was in the news for his pledge to donate half his fortune worth USD 2.25 billion as charity in response to the Giving Pledge Initiative, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Based in Dubai, Varkey is the founder of GEMS Education, a chain of 70 private schools in 14 countries. He has already been featured in Forbes' list of top Indian philanthropists.
  
  The two others are India-born brothers Suresh Ramakrishnan and Mahesh Ramakrishnan. Both are London-based entrepreneurs and are founders of Whitcomb & Shaftesbury Tailors on London's Saville Row.
  
• J Manjula: The Defence Research and Development Organisation, India's top defence technology research and development centre, for the first time in its history has appointed a woman as the Director General, Electronics and Communication Systems cluster.
  
  J Manjula an Outstanding Scientist took charge of the office from Dr KD Nayak, who held additional charge as Director General (Electronic and Communication Systems)
  
  According to DRDO Manjula has now become the first woman Director General in the various departments of DRDO.
  
  Prior to her appointment as DG Electronic and Communication Systems, she was the head of Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) since July 2014. She also was the first woman director of DARE, a Bengaluru-based DRDO lab, where her priority was to indigenise the various electronic warfare systems for the Indian Air Force.
  
  An alumna of Osmania University and a practising Electronics and Communications engineer, Manjula had a brief stint in Electronics Corporation of India Ltd before joining DRDO in 1987.
  
  She worked with the Integrated Electronic Warfare cluster of DRDO's Defence Electronics Research Laboratory, (DLRL) Hyderabad, for 26 years.
  
  She has designed several fast signal acquisition receivers, high power RF systems, responsive jammers and controller software for various systems that have been inducted in Army, Navy, Air Force and Paramilitary. She has vast experience in EW systems design and deployment in wide area network and her specialisation includes configuration of Communication and Radar ESM and ECM systems.
  
  For her accomplishments, she was given the India Today Woman Summit award for 2014. She is also a recipient of DRDO's 'Scientist of the Year 2011' and 'Performance Excellence' awards.
  
• Elizabeth: Queen Elizabeth became the longest-reigning monarch in British history on 9th September - breaking Queen Victoria's record on the throne. She has reigned for more than 23,226 days.
  
• Anjuly Duggal: The government has nominated Anjuly Chib Duggal, a secretary in the department of financial services, to the board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with effect from September 3, the central bank said. Duggal, who was appointed as financial services secretary on September 1, replaces Hasmukh Adhia who has become the revenue secretary.
  
• Shashidhar Sinha: Shashidhar Sinha CEO, IPG Mediabrands, was unanimously elected as Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for 2015-16, according to an ABC press release. He was elected at the bureau’s 67th Annual General Meeting. I Venkat of Eenadu was unanimously elected as Deputy Chairman.
  
• Indra Nooyi: PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is the sole Indian-origin executive in Fortune's list of 50 most powerful women in business, which has been topped by General Motors CEO Mary Barra. India-born Nooyi is ranked 2nd on the list, moving up a notch from her third position last year. Fortune said about the 59-year-old top executive that she beaten back a challenge from activist investor Nelson Peltz, landing a big marketing deal with the NBA, and managed to post 4 per cent organic revenue growth in 2014.
  
  Barra tops the Fortune list of 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and in her second year as head of the nation’s largest auto-maker. The list also includes IBM CEO Ginni Rometty on the third rank, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on 8th, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer at 18th.
  
• Rakesh Sharma: Rakesh Sharma took over as Managing Director and CEO of Bengaluru-headquartered Canara Bank on 11th September. Before being appointed by the Government to head Canara Bank, Sharma was the MD and CEO of Lakshmi Vilas Bank since March 2014.
  
• Darbha: Algorithmic trade specialist Gangadhar Darbha, and consultant of RBI, passed away On 11th September. He had joined RBI as a consultant only on September 1. He had joined the central bank from Japanese brokerage Nomura Securities, where he was an Executive Director.
  
  Jeremy Corbyn: A renowned Dalit sympathizer, hard core Tony Blair critic and an MP who vowed to publicly apologize for the Iraq war is Labour Party's new leader. Jeremy Corbyn has become the leader of the second-largest party in Britain and the government's main opposition with a thumping majority, getting 60% of the vote share.
  
• MM Kalburg: In Karnataka, senior Kannada writer and former vice-chancellor of Kannada University Dr. M. M. Kalburgi was shot dead in Dharwad in the morning on 30th August. He was shot dead by unidentified persons in his residence in Dharwad and rushed to the civil hospital, where he was declared dead. The 77 year old Kannada epigraphist and renowned scholar of vachana literature Kalburgi was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award, Nrupatunga Award and Pampa award for his contribution to Kannada literature.
  
• Rajiv Mehrishi: Senior IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi appointed as Home secretary as his previous assignment was that of Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs with the Ministry of Finance. Mehrishi replaces L C Goyal who sought voluntary retirement after taking over the charge seven months ago . The appointment of Mehrishi is for a period of two years. His previous assignment was that of Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs with the Ministry of Finance. The post of Union Home Secretary has a fixed tenure of two years. LC Goyal has been appointed as the CMD, ITPO.
  
• Arup Roy Choudhury: Country’s largest power generator NTPC’s Chairman and Managing Director Arup Roy Choudhury demitted office on 31st August after five years at the helm. Choudhury was denied an extension as per the recent policy of the government of not renewing the tenures of public sector unit heads appointed by the previous Government.
  
  However, unlike in the case of SAIL, where charge was handed over to the Steel Secretary Rakesh Singh, NTPC will be headed in the interim by its own employee.
  
  AK Jha, Director (Technical), the senior most director in the company will head the company in the interim till a permanent replacement is found. The suggestion to hand over charge to Jha, was given by Choudhury, people in the know of the development said. A search committee, to be constituted by the Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari, will now look for a replacement.
  
  Choudhury was the youngest chairman of a public sector unit when he was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of NBCC in 2001. He was 44 then.
  
• Ashwani Lohani: Ashwani Lohani took over as Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director on 31st August, 2015.
  
• Aadesh Shrivastava: Bollywood singer-composer Aadesh Shrivastava who was battling cancer passed away on 4th September. Over the course of his career, Shrivastava had composed music for over 100 Hindi films, including "Chalte Chalte","Baabul", "Baghban", "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham", "Rajneeti" and others.
  
• Uday Prakash: Hindi writer Uday Prakash decided to return his Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the murder of Kannada scholar and rationalist M.M. Kalburgi.
  
  Prakash wrote that Prof. Kalburgi's murder was part of a series of attacks on and instances of disrespect shown towards writers, artists, thinkers and intellectuals. The Sahitya Akademi awarded him in 2010-11 for his collection of short stories, Mohan Das. Prof. Kalburgi was also an Akademi awardee.
  
• Otto Perez: Guatemalan President Otto Perez has resigned, he is due to appear in court over a corruption scandal that has gutted his government and plunged the country into chaos days before a national election.
  
  Perez, who was elected on a ticket to combat crime and corruption, was not constitutionally eligible to run for re-election in coming (6th September) presidential vote.
  
  He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said he would not resign. But his options narrowed when a judge issued a detention order against him after lawmakers voted to strip him of immunity from prosecution.
  
• R Sampanthan: Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan on 3 September 2015 became the first tamilian to lead the opposition of in the Sri Lankan parliament after a gap of 32 years. An announcement was made in this regard by the speaker Karu Jayasuriya in the house. Sampanthan was first elected to Parliament from Trincomalee in 1977 on the ticket of the Federal Party.