NEWSMAKERS 2011-12

(Useful for Civil Services Mains Exam)

 

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, the renowned Indian-American scientist whose pioneering work in Molecular Biology won him the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has been knighted in the New Year Honours List 2012. He has been conferred knighthood “for services to Molecular Biology”. Ramakrishnan, a US citizen, is based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2010.

Jordan Romero

Jordan Romero, a US teenager became the youngest person to successfully climb to the summit of the seven tallest mountains on Earth’s seven continents. He beat the record previously held by British climber George Atkinson, who completed the ascents at age 16.

Neha Shekhawat

Flight Lieutenant Sneha Shekhawat is the first woman pilot to lead an Air Force contingent at the 63rd Republic Day parade. She was assisted by three other women Flying Officers Heena Pore, Anupam Chaudhary and Pooja Negi. Shekhawat, from Sikar in Rajasthan, is at present posted with the IAF squadron at Hindon in Ghaziabad air base.

Sebastian Edathy

Indian-origin MP in Germany Sebastian Edathy will head 11- member parliamentary inquiry committee that will investigate the racist-motivated murders across the country by a neo-Nazi cell evading detection for more than a decade. It will be the highest assignment in the political career of Edathy, who became a Social Democratic Party (SPD) member of Bundestag in 1998.

Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space in 1992, has been chosen to head the 100-year Starship project. Jemison's project will explore what it would take for a multi-generational mission beyond the solar system.

 

Satyendra singh Huja

Satyendra Singh Huja, a Sikh American, has been unanimously elected as the Mayor of Charlottesville, in Virginia. Incidentally, Huja is the only Sikh resident of Charlottesville, nearly 120 miles south west of Washington, having a Population of 43,000.

Souraitra Dutta

IIT-Delhi alumnus Soumitra Dutta has been named the new Dean of the Ivy League Cornell University’s business school. Dutta, 48, is the first Indian-origin and the 11th Dean at the 66-year old Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Aamir Khan

UNICEF appointed Padma Bhushan award-winning actor and producer Aamir Khan as its ambassador for promoting nutrition among children. As a representative of UNICEF, Aamir Khan will build on his personal interest in children’s issues to support UNICEF’s mission to ensure that every child in this country survives and thrives.

Lucas Papademos

Senior banker Lucas Papademos was named as the Prime Minister of the New Greek interim government, charged with keeping the debt-strapped country out of bankruptcy and firmly in the 17 nation eurozone. He replaces outgoing Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou midway through his four-year term.

Kofi Annan

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 73, has been appointed as the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria tasked with engaging with all relevant interlocutors within and outside the troubled country to end the yearlong violence and humanitarian crisis.

 

Baltasar Garzon

A court in Madrid acquitted Spain's renowned human rights judge Baltasar Garzon of breaching the terms of an amnesty by trying to investigate atroci-ties committed during the Franco era. Six members of the seven-panel bench came out in favour of acquitting the 56-year-old. 

V.K. Singh

Former army Chief General VK Singh had to back down in his confrontation with the government on the controversy over his date of birth. Recently he raised issues regarding corruption in defence deal.

Lt Ge Bikram Singh

Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Bikram Singh is the Chief of Staff of the 1.3 million-strong Indian Army. He has succeed General Vijay Kumar Singh, who retired on May 31. 

Jawhar Sircar

A three-member selection panel headed by Vice-President Hamid Ansari zeroed upon Culture Secretary Jawhar Sircar to be appointed as the next Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati. Sircar is due to retire from his present job in March, and will take over from Acting CEO Rajiv Takru, the Additional Secretary in Information and Broadcasting Ministry who also happens to be the government’s nominee on the Prasar Bharati Board.

Waheed Hassan

Following Mohamed Nasheed’s resignation Vice-President Waheed Hassan took oath as the new President of Maldives. Former President Mohamed Nasheed resigned on 7 February 2012. Swiftly then Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik was sworn in as the 5th President of the Maldives. 

Shanti Tigga

Shanti Tigga became the first lady jawan in the 1.3 million strong defense forces joining the 969 Railway Engineer Regiment of the Territorial Army. Notably, a mother of two, 35-year-old Shanti Tigga outperformed her male counterparts in the physical tests to become the first woman jawan in the Indian army.

Indarjit Singh

A leader of Britain’s Sikh community is to become the first turbaned member of the House of Lords. Indarjit Singh, Director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, who will sit as an Independent, made it clear that he did not intend to be a “token Sikh.” He played a central role in a landmark case that led to Sikhs being allowed protection under the race rela-tions laws for wearing their religious symbols in public.

Lt. Col. Harjit Singh Sajjan

Lt.Col. Haijit Singh Sajjan, has become the first Sikh in Canada to take command of a British Columbia regiment. In a historic ceremony, a change of command in the British Columbia Regiment took place on September 11th in Vancouver.

Suresh Kalmadi

The sacked Commonwealth Games Organising Committee Chairman, Suresh Kalmadi, and two other former OC officials were sent to the Tihar Central Jail on 14-day judicial custody. They were allegedly involved in a criminal conspiracy to award the Games Timing, Scoring and Results (TSR) system contract to a Swiss company.

Premlata Agarwal

Jharkhand’s Premlata Agarwal, 45, became the oldest Indian woman to scale Mount Everest. Ms. Agarwal, who is being supported by Tata Steel, is also the first person from Jharkhand to go on an expedition to the Everest. A mother of two daughters, Ms. Agarwal started her actual climb from the base camp on April 17.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport just minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with ' the sexual attack on a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel in New York. 

Nivedita Choudhary

27-year-old Indian Air Force officer became the first woman from the Indian Air Force to conquer Mt Everest as more of her peers from the 14-member expedition bided their time to set foot on the highest peak in the world. Flight Lieutenant Nivedita Choudhary from Rajasthan became the first member of the Indian Air Force Mt Everest Expedition 2011 to stand on the top of the world, followed by a second member of the team, Corporal Raju Sindhu, 26, from Haryana.

Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II has become the second-longest reigning monarch in British history, overtaking King George III after reigning for 59 years and 111 days. 

AtuI Khare

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Indian diplomat AtuI Khare as Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations. Mr. Khare was earlier appointed by the previous Sec-retary-General, Kofi Annan, as his Special Represen-tative for Timor-Leste and Head of the U.N. Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste. 

Habib al-Adli

Egypt’s former Interior Minister, Habib al-Adli, was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Mr. al-Adli is the first official from former President Hosni Mubarak’s administration to stand trial and be convicted on charges of corruption. 

Binayak Sen

Within weeks of getting bail from the Supreme Court in connection with charges of sedition, human rights activist Binayak Sen has been made member of the Planning Commission’s Steering Committee on Health, which will .advise the panel on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017). Binayak Sen, who was released on bail from the Raipur jail recently, will, based on his experience of having worked as a paediatrician in Chhattisgarh’s tribal belt, provide his input on the health of tribal children. 

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko

A “former Rwandan Minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko became the first and only woman in the world to be found guilty of genocide and in-citement to rape by UN International Criminal Tribu-nal for Rwanda.

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Austrian climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner became the first woman to conquer all fourteen 8,000-metre summits without artificial oxygen, when she reached the top of the K2. Kaltenbrunner, 40, is the third woman only to climb all 14 highest summits but the first to do so without artificial oxygen.

Lobsang Sangay

Lobsang Sangay (43), the political successor to the Dalai Lama, was sworn-in as Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala. Sangay succeeds Samdhong Rinpoche as the Kalon Tripa or the Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration. 

Sucheta Kadethankar

33-year-old Sucheta from Pune, has successfully crossed the arduous 1,623 km stretch of the Gobi desert, the largest in Asia and the fifth in the world, in a multi-national expedition. Sucheta, who was part of a 13-member team led by Ripley Davenport, accomplished the expedition, nine days before the stipulated 60 day deadline, braving rigours and heat of the sands in Mongolia. She became the first Indian woman to cross Gobi desert.

Sarah West

A woman will command a warship for the first time in Britain’s 500-year-old naval history. Thirty-nine-year-old Lieutenant Commander Sarah West will take control of the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland. The vessel has 185 crew members, mostly males.

Norman Anil Kumar Browne

Ace fighter pilot Norman Anil Kumar Browne took over as the chief of the Indian Air Force from Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, who retired after putting in 42 years of service. 59- year-old Browne has 3,100 flying hours to his credit.

Sushil Kumar Modi

The newly appointed chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on goods and services tax (GST), Sushil Kumar Modi, is one of the few BJP leaders after Atal Bihari Vajpayes who commands clout across party lines.

Peter Thomson

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) has elected Ambassador Peter Thomson, Fiji’s permanent repre-sentative to the United Nations, its president. Ambassador Thomson was elected as ISA president by its assembly which is holding its annual session in Kingston, Jamaica.

Narayana Murthy

Infosys founder, Chairman and Chief Mentor, N.R. Narayana Murthy, has been chosen to chair the Public Health Foundation of India. The position was left open after former chairperson Rajat Gupta, facing charges of insider trading in the United States, resigned in March. Mr. Murthy was unanimously elected by the PHFI’s governing council. He succeeds erstwhile Reserve Bank of India governor Y.V. Reddy, who has been func- tioning as the interim chairperson.

Vijayalakshmi Appareddy

A senior Indian-origin doctor from Andhra Pradesh has been elected as the chairperson of a section of the American Medical Association that promotes the interests of physicians who passed out their medical courses from outside the US and Canada.

Nandita Das

On October 28, 2011, at the historic National Building Museum, Washington DC, Nandita Das became the first Indian to be inducted into the International Women’s Forum (IWF) International Hall of Fame. In the presence of women leaders from 70 nations, the actor who often trod a lonely path in a glamour-obsessed industry, walked in equal company.

Mahan Maliaraj

Mahan  Maliraj has been awarded this Year’s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for mathematics, the highest academic honour n the country. This is the first time that any monk has won the award. 

Rabinder singh

Leading human rights lawyer Rabinder Singh (47) was sworn in as the high court of England and Wales’s first Sikh and the second non-white judge. Rabinder is the second Sikh to be appointed to Britain’s higher judiciary. Sir Mota Singh, knighted in 2010, was appointed a judge of the Crown Courts that are a tier below the high court in 1982.

Yulia Tymoshenko

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was given a seven-.year prison sentence after being found guilty of abuse of office in her signing a gas deal with Russia in 2009. She was also ordered to pay compensation of $189 million for losses incurred by Ukraine’s gas monopoly Naftogaz. As a convicted criminal, she would be unable to participate in Ukraine’s next presidential elections in 2012.