General Awareness :In the News September, 2014

(General Awareness For Bank's Exams) In the news
September - 2014

GopalSubramanium

Former Solicitor-General GopalSubramanium has withdrawn his letter to the Supreme Court opting out as amicus curiae in the PadmanabhaSwamy temple case.
Mr. Subramanium has already swung into action and left for Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala to inspect the temple premises and prepare an additional report on the administration of the temple.
Supreme Court sources said the case files had been sent back to him and he was expected to appear in the case in November. They said he decided to withdraw his letter after the court asked him to reconsider his decision.
Early this month, he had written to Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha, expressing his decision to bow out as amicus curiae. He had also returned the files concerning the case to the Supreme Court Registry.
Mr. Subramanium’s report on the condition of the temple and its assets in Thiruvananthapuram had created a storm.
The report had complained of corruption and disregard of ethics in the temple’s administration.

Akkineni

Legendary actor AkkineniNageswaraRao will be the first Indian actor to be honoured with a postage stamp by the U.S. Post Service (USPS).
The Akkineni Foundation of America (AFA) has said that the stamp will be issued on the birth anniversary of NageshwaraRao, who died of cancer early this year.
A special release ceremony is being planned by AFA on September 20 in Dallas, Texas.
The AFA is also planning to release the stamp in India on December 17 at the first International Akkineni Awards Ceremony being planned at ANR College, Gudivada in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.

Versatile Bapu

The man whose pencil etched what was universally accepted as the epitome of beauty is no more.
Artist, cartoonist, film director, designer and painter, Bapu (born SathirajuLakshminarayana) leaves behind a legacy as one of the finest filmmakers on the firmament of Indian cinema.
The director was conferred with Padma Shri last year. He has won the National Film awards twice and the Andhra Pradesh State government’s Nandi awards for 6 of his films in addition to receiving awards from several other institutions.

H.L. Dattu

President Pranab Mukherjee has cleared the appointment of Justice H.L. Dattu, the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court, as the 42nd Chief Justice of India.
Justice Dattu could become the last Chief Justice of India to be appointed under the collegium system of judicial appointments.
If the States ratify the National Judicial Appointments Commission, a constitutional body, the collegium system will come to an end and the executive will get an equal role in appointments to the highest judiciary.
Justice Dattu will become the Chief Justice of India after the retirement of CJI R.M. Lodha on September 27, 2014. He will hold the post for a little over a year until his retirement on December 2, 2015.

David Haines

Islamic State (IS) extremists released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines, who was abducted in Syria last year.
IS militants recently beheaded two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and posted the videos online after the U.S. began launching airstrikes and humanitarian missions in August to aid waning
Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq.

Ian Paisley

Former Northern Irish First Minister Ian Paisley, the firebrand Protestant leader, died at the age of 88.
A towering figure during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, he was known for his decades of intransigence and impassioned rhetoric.
He did what even he once considered unthinkable in May 2007 and entered office with Sinn Fein — the political wing of Irish Republican Army — and as a result restored stable, devolved government to the province.
In a feat few could match, Paisley co-founded both a church and a political party, leading the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and the Protestant, conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). — AFP

Neel Mukherjee

Kolkata-born British author Neel Mukherjee’s latest novel The Lives of Others , set in troubled Bengal of the 1960s and centred around a dysfunctional family, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize 2014, in its debut as a global literary award.
Mr. Mukherjee, who studied at Oxford and Cambridge, was also the only Indian-origin author to be longlisted earlier this year.
Mr. Mukherjee, now a British citizen, reviews fiction for the Times and the Sunday Telegraph and his first novel, A Life Apart was a joint winner of the Vodafone-Crossword Award in India.
Previously, the prize was open only to authors from the U.K. and Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.
For the first time in its 46-year history, the £50,000-prize has been opened up to writers of all nationalities, writing originally in English and published in the U.K.— PTI

SudarshanVenu

In a significant move, the board of TVS Motor Company has appointed SudarshanVenu, son of VenuSrinivasan, as the Joint Managing Director of the company.
As a whole-time director, Mr. Venu has already been very active in the affairs of the company.
In view of this, the board has chosen to elevate him to the position of Joint Managing Director.

VijayanRajes

VijayanRajes has been elected President of United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI) for 2014-15.
Mr. Vijayan owns MSP Plantations, Yercaud, and has been serving on the Executive Committee of UPASI since 2002-03.
N. Dharmaraj has been elected Vice-President, an UPASI release said. — PTI

Subhash Chandra Garg

Senior IAS officer Subhash Chandra Garg was appointed as Executive Director in World Bank.
Mr. Garg, a 1983-batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, will have a tenure of 3 years from the date of assuming charge of the post, said an order issued by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet. — PTI

Firoza Begum

Hundreds of people paid their last respects to NazrulSangeet legend Firoza Begum who died at the age of 84.
The body of the eminent singer, who had mesmerised Bengalis with her voice for seven decades, was brought to the Central ShaheedMinar in the capital where people from all walks of life paid homage. The singer had been ailing for a long time.
Born in 1930, Firoza Begum was educated in Calcutta in undivided India and was closely linked with rebel poet KaziNazrul Islam, who is now Bangladesh’s national poet.

Jiten Paul

Jiten Paul, a veteran journalist and freedom fighter, passed away at a hospital in Agartala, at age of 101.
With his demise, a brilliant legacy of journalism and social movement in northeast India came to an end.
He launched Tripura’s first Bengali daily Jagaran in 1953 and had been a guiding force for journalists, intellectuals and social activists for decades.
He tirelessly worked towards rehabilitation of Bengali migrants from East Pakistan after partition of India and later for people displaced internally due to ethnic strife and insurgency problem in Tripura.
Before settling down in Tripura, he took part in India’s independence movement in Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh, where he was born in 1914.
The nonagenarian was actively involved welfare activities and rights movements of journalists till his last days.

Yamaguchi

Japanese actress and singer Yoshiko “Shirley” Yamaguchi, who was nearly executed in China at the end of World War II, has died at the age of 94 after a life as dramatic as any of her films.
Yamaguchi, who was born to Japanese parents in pre-war Manchuria, where her father worked for the railway, entertained Chinese and Japanese audiences posing as a Chinese under her assumed identity Rikoran or Li Xianglan.
Some of her movies at this time were seen as pro-Japanese propaganda, including China Nights (1940), in which she starred with Japanese heartthrob Kazuo Hasegawa, and she later expressed regret over them
Arrested after the war as a collaborator, she narrowly avoided execution for treason by revealing her Japanese identity to the Chinese court.
Her hit songs included “Fragrance of the Night” and “Suzhou Serenade”, which was banned in mainland China after the war.
Following her deportation from China in 1946, she re-launched her career in Japan under her birth name, Yoshiko Yamaguchi, and went on to star in Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal and other films.
She also played a leading role in U.S. movies and musicals in the 1950s as Shirley Yamaguchi, including Samuel Fuller’s A House of Bamboo (1955). She married Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi in 1951 but their marriage lasted just four years.

ShahidAfridi

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) named flamboyant all-rounder ShahidAfridi as its new national Twenty20 captain until the 2016 World T20 while MisbahulHaq was retained as the Test and ODI skipper until the 2015 ODI World Cup.
Afridi has played 381 ODIs and 74 T20 internationals.
Afridi, 34, who captained Pakistan in ODIs and T20 matches in 2010 and 2011 before being removed by the board said he was delighted to get back the responsibility.

LalithaKumarmangalam

BJP’s national executive member LalithaKumarmangalam was appointed as the chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW).
Kumarmangalam is from Tamil Nadu and runs an NGO called Prakriti.

AdilZainulbhai

Prime Minister NarendraModi has appointed former McKinsey India chairman AdilZainulbhai as the chief of the Quality Council of India (QCI).
Zainulbhai, who is currently serving as a senior adviser with McKinsey India, is also on the boards of Reliance Industries, the American India Foundation, Saifee Hospital, SaifeeBurhaniUpliftment Trust, Network 18 as well as on the advisory board of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

AbhishekGanguly

Rajiv Mehta, who was previously managing the reins of Puma India as the managing director for nine years, announced his exit from the company.
Puma India said that it had appointed AbhishekGanguly as its new Managing Director, taking over the reins of the brand that recently launched the Forever Faster campaign.
Mr. Abhishek previously had been spearheading the sales and retail functions for the brand and had joined Puma right at its inception in 2005 as a founding director.

AlokShetty

A 28-year-old Bangalore-based architect has been named “young leader of tomorrow” by Time magazine for his pioneering work in designing affordable flood-proof houses for slum dwellers.
AlokShetty is among “leaders of tomorrow” who are “working hard to change their worlds today,”
Time said as it named six inspirational young persons in its first class of “next generation leaders.”
Mr. Shetty, who studied Master’s in architecture at Columbia University, “came at the problem with an approach he brings to all of his projects — marrying smart design with a commitment to sustainability.”
Mr. Shetty, working with the Bangalore-based nonprofit Parinaam Foundation, is designing homes for hundreds of slum dwellers whose makeshift houses flood during the heavy rains and become breeding grounds for diseases like malaria.

John Key

New Zealand’s conservative Prime Minister John Key swept to a historic election victory on, securing a third term as voters ignored campaign allegations of dirty tricks and mass spying.
The resounding win makes Mr. Key the first New Zealand leader able to govern in his own right since proportional voting was introduced in 1996 and means his centre-right National Party has increased its vote in all three elections he has contested.
National won 61 of 121 parliamentary seats, up from 59 at the last election in 2011, while the main opposition Labour Party managed only 32, down two, its worst performance since the 1920s.

Mandolin U. Shrinivas

The Carnatic music fraternity is in a state of shock over the untimely death of Mandolin U. Shrinivas .
He was reportedly being treated for liver failure at the Apollo Hospital .
He had lately received a liver transplant and had recovered, but a lung infection proved fatal.

Educationist Kireet Joshi passes away

Eminent educationist and former education adviser to the Union government Kireet Joshi passed away after battling cancer. He was 83.
Mr. Joshi was selected for the Indian Administrative Services in 1955 and posted as Assistant Collector of Surat, Gujarat in 1956.
However, he resigned his job the same year in order to study and practise the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo at Puducherry. He was appointed as the Registrar of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in 1958.
In 1976 the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appointed him as the educational adviser to the Government of India.
He was instrumental in redesigning and redrafting of the Bill for VishwaBharati University, Shantiniketan.
He is also credited with seeding the idea of the Indira Gandhi National Open University as also of Pondicherry University.
In 1981 Mr. Joshi was appointed Secretary of Auroville International Advisory Council.
He served as the Educational Adviser to the Gujarat Chief Minister from 2008 to 2010.

RizwanAkhtar

Lieutenant General RizwanAkhtar was appointed the new chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in commander-level promotions announced in the country’s powerful Army.
Announcement comes as current ISI chief Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam and five other lieutenant generals are scheduled to retire from service in the first week of October.
Lt. Gen. Akhtar is a graduate of the Command and Staff College in Quetta, National Defence University and the Army War College, U.S.

BibekDebroy

The government has set up a panel of experts to suggest ways for restructuring the Railway Board, a long pending issue, to infuse efficiency in the transport behemoth's top decision-making body and run it on professional lines.
The seven-member committee, headed by economist BibekDebroy, has been tasked to suggest measures to reorganize the Railway Board and its departments so that policy making is separated from day-to-day operations.
The panel, which has former cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar as member, has also been mandated to estimate the financial needs of railways and ensure policies to raise resources, internally and otherwise to meet future demands.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden has been selected among the winners of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “alternative Nobel,” for his disclosures of top secret surveillance programs.
The award foundation said the former National Security Agency contractor splits the honorary portion of the prize with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
The 1.5 million kronor ($210,000) cash award is shared by Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jahangir, Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission and U.S. environmentalist Bill McKibben.
Award foundation director Ole von Uexkull said all winners were invited to the December 1 award ceremony in Stockholm, though he added it’s unclear whether Mr. Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, can attend.

Govind Mishra

Renowned Hindi author Govind Mishra was conferred the 'SaraswatiSamman' for his novel "DhoolPaudhon Par" published in 2008 at a function in New Delhi.
Govind Mishra is the second Hindi author who was conferred this honour after it was given to HarivanshRaiBachchan in 1991. Born on August 1, 1939, in Atarra (Banda, Uttar Pradesh), Mishra completed his BA and MA (English) at the University of Allahabad.
Giving away the award, constituted by the K K Birla Foundation, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that it has been recognised as the highest literary award in India.

Panneerselvam

O. Panneerselvam will be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He will assume the office for the second time under similar circumstances.
In September, 2001, AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa had to step down as her appointment as Chief Minister was quashed by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Panneerselvam, the AIADMK treasurer, met Governor K. Rosaiah at the Raj Bhavan and submitted a letter and resolution passed by the party legislators stating that he had been unanimously elected leader of the AIADMK legislature party.
He will be the 28th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu since 1920.

“Pottu Amman dead”

Dismissing reports that the LTTE’s one-time intelligence chiefPottu Amman had been arrested in Hong Kong, the Sri Lankan Army said he was dead for years.
The Army had sufficient evidence to believe that the senior member of the rebel Tigers — who is on Interpol’s wanted list in connection with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi — was dead, according to spokesman RuwanWanigasooriya.
Though charge-sheeted in India in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, his name, along with that of LTTE chief V. Prabakaran, was removed from the list as the designated court observed that both were killed in the Sri Lankan Army’s offensive.

Stress on gender sensitisation in curriculum

Gender sensitisation and inclusion will be the core of the curriculum for schools and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) will collaborate with the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) to ensure the textbooks are free from gender biases.
The HRD Ministry, which has begun the process of drafting a new education policy, wants curriculum to underline gender issues and has assured that all States and stakeholders will be involved in the process of drafting the new policy.

Academic activities begin at Nalanda varsity

Academic activities began at Nalanda University at Rajgir, more than eight centuries after the ancient university was destroyed by a medieval ruler.
Out of the 15 students enrolled in the university so far, nine attended classes on the inaugural day in the departments of environmental studies and history, the two subjects which will be taught here in the first session.
The students were welcomed by vice-chancellor GopaSabharwal, who also greeted the teachers and staff to the reborn university amidst enthusiasm by those present at the occasion.

First Ajmer literature festival

The first Ajmer Literature Festival will begin on September 4.
The three-day festival is being organised by the Ajmer Literary Society and its aim “is to build a civilised, cultured and sensitive society for the promotion of art, literature and culture in the country and the world.”
To be inaugurated by filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, Mira Ali and Justice (retd.) DalvirBhandari, thinkers, writers, art-lovers and journalists will deliberate on the contemporary challenges faced by the society at present.
Conceived by poet RasBihari Gaur, the event will be the first of its kind in Ajmer and it will be held in Hindi.

Sulabh begins ‘toilet for every house’ drive from Badaun

Taking a cue from Prime Minister NarendraModi’s Independence Day speech, Sulabh International kick-started its nationwide ‘Toilet for Every House’ campaign from KatraSadatganj village in Badaun that has been in the news for the killing of two girls when they ventured out of their homes in the dark to relieve themselves.
A U.N. study in 2010 found that more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet … It’s a shame.

Modi urged not to visit Renkoji temple

The Punjab-based NetajiSubhashKrantiManch urged Prime Minister NarendraModi not to visit the Renkoji temple in Tokyo where some believe that the ashes of the late freedom-fighter NetajiSubhash Chandra Bose are buried.
In a statement here, the Manch observed that if Mr. Modi chose to visit the temple as was reported in a section of the media, it would send wrong signals about the “attitude and intentions” of his government towards Netaji.

Experts divided over posting of ex-CJIs as Governors

With the former Chief Justice of India (CJI) P. Sathasivam being appointed as Kerala Governor, a new dimension has been added to the debate on judicial autonomy and accountability.
It is for the first time a former CJI is being appointed to a gubernatorial post.