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

Ashraf Ghani

•  Ashraf GhaniAhmadzai has been sworn in as Afghanistan’s new President, replacing Hamid Karzai in the country’s first democratic transfer of power since the 2001 U.S-led invasion toppled the Taliban.

•  He became President of Afghanistan in a peaceful transition after a six-month election season that ended with marathon negotiations that gave the newly created position of chief executive to his challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

•  Afghanistan has now experienced its first-ever peaceful power transition in its history as outgoing President Hamid Karzai transfers power to the new President Ashraf GhaniAhmadzai.

•  Mr. Karzai had been Afghanistan’s only leader since 2001.

Oprah Winfrey and Harry Belafonte

•  Oprah Winfrey and performer-activist Harry Belafonte were among those honoured at Harvard University at its annual celebration of African American culture.

•  The university’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research presented its annual W.E.B. Du Bois Medals to eight people at the ceremony. Other recipients included British architect David Adjaye, civil rights hero U.S. Rep John Lewis; 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator ShondaRhimes, and movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

•  The medal has been awarded since 2000 and is Harvard’s highest honour in the field of African and African American Studies. Ms. Winfrey also accepted a posthumous award for author and poet Maya Angelou, whom she has called a mentor.

Martin Perl

•  Martin Perl, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Stanford University who discovered a subatomic particle known as the tau lepton, has died at age 87.

•  The university said the retired professor, one of two American scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1995, died at Stanford Hospital.

•  At the time Perl discovered the tau lepton, many physicists doubted the particle that would turn out to be a heavyweight cousin of the electron existed. He eventually proved them wrong using a new kind of accelerator in which electrons and positrons course in opposite directions and collide.

DilmaRousseff

•  Brazil’s unpredictable election took another twist, with left-leaning President DilmaRousseff being forced into a runoff race as expected, but against a centre-right challenger who only surged in the final week of the campaign.

•  Ms. Rousseff will face AecioNeves in the Oct. 26 runoff vote, required as no single candidate won an outright majority. With over 99 per cent of the vote counted, the President had won 41.5 per cent against Mr. Neves’ 33.6 per cent.

•  As surprising as Mr. Neves’ rise was the fall from grace of another candidate, former Environment Minister Marina Silva, who took just 21 per cent of the vote. In late August, she held a double-digit lead over Ms. Rousseff in polls after being thrust into the race when her Socialist Party’s first candidate died in a plane crash.

•  But over the past three weeks, the powerful political machine of Ms. Rousseff’s Workers’ Party eviscerated Ms. Silva with what some analysts called the most negative and aggressive campaigning Brazil has seen since returning to democracy nearly 30 years ago. Ms. Silva fell hard in polls and could never regain her footing or get her message out.

PratimaDharm

•  The Georgetown University has appointed its first Hindu priest —a woman — to serve the religious needs of its Hindu students, whose number has increased in recent years.

•  PratimaDharm, who recently retired as the first Hindu chaplain in the U.S. Army, has been appointed as the first Hindu chaplain at the Georgetown University, a move welcomed by the Hindu students of this top private research university.

•  Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Jesuit and Catholic University in the U.S. Ms. Dharm began her new assignment at Georgetown on October 1, 2014, the university said in a media statement.

•  Previously she served on Army bases and hospitals around the world, including a yearlong deployment in Iraq. A native of Mumbai, she came to the United States in March 2001, only months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

M.V. Kamath

•  Veteran journalist M.V. Kamath passed away after a brief illness. He was 93. “He died of cardiac arrest at 7.30 a.m.,” said M. Dayananda, Medical Superintendent and COO of Kasturba Hospital.

•  The last rites were held at the Beedinagudde crematorium in Udupi in the evening. JairamKamath and RajaramKamath, nephews of Kamath; Vinay Kumar Sorake, Minister for Urban Development; and S.S. Pattanashetti, Deputy Commissioner, were present.

•  “In his death, Manipal University has lost a treasure,” said Ramdas M. Pai, Chancellor of the university. “He was greatly responsible for the growth of the School of Communication, which is today among the best communication schools in the country. He will be missed by every single student and faculty alike,” Dr. Pai added.

•  A Padma Bhushan recipient, Kamath had a long journalistic career. He served as the Editor of Free Press Bulletin, The BharathJyothi and as Editor-in-Charge of the Free Press Journal in succession, from 1950 to 55. He also worked as Special Correspondent of the Press Trust of India at the United Nations from 1955 to 1958.

Leela Samson

•  Renowned Bharatnatyam danseuse Leela Samson has resigned as chairperson of SangeetNatakAkademi.

•  Minister of State for Culture ShripadYessoNaik was quoted by Press Trust of India saying that her resignation, which was received on September 30, has been accepted.

•  Senior Ministry bureaucrats and Ms. Samson, who has a year of her tenure left, were tight-lipped although sources confirmed the development.

•  Ms. Samson, who was earlier Director of Kalakshetra Foundation in Chennai, continues as the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification although she has completed the three-year term. In 2012, the order of reinstatement of Ms. Samson as Kalakshetra Foundation Director was set aside by the Madras High Court.

•  Interestingly, the terms of several members of the executive board of the SangeetNatakAkademi have also expired and once Ms. Samson formally moves out, no major decisions can be taken until a new leadership is put in place. The Akademi is an autonomous body fully funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Shakti Devi

•  Inspector Shakti Devi of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who is currently deployed in the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has been named recipient of the International Female Police Peacekeeper Award 2014 by the UN’s Police Division for her “exceptional achievements” with the UN mission in Afghanistan, including her efforts towards helping victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

•  Ms. Devi has been honoured for her “exceptional achievements” in leading the establishment of Women Police Councils in several parts of Afghanistan, the UN Police Division said in a communication to the Indian mission.

•  It said Ms. Devi has contributed to the improvement of the status of female police and has effectively helped the police of Afghanistan move towards achieving their goals of fully adopting democratic principles of policing.

•  “In addition, her consistent engagement in improving the service for victims of sexual and gender-based violence has led to successful investigation and prosecution,” the UN agency said.

•  The award was delivered during the International Association of Women Police (IAWP) conference held earlier this month in Winnipeg, Canada.

•  India is the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, having contributed more than 170,000 troops in 43 out of 69 peacekeeping missions mandated by the United Nations Security Council so far. The UN also owes India $110 million, the second highest outstanding payment to any country, for costs relating to peacekeeping operations and troops.

Arvind Subramanian & Rajiv Mehrishi

•  With the appointment of former IMF economist Arvind Subramanian as the Chief Economic Adviser and Rajasthan cadre IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi as the finance secretary, the Narendra Modi government has brought in a new team to steer the economy, five months after it came to power.

•  Mr. Subramanian, earlier a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, is pronouncedly pro-market. He has in the past argued for quicker subsidy reforms, fast introduction of GST, and faster deficit reduction than the temporal target set by the government.

•  The medium term fiscal policy envisages a progressive reduction of the deficit to three per cent of the GDP by 2016-17.

•  His appointment is a bold signal from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a ministry official told. “Mr. Subramanian was critical of the first budget, but that he still gets this job is a clear signal that the government is serious about reforms.”

• Mr. Mehrishi replaces Arvind Mayaram, who has been appointed the new Tourism Secretary. Mr. Mehrishi is also known to be pro-market and has been handpicked by Mr. Jaitley.

ManoharLalKhattar

•  First-time legislator ManoharLalKhattar, 61, is set to become the 21st Chief Minister of Haryana.

•  Mr. Khattar, a Punjabi, pipped other aspirants to the post owing to his RSS background and proximity to top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister NarendraModi and party president Amit Shah.

•  He was unanimously elected leader of the BJP’s 47-member legislature group, following which he and senior BJP leaders met Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and apprised him of the decision. The swearing-in will be held at the Tau Devi Lal stadium in Panchkula on October 26.

•  Mr. Khattar from Rohtak won the Karnal seat by a margin of 63,773 votes. State party chief and Mahendragarh legislator Ram Bilas Sharma proposed Mr. Khattar’s name in the legislature party meeting and several others, including Capt. Abhimanyu and Om PrakashDhankar, backed his candidature. BJP observers M. Venkaiah Naidu and Dinesh Sharma were present. Mr. Khattar has been a member of the BJP’s national executive and senior RSS pracharak.

•  He was responsible for screening party candidates and was also chairman of the Haryana election committee for the LokSabha election earlier this year. Mr. Khattar from Rohtak entered the Karnal electoral battlefield as an outsider and met with resistance. He overcame the opposition with his shrewd projection of himself as the chief ministerial candidate.

Bilawal Bhutto

•  Tens of thousands of Pakistanis gathered to hear Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain ex-Premier Benazir Bhutto, address a massive rally billed as his formal political debut.

•  Ultra-tight security measures were in place for the rally in Pakistan’s biggest city Karachi, where huge crowds of supporters sang and danced, waving the flag of Bhutto’s main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

•  Bilawal (26) is being groomed to lead the party by his father Asif Ali Zardari, who was Pakistan’s President from 2008 until last year.

•  The rally marked the seventh anniversary of the devastating bomb attack that hit Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18, 2007, killing 139 people in the deadliest single terror attack on Pakistani soil.

•  “I start this journey for my people, for the martyrs, for my mother,” Mr. Bilawal wrote on his Twitter page ahead of the rally. “Boarding the truck bought back some painful memories.”

•  Analysts say the main purpose of Saturday’s rally was to present Mr. Bilawal as the true political heir to his mother.

KailashSatyarthi

•  For sustainable peace between India and Pakistan, the joint recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, people of both nations will need to come together and work together said Nobel laureate KailashSatyarthi.

•  “Peace will not be sustainable unless there is compassion, and compassion begins with children” he said, adding: “For me peace means people. Sustainable peace will come when people value each other’s concerns, dignity, identity and issues and realise we have to work hand in hand.”

•  At an interaction at the Foreign Correspondents Club here, Mr. Satyarthi who has been a campaigner for abolition of child rights, regretted that child labour was a reality despite the ban across the globe.

•  He however, had a word of praise for the Indian judiciary, crediting it for coming up with some of the “best” judgements on child labour, slavery, trafficking and related issues. “I believe in Indian democracy and the judiciary,” he said.

•  Referring to child labour as “violence” and as a “global problem,” he said governments world over have invested more in “guns and bullets” than in “books and toys” for children. “Child trafficking is the third largest illicit trade after arms and drugs. Though it is outlawed in many countries, child labour is still not abolished. I work across 140 countries; it is not an isolated problem.”

•  “Children are our collective future and our collective responsibility is to protect them,” he said and called for creating a socio-economic and political environment where children do not have to live in warzones or face insurgency.

JokowiWidodo

•  JokoWidodo, Indonesia’s first leader from outside the political and military elite, was sworn in President and reached out to political foes to seek support for his ambitious reform agenda.

•  Mr. Widodo, a 53-year-old former furniture exporter known by his nickname Jokowi, won the presidency in July after a close race against controversial ex-general PrabowoSubianto.

•  The former Jakarta Governor, who won legions of fans with his man-of-the-people image, is the country’s first leader since the end of Suharto’s three decades of dictatorship in 1998 to have no major links to that era.

•  After taking the oath in parliament at a ceremony attended by dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, he called for unity following the most bitterly fought election in Indonesian history.

Christophe de Margerie

•  The chief executive of French oil major Total, Christophe de Margerie, was killed in an airplane collision with a snow plough at Moscow's Vnukovo International Airport, airport spokeswoman Elena Krylova said.

•  "Tonight, a plane crashed when it collided with a snow-clearing machine. Three crew members and a passenger died. I can confirm that the passenger was Total's head de Margerie," she said.

•  The collision occurred during takeoff of the Dassault Falcon business jet in which de Margerie was a passenger, just minutes before midnight Moscow time, an airport statement said. The plane was due to travel to Paris.

•  A Total source in Moscow confirmed de Margerie died in a plane crash but offered no further details. De Margerie, 63, was on a list of attendees at a Russian government meeting on foreign investment in Gorki, near Moscow.

•  De Margerie, a graduate of the EcoleSuperieure de Commerce business school in Paris, became chief executive officer of Total in February 2007, taking on the additional role of chairman in May 2010, after previously running its exploration and production division.

Alan Eustace

•  A Google executive has broken the sound barrier and set several skydiving records over the southern New Mexico desert after taking a leap from the edge of space.

•  Alan Eustace’s supersonic jump early from a high-altitude, helium-filled balloon is part of a project by Paragon Space Development Corp. and its Stratospheric Explorer team. The goal is to develop a self-contained commercial spacesuit that would allow people to explore the stratosphere.

•  Mr. Eustace started his dive at 135,908 feet (41,424 m). He remained in freefall for about 4.5 minutes, hitting a top speed of 822 mph (1,320 kph).

•  Jim Hayhurst with the United States Parachute Association was the jump’s official observer. He said Mr. Eustace’s freefall was perfectly stable, and the team on the ground could hear the sonic boom.

Oscar de la Renta

•  Oscar De la Renta, who dressed first ladies, socialites and Hollywood stars for more than four decades, died at age 82, only six weeks after his last New York Fashion Week show. But not before another high-profile honor was bestowed on him — AmalAlamuddin wore a de la Renta gown to wed George Clooney in Venice.

•  De la Renta was one of the New York-based designers who in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s carved out a look of their own that was finally taken seriously by Europeans. Earlier this month, U.S. first lady Michelle Obama notably wore a de la Renta dress for the first time. De la Renta had criticized her several years earlier for not wearing an American label to a state dinner in 2011.

Oscar Pistorius

•  Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison for killing ReevaSteenkamp by a South African judge who cited the “gross negligence” the runner showed when he shot his girlfriend multiple times through a toilet cubicle door in his home.

•  Judge Masipa also sentenced Pistorius to three years in prison for unlawfully firing a gun in a restaurant in a separate incident weeks before Steenkamp’s 2013 shooting death. She ordered that sentence to be wholly suspended.

•  Judge Masipa delivered her ruling after reviewing prosecution arguments for a tough sentence as well as the defence case for a more lenient punishment for Pistorius.

•  Pistorius killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013, shooting her through a toilet door in his home. Pistorius testified that the shooting was an accident because he mistook his girlfriend for a night-time intruder.

•  Judge Masipa convicted him of culpable homicide, or negligent killing, but acquitted him of murder. Pistorius stood as the judge announced his sentence, and then left the courtroom and walked down a flight of stairs that lead to holding cells.

SenzoMeyiwa

•  The captain of South Africa’s national soccer team was fatally shot when armed men broke into the house where he was staying, police said.

•  Goalkeeper SenzoMeyiwa was killed around 8 p.m. after two gunmen entered a house in Vosloorus township near Johannesburg while an accomplice waited outside, the national police force said on its Twitter account. The three assailants then fled on foot, according to the police service, which offered a reward of nearly $14,000 for information leading to arrests in the case.

•  Police said there were seven people in the house during the attack, and that the shooting followed an “altercation.” Authorities said they would do everything possible to find the killers.

•  South Africa has a high rate of violent crime, but it was not immediately clear whether the house where Meyiwa was staying was targeted by thieves or gunmen with another motive. Solomon Makgale, a South African police spokesman, declined to comment, referring The Associated Press to updates on the police Twitter account.

DilmaRousseff

•  Left-leaning President DilmaRousseff was re-elected in the tightest race Brazil has seen since its return to democracy three decades ago, giving the juggernaut Workers’ Party its fourth-straight presidential victory and the chance to extend its social transformation of the globe’s fifth-largest country.

•  Ms. Rousseff took 51.6 percent of the votes and centre-right challenger AecioNeves had 48.4 percent, with almost all ballots counted. The result reflected a nation deeply divided after what many called the most acrimonious campaign since the return to democracy, with charges of corruption, nepotism and ample personal barbs thrown by both sides.

•  The re-elected leader faces an immense challenge of reigniting a stalled economy, improving woeful public services that ignited huge anti-government protests last year, and trying to push political reforms through a highly fragmented congress where the governing coalition has less support than it did four years ago.

•  Speaking in front of a banner that read “New Government, New Ideas” and a giant photo of Ms. Rousseff from her days as a militant who fought against Brazil’s long military regime, she thanked her supporters, starting with her political mentor and predecessor LuizInacio Lula da Silva, who picked her to take his place in 2010.

SundarPichai

•  Google CEO Larry Page has appointed his key employee SundarPichai to lead the company's important products such as search, maps, advertising and more.

•  Google, the world's largest internet search company, is going through a change in the company's top level management.

•  citing an internet note, Google CEO Larry Page has appointed SundarPichai, the head of Chrome and Android, as the lead for company's core products and services. Pichai's new role will impose great responsibilities on the Indian-born executive, which were previously handled by Page, as reported byRe/Code.

•  Under the new leadership role, Pichai will directly undertake products such as search, maps, Google+, commerce, advertising and infrastructure in addition to his existing role as a head of Android, Chrome and Google Apps, sources familiar with the change said of the change.

• Additionally, six executives, including heads of research, social media and search, who previously reported directly to Page will now report to Pichai, the exclusive report added.
   

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