Today's GK

Controversial Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, who was a key figure in the Bofors payoffs scandal, died in Milan after he had a stroke. The 74-year-old Quattrocchi died peacefully on Friday and his funeral will take place on Monday, a member of the family told PTI on phone from the Italian city. The Bofors charge sheet, filed in 1999 by the CBI, had named Quattrocchi, who was close to the Gandhi family during his days in India as the representative of an Italian firm, as one of the accused in the case regarding the Rs.64 crore payoffs for supply of Swedish Howitzer guns to the Indian Army. The Rs.1,600 crore contract was clinched in 1986.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by Tshering Tobgay has swept the elections to the General Assembly of Bhutan. It won 32 out of 47 seats, while the outgoing party, the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT), managed to retain the remaining seats in the election in which 66. 07 per cent of the electorate voted.

Amar Gopal Bose, Indian-American entrepreneur and academic behind the revolutionary sound systems of Bose Corporation, died on July 12 at the age of 83 in Wayland, Massachusetts.

Dr. Bose was born on November 2, 1929, in Philadelphia, to an American schoolteacher and Noni Gopal Bose, a freedom fighter and Calcutta University physicist who fled to the U.S. in 1920 after being imprisoned for opposing British rule in India. When his business of importing coconut-fibre doormats from India failed after the U.S. suspended non-military shipping during World War II, Noni Bose came to rely on the early business success of his son’s venture, which offered radio repair services in the basement of their suburban home. By the end of the war, father Bose had become a firm believer in young Amar’s immense aptitude for practical electronics. In 1947, he was said to have borrowed $10,000 to help his son enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), even if he was admitted “by the skin of my teeth,” as Dr. Bose later recalled.

Mr. Ghosh’s book, The Sepoy Mutiny From Telegram Messages, is a historical account of India’s First War of Independence through the telegraph messages sent between 1857 and 1858.

It was Sir William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, a physician at the Calcutta Medical College, who went to Lord Dalhousie and spoke about the necessity of telegram services in 1848. The work to lay telegraph lines started in November 1850 between Alipore Telecom Factory in the city and the Diamond Harbour Post Office

USHA ANANTHASUBRAMANIAN to be CEO of BHARTIYA MAHILA BANK

Former tennis great Martina Hingis (in pic) was among others to be inducted into the International Hall of Fame here. Thelma Coyne Long, Cliff Drysdale, Charlie Pasarell and Ion Tiriac also entered the elite group on Saturday for their contribution to the sport. Hingis, a former women’s World No. 1 in both singles and doubles and collected 15 Grand Slam titles in total, received the highest honour in tennis. 

France clinched a maiden under-20 FIFA World Cup title on Saturday after defeating Uruguay 4-1 on penalties following a goalless draw in Istanbul.