Today's GK(15-8-13)

The Union Government on 14 August 2013 announced the Prime Minister’s Shram Awards for the year 2012 to be awarded to 70 workers employed in the Departmental Undertakings & Public Sector Undertakings of the Central and State Governments and Private Sector Units employing 500 or more workers in recognition of their distinguished performances, innovative abilities, outstanding contribution in the field of productivity and exhibition of exceptional courage and presence of mind.

This year, one nomination for the prestigious Shram Ratna Award, eight nominations for the Shram Bhushan Award, twenty nominations for Shram Vir/Shram Veerangana and forty one nominations for Shram Shree/Shram Devi Awards have been selected. Even though, the total number of Shram Awards is 33, the number of workers receiving the Awards is 70 (Including 3 women), as some of the Awards have been shared by workers and/or teams of workers consisting of more than one worker. These include 48 workers from the public sector and 22 workers from the private sector.

SHRAM RATNA
This is the highest Award (one in number) among the Shram Awards and carries a cash award of 200000 rupees along with a Sanad. For the year 2012, the prestigious Shram Ratna Award has been awarded to Subrata Kumar from Tata Steel Ltd., Jameshedpur.

SHRAM BHUSHAN
Total number of Shram Bhushan Awardees is Eight. It carries a cash award of 100000 rupees and a Sanad.  Eight nominations were found suitable for the Shram Bhushan Award for the year 2012 in respect of Public Sector Undertaking and Private Sector are given to Subhash Muralidhar Wadkar from Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, Sanjay Kumar from DRDO, Dewendra Kumar Dikshit, Abhijit Das Gupta, Pravas Chandra Panda, Yogesh Kumar Verma and Bijay Kishore Mishra (Jointly) all from Tata Steel Ltd., Jameshedpur and Annie Antony from Tata Steel Ltd., Jameshedpur.

SHRAM VIR/VEERANGANA
Total number of Shram Vir/Shram Veerangana Awardees is twenty. It carries a cash award of 60000 rupees and a Sanad. No female worker from Privte Sector,  for the Shram Bhushan Award for the year 2012 The Shram Veer/Veerangana Shtam Awards in respect of Public Sector Undertaking and Private Sector are given to Smt. K. Uma from Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd. Bangaluru Shri Shantanu Suresh Shinde from Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd, S/Shri Guleshwar Prasad Sahu, Gulab Chaturvedi, Liladhar Prasad and Shri Anil Kumar (Jointly) all from  Bhilai Steel Plant, Bhilai, Shri Gokada Udaya Bhaskar from Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, B. Selvam from Southern Railway, Chennai, S/Shri Lallu Prasad, R. Vasudeo Rao, Mohammad Aftab Alam, Arun Kumar Soni and Krishna Kumar Deshmukh (Jointly) all from Bhilai Steel Plant, Shri Biju Mathew from Tata Steel Ltd., Jamshedpur, Shri Salat Ghanshyam Gopichand from Larsen & Toubro Ltd., Surat (Gujrat), Shri Vasant Gangadhar Bhandurge from Tata Motors Ltd., Pune, Malay kumar Pathak and Ramesh Chandra Jain (Jointly) both from Reliance Industries Ltd., Mumbai, Shri Shrinivas Kondiba Kalamkar from Bajaj Auto Ltd., Aurangabad and Shri Pramod Harichandra Nagdeve from Ashok Leyland Ltd., Godegaon (Maharashtra)

SHRAM SHREE/DEVI
Total number of Shram Shree/Shram Devi Awardees is forty one. It carries a cash award of 40000 rupees and a Sanad. One female workers from Public sector have been selected for Shram Devi Awards for this year. The Shram Shree/Shram Devi awardees in respect of Public Sector Undertakings and Private Sector are  Shri Ranjeet Singh Katiyar from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. Kanpur, S/Shri Ashok Kumar Dabas, Devraj and Lakshmi Chand (Jointly) all from NTPC, Badarpur, New Delhi, S/Shri Pushkar Singh Adhikari, Narayan Prasad Bajpai, Devinder Pal Singh Brar, Gopi Chand Barmate, Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, Murchanju and Roop Singh (Jointly) all from Bhilai Steel Plant, Smt. K. UdayaKumari from Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., Bangaluru, Shri Gajanan N. Malusare from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., Mumbai, S/Shri Bhagabata Pradhan, Prakash Kumar Nath, Ramesh Chandra Raula, Arakshita Adak, Chandra Bhanu Munda, Basanta Kumar Das, Bhabani Shankar Pati, Bidhan Chandra Naik and Ananta Kumar Sethi (Jointly) all from Rourkela Steel Plant, S/Shri Pramod Shrivastava, Liladhar Dadwe, Shailesh Kumar Chhandrakar, Bansilal and Kamal Tayade (Jointly) all from Bhilai Steel Plant, S/Shri Shivnandan Prasad Naik, Dibyendu Mitra, Ashok Kumar Soni, Bhupendra Kumar Dhruw and Sanju Lal Goel (Jointly) all from Bhilai Steel Plant, Shri Raja Ram Yadav from Hindalco Industries Ltd, Renukoot (UP), S/Shri Manoj Kumar Sahoo and Pradeep Kumar Pani (Jointly) from Tata Steel Ltd., Jamshedpur, Shri Dharmendra Nath Mishra from Hindalco Industres  Ltd, Sonebhadhra (UP), Shri Ramesh Kishanprasad Tiwari from Bajaj Auto Ltd., Aurangabad, Shri Deshmukh Rakesh Bhaskar Rao from Tata Motors Ltd., Pune, Shri Harekrushna Kamila from Tata Steel Ltd., Jamshedpur, Shri Harindra Prasad Srivastava from Hindalco industries Ltd., Renukoot, Sonebhadra (UP) and Shri Erachari from L&T – Komatsu Ltd, Bangaluru.

The 39-member Indian Police team won a record breaking haul of 83 medals after participating in the World Police & Fire Games held at Belfast from 1 August to 10 August 2013. The medals include 48 Gold, 22 Silver and 13 Bronze Medals. The tally of 83 medals is the biggest harvest of medals at these prestigious Games and has broken the record of 2005 World Police & Fire Games held in Quebec (Canada) where India had won 82 medals including 39 Gold.

The performance of the Indian team was exceptional in Athletics where a 14-member team, comprising 7 males and 7 female police athletes, was able to win 22 Gold, 9 Silver and 6 Bronze medals at the Mary Peters Athletic Track at Belfast. While the male athletes were able to win 15 medals including 7 Gold, it was the female athletes who did exceptionally well winning 22 medals including 15 Gold. S Sini of Kerala Police secured Gold Medals in 100 meters and 200 meters sprints and Anju Thomas and Chinchu Jose also of Kerala Police won Gold medals in 400 and 800 meters run respectively.

Manpreet Kaur of BSF won Gold medals both in 100 meters hurdles and 400 meters hurdles. The golden run of the Indian women athletes was continued by Anuradha Singh of CISF who won Gold both in 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters whereas Neha Singh of CISF secured Gold medals in long jump and triple jump events. Matching them on the jumping pit, M Priyadevi of SSB won long jump and triple jump Gold medals. However, the crowning glory for Indian female athletes came in 4X100 meters and 4X400 meters Relay Races for women where the Golden quartet of S Sini, Anju Thomas, Chinchu Jose ( Kerala Police) and Manpreet Kaur (BSF) beat tough competition from Mexico and USA to win Gold medals in both the events.
The Indian women Police sportspersons also excelled in Judo and Boxing. In Judo, the Indian trio of TH Kalpana Devi (ITBP, 52 Kg.), L Nirupama Devi (CRPF, 63 Kg.) and CH Jina Devi (SSB, 78 Kg.) won Gold medals in their individual weight categories. However, the hearts of boxing loving people of Belfast were won by the Indian women boxers when four of them viz. K Mandakini Chanu (SSB, 57 Kg.), Preeti Beniwal (Haryana Police, 60 Kg.), Poonam (SSB, 75 Kg) and Kavita (Haryana Police, 81 Kg.) fought exceptionally well before a capacity crowd at Ulster Hall in the heart of Belfast city to win 4 Gold medals in their individual weight categories.

The second event where the Indian Police sportspersons excelled was swimming in which the four member team came back with 16 Medals, including 9 Gold, 5 Silver and 2 Bronze. Mandar Anand Divase of BSF won 4 individual Gold medals while Rohit Kumar of CRPF and M Tulsi Chaitanya of Andhra Pradesh Police won 2 and 1 Gold medals respectively at the meet. The Indian swimming quartet comprising Rajbir Singh of Punjab Police and other three swimmers mentioned-above also won Gold medals in 4X50 meters Medley and in 4X50 meter Freestyle swimming.
In the Archery competition, the three-member Team of archers was able to win 7 medals including 4 Gold and 3 Silver. Dipul Boro of CRPF particularly excelled in traditional (Long Bow) archery winning 3 Gold medals in Target Archery, Field Archery and 3D Archery. Priyank of ITBP won a Gold medal in Target Archery in the Recurve Bow category.

In Wrestling, the seven member team was able to win a total of 12 medals, including 5 Gold., 4 Silver and 3 Bronze. Navin More of Haryana Police won two Gold medals in Freestyle and Greco-roman wrestling in the 120 Kg. Weight category. Manoj Kumar of CRPF won a Gold and Silver medal each in two categories while Amit Kumar of Haryana Police won a Gold medal in 69 Kg. weight category.

Egypt’s Vice President Mohamed Elbaradei resigned in protest over the attacks on pro Mohamed Morsi supporters in Cairo on 14 August 2013. The Egyptian police stormed the two sit in protest sites to disperse them following which 281 people were killed.

United States, European Union and United Nations condemned the violent dispersal of protesters while the Prime Minister of Egypt Hezam Beblawi justified the act saying it was necessary since it had become a threat to national security. Emergency was declared in Egypt for a month and night curfew was clamped in 14 Governorates.

Mohamed ElBaradei had given political support to the ousting of Egypt's first freely elected President Mohamed Morsi. However, he resigned in protest at the use of force instead of a negotiated end to the stand-off between the government and protesters. It should be noted that Mohamed ElBaradei is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, Minister for Foreign Affairs and African Integration of Republic of Chad, paid an official visit to India on 12-13 August 2013. During his visit he met Salman Khurshid, external affairs of India.The visit was aimed at increasing bilateral cooperation between the India and Chad.

Relations between India and Chad remain cordial and there is considerable goodwill and admiration for India. There is large scope for mutually beneficial co-operation in hydrocarbon, infrastructure and capacity building sectors.

Chad is a member of TEAM-9 (Techno-Economic Approach for African Movement) initiative comprising of eight West and Central African countries seeking to benefit in technical and economic spheres through cooperation with India.  Chad has been a beneficiary of India Line of Credit of US$ 50 million for five projects which they highly appreciate.