Sunday, 22 September 2013

Today's GK(22-9-13)



Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh no more

Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh. Photo: R.V. Moorthy

Samajwadi Party (SP) general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Mohan Singh, who was recently removed from the post of party national spokesman over differences with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, passed away at AIIMS on Sunday after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Mr. Singh, 68, was admitted to AIIMS on September 18, SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary. Mr. Singh is survived by his wife Urmila and two daughters.
AIIMS medical superintendent P.K. Sharma said, “Singh was suffering from blood cancer.”
“Two days back his condition became serious and he was shifted to ICU. He died at 4:15 p.m. today.”
His body will be taken to Lucknow on Monday and put in party office at Vikramaditya Marg, SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav said.
Later, the body will be taken to Gorakhpur and then to his ancestral village Jainagar in Deoria for the last rites.
“After the demise of Janeshwar Mishra and Brij Bhushan Tiwari, the demise of Mohan Singh is a setback for the socialist movement. He was a man of principles and his death has left a void in the Samajwadi Party,” Mr. Ram Gopal said.
SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, U.P. Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan and several party leaders have condoled his death.
On January 6, 2012 Mr. Singh was removed from the post of SP national spokesman after he disagreed with Mr. Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to keep controversial leader D.P. Yadav out of the Samajwadi Party, who accused party leadership of dictatorship.

Vettel wins Singapore GP, extends F1 lead

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel recorded yet another start-to-finish win at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday to further extend his lead in the Formula One championship.
The German was in a class of his own under the Marina Bay lights, winning by a massive 32.6 seconds over Fernando Alonso and boosting his championship lead on the Ferrari driver from 53 points to 60 with six races remaining.
Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen was third, ahead of the Mercedes pair Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Starting in pole, Vettel lost the lead at the first corner to Rosberg but took it back as the Mercedes driver ran wide at turn two, and even a safety car period just before half distance, which eroded his 12-second lead, could not prevent another Vettel victory.
Vettel’s Red Bull teammate Mark Webber had sharply different fortunes in the race. The Australian was threatening Raikkonen in the closing stages, only to have an engine failure which saw him pull off the track with his car in flames on the closing lap.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was sixth, ahead of the McLaren pair Jenson Button and Sergio Perez, with Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and Force India’s Adrian Sutil completing the top ten.
Vettel’s victory was his third in a row in Singapore, his seventh of the season and 33rd of his career, moving him out of a tie with Alonso and into outright fourth place in the all-time list behind Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.

Multi Lingual Website Was Launched By Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Chairman Nandan Nilekani on 20 September 2013 launched its multi-lingual website to reach out to various sections of the society from the UIDAI Tech Centre Bangalore.

The website, www.uidai.gov.in, will now appear in five regional languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil in addition to Hindi and English. UIDAI is planning to systematically add additional language microsites to facilitate ease of access to all sections of the society.

The second phase of the launch will include microsites in Assamese, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi and Telugu. Presently, people can view their demographic data captured at the time of enrolment in 13 languages.

UIDAI prints the Aadhaar letter in 13 languages across the country and also provides an option to residents to update data in these languages. Till date over 35 crore Aadhaar letters in 13 languages, have been dispatched to residents across the country. UIDAI has a mandate of enrolling 60 crore residents for Aadhaar across the country by 2014.  Until mid of September 2013, over 42.5 crore Aadhaars were generated.

China Communist Party Leader Bo Xilai Sentenced to Life

Top  China Communist Party leader Bo Xilai was on 22 September 2013 sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court which upheld the charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power against him.

The Jinan Intermediate Court in east China's Shandong province, which conducted an unprecedented open trial in August 2013, convicted the former Politburo member and Chongqing city Communist Party chief on all the three charges.

In its judgement, court sentenced Bo Xilai to life in prison on the bribery charges, 15 years for embezzlement and seven years for abuse of power. The court also stripped Bo of all political rights and ordered the confiscation of his property.

Bo Xilai, 64, was sacked as the head of the Chongqing city in 2013 and removed from the ruling party following allegations of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power against him.

He was accused of receiving 20 million Yuan (3.5 Million US Dollars) as bribes and owning a luxury villa in France.

The hearing was regarded as the Communist China's most sensitive political trial after the 1981 'Gang of Four' trial involving Mao Zedong's widow Jing Qing.

About Bo Xilai

Bo Xilai is a former Chinese politician. He came to prominence through his tenures as the mayor of Dalian and then governor of Liaoning. From 2004 to November 2007, he served as Minister of Commerce. Between 2007 and 2012 he served as a member of the Central Politburo and secretary of the Communist Party's Chongqing branch.

Anand Amritraj Appointed as New Non-Playing Captain of Davis Cup Team

Former Indian tennis player Anand Amritraj on 21 September 2013 appointed as non-playing captain of the Indian Davis Cup by All India Tennis Association. The 61 year old Amritraj replaced S P Misra, who lost his job after eight top players revolted, calling for changes in Davis Cup playing conditions.

The decision to appoint Amritraj was taken at All India Tennis Association's Executive Committee meeting in Goa on 21 September 2013. He will remain in job for year 2014.

The committee decided that Zeeshan Ali will continue as the coach. The venue for the Chinese Taipei tie has not been decided as yet. The committee also decided that Davis Cup venue should be rotated from state to state to allow more states to get an opportunity to host the Davis Cup Tie.

About Davis Cup

The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format.

Davis Cup began in 1900 as a competition between USA and Great Britain. It’s now the world’s largest annual international team competition in sport, with 130 nations entering in 2013.

Prime Minister of India Laid the Foundation Stone for New Airport at Kishangarh, Rajasthan

The Good Road Movie Nominated As India's Entry for 2014 Oscars Awards

Gyan Correa’s debut Gujarati movie The Good Road was on 21 September 2013 nominated as India’s official entry to 2014 Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category. The Good Road is a 2013 Indian drama film written and directed by Gyan Correa.

The film has been chosen over films like The Lunchbox , Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, English Vinglish, Malayalam film Celluloid and Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam.

The film, The Good Road, the story of a boy who is lost and found while his family is on a holiday trip to the Kutch. Gujarat.

The Good Road movie is produced by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the film stars Keval Katrodia as seven-year-old Aditya who loses his way in the desert. The movie also stars Sonali Kulkarni and actor Ajay Gehi as Aditya's parents.

The story of three individuals on a highway, The Good Road, widely shot in Kutch district in Gujarat, had clinched the National Award for Best Feature Film (Gujarati) in 2013.

India has never won a Foreign Language Film Oscar. So far in the history of Indian cinema, only three Bollywood films, including Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988) and Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan (2001), have made it to the nomination stage of the Oscar.

Russia Proposed Joint Venture with India in Defence Manufacturing

Russia and Government of India on 21 September 2013 agreed on collaboration to jointly develop and manufacture civilian aircraft and helicopters for especially for emergency relief and medical purposes. Russian Government also offered to set up manufacturing facilities in the India for joint production of defence hardware.

Russia and Government of India also reached an understanding for setting up two major projects in a joint venture for producing civil choppers and aircraft.

This was decided during the 7th India Russian Forum on Trade and Investment meet between Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin and Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov in St. Petersburg.

Anand Sharma and Dmitry Rogozin agreed on collaboration to jointly develop and manufacture civilian aircraft and helicopters for especially for emergency relief and medical purposes. And both Russia and India stated that these two aircraft projects should not be seen only for domestic use but will also explore the possibilities of third country exports.

For production of Civilian Aircrafts

• One of the projects under collaboration for civilian aircrafts or helicopters envisages the setting up of the joint venture for manufacturing in Indian factories different modifications of light helicopters Ka-226T for medical, rescue and other purposes. The Russiangovernment also mooted a new proposal involving IL-112V.

For Setting up of manufacturing facility

• Russia also proposed to India for setting up manufacturing facilities in the country for production of defence equipment in various fields. The opportunity could also be used to make India as the export base for such defence hardware.

India and Russia have also developed a framework for tracking key priority projects at the Ministerial level.

The sectors covered under this joint understanding include automobile, industrial and road-building machinery, chemical and petrochemical industry, civil aircraft construction, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, energy, diamonds, IT, automobiles, and agro and processed foods

Justice Darmar Murugesan Appointed as NHRC Member

Justice Darmar Murugesan, the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court on 21 September 2013 appointed as member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for a five-year term.

Justice Darmar Murugesan (62) was a Judge of the Madras High Court from March 2000 before his elevation as Chief Justice of Delhi High Court in September 2012. He retired in June 2013.

About Justice Darmar Murugesan

He was born in Cumbum, Pudupatti, District Theni, Tamil Nadu on 10 June, 1951.
He did Bachelor of General Law Course from Madras University IN 1974 and was a Gold Medalist.
Justice Darmar  Murugesan had served as Special Government Pleader in the Madras High Court during 1994-96 and Special Government Pleader from October 1997 and Government Pleader on December 8, 1998.

He was appointed as Judge of the Madras High Court on 2 March 2000 and as Permanent Judge on 13 June 2001.

As a Chief Justice of Delhi High Court he was instrumental in setting up the fast track court in Saket for trying the Delhi gang rape case as well as the special court for trying the Italian marines case. He had asked the Delhi Police Commissioner not to spare any errant policeman for the lapses resulting in the gang rape. He directed that all private hospitals should admit victims of heinous crimes such as rape and murder or face serious consequences.

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