Important Persons in News 2013

By: Unknown on 09:24

1.Violin maestro passes away

M.S. Gopalakrishnan – legendary violinist known for his mastery of both the Carnatic and Hindustani systems of classical music – passed away in January 2013.

 

2.Mullah Nazir

Mullah Nazir, a senior Taliban leader whose writ ran across large swathes of South Waziristan, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in a January 2013.

3.‘India’s refugee policy is an example for the rest of the world to follow’

Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who was in New Delhi recently for bilateral consultations, has commented India’s refugee policy as an example for the rest of the world to follow.

4.Veteran Bengali actor passes away

Noted Bengali actor Haradhan Bandopadhyay, who worked in several films over the past six decades including many celluloid classics directed by legendary film-maker Satyajit Ray, passed away in January 2013.

5.Madanjeet Singh passes away

Madanjeet Singh Former diplomat, artist, writer and freedom fighter, Madanjeet Singh, a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 2000, passed away in January 2013.

6.Suraj Sharma gets Bafta nomination

Lending an Indian flavor this year’s prestigious Bafta awards, which are regarded as Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, is actor Suraj Sharma, who has been nominated for the Rising Star award for in director Ang Lee’s acclaimed film Life of Pi. The winners of  the awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, will be announced at a ceremony in London on February 10, two weeks before the Oscars.

7.Pirate ‘Big Mouth’ retires

One of Somalia’s most notorious pirate leaders, Mohamed Abdi Hassan, known as “Afweyne” or “Big Mouth”, has said he is retiring after years of terrorizing the Indian Ocean, generating millions of dollars in ransoms from seized ships.

8.Veteran CPI(M) leader Kamal Basu dead

Kamal Basu, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), died in January 2013. Mr. Basu was associated with the then undivided Communist Party of India since the 1940s and elected to the Lok Sabha from the Diamond Harbour constituency in 1952.

9.Rights crusader passes away

A spirited human rights activist and Special Public Prosecutor in the Tsundar Massacre case, B. Chandrasekhar (49), passed away in Hyderabad in January.

10.Bieber overtakes Lady Gaga

It took two days longer than expected, but Justin Bieber has succeeded in overtaking fellow pop idol Lady Gaga as the most followed person on Twitter in January 2013.

11.Headley gets 35 years in jail

In January 2013, Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley was sentenced to 35 years in prison by a U.S. court for masterminding the 2008 Mumbal terror attacks. The sentence will be followed by five years supervised release.

While  the U.S. government admitted the “deplorable” nature of his role in the 26/11 attacks,  eh prosecution had pressed for a sentence of 30-35 years under a plea bargain with Headley in return for his cooperation. The death penalty and extradition options were dropped.

12.Kerry confirmed as Secretary of State

John Kerry, Democratic Senator from Massachusetts and former presidential candidate, has been confirmed as   U.S. President Barack Obama’s next Secretary of State and incumbent Hillary Clinton will step down in January 2013.

Mr. Kerry, who lost out to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, was unanimous support from the Senata Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate voted 94-3 in his favour. He has been serving in the Senate since 1984.

13.7-year jail for Telgi

• In February 2013, in a pending case against fake stamp kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi in Maharashtra, the special CBI court sentenced him to seven years imprisonment for his involvement in adulteration of petrol and diesel.
• In December 2012, Telgi pleaded guilty in the case.
• According to the police, during the investigation into the fake stamp paper scam of 2004. Telgi revealed that he had played a key role in the petrol and diesel adulteration case. It was found that the fuel, adulterated with naphtha, was supplied to all petrol pumps in the State.

14.Solicitor-General Rohinton Nariman resigns

In February 2013, Solicitor-General of India Rohinton Nariman resigned from his post. His resignation, said highly placed sources, came after difference of opinion between him and Union Law Minister Ashawani Kumar on certain issues. Mr. Nariman was appointed as the second most senior law official of  the country on July 23, 2011 following the resignation of Gopal Subramanium on July 14, 2011. Mr. Nariman was designed as a senior advocate at the age of 37 in 1993 when the then Chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachaliah amended the rules for designating a lawyer as a senior advocate by reducing the minimum age limit of 45.

15.Mohan Parasaran in new Solicitor-General

In February 2013, Mohan Parasaran, the senior-most Additional Solicitor-General, is being appointed Solicitor-General, to succeed Rohinton Nariman, who resigned early.

The Solicitor General of India is subordinate to the Attorney General for India, who is the Indian government’s chief legal advisor, and its primary lawyer in the Supreme Court of India. The Solicitor General of India is appointed for the period of 3 years. The Solicitor General of India is the secondary law officer of the country, assists the Attorney General, and is himself assisted by several Additional Solicitors General of India. Like the Attorney General for India, the Solicitor General and the Additional Solicitors General advice the Government and appear on behalf of the Union of India in terms of the Law Officers (Terms and Conditions) Rules, 1972. However, unlike the post of Attorney General for India, which is a Constitutional post under Article 76 of the  Constitution of India, the posts of the solicitor General and the Additional Solicitors General are merely, statutory.

16.Rahul Cherian passes away

• Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property (IP) law and technology law passed away in February 2013.
• He was 39. As head of policy initiatives at Inclusive Planet, he was involved in drafting the Treaty for the Visually impaired currently being agreed upon by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.

17.Google’s Schmidt to part-sell stake

·         In January 2013, Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 per cent o his stake in the internet search company, a move that could potentially net the former chief executive a $2.51 billion windfall.

·         Mr. Schmidt, 57, will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.k

18.Ping-pong diplomacy initiator dies

• China’s table tennis legend Zhuang Zedong, who played a key role in initiating the famous ping-pong diplomacy with the U.S. leading to the then President, Richard Nixon’s ice-breaking visit to Beijing in 1972, died of cancer in February 2013.
• Ping-pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States and People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the early 1970s. the event marked a thaw in U.S. – China relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon.

19.Aaron Swartz

• In July, 2011, Aaron Swartz was indicated by the district of Massachusetts for allegedly stealing more than 4.8 million articles from the online academic literature repository JSTOR via the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was charged with, among others, wire-fraud, computer-fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture.
• After paying a $100,000-bond for release, he was expected to stand trial in early 2013 to face the charges and if found guilty a 35-year prison sentence and $1 million in fines. More than likelihood of the sentence, however, what rankled him most was that he was lebelled a “felon” by his government.
• On January 11, Friday, Swartz’s fight, against information localization as well as the label given to him, ended when he hung himself in his New York apartment. He was only 26.
• At the age of 14, Swartz became a co-author of the RSS (Rich Site Summary) 1.0 specification, now a widely used method for subscribing to web content. He went on to attend Stanford University, dropped out, founded a popular social news website and then sold it – leaving him a near millionaire a few days short of his 20th birthday.

20.Ex-Attorney General made Chief Justice  Sri Lanka

Despite International criticism and protest by lawyers over the dismissal of former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, Sri Lanka’s former Attorney-General Mohan Peiris, who has never been on the Bench, has been appointed the Chief Justice in January 2013.

21.Marathi writer Passes away

Noted Marathi writer Jyotsna Deodhar died in January 2013. She penned over 40 books which included novels and short stories that won her critical acclaim.

22.Ved Prakash in UGC chairman

In January 2013, Ved Prakash, serving as acting chairman of the UGC, has been appointed as its chairman, almost two years after the post fell vacant.

23.Former CBI Director appointed UPSC member

In February 2013, former CBI Director Amar Pratap Singh has been appointed a member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

24.Sena leader Nalawade passes away

The former Maharashtra Assembly Speaker (1995-99) and Shiv Sena leader Datta Nalawade (77) died in February 2013.

25.‘Prisoner X was set to expose Mossad missions’

• In February 2013, Australian security officials have claimed than Ben Zygier, the suspected Mossad spy known as Prisoner X, may have been close to blowing the whistle on Israel intelligence operations.
• An Australian-born Israel, Zygier (34), also known as Ben Allen or Ben Alon, was mysteriously imprisoned by Israel in 2010 and hanged himself several months later in a maximum-security cell.
• He was set to reveal details, including on the use of fraudulent Australian passports, either to the Australian government or to the media before he was arrested.

26.Ronald Dworkin  dead

Ronald Dworkin, one of America’s most liberal philosophers and constitutional law experts celebrated for his belief in the idea of moral integrity, died in a London in February 2013.

27.‘Blade Runner’ Oscar Pistorius accused of girlfriend’s premeditated’ murder

• In February 2013, South African sporting hero Oscar Pistorius broke down in court as he was accused of shooting his model girlfriend three through a locked bathroom door in what prosecutors said was a “premeditated” Valentine’s Day murder.
• The double-amputee Olympian and Paralympian “Blade Runner” is seeking bail at the hearing which is expected to reveal more about what happened the night his cover girl law graduate lower Reeva Steenkamp was killed.