General Awareness

PERSONS IN NEWS - March 2019

Mar 2019

Aug 05, 2019

Franky Flies Over The Channel

Franky Zapata on his jet-powered 'flyboard' flies past the belfry of the city hall of Calais after he took off from Sangatte, northern France, during his successful attempt to cross the 35km English Channel.
Escorted by three helicopters, the Frenchman soared across the water and landed after 22 minutes in the St Margaret's Bay in Dover.

Aug 03, 2019

Mindtree Gets New CEO

Former Cognizant executive Debashis Chatterjee was appointed as its new chief executive officer and managing director of IT services firm Mindtree.
The company appointed named S.N. Subrahmanyan, CEO of Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T), as its non-executive vice chairman.
Both the appointments are from immediate effect.
Chatterjee was president, global delivery and global leader for digital systems and technology practice at Cognizant.

Guruprasad Assumes Charge as DPIIT Secretary

Guruprasad Mohapatra assumed charge of the office of Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
Prior to taking over as DPIIT secretary, Mohapatra served as chairman of Airports Authority of India (AAI). He is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of 1986 batch.
He had earlier served as Joint Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Public Procurement and Project Exports (Financing & Insurance).

Aug 01, 2019

Rakesh Asthana Gets Additional Charge

Ex-CBI special director Rakesh Asthana was given the additional charge of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India. Asthana, a 1984 batch officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), is currently serving as the Director-General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).
The appointment comes at a time when drug problem in several states, especially in Punjab, has assumed alarming proportions. Earlier this month, the National Investigative Agency (NIA) carried out a 532 kg Heroin haul from the Wagah-Attari Border, a designated customs and immigration point between India and Pakistan.
The appointment of Asthana coincides with Vivek Johri, also a 1984 batch-IPS officer, who has been appointed as the director-general of Border Security Force (BSF) – the force that guards the Punjab-Pakistan border among others. Also, the government appointed Samat Goel, who was the operations chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), as the head of RAW.
Asthana is also expected to restructure the agency, bringing more synergy between various stake-holders.

Jul 30, 2019

Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation Gets New Chairperson

The Union Culture Ministry appointed journalist Kanchan Gupta the chairperson of the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation till May 2020, weeks after Union Culture and Tourism Minister of State (independent charge) Prahlad Singh Patel was nominated to the post.
On July 3, 2019, Mr. Patel had been nominated to the post of chairperson of the foundation, which is headquartered in Kolkata, with effect from May 16, 2019 till the tenure of the foundation.
In a notification on July 25, the Ministry partially modified its July 3 notification, nominating Mr. Gupta with immediate effect till May 15, 2020 or till further orders, whichever is earlier.

India's First Woman Legislator

Google Doodle celebrated Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi, a surgeon, educator, lawmaker and social reformer, on her 133rd birth anniversary.
Dr. Reddi devoted her life to public health and fought the battle against gender inequality.
The Government of Tamil Nadu announced that government hospitals in the State would celebrate her birth anniversary as 'Hospital Day' every year.
Born in 1886 in Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu, Dr. Reddi was the first Indian girl student in the Department of Surgery at Madras Medical College.
This was just one of her many firsts. She became one of the first women doctors in India in 1912, and the first woman house surgeon in the Government Maternity Hospital, Madras.
She co-founded the Women's Indian Association in 1918, and as the first woman member (and vice president) of the Madras Legislative Council — making her the first woman legislator in India — she helped raise the minimum age for marriage for girls and pushed the Council to pass the Immoral Traffic Control Act, and the Devadasi system abolishment Bill.

Jul 29, 2019

Meghalaya Speaker Donkupar Roy Passes Away

Meghalaya Assembly speaker Donkupar Roy passed away at a hospital in Gurgaon following a brief illness. He was 64.
Roy was first admitted to a state-run hospital in Shillong before being referred to the Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon, Haryana, on July 19 where he was undergoing treatment for the last 10 days. His condition deteriorated after suffering a multi-organ failure.
Besides holding several positions in his long political career, Roy served as the Chief Minister of Meghalaya between 2008-2009.
Roy won his first election as an independent from the Shella assembly seat in 1988. He later joined the United Democratic Party and continued to retain the Shella Assembly constituency on UDP ticket.
His mortal remains would be brought to his hometown tomorrow morning.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended condolences to Roy's family and supporters.

India's Newest Billionaire

India's newest billionaire is a former classroom teacher who developed an education app that's grown to a valuation of almost $6 billion in about seven years.
Byju Raveendran joined the rarefied club after his Think & Learn Pvt scored $150 million in funding earlier this month. That deal conferred a value of $5.7 billion on the company in which the founder owns more than 21%, people familiar with the matter said. Its closing coincided with the announcement that the company's Byju's app -- named after the founder -- will team up with Walt Disney Co. and taking its service to American shores by early 2020.
The 37-year-old entrepreneur -- who has said he wants to do for Indian education what the Mouse House did for entertainment -- is taking his biggest step yet geographically and creatively. In his new app, Disney staples from The Lion King's Simba to Frozen's Anna teach math and English to students from grades one through three. The same characters star in animated videos, games, stories and interactive quizzes.

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