Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos to Step Down in Third Quarter
E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc beat estimates for holiday-quarter sales and said that Jeff Bezos would move to the role of executive chair in the third quarter and be replaced by Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy as chief executive officer.
The announcement came as Amazon released its financial results for its fourth quarter that ended December 31, 2020.
Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994 had stepped back from much of the day-to-day business over several years, though the pandemic pulled him back in last spring.
Feb 02, 2021
Bhavya Lal NASA's New Acting Chief of Staff
Indian-American Bhavya Lal was appointed by NASA as the Acting Chief of Staff of the US space agency. Lal served as a member of the Biden Presidential Transition Agency Review Team for the agency and oversaw the agency's transition under the administration of President Joe Biden.
As per NASA, Lal brings extensive experience in engineering and space technology, serving as a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defence Analyses Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) from 2005 to 2020.
Lal is an active member of the space technology and policy community, having chaired, co-chaired, or served on five high-impact National Academy of Science committees.
Feb 01, 2021
Dutch Chemist Paul Crutzen, Who Warned of Ozone Hole, Passes Away
The Earth has dozens of names in dozens of languages, but the human-dominated moment in the planet's history that we find ourselves in has been named only once: the Anthropocene. The man most responsible for that moniker, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, died at 87.
Crutzen discovered in 1970 that nitrogen pollution was capable of destroying ozone in the atmosphere, a critical layer of that protects living things from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. The implications were potentially dangerous, as this ozone gas thinned into a "hole" above the Southern Hemisphere that threatened to leave millions of people exposed. Crutzen shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the risk to the ozone layer.
SBI Cards Appoints Rama Mohan Rao Amara as the MD and CEO
SBI Cards and Payment Services Ltd (SBI Card) appointed Rama Mohan Rao Amara as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for a period of two years.
Ashwini Kumar Tewari had resigned from the post of MD and CEO of SBI Card owing to his appointment as the Managing Director of State Bank of India (SBI).
Rao is a veteran banker, with a successful career spanning over 29 years at SBI, the credit card company said in a release. Prior to taking charge at SBI Card, he was the Chief General Manager, SBI Bhopal Circle.
Jan 31, 2021
Lt Gen Chandi Prasad Mohanty is New Army Vice-chief
Lieutenant General Chandi Prasad Mohanty has been appointed as the new Vice-chief of Army staff. He would assume the office on February 1, 2021, from Lt General SK Saini, who is superannuating on 31 January 2021. Lt General CP Mohanty is an alumnus of Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun, and National Defence Academy. He is a June 1982 batch Infantry Officer from the Rajput Regiment.
Vice-chief of Army Staff is the deputy head and the second-highest-ranking officer of the Indian Army. The position is held by the senior officer in the rank of Lt-General, of the Commander in Chief grade.
Janakiraman and Aswini New MDs of SBI
The appointment's committee (ACC) of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Swaminathan Janakiraman and Ashwini Kumar Tewari as new Managing Directors (MDs) of State Bank of India (SBI) for a period of three years.
Prior to this, Swaminathan Janakiraman was the deputy managing director (Finance) at SBI and Ashwini Kumar Tewari was serving as MD & CEO of SBI Card, a subsidiary of SBI.
SBI is headed by a Chairman and four managing directors. Dinesh Kumar Khara is the current Chairman of the bank. The other two MDs of the bank are C.S. Setty and Ashwani Bhatia. The two posts were vacant since October 2020.
Jan 29, 2021
Nagaland Chief Secretary Temjen Toy Passes Away
Nagaland chief secretary Tali Temjen Toy passed away in Kohima after a long battle with cancer. He was 57.
The top ranking administrator served the state government in various capacities and took over as chief secretary in 2018.
He was the first among Nagas to crack the Common Admission Test (CAT), the entrance examination for admission into the country's premier business schools, and was admitted to IIM Calcutta in the 1980s. He was also an alumnus of St. Xavier's College in Mumbai