Award Person Misc News Compilation for Month of September for

Award Person Misc News Compilation for Month of September for upcoming Exam

* Rajan took over the charge as the 23rd Governor of Reserve Bank of India as a successor of outgoing Governor of RBI, Dr. Subbarao. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India approved the appointment of Raghuram Rajan (50) as the new Governor of Reserve Bank of India for next three years.

* The Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari released the book titled Ahmev Radha, Ahmev Krishnah at New Delhi. At the release function, the Vice President of India called people of India to stay in connection with the cultural roots for the purpose of overall development.

The book is written by Gulab Kothari, Chief Editor of Hindi newspaper Rajasthan Patrika.

* 5 September 2013 was designated as the Teachers Day in India. The day is dedicated to the first vice president of India and the second President of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who was born on this day in South India.

* An Indian woman writer Sushmita Banerjee was killed by unidentified gunmen outside her home in eastern Paktika province of Afghanistan. The attackers shot her dead outside the house. The militants dumped her dead body outside a madarasa. 49-year old Sushmita was married to an Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with him. Her book entitledKabuliwaler Bangali Bou, became a bestseller in 1995. The memoir was based on her experiences in Afghanistan and her escape from the Taliban captivity in the 1980s.

The book was also a theme for a Bollywood filmEscape from Talibanin 2003.

* President of India Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi conferred Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony, 2013on Maestro Zubin Mehta.

Zubin Mehta is an Indian Parsi conductor of western classical music. The Government of India previously had honoured Zubin Mehta with the Padma Bhushan and with India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.

* Deepak Sandhu became the first woman Chief Information Commissioner. She was administered the oath of the office by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Deepak Sandhu took over the office from Satyananda Mishra. Mishra served the 5 year term in the office.

* International Literacy Day was held on 8 September 2013. International Literacy Day was designated by UNESCO on 17 November 1965. This day was first celebrated on 8 September 1966. International Literacy day is observed every year on 8 September to raise people's awareness and concern for literacy issues in the world. It aims to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities, societies and reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally.

* Manomohan Singh, the Prime Minister of released a Postage Stamp in the memory of the freedom fighter and former Member of Parliament, Lala Jagat Narayan. The postage stamp was released in New Delhi.

* The Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari released a book entitled India and Malaysia: Intertwined Strands at New Delhi. The book is authored by former Diplomat Veena Sikri.

* The Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari presented the First Sree Narayan Guru Global Secular & Peace Award 2013 to Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Government of India at a function in Thiruvananthpuram, Kerala.

* The Lowland, the book of Jhumpa Lahiri was shortlisted among the six books for the Man Booker Prize 2013.

Her first novel was The Interpreter of Maladies published in the year 1999. It won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The Namesake published in 2003 was her second novel.

In 2008 she wrote the novel named Unaccustomed Earth.

Book entitled, Bring up The Bodies by Hillary Mantel was the winner of the 2012 Booker Prize.

The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. The prize, was launched in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.

* Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian President was conferred with the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development 2012 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee at a function orgainsed in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Ela Ramesh Bhatt, a renowned Women social worker was the winner of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development Award 2011 and in the year 2010 it was given to Lula de Silva.

* International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer was observed on 16 September 2013 across the world to bring awareness about the depletion of Ozone layer in the atmosphere. This event commemorates the date of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987.

The theme for the year 2013 isA healthy atmosphere, the Future We Want.

* Hindi Diwas was celebrated across India on 14 September 2013 for commemorating the occasion of adoption of Hindi as the official language of Constituent Assembly on 14 September 1949.

* Indian-origin American, Nina Davuluri became the first Indian-origin contestant to win the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She was initially named the Miss New York 2013 and subsequently won Miss America 2014 title. She is the first Indian-origin woman to be chosen as Miss America.

* The President of India Pranab Mukherjee presented the National Communal Harmony Award for the year 2011 and 2012.

The Foundation for Amity and National Solidarity, Delhi awarded for Organisational category.

* International Day of Peace observed on 21 September 2013 across the world to recognise the efforts of those who have worked hard to end conflict and promote peace. The International Day of Peace is also a day of ceasefire.

The theme for the year 2013 isEducation for Peace.

* Gyan Correas debut Gujarati movieThe Good Road nominated as Indias 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,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.

* Government of India appointed Justice Vangala Eswaraiah, former Acting Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court as the Chairperson of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC).He was succeeded by Justice M. N. Rao, a retired Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court.

* Gandhi Before India: Ramachandara Guha

Historian and author Ramchandra Guha wrote a book on early years of Mahatma Gandhi. The book titled with Gandhi Before India.

In this book Ramachandra Guha outlined the life of Mahatma Gandhi from his birth on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat to till his return to India from South Africa in 1915.

* The Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of India allotted Customized Pin Code to the Supreme Court of India for the first time.The Customized Pin Code of the Supreme Court is 110 201.

Postal Index Number (PIN) or PIN Code is a 6 digit code of Post Office numbering used by India Post.

There are 9 PIN regions in the country.

The first 8 are geographical regions.

The digit 9 is reserved for the Army Postal Service.

* World Tourism Day observed on 27 September 2013 across the world to bring awareness about the importance of tourism.

The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide.

Theme for 2013:Tourism and Water: Protecting our Common Future

* Sri Srinivasan was sworn in as judge of the US Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit. It is the second most powerful court of the United States. He is the first Indian-American to be on the bench of the US Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was administered oath of office by Justice Sandra Day O Connor.

* Ruchira Kamboj was appointed as the Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO, Paris with the rank of Ambassador. She will succeed VS Oberoi. At present, Ruchira is joint secretary in Ministry of External Affairs. She is expected to take up her assignment shortly.

* Megan Young of Philippines was crowned Miss World 2013 at the Bali Nasa Dua Convention Center in Bali, Indonesia.

India's Navneet Kaur Dhillon finished among the top 20 finalists but couldnt reach final ten. She won the title of Miss Multimedia.

* The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced former Indian cricket team captain Rahul Dravid as brand ambassador for its National Tobacco Control Campaign. The national anti-tobacco control campaign has to continue till it achieves desired results.

* Every year on 29 September celebrated as the World Heart Day since 1999.

A life course approach to the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease (CVD) with a focus on women and children because healthy children lead to healthy adults and healthy adults lead to healthy families and communities.

The World Heart Day is organised by World Heart Federation.

Sport news Compilation

* The Hyderabad Hotshots won the inaugural edition of the Indian Badminton league (IBL) 2013 played at Sardar Patel Stadium, Mumbai by defeating Awadhe Warriors in the finals. Saina Nehwal helped Hyderabad hotshots on level terms after defeating PV Sindhu..

Saina Nehwal was awarded as the player of the tournament, because of her undefeated feat in the complete tournament.

* South Korea defeated India 4-3 in the final of the Asia Cup Hockey at Ipoh,. With this, South Korea confirmed its place in the World Cup at The Hague.

* Serena Williams won the Womens Single Title at US Open 2013 and the pair of Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek secured the Mens Doubles Title 2013 at the same tournament.

* The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that wrestling to be the part of Olympics in the 2020 and 2024 Games. Wrestling was approved by the IOC on Sunday as an additional sport for 2020 and 2024.

Wrestling a sport as ancient as the games themselves is back in the Olympics after seven months. It was dropped by the IOC executive board in February 2013.

* Thomas Bach of Germany was elected as the ninth President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He is the successor of Jacques Rogge of Belgium, who headed the IOC, since 2001 to 10 September 2013. He was the eighth President of IOC.

* Afghanistan won the South Asian Football Federations (SAFF) Championship 2013 by defeating India, the defending champions by 2-0 at Dashrath Rangashala stadium in Kathmandu, Nepal. This is maiden international trophy lifted by Afghanistan in Football.

* Cricketers S Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan were handed life ban for IPL spot-fixing by BCCI (The Board of Control for Cricket in India). Amit Singh banned for five years, while Siddharth Trivedi got banned for one year. Harmeet Singh has been excused, while a decision of Ajit Chandila will be taken later. An internal probe conducted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India found, Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan guilty on multiple accounts, including conceding a pre-determined number of runs per over in exchange for bribes.

* The Indian wrestler Amit Kumar bagged Silver Medal in 55 Kg Free Style category in the 2013 Senior World Wrestling Championship being held at Budapest, Hungary.

* Indian wrestler Bajrang Kumar has bagged a bronze medal in the 60 kilogram freestyle category at the World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

* India's Deepika Kumari settled for a silver medal at the Archery World Cup in Paris, France. In the final, Deepika lost to the Korean Olympic champion Ok-Hee Yun, 6-4, and had to settle for a Silver in the showpiece annual fixture, held after four stages. This was Deepikas fourth successive World Cup Final appearance and second loss to Yun.

* Indian wrestler Sandeep Tulsi Yadav won bronze medal in the 66kg Greco-Roman category at the Senior World Wrestling Championships in Budapest. Sandeep Tulsi Yadav defeated Serbia's Aleksandar Maksimovic, 4-0 to bag the bronze medal.

* India won bronze medal in the 8th Womens Asia Cup 2013 as they defeated China 3-2 via penalty shootout in the 3rd/4th place play-off played at the National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

* Narayanaswamy Srinivasan was re-elected as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for a third term at its 84th annual general meeting (AGM) held at Chennai. He was unanimously re-elected as the president of BCCI for the term of 2013-14. Other office bearers were also elected on the same day.

1. by Atul yadav

Reference

Hindu, PIB, Jagran Josh

1991 all over again

India needs a dose of the urgency for reform that marked the last time it faced an economy this troubled. With the value of the rupee plunging to new lows, the current account deficit at an all-time high and inflation running at nearly a ten-percent annual clip, India is in serious economic trouble. Indeed many are beginning to wonder whether the country is edging toward a replay of the events in the summer of 1991. Back then, an acute balance of payments crisis forced New Delhi into the indignity of pawning its gold reserves in order to secure desperately needed international financing.



At a small public event the other week, Duvvuri Subbarao, the outgoing head of the central bank, pointedly referred to a recent book, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, and conceded that policymakers rarely learn from their mistakes. He conceded that:



in matters of economics and finance, history repeats itself, not because it is an inherent trait of history, but because we dont learn from history and let the repeat occur.



This is a theme that policymakers have been pondering for a while. More than a year ago, at what was ostensibly a celebration of an updated book on the economic reforms catalyzed by the 1991 debacle, Subbarao warned that the dangers sparking that crisis ballooning fiscal and current account deficits were once again lurking. At the same time, a high-ranking commerce ministry official told a group of business leaders that economic indicators were provoking a sense of dj vu. Worried that conditions were ripe for a replay of the 1991 crisis, he exclaimed:



Why are we dodging these [policy challenges]? In 1991, we were candid enough to take these decisions. The quicker we take these decisions, the better it would be, instead of acting like ostriches.



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flatly rejects the comparison, however, stating that There is no question of going back to 1991. He is basically right, since the country is in a much more resilient position than two decades ago. That said, it would do wonders if the political class were once again seized with the sense of urgency that gripped New Delhi back in 1991. Perhaps then a solid determination will emerge to push forward with a new round of economic reforms that have been put off for years.



Shoddy management of the economy has been a hallmark of Singhs second term, which is highly ironic given that he and his current economic team are widely credited with pulling the country out of the fire 22 years ago. Then serving as the newly appointed finance minister to Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Singh famously inaugurated the reform era by quoting Victor Hugo: No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come. These days, however, he gives every sign of being trapped in Samuel Becketts absurdist play, Waiting for Godot.



Still, whatever Singhs merits as a policymaker, he hardly deserves all of the criticism he receives for Indias travails. A good part of the fault lies in New Delhis peculiar structure of decision-making. Singhs diarchal arrangement with Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Partys risk-adverse, redistributionist-minded matron, has been a recipe for policy inertia and inconstancy, prompting one Western diplomat to exclaim a while back that Even the power structures in North Korea are clearer than those in India.



Officials also argue, with some justification, that Indias immediate problems are not of its own making and other countries are in the same leaky boat. The proximate reason for the current crisis can be traced back to three months ago when the U.S. Federal Reserve hinted that it would begin curtailing its ultra-expansionary monetary policy, which has kept global liquidity at an artificially high level in recent years. That signal caused foreign investors to begin pulling their money out of a number of emerging markets. India has been hit most severely, but the repercussions have also been felt in Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey and Brazil. Indeed, some analysts (here and here) are warning of calamity redux something similar to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that triggered months of global economic distress.



Its likewise true, as Indian leaders point out, that much of the deteriorating trade balance is due to the countrys dire energy shortages and the consequent need to import copious supplies of dollar-denominated foreign oil.



Moreover, as Singh argues, India is in a far stronger place than it was two decades ago. The economy has more than quadrupled since then and according to the World Bank the country has now overtaken Japan as the worlds third-largest economy (measured on the basis of purchasing power parity). In contrast to 1991, the Indian central bank today has a large buffer of foreign currency reserves (around $270 billion) and, since the rupees value is now determined by market forces, the bank does not need to deplete those holdings trying to prop up a fixed exchange rate. Nor is New Delhi today buried in external debt like it was in 1991 when the servicing of sovereign debt consumed 30 percent of export earnings.



Another key, largely unremarked difference regards political stability. Indias problem today is policy stasis, as opposed to the political turmoil raging two decades ago. As parliamentary elections approached in mid-1991, the country had seen three governments, each with a different prime minister and finance minister, in 18 months. The campaign was marred by greater violence than witnessed in previous elections. Then came the assassination of the election frontrunner, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose death followed by just seven years the assassination of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Major insurgencies in Kashmir and Punjab were also blazing. By the summer of 1991, many observers believed the country was on the brink of tragedy. The New York Times Magazine published a long article detailing Indias descent into confusion and despair, while the newspapers editorial writers advised readers to pity India because the country was in danger of fragmenting along sectarian lines.



Nonetheless, the echoes of 1991 are easy enough to discern. First, the trade imbalance is at a level nearly five percent of GDP much higher than it was two decades ago and almost twice what the central bank says is sustainable. And while the government itself is not encumbered by external debt, this is not the case for the corporate sector. India Inc. carries a relatively high level of non-rupee-denominated debt and its capacity for repayment on foreign obligations coming due is obviously abraded by the rupees precipitous decline. Private-sector strains also could easily spill over into a state-run banking system already burdened by a rising share of non-performing loans. Finally, there is talk of New Delhi needing to take out a loan from the International Monetary Fund, just like in 1991.



Adding to the sense of dj vu is that, in an attempt to stanch the outflow of money, the government is reverting to actions reminiscent of an earlier era. A case in point is the controls that have suddenly been instituted on domestic capital. Overseas investments by Indian businesses are now face new restrictions, as do outward remittances by households; personal investments in foreign real estate are now prohibited. The central bank says it is willing to grant waivers for legitimate personal outflows that exceed the new caps, but this mechanism bears an unfavorable comparison to the license raj that was supposedly laid to rest two decades ago.



Higher duties have also been slapped on gold imports, which drain the economy of foreign currency. Singh chides Indians for investing in unproductive assets, even though one reason they import so much gold is to hedge against the high inflation rate. The higher duties are also spurring increased levels of gold smuggling, an activity that led to the expansion of criminal networks in Mumbai in the 1970s.



But the most basic similarity to 1991 is, as The Economist noted last year, the Brezhnev-grade complacency that afflicts New Delhi, especially the top ranks of the Congress Party. The problem is that, since economic reforms were born in the crucible of intense crisis two decades ago, there exists no intellectual tradition underpinning them nor has a political champion emerged to galvanize public opinion. As one commentator argues:



the original sin of 1991 is the fact that reform was pursued in crisis mode, with the underlying rationale never fleshed out or articulated once the moment of immediate crisis had passed.



Both Gurcharan Das, business leader turned public intellectual, and Nandan Nilekani, one of the famed co-founders of Infosys, observe that reforms have been pushed more by technocrats like Singh than by political leaders, a condition that ensures narrow and limited support. The word reform, Nilekani notes, remains conspicuously absent from the election manifestos of Indias parties. Singh flagged the consequences in a newspaper interview last year:



The logic of an open economy and its benefits are still not widely understood among the general public. Public discourse still sees markets as anti-public welfare. The instinctive reactions of many, both in the political class and in the public at large, is to revert to a state controlled system. There is no realisation that a reversal to an earlier era is neither possible nor desirable. Even a neighbour like China has understood the logic of an open economy and is developing the institutional framework which is required for this.



This broad ambivalence, if not hostility, accounts for a great deal, including the perceived necessity in New Delhi of reform by stealth, a mode that one observer describes this way:



Faced with politically unpalatable proposals, Indian politicians and bureaucrats often go quiet, enact reforms in the dead of the night and then pray that the opposition is either too lazy or preoccupied to react.



The difference also explains the glaring silence in New Delhi two summers ago at the twentieth anniversary of the 1991 reforms even Singh himself remained mute as well as Narasimha Raos erasure from the Congress Partys institutional memory. Ironically, the economic transformations that Singh set in motion two decades ago have only reinforced the status-quo orientation of his party colleagues. As a result, Congress has spent much of its time in power instituting expensive, market-distorting social welfare schemes instead of productivity-enhancing measures. This attitude tolerated Pranab Mukherjees disastrous stint as finance minister in the critical years of 2009-12. Even now, party leaders are ambivalent about the modest reforms that Singh and his new finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram are championing.



Some contend that the upside of the rupees rapid depreciation will be a large export surge. But the undersized manufacturing sector, along with the countrys decrepit infrastructure and the alienation of multi-national corporations, put strong limits on whatever bounce can be expected. Indias famed information technology sector will benefit from the lower rupee but, with an employment base of just two million, it is much too small by itself to lift India onto a higher economic trajectory. And as a new report by the Asian Development Bank makes clear, no emerging market can transform itself without developing a significant industrial base. Indeed, the report highlights India as a prime example of an agriculture-based economy that bypasses the industrialization process and tries to leap-frog into a services-oriented economy. Such a strategy, the ADB warns, generates only low-quality service sector jobs.



So, lets hope that the specter of 1991 lingers long enough to galvanize New Delhi elites especially Congress Party leaders who are now in populist election mode with the courage to implement game-changing reforms. Taking a cue from the ADB, they can start by dismantling the anarchic laws governing labor markets and the acquisition of land for industrial projects which have stifled the growth of labor-intensive manufacturing. This should be a huge comparative advantage, though worrying signs are emerging of Indian manufacturers shifting to other countries. But until some hard measures are enacted, all of New Delhis talk about building the country into a global manufacturing hub will continue to ring hollow.



Niti Srivastava