APPOINTED; ELECTED; Etc.
Union Cabinet Reshuffle
Cabinet Ministers
V. Kishore Chandra Deo: Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj.
Beni Prasad Verma: Steel.
Dinesh Trivedi: Railways.
Jairam Ramesh: Rural Development and additional charge of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Vilasrao Deshmukh: Science and Technology and Earth Sciences.
M. Veerappa Moily: Corporate Affairs.
Anand Sharma: Commerce and Industry; and additional charge of Textiles.
P.K. Bansal: Parliamentary Affairs and additional charge of Water Resources.
Salman Khurshid: Law and Justice and additional charge of Minority Affairs.
Ministers of State (Independent charge)
Srikant Jena: Statistics and Programme Implementation and Minister of State in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.
Jayanthi Natarajan: Environment and Forests.
Paban Singh Ghatowar: Development of North-Eastern Region.
Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit: He has been appointed as the President of South Sudan.
Air Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne: He has taken over as the Chief of Indian Air Force.
Admiral Nirmal Verma: Chief of Indian Navy, he has taken over as the Chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (CoSC) from the outgoing IAF chief P.V. Naik.
Pradeep Kumar: Haryana cadre IAS officer, he has been chosen as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) of India.
Rohinton F. Nariman: He has been appointed as the Solicitor-general of India.
R.S. Gujral: He has been appointed as the Finance Secretary of India.
Pulok Chatterjee: He has been appointed as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India.
T.K.A. Nair: He has been appointed as adviser to the Prime Minister of India with the rank of Minister of State in the PMO.
Ranjan Mathai: He has been appointed as the Foreign Secretary of India.
Nirupama Rao: She has been appointed as India’s Ambassador to USA.
RESIGNED
B.S. Yeddyurappa: Chief Minister of Karnataka.
Gurudas Kamat: Union Minister, Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Dayanidhi Maran: Union Textiles Minister.
Gopal Subramaniam: Solicitor-General of India.
Justice P.D. Dinakaran: Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court. He was facing impeachment on charges of corruption and judicial misconduct.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
Hillay Clinton: US Secretary of State.
Hina Rabbani Khar: Foreign Minister of Pakistan.
DIED
Ashok Chand Burman: The 82-year-old patriarch of the Burman family and chairman of FMCG major Dabur Ltd. He was instrumental in fundamentally transforming a mid-rung Ayurveda products firm into a FMCG major.
Mani Kaul: One of the pioneers of parallel cinema in India. He was 66. Among the films made by him were: “Uski Roti”, “Ashadh ka ek din”, “Duvidha” and “Naukar ki Kameez”. He had won the national award for the Best Documentary, “Siddheshwari”, based on the amazing life of thumri singer of Banaras, Siddheshwari Devi.
Lucian Freud: Realist painter and grandson of modern psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. He was 88. His 1995 Portrait “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” had fetched US$ 33.6 million at a Christie’s auction in New York—a world record for a living artist.
Amy Winehouse: The bee-hived soul-jazz diva whose self-destructive habits over-shadowed a distinctive musical talent. She was 27.
EVENTS
JULY
5th—The Supreme Court declares illegal the policy of arming local tribal people in Chhattisgarh as Special Police Officers to fight Naxalites, as also vigilante groups like Salwa Judum and Koya Commondos. SC declares the campaign as “an extreme form of transgression of constitutional boundaries.”
9th—South Sudan formally declares independence. Sudan is converted into two independent nations of North Sudan and South Sudan.
10—More than 36 people are killed as Kalka Mail derails at Malwa, 120 km from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
13—More than 25 people are killed in series of bomb blasts in Mumbai. Serial blasts rip through Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Dadar areas of the city.
15—India successfully launches its latest communication satellite, GSAT-12, on board the PSLV-C7, India’s most powerful configuration of launch vehicle.
17—Rebekah Brooks, former Editor of the News of the World and a favoured lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, is arrested as part of an investigation into allegations of phone hacking and bribing police.
20—Anti-India lobbyist, Ghulam Nabi Fai, is held in US. The US Justice Department charges Fai, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, to illegally funnel millions of dollars from Pakistan government and ISI agency of Pakistan to push the Kashmiri cause in Washington.
22—More than 90 people are killed in a bomb attack in Norwegian capital Oslo, followed by shooting at a youth camp on a nearby island. A Christian fundamentalist with an anti-Muslim outlook is arrested for the killings.
23—At least 32 people are killed in a high-speed bullet train collision with a stalled train in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, raising new questions about safety of the fast-growing rail network.
MILESTONES
Kartik Chandran: An associate professor of earth and environmental engineering at Colombia Engineering, he has been awarded $1.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his project to develop revolutionary new model in water, sanitation and energy. Chandran and his partners are developing a technology to transform faecal sludge into bio-diesel and create the “next generation urban sanitation” facility in Accra, Ghana.
T.K. Anuradha, Pramodha Hegde & K.S. Anuradha: For the first time in the history of the Indian Space Research Organisation, three senior women scientists monitored and carried out crucial manoeuvres of the communication satellite GSAT-12 which was launched on July 22, 2011. Project Director of GSAT-12 T.K. Anuradha, Mission Director Pramodha Hegde and Operations Director K.S. Anuradha, who have been with ISRO for over two decades, were involved in crucial tasks undertaken before declaring the satellite fully operational.
Oscar Pistorius: South African sprinter, he has become the first ‘disabled’ athlete to qualify for an able-bodied event—the 2012 Olympics in London. Both legs of Pistorius have been amputed.
Sucheta: 33-year-old from Pune, she has successfully crossed the 1,623 km stretch of the Gobi desert to become the first Indian woman to cross Gobi desert.
Justice Rabinder Singh: A British-born Sikh lawyer, he has been appointed a judge of the High Court in London. He has become the first Sikh and the first male from an ethnic minority ever to be elevated to the exalted position.
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