19 January 2012

• N Ram : Steps Down as Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu Daily & Publisher of The Hindu, Business Line, Frontline & Sportstar
• Siddharth Varadarajan : New Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu
• D Sampathkumar : New Editor of Business Line
• R Vijaya Sankar : New Editor of Frontline
• Nirmal Shekar : New Editor of Sportstar
• K Balaji : MD of Kasturi & Sons Ltd (Owners of The Hindu group of publications)
• New Publisher of The Hindu publications
• RA Mehta : Gujarat Lokayukta
• Kamla Beniwal : Gujarat Governor
• Narendra Modi : Gujarat CM
• Gujarat High Court upheld the appointment of Lokayukta by the Governor bypassing the State Government
• Modi led Gujarat Govt to move to Supreme Court
• Manjula Chellur : Acting Chief Justice of Kerala
• Babu Mathew P Joseph & AV Ramakrishna Pillai : Newly appointed judges of Kerala High Court
• Nicolas Sarkozy : French President
• Recently S&P downgraded France from AAA to AA+
• But Moody's & Fitch maintained the AAA ratings of France
• Jarawa : Tribes of Andaman Islands
• Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) directed Income Tax Department to launch a Two-month Special Initiative against Tax evasions starting from Jan 20
• To trail & verify high value transactions by persons not assessed to tax or those who have not furnished their Permanent Account Number (PAN) during such deals
• KV Balasubramanian : Former Chief Advertisement Manager of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, publishers of The Hindu; PASSED AWAY
• Pankaj Pachauri : NDTV India Senior Editor & Prime Time Anchor
• To be Communications Adviser to PM
• Jst Markandey Katju : Chairman of Press Council of India (PCI)
• Pranab Mukherjee : Union Finance Minister
• Goa to be the first State in India to have Poll Monitoring System (PMS) implemented during Assembly Elections
• PMS includes computer with web-camera and arrangements to get thumb-prints of every voter to check bogus voting
• China to expand its railway connecting Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) & Nepal
• Lhasa : Capital of TAR
• 5 year development project (2011-15)
• SM Krishna : Union Minister of External Affairs
• Handed over houses to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) from North Sri Lanka in a India-assisted housing project of Sri Lanka
• 1000 house constructed as Pilot-project
• 49000 to be constructed in next phase
• Kankesanthurai (KKS) Harbour : Jaffna, Sri Lanka
• The harbour has been cleared of all shipwrecks  in record time
• Govt of India through Shipping Corporation of India had awarded $19m for removal of shipwrecks at the KKS Harbour to Resolve Salvage & Fire (Asia) Ltd, Singapore
• India to provide further assistance for the next phase of the project in dredging & rehabilitation of pier & port infrastructure
• Sergei Lavrov : Foreign Minister of Russia
• Russia warned the West against military intervention in Iran & Syria and rejected unilateral sanctions against the two nations
• Russia to strengthen ties with Iran
• Aung San Suu Kyi : Myanmar Opposition leader
• Registered her name to stand in upcoming by-elections
• National League for Democracy (NLD) : Her political party
• Meteorite found in Morocco last July claimed to be from Mars
• Its the fifth time such Martian meteorite fall has occurred, which has occurred every 50 years
• First was in 1815 in France, second in 1865 in India, then in 1911 in Egypt, 1962 in Nigeria and now in 2011 in Morocco
• GRAIL-A & -B : NASA's Twin Moon Probe
• The probes were named by conducting a competition among elementary students
• Ebb & Flow : Names selected for the twin probes
• GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) : small camera on each GRAILs
• GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education & public outreach
• GDP growth in China slows down in Q4 to 8.9% the slowest in last 10 quarters
• "World Economic Situation & Prospects 2012" : Report by UN
• Projects Indian GDP growth for 2012 & 2013 to 7.7% & 7.9% respectively
• Projection for 2011 lowered by 8.5% to 7%
• South Asian countries to grow slightly over 6.5% in 2011, 6.7% in 2012 & 6.9% in 2013
• Jaipal Reddy : Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas
• Petroleum Ministry conveyed to Commerce Ministry its nod to the proposal of allowing private airlines to import Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) independently
• Earlier, the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines approached the Ministry with the proposal
• Sriprakash Jaiswal : Union Coal Minister
• A Committee of Secretaries (CoS) has beenset up by the PM to address concerns of Power Sector
• Pulok Chatterji : Principal Secretary to PM to head the CoS
• To look into issues such as shortage of coal & gas, price of imported coal, hike in power tariff & second-generation reforms of the sector
• India-Azerbaijan 4-Match Women's Hockey Test Series
• India defeated Azerbaijan 3rd consecutive time in the series to clinch the series
• Ajay Maken : Union Sports Minister
• Awarded Rs.4.33 lakh to Abhinav Bindra for winning Gold in Air Rifle in Asian Shooting Championship 2012