21 January 2012

• Rani Abbakka : Indian Coast Guard's First Inshore Patrol Vessel
• Commissioned by MM Pallam Raju, Union Minister of State for Defence at Vishakhapatnam
• Indigenously built by Hindustan Shipyard Ltd
• NDTV Profit Business Leadership Awards 2011 : National Insurance Company Ltd
• NSR Chandraprasad : Chairman & MD of National Insurance
• Vodafone Group : UK Based
• Supreme Court set aside 2007 verdict of Bombay High Court asking Vodafone's Indian arm to pay Rs.11000 Cr Income-Tax to Indian Government for acquiring majority stake in Cayman Islands based Hutchinson-Essar
• Also directed Income-Tax Department to return Rs.2500 Cr deposited by Vodafone International Holdings along with 4% interest
• Vittorio Colao : Vodafone Group Chief Executive
• Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) sets up core committee to study the verdict
• Pranab Mukherjee : Union Finance Minister
• Salman Khurshid : Union Law Minister
• Rajiv Kumar : Secretary General of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI)
• Anand Desai : Indo-American Chamber of Commerce National President
• Dinesh Kanabar : Deputy CEO & Chairman (Tax) of KPMG India operations
• The Satanic Verses : Novel written by Indo-British Salman Rushdie
• Banned in India and several other countries
• Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) : Inaugurated at Diggi Palace, Jaipur
• Inaugurated by Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuk, Queen Mother of Bhutan
• Many writers read some passages of The Satanic Verses amid controversies of keeping away Rushdie  from participating in the festival
• William Dalrymple : Co-Director of JLF along with Namita Gokhale
• ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) Global Cadet Challenge (U-15) : held @ San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Asia Won beating North America
• Mariya Rony (India [Kerala]), Liu Gaoyang (China), Lee Seui (South Korea) & Doo Hai Kem (Hong Kong) consist the Asian team
• Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked Telecom companies to block bulk international SMS
• SH Kapadia : Chief Justice of India
• VK Singh : Indian Army Chief
• Marc Grossman : US Representative to Afghanistan & Pakistan (AfPak)
• Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani : Pakistan Army Chief
• Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha : Head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
• Both of them were accused of acting unconstitutional & illegal in the memo scandal
• Tensions going on between military and civilian leadership in Pakistan
• Yousuf Raza Gilani : Pakistan PM
• Asif Ali Zardari : Pakistan President
• Afghan soldiers open fire on French soldiers of NATO in Taghab valley of Kapisa
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy suspended all the French operations
• If security conditions are not clearly established, then French forces will pull out of Afghanistan earlier than the currently fixed 2013 end
• Francesco Schettino : Captain of the wrecked Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia
• He is now kept in house arrest of manslaughter & abandoning ship
• Passenger revealed that he was drinking as ship hit rocks and wrecked
• Concern rises as more cracks were found in wings of Airbus A380 Superjumbo Aircraft (World's largest passenger airliner)
• Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) reported its first quarterly profit drop in more than two years
• RIL to support its under-performing shares through a $2.1b share buy-back
• Tata Sons, holding company of Tata Group, increase its stake in Tata Steel by converting 1.2 Cr warrants into equal number of equity shares
• United Spirits to raise $225m via FCCB (Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds)
• Azim Premji : Chairman of Wipro
• S Gopalakrishnan : Executive Co-Chairman of Infosys
• Nikos Kardassis : CEO of Jet Airways
• David Nalbandian : Argentine Tennis Player
• Fined $8000 for throwing water at a staff member following his loss to John Isner (US) in Australian Open
• Indian Boxers Dilbag Singh & Praveen Kumar and Indian Cyclist Vikram Duhan were suspended for two years by National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (NADDP)
• They were tested positive for stimulant methylhexaneamine (MHA)
• The Cat's Table : Literary Voyage of Sri Lankan poet, novelist & essayist Michael Ondaatje
• He had won Booker for The English Patient that was later turned into a Oscar-winning film by Walter Murch
• The Last Jet-Engine Laugh : written by Ruchir Joshi
• Tarun Tejpal : Author & Publisher of Tehelka, Indian weekly