The Daily GK: 31 March 2012

Gen VK Singh : Indian Army Chief
AK Antony : Union Defence Minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad : Union Health Minister
Enrica Lexie : Italian ship detained off Kochi in wake of the killing of two fishermen by two Italian marines on board

A division bench of Kerala High Court stayed a single High Court Judge's order allowing the ship to sail out of Indian waters

Aung San Suu Kyi : Leader of National League for Democracy (NLD) of Myanmar
Thein Sein : President of Myanmar
Ghulam Nabi Fai : a US court sentenced him to two-year prison for conspiracy to defraud the US by concealing transfer of at least $3.5m from Pakistan's ISI to fund his illegal lobbying efforts on Kashmir
Indian STEPS (Science Technology Entrepreneurship Park) & Business Incubators Association (ISBA) Awards 2011

Kreara Solutions : Best Graduated company from a business incubator in biotech category

Both companies were nurtured in the Technopark Technology Business Incubator (T-TBI), Thiruvananthapuram

K Radhakrishnan : Director of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology (SCTIMST)

Chosen for Asian & Oceanic Outstanding Achievement Epilepsy Award by Commission on Asian and Oceanian Affairs of the International League Against Epilepsy

Bashar al-Assad : Syrian President
National Green Tribunal suspends Environment Ministry's nod for the country's single largest FDI venture of Rs.51,000 crore POSCO Steel Project in Odisha

VRS Natarajan : CMD of Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), defence public sector unit

BEML Headquarters : BEML Soudha, Bangalore
BEML has assembled, manufactured & supplied 7000 trucks of Czech company Tatra for Indian Army over past 26 years
Allegations going in defence department on basis of BEML-Tatra deal

New developmental flight test of India's supersonic cruise missile BrahMos turned successful at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha
It reached its full range of 290km

Salman Khurshid : Union Law Minister
Lok Sabha passed Judicial Standards & Accountability Bill 2010 which provides mechanism for investigation against judges
Shrien Dewani : Indian origin British businessman won his appeal against his extradition to South Africa over allegations of having arranged the murder of his wife Anni
Bibi Jagir Kaur : Punjab Minister sentenced 5-year prison & Rs.5000 fine for forcing her daughter for abortion that lead to the death of her daughter
Christof Heyns : UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions

Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) slammed Modi government for financial irregularities resulting in loss of Rs.16,000 crore

Nicolas Sarkozy : French President
Hamid Karzai : Afghanistan President
Benjamin Netanyahu : Israel PM
Land Day : Observed by Palestinian activists on Israeli borders to commemorate the killing of 6 people over a land dispute with Israelis in 1976
Mariano Rajoy : Spain PM

Hundreds of Thousands of protesters swamped Spanish streets as the Spanish Government unveiled an austerity budget for 2012 with cuts more than $36bn to rein its public deficit

Consumer Price Index (CPI) for industrial workers (Base : 2001=100) rose by one point to 199 in February
India's total external debt rose by 9.4% ($28.8bn) to $334.9bn at the end of December 2011
India's current account deficit (CAD) nearly doubles to $19.6bn (4.3%) in December against $10.1bn (2.3%) a year ago
Jst BR Deshmukh : Chairman of Company Law Board
Norwegian firm Telenor is holding 67.25% stake in Indian telecom venture Uninor

World Bank backs proposal of forming BRICS Bank
India-ADB (Asian Development Bank) ink $876m pact to shore up country's power transmission systems

$500m sovereign-guaranteed loan & $250m non-sovereign corporate loan for establishing more than 1300km inter-regional transmission link for bulk-transfer of electricity from producer in Chhattisgarh to high power demand areas in North
$76m sovereign loan for connecting western power grid to Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli

Tax exemption for overseas investments in stock markets through P-Notes (Participatory Notes)
Subir Gokarn : RBI Deputy Governor

Adi Godrej : President-designate of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) & Chairman of Godrej Group
Essar Oil completed Rs.8300 crore expansion of its Vadinar refinery

Vadinar refinery is now India's second largest single location refinery with a capacity of 18 million tonnes
Naresh Nayyar : CEO Essar Energy

Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemical Ltd (MRPL), a subsidiary of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) raised its capacity to 15 million tonnes per annum
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is country largest refiner with 65.7m tonnes of total refining capacity
IOC building 15 million tonne refinery at Paradip, Odisha
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) last year commissioned 6 million tonne refinery at Bina, Madhya Pradesh
SK Srivastava : Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH)

DGH joining hands with German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) at Postdam & Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (GEOMAR) at Keil, in Germany for National Gas Hydrate Programme (NGHP) 02 in Andaman & East & West Coast areas

Men : Tamil Nadu (M Pradeep John & P Mohan) bt Tamil Nadu (Sivabalan & Dhamodharan)
Women : Indian Railways (Minimol Abraham & Soumya) bt Andhra Pradesh (Maheswari & Mahalakshmi)

CAG slammed Naveen Government for misusing Land Acquisition Act for acquiring land for several big industrial projects including proposed steel plant by South Korean steel major POSCO Steel

Arbind Singh : Indian development activist & head of National Association of Street Vendors of India was given the prestigious Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award at Oxford for his work in the informal labour sector

Jeff Skoll : Founder of Skoll Foundation, a philanthropist & social entrepreneur

Nothapodytes Nimmoniana : Large shrub plant known for its anti-cancer, anti-HIV & anti-fungal properties mostly found in most deciduous, evergreen & shola forests of India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia & China