IMPORTANT APPOINTMENTS

1. S Jaishankar - New Indian envoy to the US replaced Nirupama Rao.

S Jaishankar is a former envoy to China.

2. Siddhartha Birla - Next FICCI President. He will replace Naina Lal Kidwai.

3. Anup Wadhawan - New Chairman of Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA)

4. Usha Ananthasubramanian - CMD of Bharatiya Mahila Bank

5. T.P. Seetharam - New envoy to UAE (United Arab Emirates)

6. Krishna Mohan Sahni - Chairman of the National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India

7. P.S. Raghavan - Next Russian Ambassador. He replace Ajai Malhotra

8. Arup Raha - Next Chief of the Indian Air Force.

9. Priyanka Chopra – Brand Ambassador of Guess

10. Terry Walsh - Head coach of Indian men’s hockey team

11. Arunendra Kumar - New Chairman, Railway Board.

12. J&K Bank - Mushtaq Ahmed - Chairman & CEO.

13. Gireesh B. Pradhan - New Chairperson of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).

14. Tarun Chugh - MD of PNB Metlife

Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission founder Swami Nityananda Maharaj passes away

Swami Nityananda Maharaj, founder secretaryof Ramakrishana Vivekananda Mission in Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas, passed away on Sunday. He was 82 and suffering from kidney—related ailments. Sources at the monastic order, which he founded in 1976, said he was admitted at AIIMS in Delhi recently and had recovered somewhat, before returning to Barrackpore.

President Pranab Mukherjee sent a message saying that since one does not mourn the death of a monk who has renounced the world, he would take this opportunity to hope that the work initiated by him expands manifold in the coming days.

B.G. Srinivas and Pravin Rao appointed Infosys Presidents

B. G. Srinivas and U.B. Pravin Rao appointed as presidents of the Infosys Ltd Company on 3 January 2014.

B. G. Srinivas will focus on global markets while U. B. Pravin Rao will focus on global delivery and service innovation. The financial services, insurance, manufacturing, engineering services, energy & communications, Infosys public services, Infosys Lodestone, strategic global sourcing, marketing and alliances will report to Srinivas

Retail, consumer packaged goods and logistics, life sciences, resources & utilities, services, growth markets, cloud and mobility, quality & productivity and Infosys Leadership Institute will report to Rao

Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689)

Aphra Johnson was born near Canterbury in 1640, and baptised on 14 December of that year. She is thought to have spent some of her youth in Dutch Guiana in the West Indies. In 1664, she married Johan Behn a merchant of Dutch or German parentage, but the marriage is not thought to have lasted very long. She is known to have acted as a British spy in Antwerp in 1666. Imprisonment for debt led her to write for an income.
Behn wrote a series of successful plays. Her first, 'The Forc'd Marriage' was produced in 1671. 'The Rover' (1681), her most successful, was produced in two parts and included in its cast Nell Gwyn, mistress of Charles II. Among Behn's sources was the Italian commedia dell'arte (improvised comedy), which she used in her farce 'The Emperor of the Moon' (1687), forerunner of the modern-day pantomime.
Behn's novel 'Oroonoko' (1688) was the story of an enslaved African prince and is now considered a foundation stone in the development of the English novel. As well as plays and prose Behn wrote poetry and translated works from French and Latin. In her time she was a celebrity, unusual for her independence as a professional writer and her concern for equality between the sexes.
Behn died on 16 April 1689 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

John Logie Baird (1888 - 1946)

John Logie Baird was born on 14 August 1888 in Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland, the son of a clergyman. Dogged by ill health for most of his life, he nonetheless showed early signs of ingenuity, rigging up a telephone exchange to connect his bedroom to those of his friends across the street. His studies at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College were interrupted by the outbreak of World War One. Rejected as unfit for the forces, he served as superintendent engineer of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. When the war ended he set himself up in business, with mixed results.
Baird then moved to the south coast of England and applied himself to creating a television, a dream of many scientists for decades. His first crude apparatus was made of odds and ends, but by 1924 he managed to transmit a flickering image across a few feet. On 26 January 1926 he gave the world's first demonstration of true television before 50 scientists in an attic room in central London. In 1927, his television was demonstrated over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow, and he formed the Baird Television Development Company. (BTDC). In 1928, the BTDC achieved the first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York and the first transmission to a ship in mid-Atlantic. He also gave the first demonstration of both colour and stereoscopic television.
In 1929, the German post office gave him the facilities to develop an experimental television service based on his mechanical system, the only one operable at the time. Sound and vision were initially sent alternately, and only began to be transmitted simultaneously from 1930. However, Baird's mechanical system was rapidly becoming obsolete as electronic systems were developed, chiefly by Marconi in America. Although he had invested in the mechanical system in order to achieve early results, Baird had also been exploring electronic systems from an early stage. Nevertheless, a BBC committee of inquiry in 1935 prompted a side-by-side trial between Marconi's all-electronic television system, which worked on 405 lines to Baird's 240. Marconi won, and in 1937 Baird's system was dropped.
Baird died on 14 June 1946 in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex.

Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)

Babbage was a British mathematician, an original and innovative thinker and a pioneer of computing.
Charles Babbage was born on 26 December 1791, probably in London, the son of a banker. He was often unwell as a child and was educated mainly at home. By the time he went to Cambridge University in 1810 he was very interested in mathematics.
After graduation Babbage was hired by the Royal Institution to lecture on calculus. Within two years he had been elected a member of the Royal Society and, with his Cambridge friends, was instrumental in setting up the Astronomical Society in 1820, the first to challenge the dominance of the Royal Society. From 1828 to 1839, Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.
The 1820s saw Babbage work on his 'Difference Engine', a machine which could perform mathematical calculations. A six-wheeled model was initially constructed and demonstrated to a number of audiences. He then developed plans for a bigger, better, machine - Difference Engine 2. He also worked on another invention, the more complex Analytical Engine, a revolutionary device on which his fame as a computer pioneer now largely rests. It was intended to be able to perform any arithmetical calculation using punched cards that would deliver the instructions, as well as a memory unit to store numbers and many other fundamental components of today's computers. The remarkable British mathematician Ada Lovelace completed a program for the Analytical Engine but neither it, nor Difference Engine 2, were finished in Babbage's lifetime.
Babbage also worked in the fields of philosophy and code-breaking, as well as campaigning for reform in British science. He died at his home in London on 18 October 1871.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore: A Commemorative Volume and Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation have
been released to mark Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. The first Asian Noble Laureate and the only
Indian Noble Laureate for Literature, he composed the national anthems for both India and Bangladesh. He wrote poetry, novels, essays, plays and short stories and was a painter. In Bengali, his collected writings fill 31 volumes . Comparisons are often drawn between him and Irish nationalist and cultural revivalist W.B. Yeats, who introduced Tagore’s works in English to the West. Both resonate of the Romantics. Tagore’s mystical symbolism is compared with English poet-painter William Blake. Some
of his paintings compare with Blake’s, although he was more than just a mystic.
It was Tagore who named Gandhi ‘Mahatma’. That is not to say that the two agreed on everything. Whilst Tagore placed emphasis on the village and traditional Indian civilisation, he also placed faith in science and the scientific method, talking with Einstein and Heisenberg. His knowledge of villages came from his time as a manager for his family estates in what is now Bangladesh.
A school he established in Santiniketan exists to this day (Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a student). He pioneered co-educational teaching and was more progressive on gender issues than others at that time and place. An avid traveller, Tagore visited Japan, South America, Europe, the former USSR, China and the Middle East. He also visited Italy at Mussolini’s invitation, but later denounced the dictator. He intervened in public debates against the British Raj on a range of issues. In 1919, he renounced his knighthood in protest against the Jalianwalla Bagh Massacre.
Tagore was attracted to the concept of unity in diversity. He was 80 years old when he died in Kolkata (then Calcutta) on August 7, 1941.

Andre Ampere (1775 – 1836)

Andre Marie Ampere was a French physicist, mathematician and chemist who founded the science of electrodynamics. Ampere was a child prodigy who mastered advanced mathematics by the age of 12. Ampere grasped the significance of Oersted’s discovery. He carried out a large series of experiments to explore the relationship between current electricity and magnetism. These investigations culminated in 1827 with the publication of the ‘Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena Deduced Solely from Experiments’. He hypothesised that all magnetic phenomena are due to circulating electric currents. Ampere was humble and absentminded. He once forgot an invitation to dine with the Emperor Napoleon. He died of pneumonia at the age of 61. His gravestone bears the epitaph: Tandem Felix (Happy at last).

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853 – 1928)

Dutch theoretical physicist, professor at Leiden. He investigated the relationship between electricity, magnetism, and mechanics. In order to explain the observed effect of magnetic fields on emitters of light (Zeeman effect), he postulated the existence of electric charges in the atom, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902. He derived a set of transformation equations (known after him, as Lorentz transformation equations) by some tangled mathematical arguments, but he was not aware that these equations hinge on a new concept of space and time.

Hans Christian Oersted (1777–1851)

Danish physicist and chemist, professor at Copenhagen. He observed that a compass needle suffers a deflection when placed near a wire carrying an electric current. This discovery gave the first empirical evidence of a connection between electric and magnetic phenomena.

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824 – 1887)

German physicist, professor at Heidelberg and at Berlin. Mainly known for his development of spectroscopy, he also made many important contributions to mathematical physics, among them, his first and second rules for circuits.

Georg Simon Ohm (1787– 1854)

German physicist, professor at Munich. Ohm was led to his law by an analogy between the conduction of heat: the electric field is analogous to the temperature gradient, and the electric current is analogous to the heat flow.

Count Alessandro Volta (1745 – 1827)

Italian physicist, professor at Pavia. Volta established that the animal electricity observed by Luigi Galvani, 1737–1798, in experiments with frog muscle tissue placed in contact with dissimilar metals, was not due to any exceptional property of animal tissues but was also generated whenever any wet body was sandwiched between dissimilar metals. This led him to develop the first voltaic pile, or battery, consisting of a large stack of moist disks of cardboard (electrolyte) sandwiched between disks of metal (electrodes).

Charles Augustin de Coulomb (1736 – 1806)

Coulomb, a French physicist, began his career as a military engineer in the West Indies. In 1776, he returned to Paris and retired to a small estate to do his scientific research. He invented a torsion balance to measure the quantity of a force and used it for determination of forces of electric attraction or repulsion between small charged spheres. He thus arrived in 1785 at the inverse square law relation, now known as Coulomb’s law. The law had been anticipated by Priestley and also by Cavendish earlier, though Cavendish never published his results. Coulomb also found the inverse square law of force between unlike and like magnetic poles.

Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal. (1918-1982)

M.P. from Bihar for 1967-1970 and 1977-1979; chaired the Second Backward Classes Commission that recommended reservations for Other Backward Classes; a socialist leader from Bihar; Chief Minister of Bihar for just a month and a half in 1968; joined the Janata Party in 1977.


The Mandal Commission was set up to investigate the extent of educational and social backwardness among various sections of Indian society and recommend ways of identifying these ‘backward classes’. It was also expected to give its recommendations on the ways in which this backwardness could be ended. The Commission gave its recommendations in 1980. By then the Janata government had fallen. The Commission advised that ‘backward classes’ should be understood to mean ‘backward castes’, since many castes, other than the Scheduled Castes, were also treated as low in the caste hierarchy.
The Commission did a survey and found that these backward castes had a very low presence in both educational institutions and in employment in public services. It therefore recommended reserving 27 per cent of seats in educational institutions and government jobs for these groups. The Mandal Commission also made many other recommendations, like, land reform, to improve the conditions of the OBCs.
In August 1990, the National Front government decided to implement one of the recommendations of Mandal Commission pertaining to reservations for OBCs in jobs in the central government and its undertakings.

Personalities Associated with Indian Dance

Rukmini Devi Arundale - Associated with Bharatnatyam; founded Kalakshetra.

T. Balasaraswathi - Bharatanatyam.

Yamini Krishnamurthy - Famous exponent of Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi.

Birju Maharaj - One of the best known Kathak dancers and a choreographer.

Sonal Mansingh - A notable Odissi and Bharatnatyam dancer.

Rabindranath Tagore helped Manipuri dance gain prominence in the early 20th century by introducing it in his Shantiniketan.

Prominent Indian artists associated with painting are Amrita Shergil, M.F.Hussain, Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose etc.

Ustad Alla Rakha - A master of the Tabla.

Bala Murali Krishna - A singer of Carnatic music.

Bhim Sen Joshi - A Hindustani singer.

Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasya - Flute player.

Pt. Jasraj - Famous singer of Hindustani music.

Parveen Sulthana - Hindustan style singer.

Neralathu Ramapothuval - Sopanam.

M.S.Subha Lakshmi - Carnatic music. (1998 Bharat Ratna).

Swathi Thirunal - Maharaja of Travancore who composed many ‘varnas and kritis’.

Ustad Zakir Hussain - Tabla.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan - Sarod

Begum Akhtar - Gazal singer

Bismillah Khan - Shennai player

Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma - Santhoor

Lalgudi Jayaraman - Violin

Pt. Ravi Shankar - Sitar player of world fame.

Kalpana Chawla

The girl from Karnal in Haryana is the First Indian or Indian American woman to go on a space launch (November 19, 1997) as Mission Specialist of 6 member crew on the fourth US microgravity payload  flight on board Columbia on Mission "STS- 87" to study the outer atmosphere of Sun.
She took up on her second voyage on January 16, 2003, the US space shuttle, Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral (USA) on a 16 day scientific research mission led by
commander Rick Husband. All the seven members were killed when the space shuttle exploded mid-air
minutes before landing on 1.2.2003.
Their main intention was to develop medicines to treat several diseases including cancer.