BBC Director General George Entwistle Resigned Over covering Sexual Abuse

BBC Director General George Entwistle on 10 November 2012 resigned from the job after the broadcaster put out a program which was denounced by the corporation's chairman as shoddy journalism as a British politician was depicted in child sex abuse.

George Entwistle in a statement asserted that he had decided that the honourable thing to do is to step down as director general after just eight weeks in the job. He also asserted the fact that the director-general is also the editor-in-chief and ultimately responsible for all content.

George Entwistle was facing widespread criticism since a rival broadcaster carried charges in October 2012 that a former BBC star, the late Jimmy Savile, was one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders and had sexually abused hundreds of children over four decades.

Thereafter the BBC's flagship news program Newsnight aired a mistaken allegation that an ex-politician sexually abused children. The programme did not identify the politician in the report, but he was widely named on the Internet as former Tory party treasurer Alistair McAlpine.

Tim Davie, who is currently the BBC's director of audio and music, is going to take over as acting director general.

PM DAVID CAMAROON------CONSERVATIVE PARTY

HAMAS----PALESTINIAN EXTREMIST GROUP
SINN FEIN---- I.R . A'S POLITICAL WING
TRUE PATH PARTY----A MAJOR CONSTITUENT OF THE RULING COALITION IN TURKEY

Shanti Gandhi, Gandhiji’s great grandson elected to Kansas State Assembly

Mr. Shanti Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi has been elected to a State Assembly in the United Stated during the general elections held on November 6, 2012.

Mr. Shanti Gandhi is a Republican Party candidate.
Son of late Saraswati Gandhi, wife of Mahatma Gandhi ji’s grandson – the late Kanti Lal.
He was a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon
.

Personalities

Mohammaed qadafi--- issued a orange notice by interpol

Dilma Vana Rousseff the first woman to become the President of Brazil

M.F. Husain, India’s greatest and most celebrated artist, has been conferred Qatar nationality - something that is very rarely given

Robert Koenig (born July 9, 1975 in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, USA) is an Emmy Award nominated American film director, producer, writer and editor. produced "Coexist", which was nominated for Best Documentary Film by the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in 2011.

Coco chanel- Gabrielle "Coco" Bonheur Chanel was a French fashion designer and founder of theChanel brand. She was the only fashion designer to be named on Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.

URUGUAY--------JULIO MARIA SANGUINETTI
PERU--------ALBERTO FUJIMOR
MEXICO------ERNESTO ZEDILLO
BRAZIL-------FERMANDO H.CARDOSO

GUNTER GRASS---NOBEL PRIZE WINNER FOR LITERATURE

TREVOR HUDDLESTON-------THE ANGLICAN MONK WHO LED BRITISH LEADING CAMPAIGNER AGAINST APART HELD IN SOUTH AFRICA

DICKY DOLMA-----YOUNGEST WOMAN TO CLIMB MT.EVEREST IN 1993.

KIM CAMPBALL-----FIRST WOMAN PRIME MINISTER IN CANADA

the richest man of the World as
per 2012 rankings? ------]Carlos Slim

MALIREDDY SRINIVASULU IS POPOSED BY US GOVT FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Pakistani Sufi legend Abida Parveen was honoured with a lifetime achievement award on 7 October 2012 by Kaladharmi Begum Akhtar Academy of Ghazal in New Delhi.

Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎ Malālah Yūsafzay, born July 12, 1997^[2]^[3]) is a ninth grade^[10] student from the town ofMingora in Swat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. She is known for her education and women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban has at times banned girls from attending school.^[4]^[3] In early 2009, at the age of 11, Yousafzai came to prominence through a blog she wrote for the BBC detailing her life under the Taliban regime, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls.^[11] The following summer, a New York Times documentary^[3]was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat.^[12] Yousafzai began to rise in prominence, giving interviews in print and on TV,^[13] and taking a position as chairperson of the District Child Assembly Swat.^[14] She has since been nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu,^[15] and has won Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize.^[4]

On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.^[16] In the days following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition,^[17] but as of 14 October doctors have reduced her sedatives and she has demonstrated the ability to move all four limbs.^[18] A group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan have issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her.^[19] The Taliban has reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin

S R Rao: New Commerce Secretary

S.R. Rao is a Padma Shri awardee for his commendable role in combating 1994 Surat plague

He will be responsible of presenting the yearly review of the Foreign Trade Policy 2009-2014.

Angela Dorothea Merkel

Angela Dorothea Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.

A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommernsince. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.

After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).^[3]

In 2007, Merkel was President of the European Council and chaired the G8, the second woman (after Margaret Thatcher) to do so. She played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. One of her priorities was also to strengthen transatlantic economic relations by signing the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council on 30 April 2007. Merkel is seen as playing a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and has been referred to as "the decider."^[4] In domestic policy, health care reform and problems concerning future energy development have been major issues of her tenure.

Angela Merkel has for several years been described as the world’s most powerful woman and as "the de facto leader of the European Union"

Chancellor of Germany

Incumbent

In 1989, Merkel got involved in the growing democracy movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, joining the new party Democratic Awakening. Following the first (and only) democratic election of the East German state, she became the deputy spokesperson of the new pre-unification caretaker government under Lothar de Maizière.

At the first post-reunification general election in December 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag from the constituency Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen, which is coextensive with the district of Vorpommern-Rügen. This has remained her electoral district until today. Her party merged with the west German CDU^[18] and she became Minister for Women and Youth in Helmut Kohl's 3rd cabinet. In 1994, she was made Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest cabinet minister, she was referred to by Kohl as "mein Mädchen" ("my girl").

She was elected to replace Schäuble, becoming the first female chair of her party, on 10 April 2000.

In 2011,^[49] India became the first Asian country to hold a joint cabinet meeting with Germany when Merkel visited

The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00 CET, on 22 November 2005.

On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for the position of Secretary General of the SPD, Franz Müntefering indicated that he would resign as Chairman of the party in November, which he did. Ostensibly responding to this, Edmund Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated for the Economics and Technology post, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005. While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at forming a viable coalition and cabinet, the manner in which Stoiber withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU, and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005

The second cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.

In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to represent a Federal Republic of Germany that included the former East Germany (though she was born in the West and moved to the East a few weeks after her birth, when her father decided to return to East Germany as a Lutheran pastor^[82]), and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences. She studied physics; her predecessors studied law, business or history or were military officers, among others.

As a female politician from a centre right party who is also a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many in the English-language press to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Some have referred to her as "Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau" (all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady"—Thatcher also has a science degree: an Oxford University degree in chemistry). Political commentators have debated the precise extent to which their agendas are similar.^[80] Later in her tenure, Merkel acquired the nickname "Mutti" (from a German familiar form of 'mother'), said by Der Spiegel to refer to an idealised mother figure from the 1950s and 1960s.^[81]

Forbes has named her the fourth most powerful person in the world as of 2011.

During her visit to India she said "It is certainly true that there are very, very large disparities within India. And I have talked about this on many occasions with Prime Minister Singh, who of course gradually wants to get more people out of poverty. Basically we take a two-pronged approach: on the one hand, we engage in good development cooperation, where we provide help for self-help. And on the other we have highly industrialized economic cooperation where we are even competitors on some markets. And the key – as the Prime Minister repeatedly tells me – is education. The more young people who complete some sort of training, the better. That’s why Germany is so firmly committed in the field of vocational training in particular, as well as in scientific cooperation and the promotion of promising young students.

India, as an emerging economy, also crops up when it comes to global climate policy. What chance do you see of being able, following the disappointment of Copenhagen, to persuade India to enter into a binding commitment to cut greenhouse gases after all?

India has in the meantime decided to propose its own voluntary commitments. This is an important first step. India is one of the countries which still have very low CO2 emissions, but that will change in the future. Per-capita CO2 emissions in India are less than one tonne, while the level of per-capita emissions in China, for instance, is already much higher. Nonetheless, we need India to be on board, and it is very difficult to convince them to commit to binding objectives; the Indian parliament has decided that this is a voluntary matter. I fear that I still have a difficult task ahead of me and that I won’t yet get the desired result this time round.

The second stop on your trip is Singapore, a country in which human rights are to some extent violated: freedom of speech and of assembly are restricted, for example. What can you do for the people there?

I’ve wanted to go to Singapore for a very long time. I had to cancel a trip there back in 2007. I believe it is very important always to keep up a dialogue, even if from our point of view there are certain deficits. Singapore is a key country in the Asian region. It has tremendous technological know-how. Needless to say, I will be talking to the Prime Minister about the things we believe we have to criticize. But the most important thing is always to keep up a dialogue.

Federal Chancellor, it’s well known that you always have a very full schedule on foreign trips like this. Do you still have any time to get to know the people and cultures of the countries you’re visiting, apart from at official receptions, dinners with heads of state and press conferences?

Not enough, I would say. Of course, every time I learn something, and I do see a lot. Often I also meet representatives of civil society, and then of course I hear a good deal and try to learn from them. But there’s no doubt one could do more. My schedule is simply very full. One thing is definitely important: direct talks are always preferable to phone calls and reading about each other. So I am looking forward to the trip, and I think it can be a very successful one."

Eminent journalist Fareed Zakaria suspended for plagiarism
Well-known Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria suspended by Time Magazine and CNN as their columnist and
show host after he confessed the charges of plagiarism. Zakaria was accused of writing copied text in his column the
case for gun control in the August 20, 2012 issue of Time.
Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to
September 10, 2012
Conservative website NewsBusters found much similarity b/w Zarkaria’s and those written by historian Jill Lepore on
the same issue, which appeared in the 23 April 2012 issue of The New Yorker.

Van Rompuy’ again elected as European Council President
The mandate of European Council’s current President Van Rompuy has been increased by another 2.5 years.
This was decided at a meeting of the Leaders of EU in Brussels. The former Belgian Prime Minister was the
only candidate for the post.

Prime Minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenavi passed away
Meles Zenavi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, died of prolonged illness. He was 57. After his death, the charge of the
acting prime minister will be assumed by its Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

US announces New Chief Technology Officer; Todd Park to be
replacement for Aneesh Chopra
President Obama appointed Todd Park as Assistant to the President and U.S. Chief Technology Officer
(CTO), filling a vacancy created by last month’s departure of Aneesh Chopra, the Nation’s first CTO.Mr.
Park has served as CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since August 2009,
where he has been an agent for change. President Obama created the position of U.S. Chief Technology
Officer on his first day in office, noting that corporate leaders have long recognized the value of having a person
responsible for ensuring that technology is being used as effectively as possible to gain operational efficiencies and
ensure internal coordination and communication.
The U.S. CTO is responsible for ensuring the adoption of innovative technologies to support Administration priorities,
including job creation, broader access to affordable health care, enhanced energy efficiency, a more open
government, and national and homeland security. The U.S. CTO’s office is situated within the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Indian American Karl Mehta among Presidential Innovation Fellows
Indian-American entrepreneur Karl Mehta was one among the 18 Presidential Innovation Fellows who would work on
five high-impact projects in the US capital Washington DC.
These Fellows would work for 6 months in Washington DC on 5 high-impact projects targeted at assisting
entrepreneurs, small businesses and the economy, while considerably improving how the Federal Government services
the American people.

Who among the following has not worked as World Bank Chief Economist?
[A]Justin Yifu Lin [B]Joseph E. Stiglitz [C]Martin Ravallion [D]Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman

Dutch Teen sailor circles globe solo
 Dutch teen Laura Dekker became the youngest sailor to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world, a year
after going to court for the right to try. The 16-year-old completed her solo round-the-world journey when she
sailed into harbour on the Caribbean island of St Martin, which is shared by Netherlands and France.

S R Rao: New Commerce Secretary

S.R. Rao is a Padma Shri awardee for his commendable role in combating 1994 Surat plague

Angela Merkel has for several years been described as the world’s most powerful woman and as "the de facto leader of the European Union"

Chancellor of Germany

Incumbent

She was elected to replace Schäuble, becoming the first female chair of her party, on 10 April 2000.

In 2011,^[49] India became the first Asian country to hold a joint cabinet meeting with Germany when Merkel visited

The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00 CET, on 22 November 2005.

The second cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.

Forbes has named her the fourth most powerful person in the world as of 2011.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on Moon passes away
Neil Armstrong, the first human being to walk on the moon passed away.
He was the commander of the NASA’s Apollo 11 space flight on July 20, 1969.
Armstrong’s second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing
mission on July 20, 1969.
 On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surfaceand spent 2½ hours exploring
while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module.
 The objective of Apollo 11 was to land safely rather than to touch down with precision on a particular spot.
 The first words Armstrong intentionally spoke to Mission Control and the world from the lunar surface
were, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
 Armstrong set his left boot on the Moon’s surface at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969, then spoke the famous
words “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
 There was a controversy over whether Armstrong said “a” before the word “man” or not and several researches
were made over this.
 About 20 minutes after the first step, Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface and became the second
human to set foot on the Moon, and the duo began their tasks of investigating how easily a person could
operate on the lunar surface.
 Early on, they unveiled a plaque commemorating their flight, and also planted the flag of the United States.
 Shortly after their flag planting, the then President of USA Richard Nixonspoke to them by a telephone call from
his office.
 In the entire Apollo 11 photographic record, there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected.
 The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of photographic tasks to be performed by Armstrong
with a single Hasselblad camera.
 After helping to set up the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package, Armstrong went for a walk to what is now
known as East Crater, 65 yards (59 m) east of the LM, the greatest distance traveled from the LM on the mission.
 Armstrong’s final task was to leave a small package of memorial items to deceased Soviet cosmonauts Yuri
Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, and Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
 The time spent on EVA during Apollo 11 was about two and a half hours,the shortest of any of the six Apollo
lunar landing missions.

Kiro Gligorov, the first democratically elected president of Macedonia died in Skopje on 1 January 2012. He had led his nation through a bloodless secession from the former Yugoslavia.

Gligorov had became president of Macedonia in January 1991 when it was still a Yugoslav republic. He led his countrymen through a referendum in which they voted for independence, and the territory of 2.1 million people became the only republic to secede from Yugoslavia without a war. Gligorov served two consecutive presidential terms, leading the nation from January 1991 to November 1999.

Kiro Gligorov

Born in the central Macedonian town of Stip on 3 May 1917, Gligorov graduated from law school in Belgrade. He was working as a lawyer for a private bank in Skopje when World War II broke out. He joined the partisan movement fighting against the Nazi occupation from its early days.

He joined the partisan movement fighting against the Nazi occupation and was one of the organizers of the Anti-Fascist Assembly for the People’s Liberation of Macedonia, or ASNOM in 1945. The organization worked to establish Macedonia’s identity and territory within the Yugoslav federation and is considered the cornerstone of the Macedonian state.

In the years that followed the end of the second world war, the republic’s Communist leaders sent Gligorov to Belgrade to represent Macedonia. The move was considered to be an attempt —to distance Gligorov from Skopje because of his ideas about the Macedonian national cause.

Gligorov worked in several positions in the Yugoslav capital and became known as one of the proponents of economic reforms in the 1960s.

In the late 1980s, then-Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic invited him to join his economic reform team during a brief period of economic prosperity before nationalism began to pull the federation apart.

Gligorov returned to Skopje and in January 1991 became the first democratically elected president of Macedonia, which was a Yugoslav republic at the time. parts of the federation began to break away from the federation in a series of wars. Macedonia eventually seceded after a referendum, and Gligorov maintained his position at the helm of the newly created country.

Gligorov also faced domestic unrest, with the country’s large ethnic Albanian minority pressing for greater cultural and political autonomy.

The demands eventually led to armed conflict in early 2001. The two sides eventually signed a peace accord under which minorities were guaranteed greater rights, and NATO peacekeepers were sent to the country.

Dispute with Greece

The early days his presidency were overshadowed by a bitter dispute with Greece over the newly independent nation’s name , the dispute that continues till date. Greece objected to the use of the name Macedonia, as it implied territorial ambitions on its own northern province of the same name. It also objected to a symbol on the new country’s flag and articles of the Macedonian Constitution that Greece believed suggested territorial claims.

Greece had also imposed a crippling 19-month embargo on its northern neighbor. In 1995, the Macedonian government signed an accord with Greece agreeing to remove the symbol from its flag and revising some articles of the Constitution. In official bodies such as the United Nations, the country is known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Julian Assange

Diplomatic Immunity & Diplomatic Asylum
Diplomatic immunity is a kind of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensure that
diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host
country's laws, but they can still be expelled.
Diplomatic Immunity finds its origin from as international law in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic
Relations (1961), though the concept and custom have a much longer history. Diplomatic immunity as an
institution developed to allow for the maintenance of government relations, including during periods of
difficulties and even armed conflict.
Diplomatic Asylum
Diplomatic asylum is not established in any international law. It derives its existence from Article 14 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other
countries asylum from persecution."
The European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also
enshrine this law.
The International Court of Justice has emphasised that in the absence of treaty or customary rules to the
contrary, a decision by a mission to grant asylum involves a derogation from the sovereignty of the receiving
state.
The Organization of American States agreed a convention in 1954.
In a broad sense, according to the UN, it is protection which is granted by a country outside its own borders,
and particularly through its diplomatic missions.
Case of Julian Assange
Julian Assange, founder of whistleblowsing website wikileaks, is facing extradition from the UK to Sweden over rape
and sexual assault allegations. Recently he had spent a night in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after claiming
diplomatic asylum. The Government authorities said that by spending the night at the embassy he has breached his bail
conditions and faces arrest, but Ecuadorian authorities said they were "studying and analysing" his request.
As per the customs, local police and security forces are not permitted to enter an embassy unless they have the express
permission of the ambassador - even though the embassy remains the territory of the host nation. This rule was set out
in 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations when it codified a custom in place for centuries by establishing the
"rule of inviolability". Thus, by being at the embassy, Assange was on diplomatic territory and beyond the reach of
police. Assange fears if he is sent to Sweden it may then lead to him being sent to the US to face charges over Wikileaks,
for which he could face the death penalty.

Ecuador grants political asylum to Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange
Latin American country Ecuador granted political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Who is Julian Assange?
Julian Assange is an Australian editor, activist, political talk show host, computer programmer, publisher and a
journalist. He is famous as editor-in-chief and founder of Wikileaks.
Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to
September 10, 2012
What is Wikileaks?
It is a media website which is an international, self-described, not-for-profit organization publishing submissions of
private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. It made grabbed
international attention when it released some of the confidential information of the US linked to Afghanistan war
including equipment expenditure and holdings. In 2010 it revealed U.S. State department diplomatic cables.
Why Sweden wants him to be extradited?
Sweden alleged Assange of committing rape and molestation of two women during his visit to the country. A
European Arrest Warrant and an Interpol red notice has been released against him. He is currently hiding in British
Embassy. His request to Britain for political asylum was denied. Recently, Ecuador has granted political asylym to
Assange which has resulted into a stand-off b/w the two countries (Britain & Ecuador).

gen know

Monday, 17 September 2012

international personalities

BBC Director General George Entwistle Resigned Over covering Sexual Abuse

Shanti Gandhi, Gandhiji’s great grandson elected to Kansas State Assembly

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