Current Affairs-Sample Notes

Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 1Games & Hosting Nations 1. Common Wealth Games 2006 Melbourne 2. 2010 Delhi 3. 2014 Glasgow 4. First Afro-Asian Games 2003 Hyderabad 5. 2007 Africa 6. 15 th Asian Games (XV Asiad) 2006 Doha (Qatar) 7. 2014 South Korea 8. SAF (South Asian Federation) 2006 Colombo, Sri Lanka 9. 2008 Dehradun & Auli (Winter SAF) 10. Winter Olympics 2006 Turin 11. 2010 Vancouver 12. 2014 Sochi, Russia 13. Football World Cup 2006 Germany 14. 2010 South Africa 15. 2014 Brazil (the first time since 1950). 16. Summer Olympics 2008 Beijing 17. 2012 London. London has hosted summer Olympics maximum no of times. 18. World Badminton Championship 2009 Delhi 19. Cricket World Cup 2011 India, Pak, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh Final Match in Delhi. 20. ICC Twenty20 world cup 2007 South Africa 21. 33 rd National Games 2007 Guwahati 22. 34 th National Games 2009 Kerala 23. Hockey World Cup 2010 2010 New Delhi 24. 14 th SAARC Summit 2007 New Delhi 25. 15 th SAARC Summit 2008 Maldives Awards & Honours 1. Nobel Prize Economics: Leonid Hurwicz (USA), Eric S Maskin (USA) Roger B Myerson (USA) For having laid the foundation of mechanism design theory. Physics: Albert Fert (France) Peter Grunberg (Germany) For the discovery of “Giant Magnetoresistance. Chemistry: Gerhard Ertl (Germany) For his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. Medicine: Mario R Capecchi (USA) Sir Martin J Evans (UK) Oliver Smithies (USA) For their discoveries in principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 2 cells. Literature: Doris Lessing (UK) – the epicist of the female experience who with skepticism, fire & visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny”. Peace: IPCC founded in 1988 headed by Rajendra Pachauri & Albert Arnold Gore Jr for work on Climate Change. 2. Dada Saheb Phalke Award 2005 Shyam Benegal. First film of his was “Ankur”. 3. Dada Saheb Phalke Ratna Award Living Legend Dilip Kumar 4. Bharat Ratna 5. Gyanpith Award 6. Ramon Magsaysay Award 2007 Palagumni Sainath of India, the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu for Journalism Jonito R Salonga – Philippines – Govt Service Kin Sun Tae – South Korea – Public Service Mahabir Pun – Nepal – Community Leadership Tang Xiyang – China – Peace & Intl Understanding Chung To & Chen Guangcheng – China – Leadership 7. Indira Gandhi Prize for peace, Disarmament & Development 2006 Wangari Muta Maathai of Kenya (Nobel Laureate) 8. Rajiv Gandhi Manav Sewa 9. Gandhi Peace Prize 10. Indira Gandhi prize for National Integration JS Bandukwala (MS University, Vadodara) & Ram Puniyani (IIE, Powai) – shared jointly. For participating in relief work in 1993 Mumbai riots & Godhra riots. 11. 14 th Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award Hem Dutta (Social Activist from Assam) 12. Jamnalal Bajaj Award Yashpal Mittal Dr Anand Karve Ashok Gupta Prof Michael Nagler. 13. Saraswati Samman 2006 Oriya writer Jagganath Prasad for his work Parikrama 14. Tansen Award 15. Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award Manavjit Singh Sandhu (Shooter). He is the third shooter to receive this award after Abhinav Bindra & Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. 16. Man Booker Prize 2007 Irish Writer Anne Enright for her novel “The Gathering”. 17. Man Booker International Prize Nigerian Novelist Chinua Achebe best known for his first novel “Things Fall Apart”. 18. Oscar – 79 th Academy Awards Best Film – Departed Best Director – Martin Scorsese (Departed) Best Actor – Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) Best Actress – Helen Mirren (The Queen) Best Foreign Film – The Lives of Others (Germany) 19. 49 th Grammy Awards Dixie Chicks stole the show by winning the record of the year & album of the year. 20. 53 rd National Film Awards Best Film: Kaal Purush (Bengali) Best Director: Rahul Dholakia, Parzania (English) Best Actor: Amitabh Bachchhan (Black) Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 3 Best Actress: Sarika, Parzania Best Popular Film: Rang De Basanti Indira Gandhi Award for the Best First Film of a Director: Parineeta 21. 52nd Filmfare Awards Best Film – Rang De Basanti Best Actor – Hrithik Roshan (Dhoom-2) Best Director – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti) Best Actress: Kajol (Fanaa) 22. Miss Universe 2007 Riyo Mori (Japan), held at Mexico City. Natalia Guimaraes (Brazil) – first runner up 23. Miss World 2007 Zhang Zilin of China at the finals of World Beauty Pageant at Sanya, China 24. Miss Earth 2007 Pooja Chitgopekar of India won this contest. 25. Femina Miss India Universe Puja Gupta (Miss India Universe) Sarah Jane Dias (Miss India World) Pooja Chitgopekar (Miss India Earth) 26. Mr. India 2008 27. CAPA 28. Indian Science Award 29. Chameli Devi Award 30. Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo 31. Lata Mangeshkar Award 32. Kishore Kumar Award 33. Whitley Gold Award 34. Golden Peacock Global Award 35. World Food Prize 36. Nargis Dutta Award for Best Film on National Integration Daivanamathil (Malayalam) 37. Hiroshima Award 38. National Communal Harmony Award 2006 Delhi based Institue for Socialist Education & Rabindra Nath Upadhyay 39. Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards Violin Maestro – T.N. Krishnan Kathak Dancer – Rohini Bhate Tabla player – Pt. Kishan Maharaj & Gursharan Singh 40. Sangeet Natak Akademi Ratna S.K. Saxena 41. Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration 42. B.M Birla Science Prize 43. G.D Birla Scientific Research Award 44. Knight of the Legion 45. Borlaug Medallion 46. Nelson Mandela Award for Minority Empowerment 47. David Dixon Prize 48. WTA Newcomer of the year 2005 49. Stockholm Water Prize 50. Olof Palme Prize Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 4 51. Abel Prize Indian American Srinivasa S. R. Varadhan won the $ 850,000 Abel Prize known as Nobel prize of Maths. 52. Order Mexicana del Aguila Azteca 53. Order of Australia 54. DRDO Lifetime Achievement Aw. 55. UNESCO World Press Freedom Pr 56. National Geographic Champion Bee 57. Congressional Gold Medal 58. International Indian Film Academy Awards, Sheffield Best Film: Rang De Basanti Best Actor: Hrithik Roshan (Krish) Best Actress: Rani Mukherjee (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna) Best Villan: Saif Ali Khan (Omkara) 59. Mother Teresa Award 60. Lal Bahadur Shastri Award 61. International Cosmos Prize 62. Order of the Dannneberg-Knight 63. Mongolian Pole Star 64. Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Ekta Samman 65. M.S. Swaminathan 66. Kabir Puraskar Khalifa Gufran of Saharanpur for communal harmony. 67. UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize 68. Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Award 69. CSIR Award (hosted in 2006) 70. ET Business Leader of the Year 07 KV Kamath 71. ET Company of the Year 2007 Bharti Airtel 72. ET Business Woman of the Year Shobhana Bhartia, Vice Chairman & Editorial Director of Hindustan Times. 73. ET Emerging Company of the Year Glenmark 74. Entrepreneur of the Year GM Rao, Chairman of GMR Group, Infrastructure Co. 75. Policy Change Agnet M Damodaran 76. ET Global Indian Rajat Gupta 77. ET Business Reformer Praful Patel 78. ET Lifetime Achievement N.R. Narayana Murthy 79. ET Corporate Citizen Sankara Nethralaya, Non profit Eye institute in Chennai. 80. Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award 81. Vyas Samman 82. Office of the Legion of Honour 83. ICC Awards Cricketer of the Year: Ricky Ponting Test Player of the Year: Md Yusuf (Pakistan) ODI Player of the Year: Mathew Hayden (Australia) Women Player of the Year: Jhulan Goswami (India) Emerging Player of the Year: Shaun Tait (Australia) Captain of the Year: Ricky Ponting Umpire of the Year: Simon Taufel (Australia) Spirit of Cricket Award: Sri Lanka 84. International Childrens Peace Prize 85. Ambassador of Conscience 2006 86. E&Y Entrepreneur Award Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 5 87. Bihari Puraskar 88. 15 th Vachaspati Puraskar 89. Dayawati Modi Award 90. Man of Peace Prize 2006 91. Jawahar Nehru Award for International Understanding Wangari M Maathai (Kenyan Human right activist) Luiz Lula da Silva (Brazilian President) 92. Jnanpith Award Eminent Kashmiri poet Rehman Rahi. 93. Pulitzer Prize Cormac McCarthy, novelist for “The Road” Ornette Coleman, saxophonist for “Sounder Grammer” 13 news organizations also won with “Wall Street” as the only multiple winner 94. Mo Ibrahim Prize Former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano. Instituted this year the Mo Ibrahim prize With a $5 million initial payment, plus $200,000 a year for life, the prize is believed to be the world's largest, exceeding the $1.3m Nobel Peace Prize. Commission & Committees (Permanent) 1. Planning Commission 2. National Commission on Population 3. National Commission for Women 4. National Commission for Minorities Mohammad Shafi Qureshi 5. National Human Rights Commission Rajendra Babu 6. Staff Selection Commission 7. UPSC Subir Datta (replaced Gurbachan Jagat). 8. Election Commission 9. Central Pollution Control Board 10. Census Commission 11. National Commission for Linguistic Minorities Justice Ranganath Misra (Recently Elected) 12. Economic Advisory Council 13. Central Information Commission 14. National Commission on Farmers 15. High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora 16. Expenditure Reforms Commission Some Important Committees 1. Rekhi Committee Common Code of Indirect Taxes 2. LC Gupta Committee Stock Exchange Reform 3. Tarapore Committee Capital Account Convertability 4. Vasudev Committee NBFC reform 5. Nanavati Commission Anti Sikh Riots, New Delhi 6. Liberhan Commission Demolition of Babri Masjid 7. Naresh Chandra Committee National Civil Aviation policy 8. Integrated Energy Committee Kirit S Parekh (Submitted its report) Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 6 9. R.K Raghavan Committee Prevent ragging on campus (recent) 10. Rajan Committee (Headed by Raghuram G. Rajan) Financial Sector Reforms 11. Madhav Menon Committee Criminal Justice System Reforms Equal Opportunity Commission (Head) 12. Srikrishna Commission Riots post Babri Masjid demoltion 13. Shanta Sinha Commission Protection of Child Rights 14. K.N Saikia Commission Extra Consitutional Killings in Assam during 1998- 2001. It has indicted former CM Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. 15. Sambasiva Rao Committee Compulsory One Year Service in rural areas. 16. Hota Committee Civil Services Reforms. It recommended restoration of original age limit of 21-24 yrs for competing for civils. 17. Radhakrishna Committee Agricultural Indebtness 18. Vaidyanathan Committee Long Term Cooperative Credit Structure (recently submitted its report). Abbreviations in News 1. NSG Nuclear Suppliers Group 2. ADS Air Defence Ship (first indigenous aircraft carrier) by 2012. 3. CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species 4. SAP South Asian Parliament 5. CECA Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (Between India & Sri Lanka recently) 6. WTI World Tribunal on Iraq (Members include Arundhati Roy & 200 NGOs) 7. DTAC Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (Signed by India & Serbia) 8. CAS Conditional Access System 9. CICA Conference on Interaction & Confidence building Measures in Asia (Held in Kazakhstan – India, Russian, China & others participated) 10. SLBM Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (DRDO is working on it) 11. IPTV Internet Protocol Television. 12. PAFTA Pan Asian Free Trade Agreement 13. PSPB Petroleum Sports Promotion Board. Most of the National Championship winners are from PSPB. 14. RoHS Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substances 15. PAROS Prevention of Arms Race in Outer Space 16. NSAs Negative Security Assurances. This is aimed at assuring non-nuclear weapons states that they would never be attacked by nuclear states. 17. NAMA Non Agricultural Market Access 18. HuJI Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami. Terrorist Outfit of Bangladesh. 19. NIMHANS National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences. It is located in Bangalore & is one of Asia’s most reputable hospitals. 20. TULF Tamil Liberation United Front. 21. NACIL National Aviation Company of India. Merger of Air India & Indian. 22. SAFMA South Asia Free Media Association 23. CCPA Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. 24. EFA Education for All. Report by UNESCO. 25. GNH Gross National Happiness 26. TUFS Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 7 27. CFDS Corporate Filing & Dissemination System (new portal developed jointly by BSE & NSE). 28. RUDSETIs Rural Development & Self Employment Training Institutes 29. CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization of Russia (to counter NATO) 30. GEO-4 Global Environment Outlook, the most comprehensive report on environment by UN Information Center. GEO-4 was launched in Islamabad 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. Committees & Their Tasks S Committee Control/Ministry Chairman 1. Coordination Commission on Energy PMO Manmohan Singh 2. Trade & Economic Relations Committee PMO Manmohan Singh 3. Agriculture Coordination Committee PMO Manmohan Singh 4. Justice Saraf Committee on Arbitration Law & Justice B.P. Saraf 5. Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee Ministry of Railways U.C. Banerjee (Godhra Enquiry) 6. Committee of Ministers on Dalit Affairs Social Justice & Emp. Pranab Mukherjee 7. Committee on Muslim Community PMO Justice Rajendra Sachar 8. Committee to review National Mineral Policy Planning Commission Anwarlal Hoda 9. J. J. Irani Committee Company Affairs New Company law 10. Committee to draft new Police Act Home Affairs f Sorabjee 11. Committee on Prasar Bharati Info & Broadcasting S. K. Arora 12. Committee to Probe Volcker Report Ministry of Finance Justice R.S. Pathak 13. Committee to review the syllabus of training of IAS officers Personnel, Public Grievances & Pension R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar. 14. Committee to examine pricing & taxation of petroleum products Petroleum & Natural Gas C. Rangarajan 15. Committee to probe into fire at Bombay High Pertroleum & Gas T.N.R. Rao 16. Committee for relief of 1984 riots Home Affairs K.P. Singh 17. Sandhu Committee to examine price control Chemical & Fertilizer Gurdial Singh Sandhu 18. S.K Joshi Committee HRD Increasing IITs 19. Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet Cabinet Committee R. Chidambaram 20. S. K. Tuteja Committee Agri, CAPD Restructuring Sugar Industry 21. Inter State Trade Council Commerce & Industry Kamal Nath 22. Kelkar Committee on Military Acquisitions Defense Vijay Kelkar 23. Expert Committee on Patent Laws R.A. Mashelkar 24. India-UK joint Economic & Trade Committee GoI, GoU.K. Kamal Nath Patricia Hewitt 25. Expert Group on Corporate Bonds & Securitization Ministry of Finance R. H. Patil 26. Hydrogen Energy Ratan Tata. 27. National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions M.S.A. Siddiqui 28. Committee on Social & Economic status of Rajinder Sachar Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 8 Muslim Community 29. Pension Scheme for Judicial Officers Commission Shetty 30. Committee to study restructuring of Public sector oil companies V. Krishnamurthi. Organization & Their Heads/Chairman/CEO 1. Reserve Bank of India Y.V Reddy 2. State Bank of India Yogesh Agarwal (MD) O.P Bhatt (Chairman) 3. Central Bank of India 4. Oriental Bank of Commerce Alok Kumar Mishra 5. Punjab National Bank Kamlesh Chandra Chakraborty (CMD) 6. EXIM Bank 7. IDBI Yogesh Afarwal (CMD) 8. SIDBI 9. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) Thomas Mathew (MD) 10. T.S. Vijayan (Chairman) 11. BSE 12. NSE 13. BSNL Kuldeep Goyal (CMD) 14. Ford India 15. HSBC Naina Lal Kidwai (CEO) 16. ICICI Prudential Shikha Sharma 17. NABARD (Chairman) Umesh Chandra Sarangi 18. CII President Sunil Mittal (President) K.V. Kamath (Vice President) 19. NTPC T. Sankaralingam 20. Dena Bank P.L. Galoria (CMD) 21. Indraprastha Gas Limited Om Narayan 22. UTI Various Central Organizations & their Heads 1. AICTE 2. CBSE 3. Bureau of Indian Standards 4. Food Corporation of India A.K. Dubey (CMD) 5. Central Board of Film Certification 6. Press Trust of India (Chairman of Boards of Directors) N. Ravi, Editor of Hindu 7. NASSCOM (Chairman) N. Lakshmi Narayanan (CTS) 8. NASSCOM (President) Som Mittal 9. ISRO Chairman 10. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (Director) K. Radhakrishnan (Earlier head of NRSA, Hyderabad) replacing BN. Suresh. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 9 11. CSIR (Director General) Samir K. Brahmachari 12. CBI (Director) Vijay Shankar 13. SAIL S.K Roongta (Chairman) 14. GAIL (Chairman) U.D. Choubey 15. ONGC R.S. Sharma 16. Oil India Limited (OIL) M.R. Pasrija 17. Surveyor General of India 18. CII President 19. NSD (National School of Drama) 20. Indian Airlines 21. Comptroller & Auditor General of India 22. Chief Justice of Supreme Court (37 th ) K.G. Balakrishnan (First Judge from Scheduled caste) 23. National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan 24. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Nirpendra Misra 25. Attorney General Milon K. Banerjee 26. Delhi HC Chief Justice Vijendra Jain 27. Indian Tourism Development Corporation Parvez Diwan 28. Prasar Bharti Brijeshwar Singh 29. KVIC Kumud Joshi 30. Research & Analysis Wing Ashok Chaturvedi 31. CBDT (Central Board for Direct Taxes) Indira Bhargava 32. CBDT – Chairman B.M Singh 33. FICCI Chairman Habil Khorakiwala, Wockhardt 34. Chief of Indian Air Force Fali H. Major 35. National Hydel Power Corporation Sudershan Kumar Garg 36. Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta 37. Chief of Army Deepak Kapoor International Organizations & their Heads 1. International Cricked Council David Morgan (for 2008-10) 2. World Bank President Robert Zoellick 3. World Trade Organization (Director General) 4. UNHCR (UN high commissioner for refugees) 5. World Bank (Vice President) 6. International Atomic Energy Agency (Director General) Mohammad Elbaredi 7. UN FAO (Director General) 8. International Monetary Fund (Chief) Dominique Strauss Kahn. 9. E.U. Trade Commissioner P. Mandelson 10. U.N Under Secretary General Vijay Nambiar 11. ICC Chief Executive Malcom Speed 12. ICC Chairman Percy Sonn of South Africa (Replaced Ehsan Mani) 13. Chairman of ICC Cricket Committee Sunil Gavaskar 14. Intel Corporation Paul Otellini (CEO) Craig Barret (Chairman) 15. World Health Organization Mrs Margaret Chan (Chinese) 16. IBM Sam Palmisano 17. SAP Henning Kagermann Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 10 18. Ford Alan Mulally (replaced Bill Ford) 19. Asian Development Bank (Manila Based) Haruhiko Kuroda Rajat M. Nag (MD) 20. Airbus Louis Gallois (CEO) 21. World Food Program (WFP) Josette Sheeran 22. BBC Chitra Bharucha (First woman & Indian to head BBC) Recently Elected Presidents (Pres.)/Prime Minister (PM) or In News 1. Lebanon Prime Minister Faud Saniora (US Backed PM of Lebanon) 2. France President Nicolas Sarkozy (replaced Jacque Chirac) 3. Prime Minister Francois Fillon 4. Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajpaksa 5. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake 6. Austria Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer 7. Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) 8. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad after Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas) resigned 9. Japan Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda replaced Shinzo Abe 10. 11. Russia President Vladmir Putin (Guest of Honour on 26 th Jan 2007) 12. Portugal President Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva (Visited India) 13. Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown (chancellor of the ex-chequer visited India) 14. Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama 15. President Ratu Josefa Iloilo. 16. Nicargua President Daniel Ortega 17. Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Azim Isabekov 18. Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed 19. Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala 20. Italy Prime Minister Romano Prodi (visited India) 21. Turkmenistan President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov 22. Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov (former rebel fighter) 23. China Prime Minister Wen Jiabo 24. President Hu Jintao 25. North Korea Prime Minister Kim Yong II 26. Syria President Bashar Assad 27. Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka 28. Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Bin Jabr al thani. 29. East Timor President Nobel Peace Laureate Jose Ramos Horta (Male) 30. Prime Minister Gusmao Xanana (recently elected) 31. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev (President for Life – Parliament vote) 32. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong 33. Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono 34. Israel President Shimon Peres 35. Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 36. Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (visited India) 37. Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen 38. South Africa President Thabo Mbeki 39. Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. 40. Turkey President Abdullah Gul (recently elected) Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 11 41. Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan (recently elected – Islamic roots) 42. Greece Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis 43. Mexico President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (Visited India) 44. Bulgaria Prime Minister Sergei Stainishev (Weeklong Indian Visit) 45. Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding 46. UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohd Bin Rashid Al Makhtoum 47. DMC President Joseph Kabila won over Jean Pierre Bemba 48. Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade (Second Term) 49. Estonia Prime Minister Andrus Ansip (Retained Power) 50. Nigeria President Umaru Yar Adua (Recently elected) 51. Thailand Prime Minister Surayud Chualnont (Visited India) 52. Argentina President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (first elected female president & will succeed her husband, Nestor Kirchner). 53. Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Labour Party (Defeated John Howard) 54. Switzerland President Ms. Micheline Calmy Rey (Visited India) 55. Guatemala President Alvaro Colom (recently elected) 56. Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammedmian Soomro (Caretaker PM) after Shaukat Aziz 57. South Korea President Lee Myung Bak (recently elected) 58. Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko 59. Slovenia President Danilo Tuerek 60. Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega (Former President too) 61. Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymeshenko. She was driving force of 2004 Organge Revolution of Ukraine. 62. Myanmar Prime Minister Lieutenant General Thein Sein is new PM 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. Important Summits 1. G – 20 2. G-8 Heilingendamn, Germany. 3. Shanghai Cooperation Organization Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan 4. European Union Summit 5. G-77 6. 13 th ASEAN Singapore 7. 7 th India-EU Summit Helsinki 8. World Summit of UN 9. CHOGM Kampala in Uganda. Queen Elizabeth II, Head of Commonwealth addressed it. 10. 94 th Indian Science Congress Annamalai University, at Chidambaram, 250 Km from Chennai 11. WTO Minsterial Conference 12. 3 rd East Asia Summit Singapore 13. ASEAN Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 12 14. Asia-Africa Summit 15. Organization of Islamic Conference 16. World Economic Forum 17. 7 th World Social Forum Nairobi 18. 5 th Pravasi Bhartiya Samman 19. African Union Summit 20. G-8 Foreign Ministers meeting Germany 21. NAM Summit 22. EU-India Summit 23. First India Social Forum 24. Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) Sydney 25. 6 th ASEAN – India Summit Singapore Recent Books (2008 Prelims) 1. India After Gandhi Ramachandra Guha 2. How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, & Got a Life Kaavya Vishwanathan. 3. Half of a Yellow sun Chimamanda Ngozi (Won Orange Broadband prize of Fiction) 4. Military Inc – Inside Pak’s Military Economy Ayesha Siddiqui (Banned in Pak) 5. Agriculture Cannot Wait M.S. Swaminathan 6. Gandhi – A spiritual Journey Madhav Vittal 7. Inclusive Growth K.N. Raj 8. It Happened in India Kishore Biyani 9. The Call of 21 st Century B.S. Raghavan. 10. Imperial Life in the Emerald City Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Won Samuel Johnson Non-Fiction prize). 11. India’s Unending Journey Mark Tully 12. India Remembered Pamela Mountbatten 13. Wolf Totem Lu Jiamin (This book won Man Asia Literary Prize) 14. The Tales of Beedle the Bard J.K. Rowling 15. Behind the Shades Duncan Fletcher (Former England Team Coach’s Autobiography) 16. The Solar Economy – Renewable Energy for Sustainable Future Hermann Scheer (Winner of Right Livelihood Award) 17. Dwikhandita Taslima Nasreen (Controversial) 18. India’s Century Kamal Nath (Commerce Minister) 19. Inside IB & RAW K. Sankaran Nair (Former RAW Chief) 20. George’s Secret to the Universe Stephen Hawking 21. Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 22. The Elephant, The Tiger & the Cellphone Shashi Tharoor 23. The Age of Turbulence Alan Greenspan 24. Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer Yashwant Sinha 25. An American Witness to India’s Partition Phillips Talbot Grand Prix 1. Bahrain G.P. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 13 2. San Marino G.P 3. Australian G.P Kimi Raikkonen 4. Monaco G.P Fernando Alonso 5. Spanish G.P. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 6. European G.P. Fernando Alonso 7. Canadian G.P Lewis Hamilton 8. British G.P Kimi Raikkonen 9. French GP Kimi Raikkonen 10. German GP 11. Italian GP Fernando Alonso 12. Belgian GP Kimi Raikkonen 13. Japanese GP 14. US GP Lewis Hamilton 15. Malaysian GP Fernando Alonso 16. Brazilian GP Kimi Raikkonen Places in News 1. Sanauli, Baghpat Largest Harappan discovered on the banks of Yamuna in UP. 2. Natanz Site of Uranium Enrichment Facility of Iran. 3. Hilla Suicide bombs killed 93 person in this Iraqi Town. 4. Camerron A Kenyan jet carrying 114 people abroad crashed. 5. Colombo, Sri Lk 8 th International Congress on AIDs in Asia & the Pacific held here. 6. Hyderabad 58 th Session of International Astronautical Congress (IAC) held here. 7. Jakarta 62 nd session of UN Economic & Social Commission for Asia & Pacific. 8. Naypidaw New capital of Myanmar. 9. Singur Tata Motors plant here was involved in controversy. 10. Ranibodili In Chattisgrah. Major offensive by 300 Maoists. 11. Mumbai 32 nd Annual Conference of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). IOSCO was established in 1983 & is today known as the International Standard Setter for Securities Market regulating 90 % of the world’s securities market. The chairperson of IOSCO executive committee is Jane Diplock 12. Qatar Meeting of Gas Exporting Countries to setup a group on lines of OPEC 13. Bad Doberan The German town that stripped Adolf Hitler of his honorary citizenship & would host G-8 summit in June 2007. 14. Incheon New Delhi lost bid to host 2014 Asian Games to this South Korean City. 15. Qingdao India & China joint naval exercise. 16. Puri The queen of Puri, Lilabati Pattamahadei conducted a traditional ritual. 17. Hamburg 8 th Asia Europe Meeting – Meeting of Foreign Ministers. 18. Nusa Dua Located in Bali where the 116 th Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting was held. The top agenda was climate change. 19. Samara Russian city where EU-Russia summit ended without any agreement getting signed. 20. Islamabad Meeting of Organization of Islamic Conference. 21. Mustang A cave containing a mural of 55 panels depicting life of Buddha has been discovered in Mustang, Nepal. 22. Larsemann Hills, The consultative parties of the Antarctic Treaty for a research station at Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 14 Paritz Bay this site. 23. Arak Iran’s first indigenously built heavy water reactor. 24. Samara Iraqi city which houses the golden mosque attacked by militants 25. Pamban Rail Bridge Applied for world heritage site status. 26. Shanghai Has become the busiest port in the world surpassing Hong Kong 27. Khusab It was reported that Pakistan is building a third plutonium production reactor at this site. 28. Sochi This Russian City will host 2014 Winter Olympics. 29. Yongbyon The place where North Korea’s Nuclear reactor is situated 30. Kashiwazaki Kariwa A place in Japan where nuclear plant was damaged due to earthquake. 31. Beirut UNESCO has selected this city as World Book Capital 32. Jwalapuram In Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh – Archaelogical Excavation. 33. Jias Cabinet to setup Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology here at Rae Bareli district in UP. 34. Glasgow Unsuccessful attempt of Car Bomb Blast. 35. Lal Maszid Located in Islamabad, where Abdul Rashid Ghazi confronted Pak’s Military but was later killed. 36. Dantewada 24 police personnel were killed by Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh. 37. Asaluyeh In Iran where Hugo Chavez & Ahmedinejad laid the foundation stone of a joint petrochemical plant. 38. Ayni Indian airbase in Tajikistan. 39. Geneva UN Conference on Disarmament held here. All 65 members barring Pakistan, China & Iran agreed to begin banning of fissile material. 40. Yangbyon North Korea’s sole functioning nuclear reactor shut down. 41. Bukit Ibam First Nuclear monitoring facility in ASEAN to come up at this site in Malaysia. 42. Jericho Where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas & Israeli PM Ehud Olmert met. 43. Belgaum Ruling Janta Dal-BJP coalition govt decided to make Belgaum as the second capital of Karnataka. 44. Devasthal Asia’s largest optical telescope is to be set up here, near Nainital. 45. Usaka South African Development Community Summit at Usaka in Zambia. 46. Jaipur The 12 th International Lake Conference named Taal-2007 was organized here by Union Forest & Environment Ministry & Raj Govt. 47. Dalian Conference of World Economic Forum known as “Summer Davos” was held in this Chinese City. 48. Rawalpindi Two bomb blasts rocked the city 49. Kolkata Indo Vietnam Friendship Festival. It was inaugurated by legendary revolutionary leader, Nguyen Jhi Binh. 50. Bhirrana Rare discovery by ASI of a “Dancing Girl” of Harappan times (Haryana) 51. Harbin Foreign Ministers of India, Russia & China held a meeting here. 52. Tshwane IBSA (India, Brazil & South Africa) meeting held here. 53. California More than half a million people were ordered to evacuate their homes because of forest fire. 54. Annapolis US city in Maryland where Israeli PM Ehud Olmert & Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in association with George Bush. 55. Quseir-al Qadim An ancient port on the Red sea coast of Egypt where a broken jar with Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 15 inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi script has been excavated. 56. Beppu In Japan where the first Water Summit of Asia-Pacific was held. 57. Thummalapalle Second place after Jaduguda where Uranium in mined. In Andhra Pr. 58. Bhopal Indian Science Conference was held here. 59. Panaji International Film Festival of India held here. 60. Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held here. 61. Swat Valley Pakistan’s army has launched a massive crackdown in NW Pakistan. 62. 63. Mexico 17 th Iinternational Aids Conference held here. 64. Wasington Indo US Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism met here. 65. Santa Elena Newly created 24 th Province of Ecuador. 66. Istanbul International Conference on Iraq held here. 67. Rome World Energy Congress held here. 68. Tokelau Referendum on self determination took place in this territory of New Zealand. 69. Tirumadh India’s largest Uranium Processing plant was inaugurated here. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. Persons in News 1. Preeti Malhotra First women president of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. 2. Irwandi Yusuf Former Rebel leader sworn in as Aceh’s new governor 3. Chung Mong Koo Hyundai Motor’s Chairman convicted of embezzlement & sentenced to 3 yrs in prison 4. Drew Giplin Faust Harvards First Woman President 5. Ramadorai Sujatha Associate Professor at TIFR won Ramanujan Prize for 2006. 6. Taha Yassin Ramadan Saddam’s former Vice President hanged 7. Sheikh Salman bin Hamad – Al Khalifa Bahrain’s crown prince visited India. 8. Zuben Mehta Won Dan David Prize & prize money of 1 million $. 9. SIS Ahmed CRPF Chief. Later replaced by Ranjit Kumar Das 10. Madhukar Gupta Appointed as Home Secretary. 11. Sunil Gavaskar Chairman of the revised Cricket Committee of ICC. 12. Tarun Gupta New chief of Indian Medical Association. 13. Felipe Perez Roque Cuban Foreign Minister visited India. 14. Dimple Singla First Court Martial of a woman army officer (a retd major). 15. Aarti Mehra New Mayor of Delhi 16. Tejinder Khanna Appointed Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. 17. Usha Le Macffarling Indian origin journalist awarded Pulitzer for descriptive reporting. 18. V. N. Kaul India’s Comptroller & Auditor General elected as the external auditor of the World Health Organization for a 3 yr term. 19. Mohamad Bin Hammam Second term as Asian Football Federation President. 20. Drew Barrymore Ambassador against Hunger for UN World Food Program 21. A. Raja Appointed new Communication & Information Technology Minister 22. Naresh Trehan Quits Escorts to join Apollo. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 16 23. P.K. Abdul Aziz VC of Aligarh Muslim University. 24. Sam Pitroda Head of Knowledge Commission. 25. Tejpreet Singh Chopra CEO of GE India. 26. U. R. Rao Awarded ISRO’s life time achievement award by Abdul Kalam 27. Srinivas Padmanaban Awarded World Clean Energy Award. 28. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Awarded top Kremlin Award by Putin for his humanitarian work. 29. Ray Mali Appointed as the acting President of ICC. 30. Randall Stephenson New CEO of America’s largest telecom player AT&T. 31. M.B.N. Rao Chairman of Indian Bank’s Association 32. M.S.S. Rajan Appointed CMD of Indian Bank. 33. Chinmaya Gharekhan President of Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. 34. Donald Tsang CEO of Hong Kong 35. Duvvuri Subbarao Appointed Finance Secretary 36. Vijay Singh Defence Secretary. 37. Y.S. Dadwal Delhi Police Chief 38. Geoff Lawson Pakistan’s New Cricket Coach. 39. K.G Balakrishnana CJI elected to the bench of the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, London. 40. Sheela Binde Appointed CMD of India Trade Promotion Organization 41. Jivtesh Singh Mani 1974 batch IAS officer has taken over as Chairman of NHAI. 42. Ramesh Chandra Chairman of Railway Board. 43. Karl Slym New President & MD of General Motors, India. 44. Karl Rove Most influential white house aide of Bush resigned 45. Jhulan Goswami ICC Women Cricketer of the Year. 46. K kasturirangan Director of National Institute of Advance Studies won Theodore Von Karman Award of the International Academy of Astronautics. 47. Ang Lee Won Golden Lion for his film “Lust, Caution” at Venice Film Fest. 48. Geeta Gandbhir Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Picture Editing. 49. Indra Sinha Among the 6 authors shortlisted for Man Bookers prize for his work “Animal’s People” which is about 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy. 50. Nadeem Taj New ISI chief of Pakistan. 51. MS Dhoni Captain of ODI team. Yuvraj to be VC. 52. Bahubali S. Shah MD of Indian Newspaper Society 53. Bhaskar Das Chairman of Advertising Standard Council of India 54. K. C. Jena New Chairman of Railway Board. 55. Mohd Shafi Qureshi Chairman of National Minorities Commission. 56. Shashank Manohar Will succeed Sharad Pawar as BCCI Chief in 2008. 57. D D Lapang Sworn in as CM of Meghalaya 58. Nilofar Bakhtiar A militant cleric madrasa of Pakistan issued a fatwa against the tourism minister of Pakistan, N Bakhtiar after she hugged a male paraglider in France. 59. Ravi Shankaran Main accused of Naval War Room Leak 60. Kapila Vatsyayan Nominated to Rajya Sabha. She is founder & former academic director at Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts. 61. S. Gopalakrishnan CEO & MD of Infosys 62. Harikrishna Devsare Noted Hindi Litterateur won the Vatsalya Award 63. Percy Mistry Heading Committee to realize the vision of Mumbai as an International Financial Center. Advised making rupee fully convertible. 64. Cho-Seung Hui South Korean student killed 32. 65. Ramchand Bhavnani Bought 14.08 % stake in Spain’s fifth largest bank, Bankinter. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 17 66. Sahana Pradhan Nepals Foreign Minister. Also the first woman foreign minister 67. Joseph Sepp Blatter FIFA president who visited India. Elected 3 rd time as President. 68. Santosh Georg Kulangara First space tourist from India from Kerala. 69. Roger Federer First swiss to have him on postage stamp. 70. Swami Shraddananda SC held him guilty of murdering his wife begum Shakereh Namazi 71. Appa Sherpa Broke his own world record by scaling Mt Everest for 17 th time. 72. B.C. Khatua Appointed chairman of Forward Markets Commission. 73. A.R. Lakshmanan Chairman of 18 th Law Commission. 74. Srgjan Kerim President of UN General Assembly. 75. Vasundhara Raje Won the Women Together Award of UN. 76. Rafael Nadal Lost for the first time on Clay Court after winning 81 consecutive matches at Hamburg Masters (Germany). Defeated by Federer. 77. V Thulasidas CMD of National Aviation Co Ltd, formed by merging AI & Indian Airlines. 78. Amartya Sen Won World Economic Prize known as Kiel Prize 79. BN Srikrishna Heads 6 th Pay Commission. 80. Kamalesh Sharma High Commissioner of India in London, Kamalesh Sharma was appointed Commonwealth Secretary General by CHOGM 81. Chinmaya R. Garekhan President of Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts 82. Trevor Bayliss Australian who was appointed as New Coach of Sri Lanka 83. P.S. Goel Secretary, Ministry of Earth Science was awarded Aryabhatta Award. 84. U.R Rao Former ISRO chairman awarded ISRO’s lifetime achievement award 85. John McEnroe Legendary tennis player awarded Philippe Chatrier Award. 86. Kuldip Sidhu Indian born Australian won the Top Invention Prize 2007 for his work on stem cells. 87. Milan Martic Croatian leader convicted of war crimes & sentenced for 35 yrs RI. 88. Bernard Weber Started the “New 7 Wonder Project”. 89. Norman Borlaug Presented the Congressional Gold Medal 90. Iftikhar Choudhary The Chief Justice of Pakistan who was removed by Musharraf & later reinstated by the Supreme Court reversing the decision. 91. Thaksin Shinawatra Former PM of Thailand & current owner of Manchester City Football Club, Thaksin is wanted back in Thailand to face criminal charges. 92. Mahashweta Devi Turned down the request of attending World Hindi Conference in NY. 93. Mohammad Haneef Brisbane based Indian Doctor was charged of link with Al Qaeda. 94. Mohd Zahir Shah Afghanistan’s last king who was also titled “Father of the Nation” 95. Syed Nayeemuddin India’s former football coach & captain, Syed Nayeemuddin has been appointed as the National Coach by the Bangladesh Football Federatn. 96. Martti Ahtisaari UN special envoy for Kosovo. 97. Charles Taylor Former Liberian President who is being tried for War Crimes. 98. Rashmi Sharma Became the youngest Indian woman to cross the English Channel Twice. After Bula Choudhary she is the second Indian Woman to cross the English Channel twice. 99. Ronen Sen India’s ambassador to US criticized political parties opposing N deal. 100. Indu Malhotra Only the second woman to be designated as “Senior Advocate”. 101. Milan Lalitkumar Naidu Appointed Vice Chief of the Army Staff. 102. Ustad Rahim Fahimuddin Khan Dagar Won the Sahitya Kala Parishad “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his outstanding contribution to the field of classical music. 103. S.K Satheesh Won the Asian Young Scientist Award. 104. S.S. Virk Former Punjab Director General was arrested for possessing assets Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 18 disproportionate to his known sources of income. 105. Suharto Ex dictator of Indonesia awarded 106 million $ by Indonesia’s supreme court in a law suit against “Time Magazine”. 106. Joseph Estrada Former Phillipine President sentenced to life imprisonment but later granted Presidential pardon. 107. Kumaran Pathmanathan Second Most wanted LTTE man – claimed to have arrested in Bangkok but not confirmed. 108. Alberto Fujimori Former President of Peru was extradited from Chile to face charges. 109. Shilendra Kumar Singh Sworn in as new governor of Rajasthan. 110. Nawab Mohd Abdul Ali Elected President of Ajmer Dargah Committee for five years. 111. Nadeem Taj Appointed head of ISI – Pak’s intelligence agency. 112. Michael Schumacher Germany’s seven time F-1 Champion awarded Spains highest honour, the Prince of Asturias prize for sports. 113. Bernard Lagat Kenyan Born US Citizen became the first man to win both the 5000 m & 1500 m world titles in world athletics championship. 114. Ravi Shastri Becomes Chairman of the National Cricket Academy. 115. Dalai Lama Awarded US Congressional Medal. 116. Kurmanbek Bakiyev Kyrgyzstan’s President tendered his resignation. 117. Mikhail Y Fradkov Appointed Russia’s new spy chief. 118. Queen Beatrix Netherlands Queen visited India. 119. Joaquim Chissano Former President of Mozambique won the African Leadership prize. 120. Bhanwar Meghavanshi Won the Sarojini Naidu Award for Hindi Journalism. 121. Bobby Jindal Governor of Lousiania. He is Congressman from New Orleans & belongs to the Republican party. 122. Ali Larijani Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator quit. Saeed Jalili replaced him. 123. Drew Gilpin Faust Harvard University’s first woman president. 124. Inzamam Ul Haq Quits Test Cricket. 125. Mammen Mathew Editor of Malayala Manorama renominated as Trustee of Reuters. 126. Gopal Sharma Director General of SSB (Seema Suraksha Bal) 127. Som Mittal NASSCOM President 128. Vivek Kumar Agnihotri Secretary General of Rajya Sabha. 129. B. Aleksey Efremov National TT Coach. 130. Vijay Nambiar Chief of Staff of UN (appointed by Ban Ki Moon) 131. Asha Rose Migiro Deputy Secretary General of UN. She was Tanzanian Foreign Minister 132. Kamlesh Sharma Commonwealth Secretary General 133. Ashfaz Pervez Kayani Paikstan’s Army Chief 134. Renu Khator Indian American to lead prestigious university of Houston 135. Rita Gunasekaran US woman lawyer has been conferred with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Associations highest honour for 2007 – the NAPABA Trailblazer Award. 136. Steven Spielberg Honoured with Cecil B DeMille Award at the 65 th Golden Globes. 137. Vijay L. Kelkar Heads 13 th Finance Commission. The recommendations will cover the period from 2010 to 2015. It will look into principles governing grant- in-aid of the revenues of States out of Consolidated Fund of India. 138. Oswald Garcias Archbishop of Mumbai elevated as Cardinal of India. 139. Akbar Padamsee Noted painter awarded Dayawati Modi Award 140. Jacob Zuma Became South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) as he defeated Thabo Mbeki in a leadership election at a party. 141. Julia Gillard Australia’s deputy PM (Lady). Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 19 142. Vikram Pandit CEO of Citigroup 143. Kiran Bedi Resigned from DG of Bureau of Police Research & Development 144. Raj Singh Dungarpur Former BCCI Chief elected President of Cricket Club of India. 145. Sowmya Raghavan First women to take charge of Railway zone (GM of Central Railway) 146. Vinod Rai Comptroller & Auditor General of India (replace VN Kaul) – An IAS officer of 1972 batch. 147. Karan Thapar Awarded Asian Television Award for the best current affairs presenter. 148. Ian Wilmut The person who revolutionized stem cell research by creating Dolly, the sheep has been given knighthood. 149. Taslima Nasreen Due to some controversial lines written by her in Dwikhandita, she had to leave West Bengal. 150. Ieng Sary Deputy PM & Former Minister of Cambodia was charged with war crimes. 151. Ronen Sen Indian Envoy to the US who was in news for his “Headless Chicken” remark over the opposition to Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. 152. T.D. Dogra Appointed Acting Chief of AIIMS replacing P. Venugopal. 153. Avtar Singh Makkar Re-elected President of SGPC, for the third time. 154. T. Shanmugaratnam Ethnic Indian appointed Finance Minister of Singapore. 155. Surin Pitsuwan Appointe Secretary General of ASEAN from 2008-2013. 156. Samina Malik First women in UK to ver get convicted under Terrorism Act. 157. P. Uthayakumar Leader of Hindarf (Hindu Rights Action Force) in Malaysia who was arrested, granted bail & then rearrested. 158. Pravin Mahajan Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for killing Pramod Mahajan. 159. K.V. Kamath Forbe’s Asia’s Businessman of the year 2007. 160. Aung San Suu Kyi Congressional Gold Medal awarded. 161. G.D Jayalakshmi Her documentary on How Indian Recycle paper won commonwealth vision award. 162. CNR Rao Won First Bangalore Nano Award. 163. Sudha Mahalingam Awarded the first K. Subhrahmanyam Award for Excellence in Strategic Studies. 164. D.R. Mehta Awarded Tech Award for Innovation & Benefit of Humanity. Mr. Mehta’s organization is the largest limb manufacturing agency in for its affordable Jaipur foot. 165. Babasaheb Purandare Awarded with Kalidas Samman. 166. B. Ramalinga Raju Awarded E&Y Young Entrepreneur of 2007. He is founder of Satyam Computers. Lifetime achievement award was given to Keshab Mahindra. 167. Shikha Sharma MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential. She was awarded Manager Entrepreneur by E&Y. 168. S.P. TamilSelvan LTTE No. 2 leader Killed by Sri Lankan Air Force Attack. 169. Kamal Nath Awarded FDI personality of the year. 170. Peggy Whitson First Female Commander of International Space Station. 171. John Wahey President of World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) 172. Princess Nafa Ali Princess of Jordan visited India. 173. David Mulford US Ambassador to India 174. Bruno Cuche General of France’s Army who visited India. 175. 176. 177. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 20 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. Obituaries 1. Omkar Prasad Nayyar Music director best known for hits like “Jhumka Gira re”. 2. Chandralekha Legendary Bharatanatyam dancer died. 3. Lalit Mohan Thapar Patriarch of Ballarpur Industries is dead. 4. Saparmurat Niyazov The iron fisted ruler of Turkmenistan for 20 years is dead. 5. S. Rangarajan Great Editor of “The Hindu” died 6. Vijay Arora Actor best known for this film “Yadon Ki Barat” & song “Chura Liya”. 7. Lothar Geunther Buchheim German Author whose war novel “Das Boot” was adapted intoa critically acclaimed film. 8. Shyama Charan Shukla Veteran Congress Leader & 3 times CM of Madhya Pradesh died. 9. Pandit Bishan Das Sharma Sangeet Natak Akademi Award winner who invented tamboori, swarsangam, Mohan veena is dead. 10. Praduman Singh Athletics legend who won five medals for India in Asian games. 11. Ernest Gallo Who created the company E & J Gallo Winery is producing a quarter of all wine & wine related products sold in US. 12. Boris Yeltsin Man who hastened the collapse of Soviet Union. 13. Parry O Brien Who broke 17 short put records & won 3 Olympic medals. 14. Nina Wang Asia’s richest woman. 15. Prabhakaran Hockey gold medalist in the 1998 Asian games died. 16. K.P Nair Kathakali Exponent & former principal of Kerala Kalamandalam. 17. Jagat Murari Directed 50 documentaries & was director of Film & TV Inst of India. 18. Percy Sonn ICC president died in Cape Town. Replaced by Ray Mali (Acting) 19. Bill Johnston A versatile left arm bowler of Australia died. 20. Dr Charat Ram Leading Industrialist died 21. Huang Ju Famous Chinese Communist Party Leader 22. Kurt Waldheim Former UN Secretary General & President of Austria. 23. Ramchandra Gandhi Grandson of Mahatma Gahndhi who was found dead in a guestroom at the India International Centre in New Delhi. 24. Anita Guha Who played the role of Santoshi mata in “Jai Santoshi Ma” 25. Jeeva Tamilian Film director died of cardiac arrest. 26. Chandrashekhar Former PM & president of Samajwadi Janta Party died at Apollo, Delhi 27. Sahib Singh Verma Former Delhi Chief Minister & senior BJP leader. 28. Bharat Ram Industrialist – DCM group & Sri Ram Fertilizer died. 29. Albert Ellis Famous psychologist 30. Dilip Sardesai Former Indian Batsman & Father of Rajdip Sardesai (CEO of CNN- IBN) & only cricketer from Goa died. 31. Banarasi Das Gupta Former Haryana CM died. 32. Yone Minagawa World’s Oldest Person acc to Guinness Book died. 33. Quratulain Hyder Renowed Indian Urdu Writer & Journalist. 34. Anita Roddick Body Shop Founder died 35. Jane Wyman Oscar winning Actress & Ronald Reagon’s first wife. 36. Mani Kumar Rai Seven times National Boxing Champion died. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 21 37. Jana Krishnamurthy First leader from south to become BJP president died. 38. Mullah Dadullah Taliban’s most prominent military commander killed in Operation. 39. G. Srinivasan Producer of Guru & Director Mani Ratnam’s brother died. 40. R. Ramchandran Founder Secretary of music sabha ‘Hamasdhwani” died. 41. Ali-Hassan al Majid Cousin of Saddam Hussain known as Chemical Ali charged for gassing the Kurds was sentenced to death. 42. Rekha Malhotra Accomplished classical dancer of Bharatanatyam & Kuchipudi died. 43. Wally Herbert First man to walk on north pole died. 44. Arvind Lalbhai Visionary Industrialist & Founder of Arvind Mills died. 45. Qurratulain Hyder Renowed Urdu writer. Her “Aag ka Dariya” was a masterpiece. 46. Jamanlal Sharma Olypic Hockey player from India died. 47. Rajyogini Dadi Prakashmani The head of Prajapita Brahmakumari Ishwariya Vishwavidyalaya passed away at Mt. Abu in Sirohi district. 48. Akbarali A. Heptulla Husband of Najma Heptullah & noted manpower consultant died. 49. Rangaswamy Narasimhan Designer of India’ first general purpose digital computer. 50. Ashesh Prasad Mitra Former CSIR director general & Padma Bhushan winner died. 51. Soe Win Myanmar’s Former PM died. 52. Al Oerter The discus great who won four gold medals in four straight Olympics in 1956, 1960, 1964 & 1968. 53. L.M Singhvi Jurist, Statesman, BJP leader & former MP died. 54. Babasaheb Bhosale Former Maharashtra CM died. 55. S.R Bommai Former Karnataka CM Died. 56. R.S Sarkaria Former Supreme Court Judge who defined Centre-State Relations. 57. Arthur Kornberg Who won the 1959 Nobel for figuring out how DNA is built died. 58. Ali Raza Scriptwriter of “Mother India” died. 59. Norman Mailer Author of famous book “The Naked & the Dead” & two times Pulitzer winner. 60. R.S. Pathak Former Chief Justice of India. He headed U.N. Oil for Food Scam. 61. Ian Smith Former Rhodesian PM from 1964 to 1979 died. 62. Henry Hyde Former Republican after whom the Indo-US nuclear deal is named. 63. G.P. Sippy Producer of Sholay died. 64. Oscar Patterson One of the most popular Jazz artists in history 65. Teji Bachchan Mother of Amitabh Bachchhan 66. Ike Turner King of Rhythm credited with writing the first Rock & Roll record. 67. Swami Ghanananda President of Ramakrishna Math died. 68. Ustad Bale Khan Sitar Maestro of Dharwad. 69. Paul Tibbets Jr. US pilot who dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. India’s Recent Trade Pacts 1. TEF Trade & Economic Framework (with Australia) 2. FTA Brazil & South Africa Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 22 3. PTA Preferential Trade Agreement (Chile) 4. Miscellaneous Facts: 1. The 13 th SAARC summit was held at Dhaka (Nov 2005) & 14 th will be in India. Declared the decade of 2005-2015 as SAARC decade of poverty alleviation. The Dhaka Declaration welcomed the decision of the SAARC summit to include Afghanistan in the forum as its newest member. 2001-2010 has been declared as the SAARC decade of the ‘Rights of the Child’. 2. The top 10 countries accounting for FDI in India during 2004-05 are Mauritius, USA, Japan, Netherlands, U.K., Germany, France, South Korea, Singapore & Switzerland. 3. Bharat Nirman targets are to be met by 2009 with a fund of 175000 crore.. It involves bringing additional 1 crore hectares under irrigation. Connect all villages with a population of 1000 & above with roads. 60 lakhs houses for poor; electricity & telephone connectivity to all remaining villages. 4. U.P, Punjab, Rajasthan are the top 3 states in India in Milk production. Per capita availability of milk is highest in Punjab. India’s annual milk production in 2003-04 was around 90 million tonnes. Arunachal Pradesh has the least milk production. 5. Mali & Nigeria are the poorest countries in the world with more than 70% populaiton below BPL. Zimbabwe has 133 % inflation rate. Nauru has 90 % unemployment followed by Liberia & Zimbabwe. Botswana, Lesotho & Swaziland have the highest death rates. 6. Tonga is the latest member of WTO. Military News • Pakistan test fires Shaheen 2 (or Hatf VI) surface to surface missile with a range of 2000 km. India’s Nag (anti – tank missile) enters production stage. • Brahmos the supersonic missile jointly developed by India & Russia is ready for induction after its 10 th & final test firing. • Pinaka a multi barrel rocket system underwent a successful trial at Chandipur-on-Sea, 15 Km from Balasore (Orissa). • Indian Navy’s new frigate ‘Sahyadri built in Mazagaon docks, Mumbai launched. • INS Kadamba Indian Navy’s Third operational base after Mumbai & Vishakhapatnam commissioned by Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. It would provide navy with its first exclusive harbour. • INS Beas (3600 tonne Indian Naval Ship) as the highest ever content of any warship built in India. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 23 • Dhanush – Naval version of Prithvi test fired. • Tejas – India’s indigeneously built LCA makes it maiden flight • Akash – medium range surface to air missile test fired successfully. • India’s Advanced Light Helicopter “Dhruv” cleared by HAL for recommencement of flight. • Indian Navy’s first UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) commissioned. • KARTIK (Brick layer tank), KAVERI (Engine for LCA), INDRA (low level warning radar) & PANCHENDRIYA (Tactical weapon system control). • India gifted INS Tillanchang to Maldives as a part of bilateral cooperation. • Pakistan cabinet has given a go-ahead to the acquisition of Swedish AWACs (Air borne warning & control system). India earlier acquired the same. • Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has released the first ever Joint War Doctrine containing the principles by which to conduct Joint Operations by the three services • Army Headquarters (AHQ) has been formally designated as the Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence. • MiG-25s will be used no more. They use to serve as spy planes. • China’s new generation fighter aircraft Jian-10 which officials claim is superior in many aspects to the US F-16 & French Mirage 2000 jets made its debut. • China successfully carried out its first test of an anti-satellite weapon hitting an ageing weather satellite at an altitude of roughly 800 km. • Defence Minster, AK Antony dedicated INS Shardul, a landing warship to the nation at an event at the Karwar Naval Base. • Indian Navy took charge of USS Trenton. It will be the second largest ship in the Indian Navy after the aircraft carrier Viraat & will be renamed as INS Jalashva (Seahorse). • INS Trangini is India’s only Naval Sail Training ship. • Pakistan test fired its long range surface to surface ballistic missile Hatf VI. • India builds air base at Tajikistan in Central Asia. • China hikes its arms budget by 44 billion $. US sells F-16s to Pak. • Pakistan tested Hatf VII Babur missile with a range of 700 Km. • Britain passes law to build new Trident nuclear deterrent submarines to replace older ones. • Indian Army withdraws Cheetah & Chetak light helicopters due in inadequacy for present operational requirement. • Russia builds its new Nuclear Submarine Yuri Dolgoruky after 12 years. • Agni III test fired successfully which has a range of 3500 Km. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 24 • Eurocopter has won the Indian Army’s much awaited deal for 197 modern light helicopters estimated at around 550 million $. • Admiral Gorshov or the rechristened Vikramaditya aircraft carrier stands delayed to atleast 2010. Much to the concern of the Government – India’s sole aircraft carrier INS Viraat does not have many years left with only 12 Sea Coast Harrier jumpets on deck. • Russia tested a new long range ICBM called RS-24 from its Plesetsk Cosmodrome. • The ministry of Defence has announced that the first batch of 124 Arjun Main Battle Tanks ordered by the army would be in service by 2009. The production of Arjun has commenced at Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi. • India Coast Guard Ship “Sangram” commissioned in 2007 left the Chennai port to participate in the International Maritime Defence Exhibition & Conference Asia 2007 (IMDEX 2007) held in Singapore. • India test fired “Astra” an Air to Air missile. • Chief of air staff, Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major flagged off a round the world microflight which will be flown by Wing Commanders Rahul Monga & Anil Kumar. The expedition would cover 39,000 km in about 45 days & set IAF set new world record in 300-500 kg weight category. • The constitution of highly advanced submarine, Scorpene began at Mazgon Deck, Mumbai. The first Scorpene would be delivered to the Indian Navy in 2012 & then one every year totaling induction of six French submarines in the Indian Navy. • India to acquire four more aerostat radar from Israel. • HMS Astute, Britain’s first new attack submarine in almost two decades is being launched which is capable of circumnavigating the planet without surfacing. It will never need refueling as the nuclear reactor inside it will last for the vessels entire 25 yr life. • Indian Air Force participated in the Royal Air Force Waddington International Air Show in UK. The Indian Air Force tanker Su-30 MKIs & the IL-78 were declared the best. They were in the UK for Exercise Indra Dhanush, a joint exercise with the RAF. • Naval Science & Technological Laboratory (NSTL) of DRDO in Vishakhapatnam handed over two Advanced Exercise Mines (AEMs) to the Navy. • India has sent radars to Sri Lanka to ward off threat of air attack by LTTE. • Tezpur Air Base phases out MiG-21 fleet, the last air base to do so. • Shaheen 2 is Pakistan’s largest & most capable ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear war heads & striking most parts of India. • India successfully tested Sagarika, a submarine based cruise misile. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 25 • India & Russia ink 5 th Generation aircraft deal in Moscow. American F-22 Raptor is regarded as the first of the Fifth Generation Fighters. • IAF celebrated its platinum jubilee after turning 75 years old on October 8 (The Airforce Day). • India allows Singapore to use its Kalaikunda Airbase in an agreement. • First Batallion of the Fourth Gorkha Rifles celebrated its 150 th year. • Army conducts wargame codenamed “Exercise Kaamyaab”. • IAF to participate in the prestigious Red Flag Advanced Aerial Combat Exercise to be held in Nevada, USA. Australia & New Zealand are also expected to participate. • Amendments to the Armed Forces Tribunal Bill, 2005 was approved by Union Cabinet which would provide speedy redressal to the grievances of officers. • Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been formally upgraded & redesignated as a separate Department of Health Research under the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. • India signed the “Abuja Declaration” with Nigeria strengthening its strategic partnership with the world’s fifth largest producer of oil. • After series of trials India’s surface-to-air Akash Missile was cleared for induction in the armed forces. • The Parliament approved the Sashastra Seema Bill 2007 to provide armed forces status to Sashastra Seema Bal (Earlier called Special Services Bureau) & gave it legal backing to strengthen policing of borders with Nepal & Bhutan. • US gives 25 Bell 412 helicopters to Pakistan. • Military Aerospace deal signed between HAL & Boeing which involves technological cooperation. • A sea harrier fighter aircraft of the Indian Navy crashed at the Dabolim Airbase in Goa. The ageing Sea Harrier is the only type of fighter aircraft available in the Navy’s inventory & are no longer in production anywhere in the world. • DRDO develops Composite Rocket Motor Casing which will reduce the weight of the missiles by 40 % & production cost by half. • Japanese navy destroyer successfully intercepted a dummy test missile. • India successfully tested a hypersonic inter-ceptor missile at an altitude of 15 km in Wheeler Island. Military Data/Excercises 1. Shatrunaash Domestic Army Exercise on Sutlej river bank involving 15,000 soldiers. 2. Varuna 2007 Indo French Naval Exercise at Gulf of Aden. 3. Indra 2007 India Russia joint anti-terror wargames held at Russia’s Pskov oblast. 4. Himalayan Warrior Indo-UK Joint exercise in Ladakh. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 26 5. Malabar Exercise Biggest ever Naval Exercise in the Bay of Bengal involving 5 nations – India, US, Japan, Australia & Singapore. 6. Ashwamedh First Major exercise of Indian Army’s South-Western Command in Pallu, Rajasthan. 7. Hand in Hand 2007 First Ever Joint Military Exercise by China & India organized at Kunmig Military Academy, China. 8. 9. Cricket News: • India wins the India-West Indies ODI series by 3-1 in which Sachin’s century of 76 balls proved decisive. • Australia completed the most crushing Ashes victory with a 5-0 sweep of England. • India looses test series to South Africa by 2-1. • South African Wicketkeeper Mark Boucher claimed the world record for Test Catches. • India wins the ODI series against Sri Lanka with Ganguly being the man of the series. • Mumbai wins the Ranji Tropy for 2007. • Kumble retired from ODI. • Australia won the World Cup 2007 after defeating Sri Lanka. It became the first team to record a hat trick of world cup titles – their fourth in the world cup history. Gilchrist got the man of the match award. Glenn Mcgrath was officially named as the player of the tournament while Matthew Hayden got the title of the “Golden Bat”. • The Olympic council of Asia has added cricket to he 2010 Asian Games schedule. • India won the Indo-Bangla series by 2-0 with the final being abandoned. Dhoni became the man of the series. • India wins the Future Cup over South Africa by 2-1. • India won the test against England by 1-0. Kumble scored his first century. • BCCI has accepted the VJD 2007 system developed by V Jayadevan, an engineer from Thrissur as a possible replacement for the Duckworth-Lewis method that is used in cricked to calculate target score in Rain Affected matches. • India wins the ICC Twenty20 world cup with a breath taking 5 run victory over Pakistan. Earlier Yuvraj Singh hit 6 sixes in an over of Stuart Board & fasted 50 off 12 balls. In Semi Final India defeated Australia to enter Finals. Irfan Pathan was named “Man of the Match” while Shahid Afridi was named Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 27 “Man of the Tournament”. The only century was hit by Chris Gayle of WI. Bret Lee scored the only Hat trick. 260 runs were the highest score by Sri Lanka against Kenya. Australia’s Mathew Hayden was the top run scorer with 265 runs. • England beat India in the Seventh & Final ODI played at Lord’s to win the Natwest series by 4-3. • Australia clinched the Future Cup from India by 4-2. Symonds was man of the series. • The Ceat Cricket Rating awards went to: International Team of the Year: Australia, Cricketer of the year: Muttiah Muralitharan, International Bowler of the year: Muttiah Muralitharan, Batsmen of the year: Mahela Jayawardene, Life Time Achievement Award – Ricky Ponting & Anil Kumble. • Anil Kumble appointed as Test Captain. • India wins the ODI series against Pakistan by 3-2 despite loosing the final match. Yuvraj was declared man of the series. • After a gap of 27 years at home, India won the test series of 3 test matches against Pakistan by 1-0 in the captaincy of Anil Kumble. India won 1 match & the other two were drawn. • BCCI Award 2007 were awarded to Sachin Tendulkar (for crossing 11000 Test Runs & 15000 ODI Runs), Jhulan Goswami (ICC Women’s Cricketer), Anjum Chopra, Anju Jain (Arjuna awardees), Jaya Sharma (best women cricketer), Rahul Dravid (Crossing 10,000 runs) & Anil Kumble (Crossing 550 Test wickets & India captaincy). C.K. Naidu award for lifetime achievement was given to Nari Contractor. • After a gap of more than 100 years, the International Olympic Committee has given cricket the status of a “recognized sport”. • With the dismissal of Paul Collingwood wicket of Englad, Muralitharan broke Shane Warne’s record of 708 wickets & became Test Cricket’s leading wicket taker. • Jayasurya announces retirement from Test Cricket. • Australian John Dyson appointed coach of West Indies cricket team. Other Sports • Saina Nehwal became the first Indian woman to win a major badminton event when she clinched the Philippines Open title in Manila. • Sania Nehwal won the women’s title athe Senior National Badminton championship. • The Hopman cup of Tennis was won by Russia. • Geeth Sethi pulled off a close victory against Asian Games champion Pankaj Advani in the final round to annex the national billiards title after nine years. Anuja Thakur took her fifth women’s National Billiards title. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 28 • Paraguay stunned the Game’s big guns by winning the Women’s World cup of Golf. • John Kelai of Kenya won the Mumbai Marathon organized by Standard Chartered. Chinese Yang Ziao Shu won the women’s race. • Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran became the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to join the 2700 ELO rating club in the FIDE. It also helped him to his carrier best 21 st ranking in the world. • Indian Kabbadi team wins the Kabbadi world cup organized at Karnala Sports Academy, Raigarh near Mumbai beating Iran. • Goa based Churchill Brothers recently won the 120 th edition of the Durand Cup Soccer tournament. Durand cup is the third oldest soccer tournament of the world started in 1888. • Anoop Shridhar is a famous Badminton Player. • Former World Champion Vesselin Topalov of Bulgaria triumphed over Indian Krishnan Sasikiran in the ifnal of Mtel Masters. • The 33 rd National Games saw the Services Contingent finishing on the top of the heap with an over-all haul of 59 golds, 46 silver & 37 bronze & thus emerged the winner of Raja Bhalendra Singh Trophy, the symbol of supremacy at these games. Manipur stood second & won the best state award. Swimmers Rehan Poncha & Richa Mishra were adjudged the best athletes of the National Games. • The prize money at Wimbeldon is the same now for both men & women singles. • Alok Kumar won the Senior National Snooker title for the sixth time. • Top Seed Anup Shridhar clinched the men’s single title of the All India Major Ranking Badminton tournament. • Henrik Stenson of Sweden won the World Golf Championships Accenture match play championship. • The Indian Hockey Federation sacked national coach Vasudevan Baskaran following a streak of dismal performances & handed the post to Joaquim Carvalho. • Sharath Kamal won the National Table Tennis Championship. Manpreet Singh won the heavyweight final of the Natioanl Boxing Championship. • Jeev Milkha Singh, son of Milkha singh was named Asian player of the year. • Amelie Mauresmo was named the Womens Tennis Association (WTA) Tour Player of the Year 2006. • Ronjan Sodhi won the double trap bronze in the World Cup at Santo Domingo. • The French Open will award equal prize money to male & female players throughout the tournament falling in line with the three other Grand Slam tournaments. • India’s Monika Raut won India’s first ever individual gold medal in the Asian cross country championship in the 9 th edition of the biennial meet in Amman, Jordan. • Spaniard Rafael Nadal won his third Monte Carlo Masters series in succession defeating Roger Federer. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 29 • Gaurav Ghei won the inaugural Pine Valley Beijing Open Golf Tournament. • Irina Brar has been declared the top ladies professional golfer of the year. • Ace Shooter Tejaswani Sawant won gold in the women’s 50 m rifle event at Australia cup. • Michael Phelps became the only swimmer in the world to win 7 gold medals at a single world championship. • Zoravar Singh Sandhu won bronze at the shotgun world cup at Changwon, Korea. • Sania won the doubles of Morocco open with American Vania King. • Jyoti Randhawa won the DLF Masters title • The next edition of the Asia cup would be held at Pakistan. • Vijender, the lone Indian won the silver medal at the 24 th Asian Boxing Championship at Ulan Bator. • Angel Canrera of Argentina won the Golf – US open title. • India won the Asian Volleyball championship defeating Maldives. • Supoj Saenia of Thailand won the 23 rd Asian Snooker championship beating India’s Yasin Merchant. • Indian rover Bhavik Gandhi has become the first person to row across the Atlantic unassisted. • American Kate Zeigler broke the 19 yr old record in the women’s 1500 m freestyle by almost 10 seconds. • China won the Sudirman Cup of Badminton for the record 6 th time. • Rohan Bopanna clinched his maiden Challenger singles at the Irish Open Challenger Tennis Tournament in Dublin winning $ 50,000. • Tennis player from India, Karan Rastogi won the singles title in the $ 10,000 ITF Men’s Futures Tennis Tournament. • Pete Sampras, Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Sven Davidson, the first Swedish player to win a Grand Slam title at Roland Garros & Photographer Russ Adams who covered the sport for 50 yrs have been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. • Woman Grandmaster Koneru Humpy won the HSG International Open Tournament. • P. Harrington became the first Irishman in 60 years to win the British Open Golf tournament. • India’s Tombi Devi won the Gold Medal at the International Judo Competition held at Istanbul in the 48 kg category. With this she has become the first Indian to win gold in a European Judo Union Championship for seniors. • In the 34 th Junior National Aquatic Championship, Virdhawal Khade of Maharashtra broke 5 National records. He has already qualified for the 2008 olympics to be held in Beijing. • Iraq won the 2007 Asia Cup Football Title. • Spaniard Alberto Contador of Discovery Channel Team won Tour De Franc. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 30 • In the 17 th Asian Athletics Championship held at Amman, Jordan finished second behind China. • At the Commonwealth Boxing Championship, Sunil Kumar of India won gold in the 51 kg category. • Arjuna awards given to Jayanta Talukdar (Archery), KM Beenu (Athletics), Chetan Anand (Badminton), Vijender (Boxing), Anjum Chopra (Cricket), Jyoti Kullu (Hockey), Navneet Gautam (Kabbadi) Vijay Rani (Weightlifting), Geetika Jhakar (Wrestling), P Harikrishna (Chess) Rohit Bhakkar (Athletics, Disabled Category). • Dhyan Chand Award given to Virender Singh (Hockey), Shri Shamsher Singh (Kabbadi) & Rajinder Singh (Wrestling). • Dronacharya Award given to RD Singh (Athletics, Disabled), B. Chandra Lal (Boxing), Koneru Ashok (Chess). • World Champion Viswanathan Anand won his 10 th & seventh in succession Grenkeleasing Rapid Championsip title after beating Armenian Levon Aronian at Mainz (Germany). • Indian team comprising B Adhiban, R Ashwath, S Nitin, Shyam Nikhil & Swayam Mishra created history by winning 1 st position with 28 points at World Youth Chess Olympiad at Singapore. • Tiger Woods won the World Golf Championship. • Tiger Woods won the 89 th PGA Golf Championship. • Australia won the Commonwealth Volleyball championship defeating India at Kolkata. • Thailand to hold Asian Hopman cup at Bangkok this year & Australia (Perth) will hold it next year. • Indian Ace archer Dola Banerjee won gold at the Meteksan Archery World Cup in Dover. • A triple Gold Medallist in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, Jaspal Rana was declared the Sportsperson of the year at the seventh Petroleum Sports Promotion Boards annual awards function. • Harveen Srao, the shooter from Chandigarh won gold medal in the world university games beating reigning Olympic Champion Olena Kostevych of Ukraine. • Sonia Vickraman of India won gold at the Kata (imaginary fighting) event of 16 th Karate World Cup held at Varna in Bulgaria. • Kartar Singh won gold in the freestyle category of the veterans World Wrestling Championship held at Istanbul. • US Star Tyson Gay won the 100 m World title at the World Athletic Championship held at Osaka. • China with Lin Dan won the men’s single & women’s single title at the World Badminton Championship. • India won the ONGC Nehru cup of football held at Delhi defeating Syria • Kerala won the National Senior Powerlifting Championship. • Russia won the Federation Cup of Tennis. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 31 • Maria Kirilenko won the Sunfeast Open at Kolkata. • India’s Sharath Kamal won the Pyongyang Invitational tournament held in North Korea. • India won the ITTF World Junior TT Championship held at Panaji. • India won the Asia Cup Men’s Hockey Tournament beating Korea 7-2. • National Champion Tania Sachdeva won the Asian Women Chess Championship held at Tehran. • In the points format of the ISBF World Billiard Championship India’s Rupesh Shah won the title while in the time format Pankaj Advani won. • India’s Karun Chandok became the first Indian driver to win a GP2 at Belgium Grand Prix -2. • Asafa Powell set a new world record in 100 m by clocking 9.74 secs in his heat at the Reiti GP in Italy. • Gagan Narang logged at perfect 600/600 in the 10 M rifle event at the Karni Singh Range in New Delhi creating a world record. • East Bengal won the Federation Cup defeating Mahindra united. • T20 to make debut at the 16 th Asian Games to be staged at Guangzhou, China. • India won the right to host the 2009 Asian Table Tennis Championship at New Delhi. • India has earned a direct qualification for the World Cup of Golf 2007. Jyoti Randhawa & Gaurav Ghei will represent India. • Tara Iyer won the 10,000 $ ITF Womens tennis tournament & created a hat-trick in her wins. • Haile Gebrrelassie of Ethiopia broke the Marathon world record by winning the Berlin Marathon 29 seconds faster than the previous world record. • South Africa won the Rugby world cup defeating England. • Marion Jones was stripped of her five Olympic Medals she won in 2000 after she was found guilty of doping. She was banned for two years. • Dola Banerjee of India created history, by winning the World Archery Championship in Dubai. With this she became the first Indian women to win the World Archery Championship. • Roger Federer was crowned the top player of the year for the fourth consecutive time. Justine Henin was awareded in the women’s category. • Sunil Chhetri has been adjudged by All India Football Federation as “Player of the Year”. • Argentine Luciana Aymar (4 th Time) & Australian Jamie Dwyer (2 nd Time) were awarded as Wrold Hockey Player of the Year • India found its 17 th Grand Master in Abhijeet Gupta. • David Nalbanian of Argentina won the Paris Masters defeating Roger Federer. • Martina Hingis announces retirement. • Taiwan wins Asian Hopman cup. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 32 • India’s Arvind Bhatt won the Badminton Singles title at the Jordan Open Tournament defeating former Enland No. 1. • India won the Kabbadi title in the Asian Indoor Championship held at Macau defeating Pakistan. China stood overall first. • Pankaj Advani clinched the Men’s title in the National Billiards Champion while Anuja Chandra won in women’s category. • Pankaj Advani also clinced the National Snooker Championship while Vidya Pillai won in Womens category. • India won the inaugural Lal Bahadur Shastri Women’s cup of hockey held in Delhi by defeating Azerbaijan. • Brazil Midfielder Kaka won the FIFA’s world player of the year 2007. He also won the European Football’s Golden Ball & World Soccer magazine’s player of the year award. • USA clinched the Davis Cup by defeating Russia in the final held at Portland (Oregon). • J. Vishnu Vardhan won the National Tennis Championship. • Alonso joins back Renault with a 2 yr contract. • Grandmaster Gata Kamsky of US wonthe World Chess Cup. • England wins ICL World’s Men Squash Championship • R.B. Ramesh won the Commonwealth Chess Championship. • Scotland won its first World Cup Golf title. • Vassily Ivanchuk defeated V. Anand to win the World Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow. • For the second time, Tania Sachdev claimed the prestigious Women’s National “A” chess. • Brazilian swimmer Thiago Pereira broke the men’s 200 m medley short course World Record in Berlin. • 18 year old Kochi Boy G.N. Gopal has officially become the 16 th Grandmaster of the country. 1. French Open Rafael Nadal Roger Federer 2. Justine Henin (Belgium) Ana Avanovic 3. Wimbeldon Roger Federer Rafael Nadal 4. Venus Williams Marion Bartoli 5. US Open Roger Federer Novak Djokvic 6. Justine Henin Svetlana Kuznetsova 7. Australian Open Roger Federer Fernando Gonzalez 8. Serena Williams Maria Sherapova February 2007 Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 33 • ISRO PSLV-C7 lifted off successfully form Satsih Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. It carried the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite CATOSAT-2 (1 m resolution), Space Capsule Recovery Equipment (SRE-1) Indonesia’s LAPAN-TUBSAT & Argentina’s six kg nanosatellite called NANO PEHUENSAT-1. The SRE-1 was a technological forerunner to Indian scientists mastering the re-entry technology & building re-usable launch vehicles like Discovery. • Manmohan Singh visits Japan. India & Japan will celebrate 2007 as the year of friendship. • The Union of Islamic Courts lost power in Somalia when the Government aided by the Ethipian forces routed them. • The Rajya Sabha passed a bill to make child marriages null & void. The Parliament gave its nod for the Scheduled Tribes & other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill. • ONGC finds gas in the Basin off Krishna-Godavari. • The SC held unconstitutional the controversial Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Order, 2006 which puts the onus of proving a person foreigner on the complainant • The SC held that no prior sanction from the competent authority was required to prosecute a public servant, including present & former ministers, in corruption cases. • A bill introduced by Government seeks to declare the Kakinada-Pondicherry stretch of Canals comprising the Kaknada canal, Buckingham canal – on the Gaodavari & Krishna rivers as a national waterway. Another bill seeks to confer the status on canals on the Matai & the Mahanadi delta rivers between West Bengal & Orissa. • SC rejected the notion that the actions of a Speaker of a legislature are above judicial scrutiny citing that the speaker does not sever his relationship with the political party on whose ticket he gets elected. • The UN resolution 1737 was unanimously passed by imposing sanctions against Iran for failing to stop its uranium enrichment program following resolution 1696. • Nine countries of Southeastern Europe & the Serbian province of Kosovo today signed a new Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) in Bucharest. • Vietnam became the 150 th member of WTO. Quatern Island is disputed between India & Pakistan. • Slovenia, adopted the Euro becoming the 13 th EU nation to use single currency. • Bulgaria & Romania joined the European Union to bring the bloc’s membership to 27. • RBI allowed FDI upto 49 % in stock exchanges, depositeries & clearing corporations. • The Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojana has bee in operation since April 2005. Under the scheme allowance is paid to workers for six months who are rendered unemployed involuntarily on account of closure of factories/establishments. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 34 • National Insurance Company completed 100 years. It is based in Kolkata. The hallmarking of Jewellery will be essential from 2008. Andhra Pradesh got the maximum agricultural credit from Nationalized banks. Per capita food availability in India is 154.2 Kg per annum • Centre has cleared the constructions of two indigenous Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors of 700 MWe capacity at kakrapara (Gujarat). Recently PM announced that National Statistical Day will be celebrated across the country on June 29 th . The day marks the birth anniversary of PC Mahalanobis, the doyen of Indian Statistics who also was the founder of Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. • Serva Shiksha Abhiyaan would be renamed as Rashtriya Shiksha Abhiyaan. Indian Institute of Information Technology for Design & Manufacturing is situated at Jabalpur (recently started). • The chemical used in Narco Analysis to detect truth as truth serum is Sodium Pentothal. • Vasundhara Raje launched the first SEZ of Rajasthan – Mahindra World City at Jaipur. 4000 MW Mundra ultra mega power project is situated at Kutch District, Gujarat. • Sheetal Mahajan became the first woman in the world to do successfully do a free tall para jump on South Pole. • RBI mandated cap on IPO investment by a single investor is 10 lakh. France launched COROT from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will be taken into a polar orbit 827 Km above the earth where it will survey star fields for approximately 2.5 years. Its main purpose is to discover earth like planets. • Rajasthan leads in Child marriages. Central Institute for English & Foreign Languages (CIFEL), Hyderabad given university status. • CBI filed a charge sheet against former SP president Jaya Jaitly for taking bribe from Tehelka reporters. • An amendment bill seeking to make the Minister of Women & Child development the chairperson of the committee to select the national commission for protection of Child Rights was introduced in Loksabha. • Decks were cleared for renaming Uttaranchal as Uttarakhand. • The centre plans to declare 2007 as ‘Water Year’ – year of more crop & income per drop of water. Haryana became the first state to have its own police act. • India has been ranked 105 th in the Press Freedom Index. India signs with Belgium, its first ever social security pact. • The Kolkata based Indian Association for Cultivation of Science (IACS) has developed a technology to convert ordinary light combat aircraft into stealth jets that could go undetected on radar. • Metamaterial (being developed by Britain & USA) is a kind of material which can bend ray of light so that it does not reflect or cast shadows. It has many potential military applications. • Japan has found flammable ice (Methane hydrate) under sea bed which if tapped can provide it energy for the next 100 years. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 35 • India’s share in world merchandise exports inched upto 0.9% after remaining stuck at 0.8% for 3 yrs. • Retd. Chief Justice of Delhi High Court B.C. Patel appointed to head the commission looking into the irregularities in the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project. • The 500 MW plutonium based fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam being built at a cost of Rs. 3000 crore will become operational by 2010. March 2007 • Somalia parliament declares emergency. Bullet train linking North & South island of Taiwan started. • Bulgaria & Romania – two ex-communist nations joined EU brining membership to 27 nations. • After years of negotiation & anticipation Vietnam became 150 th member of WTO on January 11 th . • The Democrat party captured control of both Houses of Congress in US after 12 years of sidelines of power. Nancy Pelosi, went on to make history by becoming the first woman to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. • Slovenia changed from its Tolar money to Euro. Slovenia is 13 th European Nation to adopt Euro. • China, Russia veto US resolution criticizing Myanmar’s military Junta. • Rival Palestinian factions, Hamas & Fatah stuck a deal (Makkah Accord) for ceasefire in Gaza. The two agreed on key cabinet posts. • Armed forces commodore Frank Bainimarama of Fizi installed Mahendra Chaudhry as the minister of Finance & National Planning. • The man who led Ukraine’s Orange revolution two years ago, Viktor Yushchenko has been stripped of power to veto through a humiliating parliamentary vote. • Japan launced its Defence Ministry for the first time since World War II. • Vladmir Putin conferred the “Order of Friendship” on Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande & JNU academic Sankar Basu on his visit to India as Chief Guest durin Republic day. • CM of Gujarat & M.P, Narendra Modi & Shivraj Singh dedicated to the nation the 1450 MW hydroelectric project of the Sardar Sarovar at the dam site – Kevadia colony in Gujarat’s Narmada district. • The Supreme Court ruled that any law placed in the Ninth Schedule after 1973 will be open to Judicial scrutiny but laws already upheld by the Supreme court cant be challenged. Drafted by the Nehru Govt in 1951 the Ninth Schedule grants Parliament the power to insulate any law from Judicial review. • Year 2007 has been declared as “Water Year” by the ministry of water resources & approved by Cabinet • The Cabinet has approved the setting up of Central Drugs Authority of India as an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 36 • India & China special representatives M.K. Narayanan (National Security Advisor) & Dai Bingguo (Chinese Vice Foreign Minister) concluded their ninth round. The next round will be in China. • The first World Convention of Science & Spirituality was held in Delhi. • SC rejected Mohammad Afzal’s petition seeking reconsideration for Death sentence. He was involved in the Parliament attack case. • Kerala will become the first “total banking state” with every household having a bank account. West Bengal government signed MoU with JSW for a 10 million tonne steel plant @ 35000 crores. • Rajasthan abolishes house tax. Bihar govt has introduced 5 day week for its employees. • Tata pays 12.1 billion $ to buy Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus by outbidding Brazil’s CSN. This makes Tata-Corus the fifth largest steel maker in the world. • ISRO plans to land a motorized moon rover on the moon in 2010 or 2011 as a part of its second Chandrayan Mission. • India will access the Russian Global Navigation & Satellite System (GLONASS) ending its quest for a global positioning system. • The finding of a first complete skeleton of a marsupial lion, Thylacaleo carnifex in southern Australia is being hailed by scientists as the find of the century. • Gene SORL1 linked to Alzheimer identified. • Kazhakhstan PM Danial Akhmetov who held the post since 2003 resigned forcing the entire government to step down. • Superstar Amitabh Bachchan received the Legion D’Honneur, Frances highest civilian award for his contribution to Indian & International Cultural Life. • The National Knowledge Commission in it first report recommended increase in the number of universities in India to 1500 from current 350. April 2007 • The union budget for 2007-08 was presented by Finance Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram. The total plan expenditure is estimated at 690521 crores while the revenue deficit is 71478 crores. Fiscal deficit for 2006-07 revised to 3.75 % of GDP against 3.8 % budgeted. For 2007-08 it would be 3.3 %. Revenue deficit for 2006-07 – 2 % of GDP & for 2007-08 at 1.5 %. Education cess on all taxes hiked from 2 % to 3 %. Tax on dividend distribution by companies raised from 12.5 % to 15 %. ESOPs to be brought under the Fringe Benefit Tax. Income tax exemption limit hiked by 10,000 to 1.1 lakhs & 1.45 lakh for women & upto 1.95 lakh for senior citizens. (For Detailed Coverage refer Xerox) • The economic survey 2006-07 pegged the economy growth rate at 9.2 % for 2006-07. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 37 • The Railway budget for 2006-07 declared a profit of Rs. 20,000 crores as against Rs. 14,700 crores for the year 2006. The Indian railway will observe year 2007-08 as the year of cleanliness. • The worlds oldest newspaper Postoch Inrikes Tidningar of Sweden goes digital & drops paper edition. • AICTE announced to closing down of all B-schools & engineering colleges that are functioning out of rented buildings or sheds or temporary locations by March 31. Such institutions would not be permitted to offer courses for the academic year 2007-08. • OBC quota gets implemented for lecturer selection in Central & Deemed universities. • North Korea gives up its Nuclear plan in return for an estimated 10 Lakh tonnes of oil or its equivalent in energy from US, Russia, Japan, China & South Korea. IAEA inspectors have confirmed that North Korea has shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor at Yangbyon. • PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) Rebels operate in Northern Iraq. Ogaden National Liberation Front is a rebel organization based in Ethiopia. The disbanded Counter-Revolutionary Warfare Unit belongs to Fiji. • Qods force belongs to Iran. Basij is the name of the Iranian Volunteer Force that played key role in Iran & Iraq war. • Vienna talks on Iran Nuclear issue fails. Iran is using 3000 centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz. • Nepal declares to be a federal state while accepting the key demands of the Terai region. King Gyanendra & his predecessors have been evicted from the Nepali currency notes. The Buddha, Mt. Everest et all have taken their place. • The Parliament building of Afghanistan in Kabul, Supreme Court in Thimpu & Salma Dam in Afghanistan are being constructed by India. • Japan launched a satellite based alert system – “J-ALERT” for sending alerts of an earthquake. • India wins on “Baglihar Dam” tussle over Pakistan after the World Bank appointed neutral expert, Raymond Lafitte held that India has not violated the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. • The National Manuscripts Mission launched the national database of manuscripts which will enable access to as many as 1.8 million manuscripts on Vedic literature, Islamic laws, Buddhist scripts etc. • India & Pakistan signed an agreement on “Reducing the risk from Accidents relating to Nuclear Weapons” in New Delhi. It commits both side to inform each other in the event of any accident related to nuclear weapons. • Menon-Burns Talk: Between US under secretary of State Nicholas Burns & Indian Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on the stalled civilian nuclear deal. • A two days conference on editors from SAARC nations was held at Delhi. • UP reported the maximum (539) cases of Polio in the total 666 cases reported nationally. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 38 • The National Family Health Survey reported that only 35 % men & 22 % women complete 10 years of education in India. 37 % women faced domestic violence. Av number of children a women has in her lifetime dropped to 2.7. The use of contraceptives increased to 56 %. • The Cabinet cleared a bill which provides for a jail term of 3 months & a fine of Rs. 5000 for children who refuse to ensure a life of dignity for their elders. • The move to increase the number of sittings of Parliament to at least 100 days in a year has got a go ahead with the leaders of various political parties agreeing to the proposal. • Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Bofors case was detained by Interpol in Argentina & later released on bail. Britains arms supplier BAE systems is involved in the scam. • 67 Killed when two firebombs went off on the New-Delhi Wagah Samjhauta express near Panipat, Haryana. • India – China year of Friendship through Tourism 2007 was launched. • The Cuavery Water Disputes Tribunal gave its final award. Total availability of water is pegged at 740 tmcft. Out of this Tamilnadu get 57 %, Karnata gets 36 % & Kerala (4 %), Puducherry (1 %). Karnataka parties rejected the verdict & decided to take legal remedies to secure justice. • According to the New Master Plan for Delhi – 2021, Delhi needs about 24 lakh dwelling units to meet the needs of its population of 2.3 crores by 2021. • The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal allowing the government to acquire all of RBI’s stake in SBI, NABARD, National Housing Bank (NHB). The “cashless transaction’ is being done to distance the banking regulator from holding shares in the banks it also regulates. • HLL becomes Hindustan Uniliver Ltd. Steel Magnate LN Mittal will invest Rs. 3000 crores & will acquire 49 % stake in Guru Gobind Singh Refineries as an equal partner with state owned HPCL to revive the refinery at Bhatinda. • Leading European exchange operator, Deutsche Borse group has piced up a 5 % statek in BSE for 189 crores. • Aditya Birla Group’s flagship company, Hindalco acquires Canadian Aluminium maker, Novelis. • IBM becomes the largest MNC employer in India with a head count of 53,000 personnel. • Alcoa, the world largest aluminium producer, appointed Ratan Tata on its director board. • Govt sets up the process to disinvest partially in 3 PSUs – Rural Electrification Corporation LTd, Power Grid Corporation & National Hydro-electric Power Corporation. • Govt plans to revive HMT by injecting 750 crores. Govt bans export of powder milk & lifts ban on export of sugar. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 39 • Tata & Fiat signed MoU to build up vehicles. ONGC & Russia’s state run behemoth Gazprom have signed an agreement to jointly explore oil & gas fields in India, Russia & other countries. • The centre has agreed to invest 100 million US $ to develop the Sittwe Port in Myanmar. • The US NASA launched THEMIS (Time & History of Events & Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) with the blasting of 5 satellites on a single rocket to figure out the source of powerful geomagnetic substorms in the earth’s atmosphere. • MEGHA-TROPIQUES is a joint project of India & French to study climate change. • India will launch a satellite named PSLV MK-3 weighing 4000 Kg by 2009. • Maria Sharapova appointed goodwill ambassador of UNDP program. • May 2007 • According to UN Populations division estimate the world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion over the next 43 years from the current 6.7 billion • Bhutan sees formation of two political parties – People’s Democratic Party & Bhutan Peoples United Party. • China passes law on property which gives owners of private property the same legal protection as government property. It is a landmark development in a country that has practiced collectivism in property ownership since communist party won power in 1949. • Hamas-Fatah government gets installed in Palestine. • Ugandan troops arrive in Mogadishu as part of proposed 8000 African Union forces in Somalia. • China to build port in Lanka at Hambantota in South Sri Lanka. • Ghana celebrates 50 years of Independence. • The trial of Kosovo’s former PM Ramush Haradinaj began at Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. • Chirac retires from active politics. He became twice the president of France. • France upholds turban ban on Sikhs. China to invest 13 billion $ into Tibet. • India & UAE revised their agreement on Double Taxation Avoidance (DTA) & signed a pact for exchange of information between the stock exchange regulators. • Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week held at Delhi & Lakme Fashion Week held at Mumbai. • Parliament approved bill for making it compulsory for all private broadcasters to share their feed of major sports events with Doordarshan & All India Radio. • The Lok Sabha passed the Banking regulation bill which seeks to provide greater operational flexibility to RBI in monitoring the monetary policy. It empowered RBI to specify SLR without any floor limit. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 40 • Cabinet raised retirement age of teachers from 62 to 65 years & also raised Dearness Allowance. Cabinet also approved the reintroduction of the Communal Violence Bill. • Lok Sabha gave a nod to phase out Central Sales Tax in four steps to prepare the stage for its eventual abolition in 3 years. • The Foreign secretaries of India & Pakistan concluded talks at Islamabad agreeing to consider a set of new Kashmir related confidence building measures (CBMs). • Germany played host to the world’s largest tourism trade fair – International Tourism Bourse (ITB). • India is now home to the largest number of billionaires in Asia relegating Japan to second position. • In its renewed excavation at Salvankuppam close to the Tiger cave near Mamallapuram, the Archaeological society of India has discovered 3 granite pillars with inscriptions of Pallava & Chola kings. • Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo visited Japan to reciprocate earlier visit by Shinzo Abe to China. • Five South Eastern European countries namely Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia & Italy signed a declaration to start work on the 1400 km long Pan European Oil Pipeline from Constanta to Trieste. • According to the 14 th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs nearly 8 lakh person of Indian Origin have been granted the status of Overseas Citizen of India as of Nov 2006. • According to the latest figures released by the planning commission poverty in the country has declined to 21.8 % in 2004-05 from 26.1 % in 1999-2000. The figures are based on the report of the 61 st round of the National Sample Survey. Orissa is the poorest state with 39.9 % of people living below poverty line. The number of people living below the poverty line is highest in U.P. Poverty levels are low in Chandigarh (3.8 %), J & K (4.2 %) & Punjab (5.2 %). • The West Bengal govt issued a notification stating that it would not acquire any land for industry at Nandigram. • India & Bangladesh plan to restore the Dhaka-Kolkata rail link. • TRAI abolished the access deficit charge (ADC) on outgoing calls to other countries. • Delhi based Havell’s group has acquired Dutch based SLI sylvania’s lighting business for 300 million $. Tata group has acquired a car making plant in Pretoria in South Africa. Singapore exchange picked up a 5 % stake in BSE. Blackstone buys out Madame Tassaud’s wax museum for 1 billion $. • Italian Coffee roaster Lavazza has acquired Barista from Chennai based Sterling Infotech. • India’s external debt stands at 143 billion $. • FDI in telecom raised from 49 % to 74 %. Mumbai high court rules that Life Insurance policies can be traded. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 41 • India’s largest telecommunication satellite INSAT – 4B weighing 3025 kg was successfully launched by Arianspace’s Ariane-5 vehicle from Kourou island in French Guiana. It will facilitate DTH & other communication facilities. This satellite has been collocated with INSAT-4A. India has taken up GSLV Mark III program which will enable India to orbit satellites upto four tonnes by 2010-11 • Hypersonic speeds are greater than 5 times the speed of sound. Richard Branson’s space tourism venture Virgin Galactic & NASA plans to activate hypersonic travel between earth based cities. • Doctors in US have identified a third type of twin – somewhere between identical & fraternal – as semi fraternal – two sperm cells fused with single egg. With fraternal twin, the most common type, the mother contributes two eggs, each of which gets fertilized in the womb by two different sperm cells. In Identical twins, one egg from the mother is fertilized by one sperm from the father & then very early in development the embryo splits & two fetuses grow. • European space craft Mars Express reported huge deposits of pure frozen water on Mars. Lost Indian bird the large billed Reed Warbler found in Thailand. • O&M won at the Abby 2007 awards once more as it was judged as the Agency of the year. • India to host World Cup Hockey for Men in 2010. • II Administration reforms commission was appointed in August 2005 under the chairmanship of Veerappa Moily, former CM of Karnata to prepare a detailed blueprint for revamping public administration. The commission has submitted 3 reports in 2006 & fourth in Feb 2007. The latest report talks about “Ethics in Governance”. One of its recommendation is to abolish schemes such as MPLADS (MP Local Area Development Scheme) & MLALADS. • According to UN World Population report World population is likely to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. • The Union Social Justice & Empowerment tabled the Maintenance & Welfare of Parents & Senior Citizens Bill, 2007 in Lok Sabha. The Bill proposed to make it obligatory on the person who inherit the property of their aged relatives to maintain them. • The Supreme Court stayed the law providing 27 % reservation for OBCs in higher education institutions such as IITs & IIMs. • The government setup the National Mission on Monuments & Antiquities recognizing the absence of a comprehensive database on archaeological resources. • France has signed an extradition treaty with China despite concerns that Beijing frequently uses death penalty. • Vanuatu (Melanesian Island Nation) govt has declared a state of emergency in the capital “Port Vila” following deadly tribal clashes. • Pakistan president Gen Musharraf sacked CJ of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohd Chaudhary for misconduct. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 42 • Portugal leagalized abortion. • Abkhazia a territory of Georgia held presidential elections to gain independence. • The Central Govt has powered NPPA to take action against companies which hike their drug prices by more than 10 % in a year. • Pujab & Sind Bank has the maximum NPAs. The objective of SARFAESI Act (Securitization & Reconstruction of Financial Assets & Enforcement of Security Interest Act) is to acquire NPAs of any bank. • Madhya Pradesh enhanced women’s reservation in Panchayati Raj to 50%. • Goa tops the list of 50 best e-governed states. • Fourth Military World Games 2007 will be held in India. • Centre announced the increase of Dearness Allowance of its employees by 6 %. • New Capital of Myanmar is situated at Naypidaw. • June 2007 • China flags of high speed train between Shanghai & Suzhou. • US approved first vaccine against avian flu which is directed against the H5N1 stain of virus. • Sitting HC judges cant be appointed to probe panels according to SC ruling. • 14 th SAARC summit was inaugurated in New Delhi. Afghanistan joined the regional forum in the first expansion since its inception in 1985. Observers from China, Japan, South Korea, US & EU also participated in the summit proceedings. The decisions involved setting up a South Asian University, create SAARC food bank & arbitration council & to start a museum of textiles & industry. Year 2007 was termed as “Year of Green South Asia”. SAARC countries account for 22 % of world population with only 2 % of world GDP. Up to 90 % of imports of SAARC were sourced from outside south Asia. 15 th SAARC summit would be held in Male, Maldives. • India & Belarus agreed to set up a joint commission on military technical cooperation & signed extradition treaty. Belarus, a member of NSG would continue to cooperate with India. The two countries also signed a bilateral protocol on accession of Belarus to the WTO. NSG currently has 45 members. • President Kalam visited Greece on a 3 day tour. He also visited Strasbourg, France. • India-EU to jointly fight streptococcus with a 3 year project that began with 1.5 million euro grant from EU. It is being coordinated by the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Germany. • The National floor level minimum wage has been increased from Rs. 66 to Rs. 80. • Tamil Nadu has demanded that Education should be shifted from Concurrent List to State List. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 43 • UN has selected Bihar, M.P, Rajasthan, Orissa, Sikkim & Andhra Pradesh as priority states for development. • Delhi hosted the UNESCO Regional Conference for 2007. • Mission 2007 is a national initiative led by M.S. Swaminathan that seeks to establish a knowledge center in every village. • Kochi to house smart city project. • The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) cleared the entire phase III of the National Highway Development Programe by giving approval for upgradation of an additional 7300 Km of highways in various states at cost of 47,500 crores. • The Cabinet gave its approval to the Gram Nyayalya Bill 2007 for extension of the regular, formal subordinate court system to units below district level to every panchayat or a group of contiguous panchayats. • A 12 member delegatin visited at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research on a tri lateral collaborative program among India, Brazil & South Africa on Nano Technology. • The government appointed a four member commission on Centre-State Relations headed by the former CJI, MM Punchhi to examine the changes that have taken place since the Sarkaria Commission looked intot he relations over two decades ago. • The Union Government will launch the 64 th round of Socio Economic Survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization to generate data on education, employment, migration, expenditure etc. • BJP returned to the reckoning in Delhi defeating the Congress in the MCD elections claiming 167 out of 272 member house. • The Iraqi government has endorsed the plan named Kirkuk plan to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to oil rich Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein’s Arabanization campaign to displace ethnic Kurds. • The annual foreign trade policy (FTP) has been announced for 2007-08. An export target of 160 billion $ for the current fiscal has been set. Exports have been exempted from service tax. Vishesh Krishi Yojana & Gram Udyog Yojana have been expanded. Duty free imports of tools & machinery for handicrafts introduced. Exports obligations under EPCG (Export Promotion Capital Goods) increased. • India has announced zero duty access to Least developed countries in SAARC which consists of Bangladesh & Afghanistan. • India has removed port restrictions on tea & apparel from Sri Lanka under Indo-Sri Lanka FTA. India & Sri Lanka are negotiating on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). • The cabinet approved a national policy on petrochemicals. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 44 • The government has cleared purchase of 6 % equity in NSE by foreign investors. • Dollex 100 is the BSE launched Dollar Linked version of BSE-100. • Allahabad HC stayed a single Judge’s Judgement denying minority status to Muslims in UP. • Karnataka passes Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Bill 2007 with support from ruling Janta Dal but resisted by its partner BJP & the opposition congress. • In view of directions from SC the Orissa government has decided to bring down the reservation in jobs for OBC candidates to 11.25 % from the existing 27 %. • Shipra Path Police Station, Jaipur has been selected as the best police station in the world beating 450 contestants. • Tamil Nadu government has announced “Exclusive Reservation” for Christians & Muslims in government. • Kerala council of Historical Research (KCHR) has excavated some important historical objects like the pottery & beads at Pattanam near Kodungalloor strengthening the rich heritage of Malabar coast. • Madumalai Wildlife Sanctuary of Tamil Nadu rolls “Project Elephant”. • The government gave exports a service tax waiver, extended the incentives for SEZs. • SBI has pipped LIC to emerge as the highest Corporate Tax Payer in the country as it paid 2670 crores as advance tax. • P. Chidambaram stated that the total tax collection, including direct & indirect taxes, touched Rs. 4,70,077 crore in 2006-07. • India to waive $ 62 million Cuban debt. The government has finally notified the export subsidy for sugar mills at Rs. 1350 per tonne. • Jet Airways has finally acquired Air Sahara for Rs. 1450 crore. Google Inc has agreed to pay 3.1 billion $ in cash to acquire ad management technology company Double Click. Britain’s Barclays Bank has agreed to buy Netherlands biggest investment bank ABN Amro for 91.16 billion $. • USA & South Korea concluded a landmark Free Trade Agreement (FTA). • ONGC Videsh Ltd have struck a sizeable oil reserve in Egypt at the North Ramadan-1A filed. • FDI crossed 12 billion $ for the financial year 2006-07. • At La Silla’s observatory in Chile a team of Astronomers announced the discovery of “Super Earth”. The star Gliese 581 has the planet 14 times closer than the earth is to the sun. • India blasted into the new space orbit by launching its first commercial venture & placing a 352 kg Italian Satellite, AGILE that rode atop a PSLV-C8 rocket. • Water vapour was detected on the Plantet HD 209458b in the constellation Pegasus. This planet was the first plantet outside the solar system with an atmosphere & the first detected transiting planet. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 45 • US billionaire Charles Simonyi became the worlds first space tourist after his Soyuz rocket blasted off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Hungarian born developer of Microsoft’s Word & Excel application is paying over 20 million $ for his 13 day trip • Doctors at AIIMS sliced the cornea of one patient into 3 & restored vision of 3 people. • In a breakthrough that can make all human universal donors, Danish scientist have converted A, B & AB blood types into type O, the universal blood which can be given to anyone in need of transfusion. • Kerala ranks first & Bihar last in the first composite Education Development Index (EDI) prepared by the National University of Educational Planning & Administration. At primary level Tamil Nadu was first. • New Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) would come up at Medak district in Andhra Pradesh. • An HNI is defined as having 4.5 crores in liquid funds that can be invested. There are 25000 people in Mumbai who are millionaires. • The RBI marked up the repo rate to 7.75 %. • July 2007 • Bush vetoed a bill that would force him to begin withdrawing US troops angering democrats who vowed to fight on. • India is planning to setup a high tech monitoring station in northern Madagascar to tackle piracy & terrorism. • The ET-NCAER Business Confidence Survey shows that the Index slipped by six points to 151.3 in January-March 2007 Quarter from its peak level attained in last quarter. • Reuters purchased by Canadian Financial Data Provider Thomson Corp in a deal worth 7.8 billion $. • SC declines plea against Sethusamudram Project. • Government has decided to give navratna status to 7 New PSUs including Bharat Electronics Ltd, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, NALCO, National Mineral Development Corp, Power Finance Corp, PGCIL & Rural Electrification Corp Ltd. This would increase navratnas from 9 to 16. Existing 9 Navratnas include GAIL, BHEL, SAIL, ONGC, IOC, BPCL, IPCL, MTNL and NTPC. • RBI released new Norms on Priority Sector which qualify Home Loans upto 20 Lakhs as priority sector as against 15 lakhs earlier. Education loan upto 20 lakhs for studies abroad & 10 lakhs in India. • Under the priority sector lending program, banks are mandated to extend 40 % of their total advances to borrowers in sectors like agriculture & Small & medium enterprises. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 46 • World Banks BioCarbon Fund (BioCF) signed an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) that will enable small farmers in Orissa & Andhra Pradesh to earn additional revenues through carbon credits by afforesting their severly degraded lands. • Wockhardt becomes the largest Indian Pharma company in Europe after acquiring Negma Laboratory, the fourth largest Independent integrated pharmaceutical group in France. • HDFC starts trading at NYSE. • The worlds largest beer company, Belgium Based InBev enters India in JV with R.K Jaipuria group. • Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) are plants with capacity greater than 4000 MW. Seven such plants have been planned which include Akaltara (Chattisgarh), Mundra (Gujarat), Tadri (Karnataka), Sasan (M.P). & Giriye (Maharashtra). • ICT4D (Information & Communications Technologies for Development) is an initiative aimed at bridging the digital divide. • Drug war in Columbia threatens Nukak Maku tribe one of the last primitive tribes. • The Cabinet decided to promulgate an ordinance to scrap the law that bans employing women on night shifts. • 6 th Pay commission headed by retired Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna • Russia signed deal with Turkmenistan & Kazakhstan to construct a 1 billion $ 500 Km pipeline to export Turkmen gas via Kazakhstan & Russia to Europe. • Jordan’s queen Rania & Actress Natalie Portman joined in the launch of a major microcredit programme targeting global poverty. • Two trains from North & South Korea crossed the heavily fortified border restoring an artery severed in the 1950-53 fatricidal war. • China launches satellite for Nigeria where both the Satellite & the launch vehicle were Chinese. • According to IMD, Switzerlands World Competitiveness Year Book 2007 India ranks 27 th with US at No 1. • Venezuela nationalizes Oil Companies. Earlier it had pull out of the World Bank & IMF after paying its debt to the banks. It also shut down opposition Television Channel RCTV & replaced it with one promoting President’s Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution. • Northern Irelands Protestant & Roman Catholic Leaders launched a new power sharing, home rule government designed to put an end to decades of sectarian conflict. Earlier Direct rule was imposed after the assembly was dissolved amid allegations of spying against IRA (Irish Republican Army). • National Disaster Management Aurthority released a set of guidelines for Chemical Disaster Management. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 47 • Three Member Committee headed by Sukhdeo Thorat to look into the allegations of discrimination against the reserved category students at AIIMS submitted its report. • The Union Cabinet approved the recommendations of the Rajinder Sachar Committee on Muslims. It directed various ministries to initiate comprehensive programs to implement the recommendations. • Chairman of National Wage Board for Working Journalists & Newspaper Employees, is Justice K. Narayana Kurup. • The Central Government has decided to increase the number of attempts of disabled candidates from the current four to seven in Central Civil Services job. • US & EU signed a open skies deal allowing airlines for the first time to offer a wider range of services. • Army Chief JJ Singh visits Beijing. • Rally to commemorate 150 years of 1857 mutiny held at Red Fort, Delhi. • India will not sign the bilateral 123 agreement with US without right to reprocess spent fuel – one of the 3 important red lines. The other two are: restricting India’s strategic as well as indigenous Fast Breeder Reactor programs & closing further nuclear test options. • PM Manmohan Singh at the 53 rd meeting of the NDC announced a Rs. 25000 crore plan to boost farm sector growth. • RBI has included “minority communities” in the list of priority sector lending by banks. Domestic banks – both private & government owned are mandated to lend 10 % of their total loans to weaker sections. • India & Pakistan have exchanged maps of Sir Creek to solve the boundary issue. • From June-1 seven more services would come under the tax net including renting for use in commerce or business, works contracts, services outsourced for mining of mineral oil or gas, design services, asset management services provided by individuals & various telecom related services. Service providers of these service categories would have to pay a service tax of 12 % along with 3 % additional cess. • A premium scientific agency, National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) is to be located in Hyderabad. • Central Government to setup Indian Institute of Corporate Governance at Manesar, Haryana. • National I-Card scheme kicks off involving a unique 16 digit national identity number. • The Union Cabinet approved legislation to provide social security to workers in the unorganized sector. • Sonia Gandhi, LN Mittal & Indira Nooyi figure in Time’s Magazine as the 100 most influential people. • Lok Sabha cleared 3 bills – The Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order Amendment Bill, the securities contract amendment bill & the National Institutes of Technology Bill. The last seeks to convert RECs into NITs. • India-Japan sign MoU on joint working group on Urban Development. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 48 • Bomb blast at historic Mecca Masjid near Charminar rocks the city of Hyderabad • Delhi Govt has launched Bed & Breakfast scheme to tide over the shortage of 30,000 rooms for visitors during the Commonwealth games in 2010. • India & Mexico signed a ten year bilateral investment promotion & protection agreement (BIPPA) to promote flow of investment to both countries. Since Mexico is a member of North American Free Trading Agreement (NAFTA) comprising Mexico, US & Canada – the agreement is likely to help Indian companies access to these markets as well. • RBI allowed foreign companies to open escrow account in authorized banks for buying shares in Indian firms. • The merged AI-IA entity will be known as Air India. Govt quits Maruti. IOC becomes first company to notch up sales in excess of 50 billion $. Birla group enters into retailing with the chain “MORE”. • IT exports touch 158,500 crores during 2006-07. Hindustan Shipyard launches India’s largest ship. • Kennedy Space Center is planning to launch a robotic probe to test Martian water. The craft known as Phoenix, is expected to land in the northern polar region of Mars & dig beneath the soil. • First Carbon free city to come up at Abu Dhabi totally powered by Solar energy. • Scientists at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California have identified for the first time a gene, known as PHA-4, which plays a critical role in prolonging life. • India is set to launch GSLV Mark III launch platform scheduled to launch a 4 tonne satellite in 2009. • Scientists of UK have created a form of water called Dermacyn dubbed “Miracle water” which could possibly treat many bacterial infections. • GJ436B is the planet orbiting a nearby star & is mainly made up of hot, solid water. • People who lack the hormone, Leptin over eat even when they are not hungry. • Bihar launches JEEVIKA project to improve rural livelihoods. Gujarat plans to give free bus passes to girl students (in villages traveling to nearest town) studying in VII standard & upward. • August 2007 • WTO Doha round broke midway among four major India, Brazil, EU & USA at Potsdam in Germany as India refused to yield any ground on giving market for farm products to rich countries. • UN has declared October 2 as international day of non violence. • At the BICSAM (Brazil, India, China, South Africa & Mexico), meeting in Berlin during G-8 meeting it was proposed that the group should consider getting together again at a forum other than that of G-8. • China announced that it was building a metalled road to the Everest Base camp. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 49 • UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has announced a grant of Rs. 2,000 crore to India for improving access to healthcare. • Indira Gandhi National Tribal University would be established at Amarkantak. • The armed Basque separatist group of Spain, ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna or Basque country & freedom) ended its 15 month old ceasefire & warned Spain government of new attacks. • On the first ever visit of a US president to Albania, the US president, Bush supported the independence of Kosovo by saying that UN should grant independence quickly to the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, & if Russia continued to block it the west would act. • Chronicles of Thailands King – The world’s longest serving monarch & god like figure to many will soon be available online. • The Centre’s share in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has come down from 75 % in the 10 th plan period to 50 % during 11 th plan. • The Second Administrative Reforms Commission has recommended repeal of the controversial Armed Forces Speceal Powers Act, 1958 stating that its scrapping would remove the feeling of alienation among the people of the North Eastern States. • Russia bans imports of rice, groundnut & sesame seeds from India after finding them infected with pests • Palestinitan President Mahmoud Abbas swore in an emergency cabinet & outlawed the militia forces of Islamic Hamas movement deepening the violent rupture of Palestinian society. • Cyclone Gonu hits Oman killing 28. • Israel launched a new spy satellite Ofek 7 in a move that would boost surveillance over states like Syria. • Red Fort of Delhi added to the World Heritage List by UN. • Pratibha Patil, serving as only woman governor of Rajasthan becomes first women president • Brazilian President Lula Da Silva visited India & signed “India-Brazil Red Fort Declaration” to boost bilateral trade to 10 billion $ by 2010. • The 169 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) passed a resolution not to undo a 14 year ban on Tiger Trade. • Sister Alphonsoa, a Christian nun who died 59 yrs ago is now all set to become the first Indian to be elevated to sainthood. • The US ensured that the Hyde Act will not have any impact whatsoever on the Nuclear Deal. • Two days conference of MPs from SAARC countries was organized by South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) in Shimla. • India plans to construct a bridge over River Umngot at Dawki, the last Indian post in Meghalya to boost links with Bangladesh. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 50 • Under the amended Juvenile Justice Act government has given the Juvenile Justice Board authority to grant permission to offenders below the age of 18 to stay with their families or in foster care, unless the police have branded them hardened criminals. • To resolve a running feud between India & Pakistan over the construction of a power project on the Neelam river in J&K, Pakistan for the first time allowed Indian experts to visit the Neelam valley in PoK. Till now India has been relying only on the satellite data to defend the design of 330 MW Kishanganga hydro electric project coming up on Neelam (Kishanganga) river. • India to build leather parks at Chennai, Kolkata, Agra, Kanpur & Tada (Andhra Pradesh). • The commission headed by K. Veerappa Moily submitted its fifth report to PM suggesting an amendment to the unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act to enable deployment of security forces in the Northeast. • USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to dock at Chennai. • Telgi gets 13 years of rigorous imprisonment & 100 crore fine – the highest fine so far. • The centre has enhanced the threshold limit from Rs. 5000 to Rs 10,000 for exemption from tax deducted at source on the interest earned on any deposit under the Seniors Citizen Saving Scheme. • Thirty manuscripts of the Rig Veda, in the archives of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune have been added to a UNESCO listing of the most important documents from around the world. • The South Asian University would be housed in Delhi & Delhi govt would give more than 200 acres of land for it. IGNOU opens its MBA program in Ethiopia. • Supreme Court gave green signal to the 2300 crore Omkareswar Hydel Power Project. It is a JV between MP & National Hydro Power Corporation. • Srinagar named as endangered site by the New York based World Monuments Fund (WMF). • Private players to run air conditioned local train in Mumbai. • In quick succession, the country’s GDP & BSE’s market capitalization crossed the 1 trillion $ mark in May. The country’s mutual fund industry crossed the 100 billion $ mark. Much of this has happened due to rising rupee & weakening dollar. • Ruia’s corporate house Essar Group managed to acquire Canadian Steel Major Algoma for 1.74 billion $ • Tata Tea buys everest mineral. ESPN buys cricinfo from wisden. • The largest contributor to the Forex Reserves of India in the Financial year 2006-07 is External Commercial Borrowing (ECBs) followed by Foreign Investments. • Pluto was declassified as a planet & was demoted to dwarf planet due to discovery of a similar dwarf planet named Eris which is larger than Pluto. Ceres, the largest asteroid is also a dwarf planet. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 51 • Dollar is going to be traded on Indian Stock Exchanges. The first step has already been taken to bring in Currency Futures. • Amul becomes the first billion dollar cooperative in India with 1 billion $ in revenues. • Shipping corporation of India will invest about 4 billion $ in the next five years to acquire 72 vessels. • Space Shuttle Atlantis landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base, California bringing seven astronauts including Sunita Williams back. The space shuttle had blasted from Kennedy Space Centre earlier. Sunita William made the record of staying 6 months in space. • A team of scientists from UK have coaxed ordinary mouse skin cells to become embryonic stem cells. • An Australian scramjet engine touched mach 10. • The sixth Asia Security Conference was organized in Singapore. • September 2007 • North Korea had pledged to shut the reactor of Yongbyon Nuclear complex & to dismantle the atomic programmes in return for 1 million tonnes of oil & political concessions. • The NWFP government reached an agreement with North Waziristan tribals of Swat District (home to pro-Taliban Militants group called the Tehreek Nifaz-I-Shariat-I-Mohammad) to end violence. • Russia suspends CFE treaty. The treaty was adopted in 1990 to limit the number of tanks, heavy artillery & combat aircraft deployed & store between the Atlantic & Russia’s Ural Mountains. • Earthquake slams Japan fearing nuclear leaks at Kashiwazaki city – world’s largest nuclear plant. • 8 th World Hindi Conference was inaugurated by Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma at New York. The first conference was held at Nagpur. • US & Russia at loggerheads over Bush’s plan to station 10 missile silos containing interceptor missiles in Poland & a tracking system in Czech Republic. • The seventh potter book titled “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows” released • Sri Lanka launched a 24 hour Buddhist channel titled “The Buddhist”. • Iran has allowed UN IAEA to visit its nuclear facility in Arak. • Britain bans smoking in public place. England was the last part of the UK to ban smoking. • Burj Dubai currently standing at 512 metres is to beat Taipei towers as world’s tallest building. • 200 killed in Brazilian plane crash when the plane of Tam Airlines skidded off a runway at crashed into the airlines won building. • India signs the “Trans-Asian Railway Network” sponsored by UN. The network would cover 80,900 Km of railway line in 28 countries including 22,600 in South Asia, Iran & Turkey. The proposed rail Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 52 route enters India at Tamu, bordering Myanmar before going to Bangladesh at Gede. On the western side the route is proposed to enter Pakistan at Attari. • Based on the Cebu Declaration on Energy security in East Asia adopted at the Second East Asia Summit (EAS) India & Japan agreed to cooperate in development of renewable resources. • TADA special court sentenced Yakub Memon, brother of prime accused Tiger Memon to death & six years RI for Sanjay Dutt. • African Unions chairperson Alpa Oumar Konar backs India for UNSC permanent seat. • The term of the Liberhan panel looking into the events which lead to the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in 1992 has been extended by two months. • India Bhutan sign agreement to build the largest ever hydel project in the Himalayan Kingdom. The 1095 MW Punatsanghu-I plant is expected to be completed in 8 yrs. • The New Mining Policy rejected the demand for capping iron ore export. • Union Health & Family Welfare Mnister Anbumani Ramadoss launched the third phase of National Aids Control Programme (NACP-III). • A bill was passed providing 4 % reservation for socially & educationally backward Muslims. • Cherrapunjee will now be known as Sohra which was its name before Britishers came. • The subcontinents longest cave – Krem Liat Prah is in Meghalaya that boasts of 1100 plus caves. • Tamil Nadu will be the first state in India to offer State Govt owned cable television service to viewers. • Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Kamal Nath launched e-filing of patents. • The SEBI has directed all stock exchanges to replace the existing claused 41 of the equity listing agreement with a revised one. • Navratnas can now invest in MFs with a 30 % cap on equity exposure. • The fortune 500 list has the following 6 companies – IOC (135), RIL (269), BPCL (325), HPCL (336), ONGC (369) & SBI (495). US tops the list with 162 companies followed by Japan (67) & France (38). • Genpact ranked no 1 ITES-BPO company by Nasscom survey. • India received a record 3.8 billion $ loan by world bank – the largest ever to any single country so far. • India cleared 2500 crores for the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project which as US, EU, China, Russia, Japan & S. Korea as partners. • RIL, Reliance Communication, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, Infosys, TCS & ICICI have Rs One Trillion (one lakh crore) in Market valuation. • 21 SEZ cleared that includes multi product Navi Mumbai SEZ promoted by Mukesh Ambani. Incentives to SEZs include • Duty free import/domestic procurement of goods Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 53 • 100 % income tax exemption on export income of SEZ units for first five years, 50 % for next five years & 50 % on ploughed back export profit for next five years. • Exemption from MAT (minimum alternate tax) • ECB upto 500 million $ without any maturity restriction through recognized banking channels • Exemption from Service Tax. • Exemption from Central Sales Tax (CST). • Exemption from state sales tax & other levies as extended by respective state government. • Azim Premji acquired SE Asia’s largest personal care firm Unza Holdings based in Singapore for 246 million $. • Blackstone has acquired US based Hilton Hotels Corp for 26 billion $. • Car rental service provider Hertz has opened its flagship outlet in Delhi. • An international team of Scientists led by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution began a 40 day expedition of Gakkel ridge under Arctic ice. • Mammoth fossil found in Siberia. • A new moon of Saturn has been discovered bringing the total upto 60. Most of the moons have been discovered by NASA’s Cassini probe. • October 2007 • Russia resumes global bomber patrols in retaliation to relocation of NATO forces closer to Russia’s border & US plans to deploy anti ballistic missile defenses in Eastern Europe. • Ehud Olmert became the first Israeli prime minister to visit a Palestinian town since the outbreak of fighting seven years ago. He met with Mahmoud Abbas. • Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit was held at Kyrgyzstan. The six countries armed forces have been taking part in the Peace Mission 2007 exercise in Russia’s south Urals. • Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Kabul. • Sonia Gandhi visited South Africa & met Nelson Mandela & president Thabo Mbeki. • Pretoria renamed as Tshwane. • Thailand passed new constitution proposed by the military. It would prevent the emergence of a strong elected prime minister by reducing the number of MPs to call a veto of no confidence. • Russia, Canada, US & Greenland in race for Arctic minerals. • US approves 460 billion $ defense budget. • Moscow has frozen the Chinese request for re-export of RD-93 engines used to power JF-17 fighter to Pakistan. Two JF-17s handed over to Pakistan have been returned to Beijing. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 54 • Wagah gates open to trucks to boost bilateral trade. • Hurricane Dean hits Mexico. Peru Earthquake of 7.9 magnitude claims 500 lives. • Nepal adopts new national anthem written by a young poet, Byakul Maila. • Brazil govt would pay for sex change operations after a federal court ruled the procedure was a constitutional right. • Iran has resolved UN questions about Nuclear enrichment & IAEA considers the matter closed. • Former Diplomat Mohammad Hamid Ansari sworn in as 13 th Vice President of India. • Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe visits India. The Japanese PM pitched his concept of the Arc of Freedom & Prosperity. • India – Bangladesh at issue over Teesta river. Bangladesh had constructed Dalia barrage & West Bengal had constructed Gajal-Doba reservoir leading to argument. • Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty alleviation granted its first installment to Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal mission by giving 1850 crores. • WHO granst a new two year 2.15 billion $ plan to prevent TB in India. • Wildlife Crime Control Bureau setup to check the dwindling population of tigers. • Temple dedicated to goddess Mahalakshmi & designed by Sri Narayani Amma of Vellore built with gold plating. • Five Indians set off to the icy Arctic on the country’s first scientific expedition to the region. • The 104 year old Shimla toy train will be India’s official entry for inscription as World Heritage site. • PM approved funding of the Bogibeel rail cum road bridge & the Rangia-Murkongselek guage conversion projects for NE states at a cost of 2000 crore. • Cabinet clears setting up of a Uranium mine & processing center at Tummalapalle in Cudapah district of Andhra Pradesh. • The ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial corridor (DMIC) project was cleared after Cabinet approved the 1483 KM project that would include six mega investment projects of 200 sq kms each. The DMIC would cost 100 billion $ in just the first phase. Japan is collaborating in the construction of DMIC. • India’s first mobile court started by Haryana Govt. • The National Consumer Mission has brought the Lawyer under the ambit of Consumer Protection Act like doctors & engineers. • Former Union Coal Minister & JMM leader from Jharkhand, Shibu Soren acquitted by Delhi HC of his Death sentence due to lack of evidence. • Explosions rock Hyderabead. • Assam’s golden silk ‘Muga” has now secured the much needed Geographical Indication. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 55 • Drinking age down from 25 to 21 in Delhi. • Atta-Daal policy which provides Wheat & Pulses at highly subsidized rates launched in Punjab & UP. • Central Institute of Classical Tamil launched in Chennai. • MCD of Delhi has decided to employ only women teachers in the girl’s school. • Karnataka government launched “Bhagyalakshmi” scheme to provide Rs. 10,000 insurance cover to each girl child covering 1.15 lakh children. • India & Japan agree to a bilateral currency swap to help both countries manage their currency from attacks of speculators. • Tata group has emerged as the largest tax payer contributing 10.3 % to total corporate tax kitty amounting to Rs. 15000 crore approx. • RBI has allowed Indian residents to open maintain & hold foreign currency accounts in banks outside the country & transfer upto 1 lakh dollars a year in them without its prior approval. It is part of RBI’s efforts to flush out excess foreign capital. • India & Switzerland sign MoU on safeguarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Earlier India had signed similar deal with Japan. • Taurian Resources Pvt Limited won a contract for Uranium Exploration & mining anywhere in the world. • Media Tycoon, Rupert Murdoch finally won control of Dow Jones & Co, publisher of business newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” for 5 billion $. • MTNL JV company United Telecom Limited (UTL) has been permitted by Nepal Govt to start Voice over Internet Protocol services there. • The 15 th Century Maitrey’s temple of Ladakh won the Award of Excellence at the 2007 UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award beating 25 other entries. • A US probe named Phoenix Mars Lander was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a Delta II rocket. • An indigenous cryogenic stage developed by ISRO has successfully tested on the ground for a long duration of eight minutes at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Center (LPSC) at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. Till now India is using GSLVs from Russia. • US space shuttle Endeavour returned to its Florida home port touching safely at the Kennedy Space Center following a 13 days mission to the International Space Station. • Indian Scientists have hit upon “High Concentration” Uranium in Ladakh. • FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) cleared a proposal by ICICI bank to divest 24 % stake in Bank’s financial services. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 56 • November 2007 • More than 100,000 people flooded the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon joining the Buddhist monks in the strongest show of dissent against military Junta. • Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada & US which control a coastline in the Arctic are in race to procure rights to the Arctic as per 1982 Law of the Sea. • US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte alongwith other US officials arrived in Islamabad for talks with Pervez Musharraf, two days after the government blocked former PM Nawaz Sharif’s return from exile. • Russia tested the father of all bombs, a conventional air delivered vacuum bomb. • Sri Lanka amends Citizenship Act. • September 15 has been picked up by UN as the International day of Democracy. • UN cuts down the global aids count from 39.5 million to 33.2 million. • Nepal adopts Nepal Sambat as new national calendar. • Philippine President Gloria Arroyo granted pardon to convicted former President Joseph Estrada who was sentenced to Life for Plunder. • Bangladesh delinks Judiciary from Executive. From now onwards all magistrates at subordinate courts will exercise their judicial functions under the authority of the supreme court. • Negotiators from 158 countries at UN Climate Conferece at Bali reached basic agreement that industrialized countries should strive to cut emissionsby 25 to 40 percent of their 1990 levels by 2020. • US recently delivered two F-16B state of art fighter jets to Pakistan & announced plans to donate another two dozen. • The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had quit the five month old coalition govt after PM Girija Prasad Koirala refused to bow to their demands. • Putin dissolved the Russian Government. He also named Viktor Zubkov, head of financial market watchdog as next PM. • Israel branded Gaza as a “hostile entity” clearing the way for shutting off basic supplies to the Hamas run territory in response to rocket attacks. • Japanese PM Shinzo Abe who was the youngest PM of Japan post World War II resigned. • An amendment has been made to French immigration laws under which visa seekers will undergo DNA testing in order to prove their blood ties to a resident in France. DNA testing of Visa applicants is currently practiced in 11 European countries. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 57 • The Indian Parliament passed the Competition Amendment Bill 2007 which made mergers & acquisitions to be mandatorily notified. • The Sethusamudaram project was first of all mooted by Commander AD Taylor in 1860. The Union Govt in 1955 appointed a committee headed by A Ramaswamy Mudaliar, which found the project feasible. • The Ministry of Women & Child Development is implementing a scheme named Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) using the infrastructure of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). • Union Govt has decided to ease overseas visit norms for Emigration Check Required (ECR). • India & Pakistan have agreed to setup a technical level mechanism to take forward their talks on the Tulbul Navigation Project in the Baramullah district of J&K. The Tulbul Navigation Project was started in India in 1984 & was halted in 1986 after Pakistan raised objections. • India-Chile signed Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) after the visit of Chilean President. • Britain, India & Algeria will be among the first countries to face scrutiny by the 47 member UN Human Rights Council which has been created to replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. • The military backed interim government of Bangladesh arrested Khaleda Zia of Banladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) & her son. Earlier the government had arrested chief of Awami league, Sheikh Hasina. • According to WHO the deadly Hemorrhagic Ebola Virus has resurfaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo killing 160. • Taiwan has been refused UN membership a record 15 th time as UN considers it to be a part of People’s Republic of China. • Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar visited Vienna to meet IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei regarding the 123 deal. • India & Mexico signed DTAA (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement) & Extradition Treaty during Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa’s visit to India. • External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited South Korea for a meeting of the India-Republic of Korea Joint Commission. • The Cabinet approved the proposal to expand the mid-day meal scheme to the upper primary levels in schools. Under this 100 gm of wheat & rice is supplied to every child. • Incredibe India@60 a four day celebration saluting the 60 th anniversary of Independence of the world’s largest democracy was kicked off in New York. • The Union Cabinet decided to expand the scope of the National Old Age Pension Scheme by including all Senior Citizens above 65 years of age & living below poverty line. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 58 • India has slipped further six notches to 48 over last year in a global ranking of competitiveness spread across 131 countries as per the report by World Economic Forum. India is ranked ahead of Russia & Brazil but lags behind China. • India leads the world in CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) projects. • In the biggest ever ‘Save Tiger’ package the government has agreed to relocate over 40,000 families at a whopping 4874 crore budget. • German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the “100 most powerful women” list of Forbes for second year in a row. Pepsi Chairman Indra Nooyi is ranked 5 th & Sonia Gandhi is ranked 6 th . • Sumgayit city of Azerbaijan is the world’s most polluted city. Sukina & Vapi of India feature in top 10. • The government has finalized a model contract that will be binding for the Indian Worker & their employers • According to the Economic Freedom of the World Report 2007, India’s overall ranking on the global economic freedom index improved to 69. • The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare is working on a national blood law being called as “the National Blood Transfusion Services Act” of 2007. • Bills to bring unorganized sector workers under the social security net was introduced in Rajya Sabha. • The 58 th session of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) was held at Hyderabad. • Azadi Express, the new mobile exhibition train, celebrating the 150 th year of the first war of Independence & the centenary celebratioins of Shaheed Bhagat Singh made out its maiden ride from Safdarjung Railway Station. • As per Transparency International, India is ranked 72 nd on Corruption Perception Index (CPI). According to yet another survey 77 % of the respondents believe that Judiciary in India is corrupt. • Power Finance Corporation has bagged the prestigious “Golden Peacock” Award for excellence in corporate governance. • India & Thailand have agreed to sign FTA. • Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology (IIST) started functioning at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram. • Punjab was judged as No 1 state at the fifth “India Today States of States Conclave”. • Mayawati sacked 10,500 policemen alleging irregularities in their recruitment during the Mulayam Singh regime. In addition around 50 officers from IG rank to DSP level have been suspended. • CM Mayawati announced a Rs. 40,000 crore Ganga Expressway from Noida to Ballia in East. The Cabinet gave approval to the 1000 km project that is likely to get completed in 3 years. • Gujarat to have a new district named Vyara which is a tribal dominated district. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 59 • Tamil Nadu government has announced the creation of a separate quota (3.5 % each) for Muslims & Christians in educational institutions & government jobs through an ordinance. Later it got assembly’s approval too. • Karnataka government bans use of mobile phones by school children aged below 16. • Borse Dubai acquired a 20 % stake in Nasdaq making it the single largest owner of the US exchange. • Mallya buys Spyker F1 team for 123 million $ (500 crore). • BSNL gives contract to Ericsson for 13 million lines. • SBI Life becomes first life insurer in India to receive AAA rating from CRISIL. • India’s external debt stood at 155 billion $ as on March 31, 2007. • RBI aiming to free up the rupee towards full convertability doubled the overseas investment limit for individuals to 200,000 $ (80 lakhs). • Japan to launch its Lunar Probe – SELENE (Selenological & Engineering explorer) spacecraft. • India’s latest communication satellite – INSAT 4CR was successfully launched through the GSLV-FO4 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sri Harikota. Weighing 2130 Kg INSAT 4CR is the heaviest payload being placed in orbit by an Indian Launcher. It carries 12 high power Ku-band transponders designed to provide DTH television services, Video Picture Transmission & Digital Satellite News. It was built to replace an identical INSAT-4CR that was lost due to failure of GSLV-F02 in 2006. • Fracto Fusus Misrai named after Indian Geologist S.B. Misra is believed to 565 million years old & is the oldest record of multicellular life on earth. • Japan launched its first lunar probe nicknamed Kaguya to explore the moon. • NASA has announced an astronomy project, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array or NuSTAR designed to detect black holes. • The Dawn spacecraft of US is to probe the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter. • The Asia Pacific Economic Forum in its meeting at Sydney has decided against expanding its membership till 2010 – thereby stopping India to become its member. . US, China, Japan, Russia & Australia are among the 21 APEC countries. • Seven Possible Caves discovered by NASA’s Mars Odyssey named Seven Sisters. • Osteoarthritis beats Diabetes, Hypertension or cancer to claim no 1 spot among ailments in the country. • Adipose Gene found to play significant role in fat metabolism. • The world’s first floating nuclear plant will be commissioned in 2011 in Russia’s arctic. • India won the prestigious Montreal Protocol Implementers Award signifying its emergence as a global leader in promoting Ozone. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 60 • MRTPC has initiated an investigation against BCCI for allegedly threatening players with a life term ban if they joined Subhash Chandra promoted Indian Cricket League (ICL) & also refusing to share infrastructure with ICC. • December 2007 • Chinese president Hu Hintao was re-elected as the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China. • The United Nations officially launched “International Year of the Potato 2008”. • In a historic future setting accord, the two Koreas on October 4, agreed to solve the issue of unification on their own initiative. North Korea’s Kim Jong II & S Korean Roh Moo Hyun signed a joint declaration calling for peace treaty. • Myanmar allows UN inspector, Ibrahim Gambari to look into the recent pro-democracy protests & action taken by the government against the demonstrators. • Russian President Vladmir Putin arrived in Tehran to hold talks on Iran’s Nuclear Program. • Pakistan CJ orders return of Nawaz Sharif to Pak. • UN bid to set up a human rights monitoring office in Sri Lanka has failed following the Sri Lankan government’s resolute opposition to it. • Vietnam gets a non permanent seat in UN’s Security Council for two years. • Turkey’s Parliament approved the motion allowing troops to cross into Northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish rebels hiding there brushing aside appeals from the US & Baghdad government. • Pakistan ranked as the world’s largest arms buyer in 2006 well ahead of India. • UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi visited China. • The Union Cabinet approved a national policy on Rehabilitation & Resettlement, 2007 & amendments to the Land Acquisition Act 1894 to strike a balance between the need for land for development activities & protecting the interests of farmer, landowners etc esp in cases of SEZs. • The Government launched a “National Investment Fund” made up of money from sale of equity in state run companies to finance social sector schemes & revive sick PSUs. • The Union Govt announced a record hike of Rs. 250 per quintal on the MSP for wheat. With this MSP for wheat would go up from Rs. 750 to Rs. 1000. • India & Philippines signed nine bilateral agreement including a joint declaration for cooperation to combat International Terrorism. Philippines president is Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. • The Centre launched “Aam Admi Bima Yojna” for families living below poverty line. • PM, Manmohan singh visited Nigeria. Nigeria is India’s largest trading partner in Africa. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 61 • SC relaxes ban on construction in Forest Areas. • Govt revised pictorial health warning for smoking & smokeless forms of Tobacco. • India hosted the second ministerial meetings of six Asia-Pacific nations in New Delhi. The main focus was climate change. • India unveiled its Tsunami Early Warning System which took shape at the Indian National Center for Ocean Informatics Center , Hyderabad. • The Govt has decided to reserve 30 % of all school scholarships for girls belonging to the minority community, scheduled castes & STs. • Nine years after deadly attacks aimed at assassinating BJP leader LK Adwani left 58 people dead, a special court ordered 31 people including the terror mastermind S.A. Basha & his son Siddique Ali of the Al Umma Group to serve life terms. • India is now home to world’s largest number of blinds a whopping 15 million out of total global blind population of 37 million. • President rule in Karnataka. A day earlier Karnataka’s CM HD Kumaraswamy had submitted resignation on being reduced to minority after BJP withdrew its support. • Union Cabinet decided to create a self governing Gorkha Hill Council under Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. • Jharkhand Govt declares Urdu as 2 nd language. • Tamil Nadu Govt bans use of mobile phones in schools. • The Mayawati government finally agreed to implement VAT in UP. With this UP becomes the last state to go in for VAT. This is the last of the three year grace period given by the centre to the states for implementing VAT. • UNCTAD in its World Investment Report has ranked India on the second spot after China as the most attractive location ahead of US, Russia & Brazil. • According to World Bank, India has displaced China & Mexico to become the top remittance receiving country in the world with 25.7 billion $ in remittances. Mexico & China followed. • A European Consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) clinched a record 100 billion $ takeover of ABN Amro. Genpact buys Citi Group call centers in India for 700 million $. BBC buys Lonely Planet. • Indias first Biodiesel plant starts operation at Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. • Government makes it mandatory for gold to be embossed with Bureau of Indian Standards hallmark. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 62 • Fourth CISM Military World Games were held in Hyderabad. Li Yang of China set a world record in the 50 meters women’s back stroke. Russia stood first & India at a distant 20 th rank. Fifth World Military Games will be held at Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. • US Space shuttle discovery blasted off soaring above Florida Marshlands towards a rendezvous in two days to the International Space Station. Pamela Melroy was its commander. • China launched its first moon orbiter christened “Chang’e One”. • Soyuz lands safely after the Russian rocket returned from the International Space Station. • A NASA spacecraft “New Horizon” while passing by Jupiter enroute to dwarf planet, Pluto observed lightning strikes at Jupiter’s pole. • NASA extended the mission of Mars probes “Spirit & Opportunity” the two robots with mission to explore the red planet. • Smallest Indian Frog Found, considered to be the smallest known land vertebrate in India from Kurichiyarmala in Kerala’s Wayanand district. Western Ghats is considered one of the 18 biodiversity hotspots of the world • The world’s first commercial wave farm is to open at Portugal. • India won the coveted Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) award for its Incredible India campaign. • The capital of Serbia is Belgrade & of Montenegro is Podgorica. Based on the results of the referendum held on May 21, 2006, Montenegro declared independence on June 3, 2006 making it the newest fully recognized country in the world. On June 28, 2006, it became the 192nd member state of the United Nations, and on May 11, 2007, the 47th member state of the Council of Europe. January 2008 • Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits Iran for the fourth time. • UN Envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Myanmar’s detained opposition leader Aung San Syu Kyi. • Labour Party led by Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australia defeating PM John Howard • French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits China & closes deal for two nuclear reactors & 160 passenger jets. • Pope Benedict meets Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. • Malaysian’s protest against Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the current PM by alleging that he has elected in an unfair election. • Cyclone “Sidr” hits Bangladesh. • Iran & Pakistan finalize the Gas Deal without India. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 63 • China sends largest Antarctic expedition. Australia is the biggest per capita polluter. China & US establish military hot line. In Bangladesh the Judiciary separates from executive. • Russia suspends the arms treaty which limits the deployment of armoured vehicles across Europe. • The UN Climate Change Secretariat located in Bonn stated that total emission remains same despite all efforts. • UN seeks end to death penalty by passing a non binding resolution. • Khmer Rogue was the political party of Cambodia which committed genocide during its reign. • British HC overturned the discriminatory visa rule which made visa for Indian doctors tougher. • Pakistan elected to Economic & Social Council of the UN for 2008-10. • PM visits Russia. India & Iceland signed a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. The DTAA provides for taxation of dividend, interest, royalties & fees for technical services. • India signed an agreement with Qatar to protect the interest of expatriate domestic workers in Gulf countries. • India ranked 128 out of 177 countries in 2007 in the latest human development index released by the UNDP. In 2006 it was ranked 126. • India’s second Uranium Plant after Jaduguda in Jharkhand is being setup at Thummalapalle in Pulivendula constituency in Andhra Pradesh. The Kadapa basin in Andhra Pradesh is a treasure trove with large deposits of Uranium. • 4 th International Conference on Federalism organized by the Inter-State Council Secretariat of the Home Ministry held. • 7 th World Toilet Summit held in Delhi where a declaration on sanitation was adopted. • Nearly 1,10,000 Indians who were working illegally in the UAE have availed themselves of the three month amnesty offered by the government. Of them 70,000 have left the country & the others have found new jobs or reworked their employment status. • SC ruled that an undertrial prisoner might not be able to vote but being lodged in a jail was no disqualification for him to contest polls. • The government has decided to move ahead with floodlighting all along the Indo-Bangladesh border fence. • Karnataka assembly was dissolved & put under President’s rule after the then CM B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned. • Sikkim to get its first airport at Pakyong. Presently the nearest airport to Sikkim is located 124 Kms away at Bagdogra in West Bengal. • Justice Jasraj Chopra appointed to look into the demand of providing ST status to Gujjars in Rajasthan. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 64 • 13 people killed in 3 simultaneous blasts in Lucknow, Varanasi & Faizabad in U.P. • NTPC to setup 1320 MW thermal power plant in Meja Tehsil of Allahabad district in U.P. • Russia & India signed a pact for sending an unmanned laboratory to the moon in 2011-12. India will build a launch vehicle & a lunar orbiter while Russia would contribute a landing module & a moon rover packed with instruments. • ISRO has successfully tested the indigenously built Cryogenic engine that would be employed in the upper stage of GSLV. The test was conducted at Liquid Propulsion Test Facility at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. • China’s first lunar probe Chang’e I completed its 20 lakh Km journey to the moon successfully. • Discovery & its crew returned to earth after a 15 day space station build & repair mssion. • China launched a remote sensing satellite “Yaogan III”. • Empowered group of State Finance Ministers on VAT has accepted the report of the Joint Working group which favours giving both the Centre & the State the power to levy the Goods & Services Tax (GST) when it is implemented from 2010. • UNCTAD has ranked India 86 th among 123 countries • Indira Nooyi appointed on the board of directors of US-India Business Council. • Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), the leading defence public sector undertaking has been conferred with Navratna Status. • The Gautam Thapar led group which includes companies like BILT, Crompton Greaves has been renamed as Avantha Group. • The 18 th Stockholm International Film festival awarded the best film prize to “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 days”. • Pratibha Patil presented the International Council of Jurists Award, to the chief justice of England & Wales, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers for his lifetime contribution to justice. • “Gandhi My Father” has won the best screenplay category award at the inaugural Asia-Pacific Screen Awards. • More than 500 delegates are to participate at the India International Tea Convention 2007 held at Guwahati in Assam. • Black Widow is the anti talk faction of the Dima Halam Daogah in Assam’s North Cachar Hills District. Seven CRPF personnel were killed by it. • A lifetime fuel supply for two light water reactors of 1000 MW each of which are under construction at Koodankulam is covered through a sovereign guarantee of the Russian federation. • Cabinet approves Krishna Drinking Water Supply in Hyderabad. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 65 • Cabine gave its approval to Rs. 8000 crore programme for river management in flood affected areas • India signs MoU with Costa Rica to promote trade. • NSDL appointed as Central Recordkeeping Agency (CRA) for the new pension scheme. • SEBI mulls starting currency futures. • American astronomers discover the biggest Black Hole in the constellation Cassiopeia. • NASA scientists spot earth like planet near a star known as Cancri 55. • Norway to have world’s first Osmotic Power Plant. • Tata Group Scion Ratan Tata was recently awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy (Philanthropy Nobel) in recognition of longstanding commitment of Tata Family to philanthropic causes. • State Run Commodity Trading firm MMTC (Metals & Minerals Trading Corporation) has become India’s most valued public sector firm, toppling ONGC. ONGC has become the most valued firm on BSE after Reliance Industries & MMTC. • London based Inmarsat has signed a contract with industrialists to construct the Alphasat I-XL mission. The six tonne satellite is to deliver high bandwidth services such as mobile internet to Europe, Middle East, Asia & Africa. • The US Futures Exchange (USFE) recently announced that it would exclusively license BSE benchmark Sensex for US dollar denominated futures strading. • Induced Pluripotent Stemcells (iPS) have been developed by Japanese scientists which is an alternative to cloning & bypasses the ethical issue involved in it. • EKA, a supercomputer developed by Tata Group’s Pune based Computational Research Laboratories is the 4 th fastest in the world capable of performing 118 Trillion Floating Operations per second (Teraflops). • February 2008 • Benazir Bhutto, chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, was killed in a gunfire attack cum suicide bombing minutes after she finished addressing an election rally at Rawalpinidi, Pakistan. She was laid to rest to her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at the family tomb in Garhi Khuda Baksh in Nudero, her ancestral home in Larkana district of Sindh. PPP named her son Bilawal to head the party but leaving the real power to her husband Asif Ali Zardari. Nawaz Sharif heads Pakistan Muslim League & Imran Khan heads “Tehreek E Insaf”. • Pervez Musharraf lifted Emergency & restored the constitution. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 66 • UN Climate Change Conference 2007 held at Bali & “Island of the Gods”, Indonesia. The Bali meeting approved a “roadmap” for two year talks to adopt a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2009, widening it to the US & developing nations such as China & India. The Kyoto protocol which requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 % below 1990 levels is to end in 2012. • Russian President Vladmir Putin has backed the First Deputy PM Dmitry Medvedev to succeed him at Presidential Elections scheduled in March 2008. • Russia delivered its first delivery of enriched Uranium fuel to Iran in advance of the startup of the controversial Russian-built Bushehr atomic power station. • Hugo Chavez looses in the referendum which was to scrap term limits on President Hugo Chavez’s rule, boosted his power to expropriate private property. • The EU Nations sign “The Treaty of Lisbon” which replaces a planned E.U. constitution. Leaders of the 27 Nation European Nation signed a landmark treaty to revitalize decision making after years of wrangling on how much power they are willing to hand over. As per the European Union Reform Treaty, the number of votes allocated to each member would be according to population size. The President serves 2.5 year term. It replaces system where states take turns to hold post for six month. • United Russia, the party supported by Vladmir Putin won landslide victory in the Parliamentary elections. It secured 64 % seats in the 450 seat State Duma. • South Korea hit by worst oil spill. • New Jersey has become the first US State in four decades to abolish the death penalty. • The two Koreas started their first regular train service since the 1950-53 war. • Brigadier General Francois al-Hajj, tipped to be the next army chief of Lebanon assassinated. • Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) launced a one million signature campaign for the release fo five of its detained leaders & for the “equal rights” of the ethnic Indian minority in Malaysia. • Russia, Kazakhstan & Turkmenistan have signed a landmark deal to build a gas pipeline cementing Moscow’s control over Central Asia Energy resources. • Russia suspended its obligation under the CFE (conventional forces in Europe) treaty after failing to reach any agreement with US on missile defence in Europe. • Four & a half years after the Anglo American Invasion, Iraqi authorities have taken control of Basra province from British Troops. • Norway has drawn up plans to build the 1700 metre, the world’s first shipping tunnel. The tunnel is being made • Year 2008 will be celebrated as “The Year of Russia” in India. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 67 • Akshardam temple makes it to Guinness Book of world record. Pramukh Swami Maharaj is its chief. • French Minister of Foreign & European Affairs Bernard Kouchner arrived in New Delhi to prepare ground for Sarkozy’s visit. • National Development Council (NDC), the country’s highest policy making body endorsed the Eleventh Plan Document which envisages an average 9 % GDP during the first four year & 10 % during the terminal year. The incidence of poverty is to be reduced by 10 percentage points by generating seven crore new jobs. Overall Investment would be Rs. 36 Lakh Crore. NDC fixed the Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) 115 % higher at Rs. 10 lakh crore, to help the states in ushering in an inclusive growth. • SEBI approved introduction of new derivative products based on the interim recommendations made by the SEBI committee on Derivatives headed by Prof M. Rammohan Rao. • BSE announces launch of Sensex Mini Derivative Contracts from January 1, 2008. The announcement came in immediately after SEBI allowed tradin gin mini contracts on both sensex & nifty with a minimum contract size of Rs. 1 Lakh. • India’s Foreign Exchange Reserve stood at 272 billion $ as on Dec 21, 2007. • Cambodian PM Hun Sen arrived in New Delhi. • India & Mauritius signed a MoU for the establishment of the Insitute of Diplomacy & Foreign Trade in the island nation. • The Union Cabinet approved the Gram Nyayalya Bill, 2007 with certain amendments. The legislation involves appointment of about 6,000 trained first class judicial magistrates all over the country. Gram Nyayalyas would be setup in every panchayat of the country except J&K, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh & Sikkim. • PM clears proposal to recruit 35 thousand personnel under the Indian Reserve Battalion for deployment in naxal affected states. • The Forest Act to give land rights to tribals & forest dwellers is applicable from January 1, 2008. • 15 prominent public sector companies sign the “Transparency Pact” of Transparency International to reduce corruption. • The Senior Citizens Bill 2007 has been passed under which people who abandon their parents or neglect their basic needs will have to face 3 months of imprisonment & a penalty of upto Rs. 5000. It also talks about setting up an appropriate mechanism to provide need based maintenance to parents & senior citizens once they attain the age of 60. • Coal India increases the package for deceased worker to 5.8 Lakhs against a mere 80,000 at present. • The first India-Russia-China trilateral business conference was held at Delhi to strengthen economic cooperation & iron out the irregularities in trade among the 3 countries. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 68 • India & Hong Kong have signed a new bilateral air services agreement. • President Pratibha Patil conferred the honorary rank of General of the Indian Army on the General Rookmangud Katwal Prajatantra Bhaskar Dusro, Chief of Nepalese Army. • Narora I unit recommissioned after it was shut down two years ago for safety upgrade & replacement of major components. • For the first time Delhi hosted the 12 th International Conference of Natioanl Trusts attened by 150 members from 53 countries. • H5N1 virus strain of Bird Flu deteced again. • The three chiefs of the defence staff will be exempted from pre-embarkation security checks at all civil airports across the country. • India will chair UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for one year. • Modi sweeps Gujarat Election with 117/182 votes. • TN clears proposal to setup five thermal power projects with 10000 MW capacity. • BJP sweeps victory in Himachal defeating Virbhadra Singh led Congress. • Nagaland showcases its Annual Hornbill Festival in a village in Kohima which is a tribute to Hornbill, the most admired & revered bird of the Nagas. • Loksabha increases the compensation amounts to be paid to accident victim to Rs. 150,000 from current Rs. 50,000 by amending the Motor Vehicles Act 1994. • 229 inmates including 105 naxal activists escaped from Dantewada jail in Chhattisgarh after naxals overpowered prison guards. • The Matheran Light Railway, a 20 km narrow guage line from Neral to Mathran has already been shortlisted by UNESCO to be included in its heritage list. • SC permitted employment of women in Bars & Liquor serving restaurants in the NCT of Delhi. It also removed the ban on employment of men below 25 years of age. • New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) offering 57 oil & gas blocks to national & international players launched. • GSM operators – Airtel, Vodafone & Idea have decided to form an independent tower company – Indus Towers Limited – that will provide passive infrastructure services to all operators leading to lower operating costs. • ONGC enters the Fortune Magazine’s list of “World’s Most Admired Companies”. • CCEA cleared NHDP-VII, a Rs. 16000 crore project for construction of several ring roads, bypasses, arund major cities in the country. • Padmasree Warrior joined Cisco systems as CTO. Ealier she was CTO of Motorola. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 69 • Air India joins Star Alliance. • Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) has been renamed Tata Communications Ltd. It will now have to pay a fee for using the Tata word in its name like other Tata Group companies which is .25 % of the turnover or 5 % of the profit before tax, whichever is less. • Bank of Saurashtra & SBI to merge. • The 11 th Five Year Plan aims at inclusive growth by introducing Sarva Swasthya Abhiyan that will find solutions for strengthening the health services. It will have components of National Rural Health Mission that was launched in 2005 & the National Urban Health Mission (NURM). • A team of Indian Astronomers lead by Joydeep Bagchi of the University of Pune have discovered the longest intergalactic particle beam, stretching nearly 1.5 million light years. • 32 metre antenna is being installed at the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu near Bangalore. • The Indian Regional Navigation System (IRNSS) an indigenous system being developed by the ISRO to ensure continuous earth observation of India from the space will be ready by 2012. Under it India would be divided into 7 regions each having a dedicated satellite. At present ISRO was dependent on GPS (US) & GLONASS (Russian). • Supreme Court of Peru sentenced the former President, Alberto Fujimori to six years in Prison • “The Wall” a film from Taiwan bagged the Golden Peacock Award at the 38 th International Film Festival of India. • Vladmir Putin was named “TIME” Magazine’s Person of the Year 2007 for bringing his country roaring back to the table of world power. • SAIL wins SCOPE award for excellence in Public Sector Management. • Indian MBBS at par with US medical degree. 20 more IIITs to be setup. • New National Law School to be established in Delhi on lines of NLS, Bangalore. • UN FAO celebrated 2007 Food Day with the theme ‘Right to Food”. • Indian Television Academy Awards – NDTV (best News Current Affairs), CNN-IBN (Best English News Channel), Aaj-Tak (Best Hindi News), CNBC – TV 18 (Best Business News). • Rastrapati bhawan opened for public to see the “Change of Guard”. • British call for sons of the soil to counter the startling revelation that British Government has admitted that 80 % of the jobs created in the country since labour party came to power in 1997 had gone to foreigners. • NASA cancels launch of Atlantis Space Shuttle due to some technical error. Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 70 • The Human Rights Day was celebrated on December 10, 2007 whicch marked the beginning of the 60 th anniversary year of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. • Rainbow revolution is related to overall development of Agriculture Sector. • Carlos Ghosn, Chairman of Daimler visisted India. • Citigroup has sold its captive BPO in India to Genpact. • Gene therapy cures “Fragile X’ syndrome. Fragile X is causled by the loss of a gene called FMRP. • IBM develops Waveguide technique equivalent of a pair of railway lines – it forces an optical beam to stay within the guide. This will help in building super computer of far superiority & compactness. • Lectin produced by Sea Cucumber seen as potential treatment against Malaria. • English News Magazine “Outlook” won the coveted “Internatinal Press Institute’s India Award for Excellence in Journalism” for 2007. • The Second Administrative Reforms have recommended a survey of urban poor. The commission in its report “Local Governance” noted that poverty is a distressing feature in urban areas. The commission has recommended door to door surveys & issuing Multi-utility identity card to the Urban poors identified. The Second ARC advocated simplified property tax & abolition of octroi. It suggested increase in fine for Civic Offences. It asked the state governments to ensure that all local bodies switch over to the “Unit Area Method” or “Capital Value Method” for assessment of property tax. In its sixth report which dealt with local governance, the ARC, headed by senior congress leader & former Karnataka CM Veerappa Moily, favoured clear delineation of functions of various spheres of the government. Doubts Current Affairs – 2008 Ghanshyam Thori 71 XEROX Issue Page Topic March 2007 44 Books & Authors April 2007 3-5 Union Budget, Economic Survey & Railway Budget 43 Books & Authors May 2007 38 Books & Authors June 2007 24 Books & Authors July 2007 26 Books & Authors August 2007 28 Books & Authors September 2007 18 Books & Authors November 2007 32 Books & Authors. January 2007 42 Books & Authors. February 2007 44 Books & Authors Essential Extra Readings • Waziram Current Affairs November Magazine • Waziram Current Affairs December Magazine – Important Schemes of GoI (51-61) • New Vishals India Yearbook 2008 • Hindu Newspaper Important Events of 2007 • Wizard Current Affairs.