Events; Appointments; Etc.: July 2009

EVENTS; APPOINTMENTS; ETC.: JULY 2009

APPOINTED; ELECTED; Etc. Banwari Lal Joshi: He has been appointed as the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.

Gurbachan Jagat: Governor of Manipur, he has been given additional charge as Governor of Nagaland.

Iqbal Singh: He has been appointed as the Lt. Governor of Puducherry.

Jagannath Pahadia: He has been appointed as the Governor of Haryana.

K. Sankaranarayanan: He has been appointed as Governor of Jharkhand.

Margaret Alva: She has been appointed as the Governor of Uttarkhand.

Syed Sibtey Razi: He has been appointed as the Governor of Assam.

Nalin Surie: He has been appointed as the High Commissioner of India to United Kingdom.

S. Jaishankar: He has been appointed as India’s Ambassador to China.

Tim J. Roemer: He has been appointed as the Ambassador of USA to India.

Nirupama Rao: She has been appointed as the Foreign Secretary of India.

Pradeep Kumar: He has been appointed as the Defence Secretary of India.

Ram Sevak Sharma: He has been appointed as the first Director-General and Mission Head of the National Unique Identification Authority of India (NUIAI).

Sunil Mitra: He has been appointed as the Disinvestment Secretary of India.

V. Sridhar: He has been appointed as the Chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS General Bismilah Khan Mohammadi: Army Chief of Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton: Secretary of State of USA. Samuel Aba: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration of Papua New Guinea.

DIED Corazon Aquino: Former President of Philippines who had led millions of Filipinos in protests against Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, in a popular revolt in 1986, before taking over as the President. She was 76.

Gangubai Hangal: Doyen of Hindustani vocal music. She was 97.

Devendra Dwivedi: Governor-designate of Gujarat. He was 73.

Gayatri Devi: Erstwhile Rajmata fo Jaipur. She was 90. She was once listed among the world’s ten most beautiful women by Vogue magazine.

Leela Naidu: Hindi film actress, who mesmerised audiences with her classic beauty in films like "Anuradha" and "Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke”. She was 69.

Tyeb Mehta: Noted Indian painter. He was 84.

Walter Cronkite: America’s legendary broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman Walter Cronkite. He was 92.

EVENTS JULY

2—The Union Cabinet decides to recommend the extension of President’s Rule in Jharkhand by another six months, on the ground that no party or grouping had been able to muster the numbers required to form a government in the State.

4—In its second biggest salvo of ballistic weaponry in three years, North Korea test-fies seven missiles, sending a message of defiance to USA on its Independence Day.

12—Naxalites kill 26 police personnel in Chhattisgarh.

13—At least 16 people, many of them children, are killed as a powerful explosion rips apart a madrassa-cum-bomb-making factory in a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

15—An Iranian passenger Airliner crashes near Tehran, shortly after take-off, killing all 168 on board.

17—Bombs rip through two luxury hotels in the heart of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, killing eight persons and wounding a dozen.

22—Twenty-first century’s longest total solar eclipse occurs over India. Totality

lasts for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132.

25—History is created as Border Security Force (BSF) inducts the first batch of women constables who will be deployed in combat role on the international border.

25—The first-ever women’s batch of Border Security Force (BSF) passes out of BSF’s Subsidiary Training Centre, Kharkan, Hoshiarpur, Punjab. Deployed for the first time in combat role, the women will be required to stand guard at the international border at Atari-Wagah border near Amritsar.

26—India, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pays homage to the martyrs of the Kargil war.

26—India’s first indigenously developed nuclear submarine, INS Arihant, is launched by Mrs Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

28—J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah resigns on sex romp charges by Opposition PDP party. He is, however, persuaded to stay after Union Home Minister says the charge is false.

31-Britain withdraws its troops from Iraq, concluding six years of military involvement in the country that began with the US-led invasion which ousted Saddam Hussein.

MILESTONES

Edmond Salis: French pilot, he flew on July 26, 2009 to Dover on a ‘Bleriot XI’, a restored original of the plane in which Louis Bleriot crossed the English Channel exactly a 100 years ago.

Russell Peters: Canadian comedian of Indian parents who came from Kolkata, he has been ranked among the top 10 Earning Comedians in the world by Forbes.

Sanjukta Pangi: A Class 12 student at a government school in Karanjaguda village of Orissa’s Koraput district, she was one of the 14 participating youngsters from different countries who are in Italy for the J8 (Junior 8) summit, an offshoot of the powerful G8, the group of world’s most wealthy and industrialised countries. The 14 youngsters were selected to meet the top world leaders from G8 and G5 from among 54 youngsters aged between 14 and 17 years. At the meeting, the J8 representatives called on their respective leaders to get tough with countries who don’t meet climate change targets and teachers whose standards slip.