Appointments - Current Affairs for February, 2016

Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and India’s Governor to International Fund for Agricultural Development/IFAD, Mr Dinesh Sharma has been unanimously elected as chairperson of the IFAD governing council for 2 years in the 39th session held in Rome, Italy. IFAD was established in 1977 as the UN’s specialised agency working towards removing poverty and hunger in rural areas all over the world. India is the founder member of IFAD which is managed by two governing bodies: Executive Board and Governing Council.

Gianni Infantino was elected as president of Fédération Internationale de Football Association) after winning a second-round vote at Extraordinary FIFA Congress held in Zurich, Switzerland on 26th February 2016. He was elected as the 9th FIFA President. This was after the second ballot in which he secured 115 of 207 votes. He will serve FIFA till 2019. He was previously the general secretary of EU governing body UEFA, succeeding Sepp Blatter who held the position since 1998. Infantino, a 45 year old defeated other contenders like Sheikh Salman of Bahrain, Prince Ali of Jordan and Jerome Champagne of France.

Shri Amitava Bhattacharya, IAS officer 1980 batch retired Chairman Staff Selection Commission has been appointed as Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission at New Delhi. Other appointed include IAS officer of MP cadre 1979 batch Shri Bimal Julia and IPS , MT cadre 1979 batch Divya Prakash Sinha. While Julia was previously Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Sinha was Secretary-Security at the Cabinet Secretariat. Appointments have been made for five years from the date on which they enter upon their office or till they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier, as per the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.

This marks the first time force will get a chief from its internal cadre since being set up in 1978 as the 4th armed force in the country after the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. He will take charge on February 29th, succeeding Vice-Admiral H C S Bisht who has been appointed as the Eastern Navy Command chief. The Coast Guard has previously always had Vice-Admirals on deputation from the Navy as its chiefs. Rajendra Singh is the first regular Coast guard officer commissioned into the armed force to become its chief. Singh will work at a time when Coast Guard is set to become a 100 aircraft 200 ship force by 2018. It currently has 135 ships.

Justice Dinesh Maheshwari of Lucknow bench of the Allahabad HC was on 24th February 2016 appointed and sworn in as CJ of Meghalaya HC.  He succeeds Justice Uma Nath Singh who retired in January 2015 and Justice SR Singh was serving as acting CJI till then. Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee has been appointed as the CJ of the Karnataka HC while Justice Vineet Saran has been appointed new CJ of the Odisha HC.

65 year old Former Chief Justice of India HL/ Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu was selected as the next Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on 23rd February 2016 with a tenure of 5 years.  Date was cleared for appointment by a committee led by PM Narendra Modi and constituted of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha P J Kurien. Date’s name has been sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for approval. He retired from CJI of SC on 2nd December 2015.

Distinguished scientist KN Vyas has taken over as Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre on 23rd February 2016, taking over from Dr. Sekhar Basu, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary to Union Government DAE. Prior to this, Vyas was Associate Director for Reactor Projects Group in BARC and joined the institution after graduating from BARC training school. He has over 35 years of experience in the field.

Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Limited on 22nd February 2016 appointed Udai Kumar as CMD following SEBI approval. He was previously MD of Metropolitan Clearing Corporation of India Limited and has worked with JM Morgan Stanley as well as Fortune Financial.

Railways officer VK Singh has been chosen for appointment as MD of North Capital Region Transport Corporation. NCRTC is a implementing agency for 3 corridors of the RRTS in the NCR zone. Singh is currently with RVNL.

President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on 22nd February 2016 appointed Justice Vineet Saran as the new CJ of Odisha HC. Saran will take oath on 26th February 2016. Justice DH Waghela was transferred to the Bombay HC as CJ following with Saran was appointed. The acting CJ since then has been Justice Pradeep K. Mohanty. Saran worked in the Karnataka HC before this.

North Korean state media agencies have confirmed that the country has a new military chief, Ri Myong Su who was the former People’s Security Minister. Ri Yong Gil, his predecessor was accused of political factionalism and corruption following which he was reportedly executed. The new military chief is one of the top aides of N.Korean premier Kim Jong Il.

West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra was named the new chairman of the Empowered Committee of State FMs on GST to succeed Kerala FM K.M. Mani who resigned in November over corruption charges. Mitra has been Secretary General of FICCI before joining TMC in WB and becoming a political leader in 2011.

Christine Lagarde has been re appointed as the IMF MD for the second 5 year term after an uncontested election. 60 year old Lagarde will serve as a IMF MD for another 5 year term beginning July 5th, 2016. Board’s decision was taken by consensus. Lagarde replaced Dominique Strauss Kahn. Prior to her IMF appointment, she worked as a well known anti trust and labour lawyer.

IT major Infosys has made the appointment of Michael Pesch as the CEO of Infosys Consulting Holding AG w.e.f April 1. Pesch will also serve as a Regional Head of DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) regions brining IT transformation through client engagement. He had been serving as CEO of Arvato Systems Group and will be responsible for consulting practices of the company in EU, Latin America and Asia Pacific Region.

Time Inc has appointed Alwar Rajagopalan as president of its India operations. He is a former TCS VP and joined the TATA company in 2009. He was also heading Birla Minacs Worldwide and headed Cambridge Integrated Services India before this. He has previously worked for GE and IBM as well.

e-Commerce major Flipkart has announced the appointment of Nitin Seth as new Chief People Officer and will report to CEO Binny Bansal. Before joining Flipkart, he was MD and country head for Fidelity International in India and responsible for company’s offshore operations in Tunisia and India.

The CEO of NITI Aayog will be the part time member of Telecom Commission instead of the Secretary of the Former Planning Commission. Participation in the Telecom Commission meetings will ensure value addition as NITI Aayog is the chief think tank of the government. Telecom Commission was set up in the 1980s and previously comprised 4 full and part time members as well as a chairman. Following replacement, only 3 part time members are left in the Telecom Commission.

Reginald Cooray has been appointed as Governor of the sensitive Northern Province on 16th February 2016 indicating he would work for winning the hearts of people and accelerating growth and development in this region. He is a moderate leader o the United People’s Freedom Alliance and succeeded H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, who had held the post for a year.

Dr Villas A Tonapi has been appointed as the Director of Indian Institute of Millets Research/IIMR at Rajendranagar. Currently, he is Principal Scientist at Seed and Technology Centre of IIMR. He earlier served as the Head of the Division of Seed Science and Technology at IARI. Holding a PhD from Tamil Nadu Agriculture University and post doctorate from University of Queensland Australia, with over 50 published papers to his credit.

South Asian University professor Yogesh Kumar Tyagi has been appointed as the new Vice Chancellor of DU following his selection by Indian president Shri Pranab Mukherjee from a panel of 4 persons. Apart from law professor Tyagi, other names in the panel included JNU professor Rameshwar Nath Kaul Bamezai, former IIT professor and UPSC member Hemchand Gupta and Bidyut Chakraborty, a professor in the DU political science department.

India based Hike Messenger has indicated that Rajesh Rudraradhya has been appointed as vice president and head of engineering. He spent 15 years in Silicon Valley and has previously worked for HP and Google. He has also worked with Motorola. He will report to Hike CEO and Founder Kavin Bharti Mittal and help scale up engineering team and product development.

Air Vice Marshal Rajiv Dayal Mathur who was assistant Chief of Air Staff was promoted to rank of Air Marshal on February 15, 2016. He has over 5,000 years of flying experience and earlier served as Air Defence commander at Ho Eastern Air Command and commanded a frontline Air Force Station and a Fighter aircraft squadron. He has been conferred with the Vishisht Seva Medal in 2003 and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal in 2014 by the President of India.

Infotech has hired BoA India’s head of global delivery centres of expertise Aftab Ullah as the Chief Operating Officer of the IT arm of Larsen & Toubro, continuing its journey to become a publicly listed player. CEO Sanjay Jalona has announced the appointment. Ullah has 23 years of professional experience in the IT services space. Prior to BoA, Ullah was Global Delivery Head for Financial Services at Capgemini for 4 years.

TERI’s Governing Council of TERI has appointed ex Union Finance Secretary and former CCI chairman Ashok Chawla as its chairman. Council has received criticism from media and women’s rights leaders for elevation of scientist R.K. Pachauri as executive vice chairman following indictment in a sexual harassment case. Recently, students graduating from TERI university in March 2016 have objected to accepting degrees from Pachauri who is the chancellor.

IAS officer Ramesh Abhishek has been appointed as the Officer on Special Duty in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He was tipped to be the next SEBi chief. He will succeed current DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant following the latter’s retirement.

Shri. R. K. Verma, a 1980 batch IRSE or Indian Railway Service of Engineers officer has attained the charge of Secretary, Railway Board on 9th February 2016. Prior to serving as the Secretary, he was serving as advisor Public Grievance to the Ministry of State for Railways. He completed his engineering from IIT(BHU) and M.Tech from IIT-D. He joined Indian Railways in the year 1982.

TERI chief R. K. Pachauri has been appointed as Executive Vice Chairman of the body following the charge of DG of TERI being taken by Dr. Ajay Mathur. While Mathur has joined as director general of TERI, Pachauri has been appointed as executive vice chairman with immediate effect according to the TERI governing council. He will be the first to hold this newly created bost. Mother is the former DG of BEE under Power Ministry.

Government announced the transfer on 8th February of CJ of Orissa HC Dhirendra Hiralal Waghela to the Bombay HC to assume charge as CJ with effect from February 16, 2016. SC led by CJI T. S. Thakur recommended the transfer of Mr. Waghela and the president approved it. Justice Hemant Gupta, a judge of the Punjab and Haryana HC was also transferred to Patna HC w.e.f the same date.

Army Lieutenant General John Nicholson has been appointed as NATO commander for Afghanistan. The strong Senate Armed Services Committee has confirmed the nomination of Nicholson. He was US army commander of NATO land forces prior to this. He also served as chief of staff operations of the ISAF and US Forces-Afghanistan. NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance based on North Atlantic Treaty signed on April 4, 1949.

Analytics service providing company Mu Sigma Inc has appointed Chief Operating Officer/COO Ambiga Dhiraj as the new CEO. Its former CEO, Dhiraj Rajaram will continue to remain the chairman.The new CEO will head the company out of Bengaluru, while the chairman will focus on client engagement in the US. Mu Sigma was founded in 2004 and it has 140 of the fortune 500 companies as its clients including Microsoft.

Former Gujarat chief secretary DJ Pandian was appointed as the vice president and chief investment officer of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on February 3, 2016. His appointment has been approved by the bank. He is a 1981 batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre and was also the MD of GSPC. AIIB was set up in 2015 and nominated former finance minister Jin Liqun as its first president. The 3 largest shareholders in the bank are Russia, China and India.

Shri Justice Ramayyagari Subhash Reddy, Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh was appointed as CJ of the Gujarat HC with effect from the date charge of the office is assumed.

Following its massive organisational reshuffle within the past 5 years, this largest software exporter Wipro has included recently promoted executives such as Anil Jain and Ankur Prakash for the highest decision making body of the company, its executive committee. This committee has 17 top execs who now report mostly to CEO A. Neemuchwala. Following the exit of company veterans Sangita Singh and Mukerji, Hain and Prakash have been elevated. Wipro also elevated Rishad Premji to the committee in the past year.

Veteran IPS officer Datta Padsalgikar has been appointed as Commissioner of Police w.e.f 31st January 2016 succeeding Ahmed Javed who was appointed as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He became the 40th police commissioner of the city and was on deputation to IB before this.

Becoming the first woman to head the paramilitary force, senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundaram has been appointed as DG of SSB or Sashastra Seema Bal. She is currently the Director at NVRB. She has been appointed to the post till her superannuating in September 2016. She is the first women police officer to be appointed chief of a paramilitary force. SSB guards the nation’s frontiers.

JK Garg has taken over as CMD of the Corporation Bank following SR Bansal’s retirement. He was an ED in UCO Bank prior to this. He started his career in Corporation Bank in the 1980s. He as experience in retail banking as well as forex operations.

JS Deepak took charge as the telecom secretary following a top level bureaucratic shuffle. He is a 1982 batch UP cadre IAS officer and former telecom secretary Rakesh Garg was over to Minority Affairs Ministry in the month of January. Garg had taken over in the month of July 2014 and returned in November. Arun Sharma has been appointed as secretary DiETY while Deepak was the choice for telecom secretary.

Senior Indian Revenue Service officer Atulesh Jindal has taken charge as the new chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, which is the controlling body of the income tax department, succeeding incumbent AK Jain. Appointments committee of the cabinet headed by India’s PM has approved appointment of Jindal as the next CBDT chairman on January 22, 2016. A 1978 batch IRS officer, he will have a six month tenure till July.

Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba took over as the Flag Officer Commanding In Chief from Vice Admiral SPS Cheema on 31st January 2016 of the Western Naval Command. Vice Admiral Cheema retired after completing 4 decades of service to the Nation and the Navy. Calling personnel on parade as ship mates, Cheema spoke of his gratitude for functioning of the command and the support he received during his years of service from personnel.

Apple has acquired educational technology startup LearnSprout to create software for students for tracking their academic performance. This is a 3 year old San Francisco based software startup whose online data insights help K12 educators track student performance. Company raised USD 4.7 million from investors across two rounds and is working on education tools for the iPad.

Gurdeep Singh on 28th January 2016 has been appointed as CMD of NTPC Ltd. Singh is the first individual to be appointed at the top job in the Maharatna company via a search committee route. Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by PM Shri Narendra Modi has approved Singh’s appointment after Arup Roy Choudhary finished his 5 year term on 31st August 2015. Singh was MD of Gujarat State Electricity Ltd and started his career in NTPC in the 1980s.

Kamlesh Kumar Pandey has been appointed as Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities on 28th January 2016. He has been appointed for a period of 3 years. He is a science graduate from University of Allahabad and Medical graduate from University of Agra in 1990. He has worked for the visually challenged and been part of NGOs working in the field of disability.

From a financial sector, Berland was Executive Vice President, Global Advertising, Marketing and Digital Partnerships at American Express. She has links with the financial world and will benefit the microblogging social network in many ways. Berlin also worked for other companies like McDonalds, Uber, Facebook, TripAdvisor and Apple.