Appointments - Current Affairs for June, 2016

F&B MNC Nestle SA on June 27, 2016 named Ulf Mark Schneider as the new CEO of Freseniius, a Germany based healthcare firm.

• He will join Nestle on September 1, 2015 and commence as CEO on January 1, 2017
• Incumbent CEO Paul Bulckle will resign from the post on 31st December 2016
• He has been named as the Nestle board chairman after Peter Brabeck-Letmathe retires in 2017
• Appointment of Schneider enhances the health, nutrition and wellness sector for the company
• Succession announcement came against a backdrop of Nestle missing sales target of organic growth of 5-6 percent dubbed the Nestle model for 3 years.
• Slowdown has been due to major markets like China and Europe not performing well apart from weak consumer prices and strong Swiss franc.

N. S. Vishwanathan has been appointed as the new Deputy Governor of the RBI with his appointment on 28th June 2016 being approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet

• Vishwanathan, whose term will be for three years, will succeed HR Khan who will retire this week
• Vishwanathan has held the post of the ED in the RBI since April 2014 and currently supervises banking and non-banking regulation departments
• Search Panel was headed by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha and includes RBI governor Raghuram Rajan

Senior IFC official Sujoy Bose was on June 26, 2015 appointed CEO of India's maiden Rs 40,000 crore sovereign wealth fund NIIF.

• He is Director and Global Co-Head of Infrastructure and Natural Resources at Washington-based International Finance Corporation.
• IFC is the private sector lending arm of the World Bank.

Ex BCCI chief N Srinivasan was unanimously re-elected as President of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) for a 15th consecutive term on 25 June 2016.

• The 71-year old Srinivasan is at the helm of the TNCA since 2002-03 after the end of AC Muthiah’s reign.
• Kasi Viswanathan was also re-elected secretary for the 10th year in succession. VP Narasimhan was also appointed as its Treasurer.

In a crucial development, TV-18 ETV News Network has hired Rajiv Mishra as Vice President of Media and Corporate Social Responsibility division at Samsung Electronics Co Ltd as Group Business Head, w.e.f July 1

• Mishra confirmed the development regarding his appointment to IANS
• Mishra joined Samsung in August 2014 and was responsible for overseeing the entire media mandate for organisations across South West Asia along with the group’s CSR responsibilities
• Mishra has also worked for various media organisations such as Hindustan Times Group, Star TV, Zee TV, Reliance Infocomm and News 24
• He has also worked with LS TV as CEO and nominated on board of media advisory bodies in ministries.

Nokia has appointed Sanjay Malik as the new head of the India market taking over from current India head Sandeep Girotra recently promoted as head of Asia Pacific and Japan market for the company

• Malik will be based in Gurgaon and will lead customer operations driving business growth strategy and consumer engagement services
• It will be effective w.e.f. August 1 2016
• He is currently vice president and head of the global network implementation services part of the company’s Global Services business
• Malik has over 25 years of experience in IT, Telecom and Technology Industry in India and APAC market

Yasmin Sooka, the South African Indian origin lawyer and long time human rights activist was appointed to chair the UN commission on 24th June 2016

• Commission will monitor human rights situation in Southern Sudan and ensure recommendations for their improvement
• Sooka will serve with Kenneth Scott from the US and Godfrey Musila of Kenya on the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
• At the time of appointment, she was EF of the Foundation for Human Rights in S. Africa. Earlier, she had served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission established by former president Nelson Mandela from 1996-2001 assisting with the final report of the Commission

SoftBank Group said on 22nd June 2016 that Ken Miyauchi, head of the group’s Japanese telecommunications operations, would become president and chief operating officer to replace Nikesh Arora.

• Mr. Arora, the former Google executive handpicked by the SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son as his successor, has abruptly quit as president
• This was after it became clear that Mr. Son wanted to remain at the helm longer than first planned.

Global payments platform PayPal on 22nd June said it has appointed Anupam Pahuja as the Managing Director and Country Manager for its India operations.

• Pahuja has been with the company for over six years and he hs been heading the technology for APAC, PayPal said in a statement.
• As the MD & Country Manager for India, he will be responsible for all aspects of PayPal’s India business and further strengthening the company’s operations in India, he added.
• Pahuja was instrumental in establishing PayPal’s technology centres in India. Prior to PayPal, he was the Managing Director for India for NASDAQ-listed SumTotal Systems, the world’s largest eLearning company.

Genpact announced the appointment of ex-Deloitte vice chairman Carol Windstorm to the board of directors with immediate effect. Recently retired from Deloitte, Windstorm led strategic relationship management at the firm. She was also president of the Deloitte Foundation and member of Deloitte & Touche Board of Directors for six years.

• She served on the DTT Global Board of Directors for 8 years and held many management and client leadership positions during her Deloitte career
• Company’s principal shareholder Bain Capital has evaluated acquisition of NASDAQ listed IT services firm Syntel, creating speculation about billion dollar consolidation move in the Information Technology Services industry
• Bain along with Genpact looked at a possible acquisition of Syntel some months ago

Businessman Bipin R Patel was on 18 June 2016 appointed as the President of Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) for the term 2016-17. He succeeds Rohit J Patel.

• The decision in this regard was taken during the annual general meeting (AGM) of the GCCI. In another development, Shailesh Patwari was appointed as the Senior Vice-President of the chamber
• The Chamber founded in 1949 was created by Kasturbhai Lalbhai and Amrutlal Hargovandas, pioneers of industrial Gujarat.
• It is registered as a Society under the Society Registration Act, 1860.

Willy Mutunga, former Chief Justice of Kenya has now been made Commonwealth Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Maldives.

• This was done following the request of the Maldives government against the backdrop of the Commonwealth’s concern over the political situation following arrest and detention of senior political figures
• Foreign Affairs Ministry of Maldives acknowledged that the development was in response to the request of the government
• At an extraordinary meeting of CMAG (Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group) sending a special envoy to Male for review of the Constitution of Maldives to strengthen the separation of powers was mooted
• Mutunga while emitting office as the Chief Justice of Kenya said that political leadership in Madlives would aid in the process of constitutional and political transition
• Commonwealth has stated Dr. Mutunga would act on behalf of the Secretary General and regain independence of the Maldives government in a consultation with relevant stakeholders

Congress councillor Soram Sunil was sworn in as the first mayor of Imphal, the capital city of Manipur. He was elected unanimously to the Imphal Municipal Corporation

• Currently, there are protests on the implementation of the Inner Line Permit in Manipur
• Imphal is the capital city of Manipur and houses the Palace of Kangla as well as a number of temples

Founder chairman of Bharti Enterprises Sunil Mittal was on 15th June 2016 was elected as chairman of Paris based International Chamber of Commerce. Voting for election of chairman was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

• With this, he became the 51st chairman of the ICC and the third business leader from India to be elected as ICC chief in 10 decade history
• He succeeds Terry McGraw who is the chairman emeritus of S&P Global.
• McGraw became the ICC Honorary Chairman
• ICC also announced John Denton Partner and CEO of Corrs Chambers Westgarth as the First Vice Chair of the organisation
• International Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business organisation with close to 6.5 million members in close to 130 countries
• It was founded in 1919 under the leadership of first president Etienne Clementel, former commerce French Minister
• He also started the ICC International Court of Arbitration in 1923.

United States President Barack Obama has nominated Indian origin diplomat Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir as the next American ambassador to Malaysia

• Nomination of Ms. Lakhdhir along with the key administration appointments was announced by the White House
• She is a career member of the Foreign Service Class of Counsellor and was Executive Assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs up till 2015.
• She joined the foreign service in 1991
• She is a BA from Harvard College and MS from National War College

DBS Bank India appointed Niraj Mittal as the MD and head of institutional banking for the nation replacing Surojit Shome, DBS India CEO

• He will report to Jeanette Wong Group Executive and head of institutional banking group in Singapore
• Prior to this, he worked with Royal Bank of Scotland
• DBS was earlier The Development Bank of Singapore Limited

Senior IAS officer Supriya Sahu was appointed DG of Doordarshan on June 15, 2016 and will be a full time DG of the state run broadcaster two years after the post was lying vacant since July 2014

• ACC approved Sahu’s appointment. She replaces acting head Aparna Vaish.
• Before that, Tripurari Sharan was the DG who stepped down in 2014
• Sahu is a 1991 batch TN cadre IAS officer
• She pioneered Project No and also worked as Joint Secretary for MIB

Online budget accommodation firm Stayzilla has appointed Chandramouli Gopalkrishnan as the vice president of products. This comes after naming former Twitter director Pankaj Gupta as Chief Product Officer.

• Chandramouli is the former director of products at Goibibo
• The company is currently headquartered in Chennai
• It is owned by Inasra Tech.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has approved the appointment of Shri Suresh Chandra as Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs.Shri Suresh Chandra, an officer of Indian Legal Service, is currently Additional Secretary in the Department of Legal Affairs in the Ministry of Law & Justice.

IDBI Bank’s Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) N.S. Venkatesh, is set to join Lakshmi Vilas Bank as Executive Director and whole-time member of the board.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved Mr.Venkatesh’s appointment.
• This is the first time the central bank has cleared a second whole-time member’s post in the Karur-based lender board.
• Parthasarathi Mukherjee, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the bank, is the other full time member on board.

Micromax subsidiary YU has said it has made three senior level appointments as part of its efforts to strengthen offline sales network.

• Bharat Singh Malik has been appointed as vice president of Service while Deepak Dahiya will take over as head of sales (South and West region).
• Chandra Kishore has been appointed as head of sales - North and East region, YU said in a statement.

Ranu Langthasa was unanimously appointed as the chairperson of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) in Assam on 13 June 2016.

• With this, she also became the first women chairperson to be appointed to the post since the formation of Autonomous Council in 1950s.
• The NC Hills Autonomous Council can be described as a state in miniature having all the paraphernalia of a Government like Legislative, Executive and Judiciary.
• On the 29 April 1952, the Dima Hasao District Council came into being as an autonomous body under the provision of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
• Before turning up to be North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, the Doima Hasao district was a part of Dimasa Kingdom. The kingdom extended at the time (before the British occupation) up to the whole area of Cachar District. This includes the present Karbi Anglong District, a major portion of Nagaon District and parts of Nagaland including Dimapur right upto Nichu Guard on Dimapur-Kohima Road.

Justice Rakesh Ranjan Prasad, the senior-most Judge of the Manipur High Court on 13 June 2016 assumed charge of the Chief Justice of the High Court.

• He succeeded Justice Laxmi Kanta Mohapatra who relinquished the office on 9 June 2016.
• Clause (1) of Article 222 of the Constitution empowers the President to transfer a judge from one high court to other high court, which can be done after consultation with the Chief Justice of India.
• Prasad completed his law education from Patna Law College and enrolled as an advocate on 17th September 1980

High ranking Swedish military official will be the new head of the UN mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in J&K.

• Major General Per Gustaf Lodin, 59, also a logistics expert, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as the Chief Military Observer and Head of Mission for the United Nations Military Observer Group (UNMOGIP) in India and Pakistan.
• Maj Gen Lodin succeeds Major General Delali Johnson Sakyi of Ghana, who completes his two-year assignment as Chief Military Observer and Head of Mission for the UNMOGIP on July 2.

Additional Solicitor General of India and former Parliamentarian Satya Pal Jain was on 10th June 2016 appointed part time member of the 21st Law Commission of India

• Appointment will be in addition to charge as Additional Solicitor General of India
• Satya Pal Jain is a noted constitution lawyer and senior BJP leader
• The 21st Law Commission of India on September 1, 2015 will end on August 31, 2018

State run firm MTNL has indicated chairman and managing director Narendra Kumar Yadav has resigned. Director (Finance) PK Purwar has been provided additional charge of the CMD post according to a BSE filing by MTNL

• Telecom firm operating in Delhi and Mumbai circles will post operational profits towards the close of the current financial year and turn profitable in 2017-2018
• It has been running losses since 2009

Shahid Rasool, a communication technology specialist, on 7 June 2016 took charge as the Director of the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA).

• Rasool will guide CEMCA in its mission to ensure effective utilisation of educational media resources for distance education.
• He was earlier the Director of the Educational Multimedia Research Centre, University of Kashmir.
• He earned his MS Degree in Communication Technology from Syracuse University and has a doctorate in mass communication and journalism from the University of Kashmir.
• CEMCA is an arm of the Vancouver-based Commonwealth of Learning (COL).
• CEMCA works in eight Commonwealth Countries of Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Singapore.

Adobe on 6 June 2016 announced the appointment of Kulmeet Bawa as Managing Director (MD) for South Asia. He will begin his new role on 24 June 2016

• Bawa will take over the position from Umang Bedi, who is leaving the company after five years of service.
• He will report to Paul Robson, President of Adobe Asia Pacific. Bawa will lead Adobe's customer-facing engagements in India
• Bawa currently serves as the Head of Sales for Adobe in India.
• Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States.

Adobe's Umang Bedi will replace Kirthiga Reddy as Facebook India MD. Bedi, a Harvard Business School alumnus, was Adobe's South Asia region MD responsible for sales and marketing. and driving strategic partnerships, alliances, and selling cloud services opportunities.

• Prior to joining Adobe, he was the India head of Intuit, the US-based software company that develops financial and tax preparation software.
• Bedi, an engineering graduate from University of Pune, was the recipient of the '40 Under Forty: India's Hottest Business Leaders Award 2014' given by The Economic Times and Spencer Stuart in 2014.
• Reddy will return to the US to join Facebook's global accounts team. She will manage Facebook's relationships with the world's largest global advertisers.

Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar AVSM, VSM has assumed charge as Deputy Chief of Naval Staff on June 6, 2016. He is an NDA alumnus and was commissioned into the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy on 01 Jul 1982.

• After having completed his specialisation in Navigation and Direction at Kochi in 1989, he served as the Navigating Officer of Indian Naval Ships Beas, Nilgiri, Ranvir and Vikrant.
• His other sea tenures include Commanding Officer of INS Kulish and Ranvir, and Executive Officer onboard INS Brahmaputra.
• He has also been the Chief Staff Officer (Operations) of the Western Naval Command.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel has announced the appointment of Ashok Ganapathy as director-Airtel Business with effect from July 1, 2016

• He will take over from Manish Prakash while moving into a new role as director Strategic Alliances.

Senior IPS officer Navin Agarwal was appointed chief of the National Anti Doping Agency working for dope free sports

• He is a 1986 batch IPS officer of J&K cadre
• Appointments Committee of Cabinet approved approved the appointment of Agarwal as DG-CEO of NADA according to a DoPT order
• He has been appointed for 5 years and is currently working in cadre state J&K

Consequent upon superannuation of Dr.Thomas Mathew, IAS (KL:1983) on May 31, 2016 the President has appointed Dr.Thomas Mathew as Additional Secretary to the President, w.e.f. the forenoon of June 01, 2016 on contract basis, for a period co-terminus with the tenure of the President of India i.e. upto 24.07.2017 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

IT Industry body NASSCOM’s data protection wing- Data Security Council of India appointed Rama Vedashree as the new CEO. Vedashree succeeds Nandkumar Sarvade.

• Vedashree was previously the vice president at NASSCOM where she left initiatives for smart cities, online governance and domestic IT
• She also led healthcare initiative in partnership with Apex Health Sector body NatHealth
• She has extensive experience of over 25 years, having worked in NIIT Technologies, Microsoft and GE India before

Shri A.K. Mittal, Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), of 1978 Batch, has taken over as Member Engineering Railway Board today on 1.06.2016 . Prior to this posting, Shri Mittal was General Manager, East Central Railway, (Hazipur).

• Shri Mittal has graduated from Regional Engineering College, Allahabad in 1977 and was awarded many silver medals and gold medals.
• He was deputed to Germany and Switzerland in 1990 to finalize the design of 3rd Godavari Bridge.
• He has also undergone foreign trainings in HEC Business School, Paris in 2006 for Strategic Management and Business Development, besides training for Track management system in Italy in 2009.

Rahul Johri on 1 June 2016 assumed charge as first ever chief executive officer (CEO) of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in Mumbai. He was appointed on the recommendation of the Justice Lodha Committee.

• Reporting too the BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke, he will be based at headquarters of BCCI in Mumbai.
• Before joining BCCI, he served as Asia Pacific's Executive Vice-President for Discovery Networks and General Manager for South Asia.

Admiral Sunil Lanba, on May 31, took charge as the Chief of Naval Staff in New Delhi as the current CNS Admiral R.K.Dhowan retired after four decade of service.

• On May 6, 2016, the government appointed Lanba, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command as the Chief of Naval Staff.
• Admiral Lanba, 58, is a qualified specialist in navigation and direction course and will have a full three-year-term in office till May 31, 2019.
• In a service spanning nearly 38 years, Admiral Lanba has served in a variety of Command, operational and staff appointments. He has commanded four frontline warships - INS Kakinada (minesweeper), INS Himgiri (frigate) and destroyers INS Ranvijay and INS Mumbai. He also won Param Vishist Seva Medal and the Athi Vishist Seva Medal for distinguished service of an exceptionally high order.