Appointments - Current Affairs for October, 2016

Senior IPS officer Karnal Singh on 26th Oct 2016 was appointed director of the ED.

• The appointments committee of cabinet approved the appointment of Singh till 31st August 2017 which marks the date of his superannuation.
• Singh was already holding the post as additional charge for over a year.
• His regular positing was Special Director, ED for the Northern Region.
• The DG of Economic Enforcement is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence unit responsible for fighting economic crime in India.
• It comprises officers of the IRS, IPS and IAS.
• The Directorate dates back to May 1, 1956 when an Enforcement Unit was formed in the DEA for handling Exchange Control Laws violations under FERA Act 1947.
• In 1957, the unit was named Enforcement Directorate.

The International Hockey Federation/FIH on 25th Oct 2016 appointed New Zealand’s Jason McCracken as the CEO

• He will take over as FIH on February 2017, replacing Kelly Fairweather leaving for International Tennis Federation after 6 years in the role
• McCracken is a renowned figure in hockey having served in Olympic and World Cups as umpire besides being an FIH committee member and technical official for over 20 years
• McCracken’s recent appointment was technical delegate at the Rio 2016 Olympics and tournament director at the 2014 World Hockey Cup in the Hague, Netherlands.
• The IHF is a global governing body of field and indoor field hockey
• Its HQ was in Lausanne, Switzerland
• It is responsible for Field Hockey’s major international tournaments, notably the World Cup
• Founded in Paris in the 1920s by Paul Leautey, the FIH merged with the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Associations

Jammu & Kashmir Governor NN Vohra on 24th Oct 2016 appointed former CJ of the Odisha HC Bilal Nazki as the chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission

• Former district and session judge Jang Bahadur Singh Jamwal was also appointed member of the JKHRC
• The appointments came into place from the date the charge of their offices were assumed.
• Justice Nazki retired as CJ of Odisha HC in November 2009
• His tenure as CJ is the shortest tenure in the history of the Indian judicial system
• He was also appointed as chairperson of the Bihar Human Rights Commission
• Nazki also headed a committee set up by the Centre to review the functioning of the Haj Committee of India and its state units in 2013
• His father Ghulam Rasool Nazki was a well known broadcaster, poet and literary figure who won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987

SoftBank Vision Fund will invest in tech companies worldwide. Misra, in the third week of October 2016, was appointed the SoftBank Vision Fund constituted by Japanese telecom and internet major SoftBank Corp.

• The fund is managed in the UK by a subsidiary of the Saudi Binladin Group
• It is one of the largest kind in the world
• The fund will function from London
• Misra was previously the Head of Strategic Finance at SoftBank Group Corp for nearly 2 years from November 3, 2014
• Misra joined Softbank in November 2014
• He spent 5 years at UBS in the post of Global head of Credit and Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities in EU, AU and Middle East
• He has also served as the Head of Credit Derivatives and Chief of Global Credit Trading at Duetsche Bank AG
• He is an alumni of DPS, Delhi and IIT-Delhi
• He also pursued his graduation from UPenn
• He is also an MBA from Sloan School of Management after which he joined Merrill Lynch

IAS officer Ajay Kumar Bhalla was on 13th Oct 2016 appointed the Director General of Foreign Trade succeeding Anup Wadhawan was appointed as Additional Secretary in the commerce ministry

• Bhalla, a 1984 batch IAS officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre is currently the Additional Secretary in the commerce ministry
• Directorate General of Foreign Trade Organisation is an attached office of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry headed by the DGFT
• It was entrusted with responsibilities for formulating and implementing the foreign trade policy with the main objective of promoting Indian exports
• It also issues authorisation to exporters as well as monitors for meeting their corresponding obligations through a network of 36 regional offices and an extension counter at Indore

Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres has been appointed as the next Secretary General of the United Nations by the INGA on 13th Oct 2016.

• The 193 member states of the UNGA adopted a resolution by acclamation appointing Guterres as the 9th UNSG
• He succeeds Ban Ki-moon and will assume his new role on January 1, 2017 for a 5 year term that can be renewed by member states for an additional 5 years
• Guterres is a politician from Portugal
• He served as that nation’s PM from 1995 to 2002
• He was also the President of the Socialist International for some time
• He served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015
• The UNSG heads the UN secretariat
• He is also the de facto spokesperson and leader of the UN
• The role is laid out by Chapter XV (Articles 97–101) of the United Nations Charter
• Secretary General was conceived by US President Franklin D Roosevelt as the world moderator
• Article 97 of Chapter XV of the UN Charter states that the secretary general shall be Chief Administrative Officer of the organisation

Just after appointing an ambassador to India, China appointed the first ambassador to Mars to promote the country’s plan to send a spacecraft to Mars by the year 2020.

• Along with 10 other Chinese celebs, the ambassadors will popularise the space programme, encouraging interest in science and technology among the Chinese youth
• In April 2016, China launched the plan to send a rover to Mars to explore the red planet
• The aim is to launch it around 2020
• China is pursuing a lot into its space program, though India beat them with the mission to Mars in Sept 2014
• The United States has successfully landed two rovers on Mars while the former Soviet Union and the ESA have also sent missions to the arid planet
• China’s first attempt to send a satellite to Mars fell apart in 2011

Badminton ace and Rio silver medallist PV Sindhu was on Oct 8 2016 appointed as the Brand ambassador of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited also known as Vizag Steel

• The company will have the brand logo displayed on the player’s jersey under the aegis of DWF and BAI international and domestic tournaments
• Deal was facilitated by sports marketing and brand licensing firm Baseline
• Sindhu was currently among the top 10 ranked players in the world, became the first Indian female athlete to win the Olympic silver medal at Rio Olympics 2016
• She is also the first athlete to win back-to-back medals at the World Badminton Championship
• Vizag Steel or RINL is the corporate entity of the Vizag Steel Plant and a navratna PSE under the Union Ministry of Steel
• Vizag Steel is the first shore based integrated steel plant in the country and it is known for its quality products
• A market leader in long steel products, it caters to the requirements of the construction, manufacturing, automobile, general engineering and fabrication sectors
• It is the first integrated steel plant to be certified for ISO 9001-2008, ISO 14001-2004 and OHSAS 18001:2007 standards