CURRENT EVENTS 2010

January 2010

APPOINTED; ELECTED; Etc.

Mahinda Rajapaksa: He has been re-elected as the President of Sri Lanka,

E.S.L. Narasimhan: He has been appointed as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh.

Shivraj Patil: He has been appointed as the Governor of Punjab and Chief Administrator of Union Territory of Chandigarh.

M.K. Narayanan: He has been appointed as the Governor of West Bengal.

Prabha Rau: She has been appointed as the Governor of Rajasthan.

Sekhar Dutt: He has been appointed as the Governor of Chattisgarh.

M.O.H. Farooq: He has been appointed as the Governor of Jharkhand.

K. Sankaranarayanan: He has been appointed as the Governor of Maharashtra.

Urmila Singh: She has been appointed as the Governor of Himachal Pradesh.

Gen Vijay Kumar Singh: He has been appointed as the Chief of Army Staff, Indian Army.

Shiv Shankar Menon: He has been appointed as the National Security Advisor.

S. Sundareshan: He has been appointed as the Petroleum Secretary in the Union government.

Vikram Srivastava: He has been appointed as the Director-General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Raman Srivastava: He has taken over as the Chief of Border Security Force (BSF).

Ranjeet Kumar Bhatia: He has taken over as the Chief of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

Mrinal Pandey: She has been appointed as the Chairperson of Prasar Bharti.

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

Lee Myung-bak: President of South Korea. He was the Chief Guest on occasion of the Republic Day 2010.

Sheikh Hasina: Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

Uzi Arad: National Security Adviser of Israel.

Vice-Admiral Elizer Marom: Commander-in Chief of Israeli Navy.

Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak: Prime Minister of Malaysia.

DIED

Jyoti Basu: CPM patriarch and former Chief Minister of West Bengal. He was 95.

Billy Arjan Singh: Pioneering wildlife activist and author. He was 94.

Erich Segal: Author of the tear-jerking novel Love Story and screenwriter of the Oscar-winning film version. He was 72.

MILESTONES

Asma Parween: Her story features on the 2010 UN Population Fund calendar. A native of an obscure village, Sakri Saraiya in Bihar’s Muzzafarpur district, this 19 year-old girl defied her orthodox father to join an education-cum-vocational centre in her village. Today she is a history honours student as also a karate trainer.

EVENTS

JANUARY 2010
1—India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) comes into effect with Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand implementing it with immediate effect.

1—A suicide bomber blows up a car packed with explosives killing 70 people during a volleyball game in a village in north-west Pakistan.

4—Blazing fireworks and dazzling lights mark the opening of the world's tallest tower, Burj Khalifa (formerly known as Burj Dubai).

14—The first holy bath of century’s and Uttarkhand’s first Maha Kumbh starts at Haridwar.

15—Century’s longest annular solar eclipse takes place.

18—Taliban attack heart of Kabul by targeting key government buildings.

13—More than three lakh people are killed as an earthquake with 7.0 magnitude hits Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti.

25—Ninety persons die in Ethiopian airlines crash into Mediterranean sea, shortly after take-off from Beirut.

26—Sri Lanka goes to polls to elect new President.

27—Bangladesh hangs five ex-Army officers convicted for assassinating country’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, almost three decades after he was killed in a military coup.