Tsai Ing-wen elected as first female President of Taiwan

Pro-Independence Opposition candidate of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (59) has been elected as first female and 14th President of Taiwan. Ms Tsai’s victory is the biggest mandate ever won by a DPP president and is only the second-ever victory for the DPP since Taiwan split with China in 1949. The first was Chen Shui-bian who also was pro-independence (from China) advocate. During his time as President between 2000 and 2008 tensions had escalated with China. 
 In the 2016 general elections, DPP which leads the camp that wants independence from China led by Tsai Ing-wen emerged victorious with 56% of the total vote share. She defeated Eric Chu of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Party that secured 31% vote share.

Hari Shankar Brahma appointed as the New Chief Election Commissioner

Hari Shankar Bramha was appointed as the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) by President Pranab Mukherjee on 15 January 2016.

Brahma, the senior-most Election Commissioner in the Election Commission of India succeeds V.S. Sampath.

Sampath demitted the office on 15 January 2015 after attaining the age of 65, the upper age limit under the Constitution for holding the post.

Brahma (64) will assume the charge of the office of Chief Election Commissioner with effect from 16 January 2015. He will have a small tenure of three months till 19 April 2015, when he turns 65, the upper age limit for the post.

About Harishankar Brahma
• He is a 1975 IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre 
• He hails from Assam and has served as the former Union power secretary 
• He was appointed as an Election Commissioner on 25 August 2010

After J.M. Lyngdoh, Brahma is the second officer from northeast to be appointed to this post.

About Election Commission 
Election Commission of India is a permanent Constitutional Body. It was established in accordance with the Constitution on 25 January 1950.

Originally the commission had only a Chief Election Commissioner, but now it is a three-member body, including the CEC and two election commissioners.

For the first time two additional Commissioners were appointed on 16 October 1989 but they had a very short tenure till 1 January 1990. Later, on 1 October 1993 two additional Election Commissioners were appointed. The concept of multi-member Commission has been in operation since then, with decision making power by majority vote.

Ruhi Singh won Miss Universal Peace & Humanity 2014

Ruhi Singh of India was in news because she won Miss Universal Peace & Humanity 2014 at Beirut, Lebanon on 10 December 2014.She is the first person to win this pageant from India and she won the pageant among the 145 other countries. She was Femina Miss India East first runner-up in 2011.

Rebecca Boggiano from Australia finished as first runner-up and Sofia Alkhadra from Palestine was the second runner-up.
Miss Universal Peace & Humanity 2014 Pageant promotes, inspires, and empowers all women to develop and utilize their strengths and inner qualities to positively impact all people throughout the world.

About Miss Universal Peace & Humanity
• The Miss Universal Peace & Humanity 2014 was conceptualized by the World Peace Mission Organization under the patronage of the International Human Rights Commission. 
• The purpose of international grand beauty pageant with the theme Beauty Speaks for Peace is to call out for peace, to embrace peace, to preserve peace.
• The main aim is to identify and showcase the world's best tourism cause and ambassadors for peace. It also aims at promoting peace around the world and beauties from around the world compete in this event.

Indian-origin politician Keith Vaz named as Labour MP of the Year

Indian-origin British politician Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz known as Keith Vaz was on 6 November 2014 named as the Labour MP of the year 2014.

He was choosen for this award for his valuable work for underrepresented, deprived and minority sections of the country.

Speaker of the house John Bercow announced the Patchwork Foundation MPs of the Year 2014 at Speakers House.  The awards were announced for those who have represented and worked with underrepresented, deprived and minority communities across the country.

About Keith Vaz

Keith Vaz is a British Labour Party politician and has been Member of Parliament for Leicester East since 1987. He is the longest-serving Asian MP and has been the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee since July 2007. 

He was appointed as a member of the Privy Council in June 2006. He has been named among the most influential Asians in Britain.

Actor Aamir Khan appointed as the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia

Bollywood actor, director and producer Aamir Khan on 9 October 2014 was appointed as the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in South Asia. 

Aamir Khan will focus on supporting child nutrition to end stunting across the region. He became UNICEF Ambassador on the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Child Nutrition in South Asia
After sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia has the highest number of under-five deaths in the world with 2.3 million in 2011. Across the region, nearly 40 percent of children under the age of five are stunted because of chronic undernutrition.

Around 28 percent of children are born with low birth weight due to women’s poor nutrition before and during pregnancy.  

The most crucial time to meet a child’s nutritional needs is during the first 1000 days from conception to the child’s second birthday. Proven and effective interventions during this time can prevent malnutrition and drastically reduce the prevalence of stunting. 

Moreover, pervasive poverty and disparities prevent millions of children in South Asia from living in dignity, reaching their potential and making choices about their own future.

About UNICEF
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child. The organization works in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable children and benefit them.

The organisation has roped in various international celebrities to support its campaigns around the globe. Some famous faces include Hollywood stars Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Mia Farrow, Shakira Mebarak, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon and football star David Beckham. 

In 2005, Amitabh Bachchan was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and has since fronted their polio eradication programme successfully.

Forbes India released The 100 Richest Indian List 2014

The Forbes India magazine releasedThe 100 Richest Indian List 2014 on 25 September 2014. As per the list, the top 100 richest tycoons in India are all billionaires for the first time. The combined net worth of 100 richest tycoons in India is 346 billion US dollars in 2014 up more than a third from 259 billion US dollars in 2013.

According to the Forbes India List, the Top 10 Richest people of India: 1. Mukesh Ambani; 2. Dilip Shanghvi; 3. Azim Premji; 4. Pallonji Mistry; 5. Lakshmi Mittal; 6. Hinduja brothers; 7. Shiv Nadar; 8. Godrej family; 9. Kumar Birla; 10. Sunil Mittal

Highlights of the Forbes India Rich List 2014

• Mukesh Ambani topped the list for the eighth consecutive year with a net worth of 23.6 billion US dollars.
• Dilip Shanghvi, founder of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, is at the second position on the list. He overtook steel baron Lakshmi Mittal who slipped to fifth place.  
• Azim Premji whose net wealth increased to 16.4 billion US dollars from 13.8 billion US dollars is at third position.
• The biggest dollar gainer is Gautam Adani who jumped 11 spots to eleventh position adding nearly 4.5 billion US dollars to his wealth which reached 7.1 billion US dollars.
• As many as 85 people out of 89 who returned to the top 100 from 2013 are wealthier and several are billionaires for the first time.
• There are eight newcomers on 2014 list: Amalgamations Group family (No. 47), brothers Dilip & Anand Surana (No. 73), Hasmukh Chudgar (No. 80), real estate tycoon Surendra Hiranandani (No. 83), jeweller T.S. Kalyanaraman (No. 87), Macleod Pharmaceuticals’ Rajendra Agarwal (No. 90), Dubai-based Aster DM Healthcare’s Azad Moopen (No. 95), and stock market veteran Radhakishan Damani (No. 100).   
• The biggest loser this year is Indus Gas founder Ajay Kalsi who lost 1 billion US dollars after the government stalled an increase in the natural gas prices. He is at 85th position.
• Eleven tycoons fell off from the list this year including tycoons Brij Bhushan Singal and Vijay Mallya.

About the Forbes India Rich List 2014

• The minimum amount required to be on the list was 1 billion US dollars. It was 635 million US dollars in 2013.
• This list was compiled using shareholding and financial information obtained from the families and individuals, stock exchanges, analysts and India’s regulatory agencies.
• The ranking lists family fortunes including those shared among extended families such as the Godrej and Bajaj families.
• Public fortunes were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as of 12 September 2014.
• Private companies were valued based on similar companies that are publicly traded.

Chanda Kochhar on Fortune list of most powerful women

As many as eight Indian women, led by ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar, have made it to the Fortune list of 25 most powerful women "shaping the new world order" in the Asia-Pacific region. Kochhar, ranked highest among Indian women, has been ranked second across the region, while three others -- SBI's Arundhati Bhattacharya (4th), HPCL's Nishi Vasudeva (5th) and Axis Bank's Shikha Sharma (10th) -- have also made it to the top-10. The list is topped by Australian banking major Westpac's chief Gail Kelly.

Other Indians on the top-25 list include Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (19th), National Stock Exchange CEO Chitra Ramkrishna (22nd), HSBC's Naina Lal Kidwai (23rd) and TAFE Chairman and CEO Mallika Srinivasan (25th).

The two Indian new entrants are Bhattacharya and Vasudeva. Among Indians, Bhattacharya is ranked second after Kochhar and is the first woman to hold the three-year post at SBI, who oversees a 208-year-old institution with $400 billion in assets and 218,000 employees dispersed among 16,000 bank branches across India.

On the other hand, Vasudeva, 58, became the first woman to head an Indian oil company and is "and one of only four women to helm a Global Fortune 500 firm in the Asia-Pacific region". NSE's Ramakrishna is the only woman on the list heading a stock exchange.

Meanwhile, PepsiCo's India-born CEO Indra Nooyi has been ranked third among world's most powerful business woman by Fortune in its worldwide list. Nooyi is only Indian-origin woman on this year's global list, which has been topped by IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty and General Motors CEO Mary Barra.

T.N. Suresh Kumar the first Indian to visit the stratosphere

T.N. Suresh Kumar, a senior scientist working with the ISRO’s Master Control Facility in Hassan, has become the first Indian to visit the stratosphere – the second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. He made it to an altitude of 17,100 metres on August 15 in a MIG-29 from Sokol Airbase near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia paying a hefty fee of around Rs. 15 lakh from his savings.

The flight reached a maximum speed of 1,850 km per hour, reaching the stratosphere in 48 minutes. With this, Mr. Kumar becomes the 259th person and the first Indian to take the flight ever since the Country of Tourism Ltd., an agency conducting space travel in Russia, started the journey called ‘Edge of Space’ six years ago.

Sharukhan has now joined hands with Interpol to promote

Sharukhan has now joined hands with Interpol to promote greater awareness in preventing crime. Interpol is the world's largest international police organization with 190 member countries. The name itself is a contraction of "international police." 
The first Indian actor to get the honour, Shah Rukh joins actor Jackie Chan as an ambassador for the campaign, which includes support from footballer Lionel Messi and Formula 1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. 
Interpol's Turn Back Crime campaign aims to improve public awareness on the fact that organized crime such drugs trafficking, people smuggling, counterfeiting, cybercrime, kidnapping, crimes against children and corruption in sport are in fact often interconnected where profits from one area is used to fund another. 

Indian-American student Akhil Rekulapelli won National Geographic Bee Championship

Indian-American student Akhil Rekulapelli won the National Geographic Bee championship in Washington, USA on 21st May 2014. Ameya Mujumdar from Florida stood second, while California's Tuvya Bergson-Michelson finished third. Ameya Mujumdar is also an Indian American student.

Akhil won the 50000 US dollar college scholarship given to the winner of the National Geographic Bee Championship. Akhil also received a trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic's Lindblad Expeditions.

Eighth grade student Akhil Rekulapelli belongs to Virginia. He started with a School Bee competition in Ashburn and advanced to the national championship after excelling in both regional and state geography bees.

The National Geographic Bee is an annual geography contest sponsored by the National Geographic Society. The bee, held every year since 1989, is open to students in the fourth through eighth grade in participating American schools.

Vijay Raghavan elected to Foreign Associate of the US National

The Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, Krishnaswamy Vijay Raghavan elected a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (USNAS) on 4th May.

Dr. Vijay Raghavan is one of 21 new foreign associates elected in 2014. He had joined a select group of Indians which includes the former NCBS Director, Obaid Siddiqi; National Research Professor C.N.R. Rao, evolutionary biologists Raghavendra Gadagkar and Madhav Gadgil, and aerospace engineer Roddam Narasimha.

Members are elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honours a scientist can receive. Dr. Vijay Raghavan is a Distinguished Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, 

Koyal Rana won the Miss India 2014 title

Koyal Rana won the fbb Femina Miss India 2014 crown after defeating 24 other contestants from across the country on 5th April. With this win, Rana will represent India at the Miss World International beauty pageant 2014.  Rana from Delhi was crowned at Yash Raj Studio in Mumbai. She was crowned by Navneer Kaur Dhillion, the 2013 winner of Femina Miss India title and Megan Young, the Miss World 2013.
First runner-up – Jhataleka Malhotra from Mumbai
Second runner-up – Gail Nicole Da’Silva from Margao, Goa
Earlier, Koyal Rana was crowned as the title of Miss Teen India 2008 at the age of 15 years.

The list of 100 Most Influential Asian People of 2014 released

The Asian Awards Ltd released a list of the 100 Most Influential Asian People of 2014 on 6th April. Chinese President Xi Jinping topped the list of the 100 Most Influential Asian People. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi are among the top 5 in the list.

Sonia Gandhi is on second, followed by Modi at fourth position, Rahul Gandhi at fifth position and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at sixth position. Others in top 10 are: Chinese Premier Le Keqiang (3); Sir Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong-based business tycoon (7); UN chief Ban Ki Moon (8); Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (9); South Korea President Park Guen-Hye (10).

Other Indian in the 100 most influential Asian people list are Union finance minister P Chidambaram (11); President Pranab Mukherjee (19); Mukesh Ambani (21); West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee (42); Social activist Anna Hazare (46); CEO of Pepsi Co. Indra Nooyi (47); Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner for Economics (52); MD of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar (54); Film star Amitabh Bachchan (63); Cultural icon Rajnikanth (66); Film star, Aamir Khan (68); Sachin Tendulkar (76); Actress Aishwarya Rai (84); Star Salman Khan (98); Cricketer, M S Dhoni (99).

Paul Sagoo, businessman was the founder of The Asian Awards. As per release the aim of the list is simple, to showcase the most influential Asian people in the world today.

Rishang Keishing Oldest MP decides to retire

Rishang Keishing, India’s oldest parliamentarian has decided to hang up his boots at 94. In this long political career, Keishing got elected to the first and third Lok Sabha, twice to the Rajya Sabha  from 2002-2014 and decades as Chief Minister of Manipur. His term in the upper house ends on April 9, 2014. In 1952, he was among the youngest MPs elected to India's first Lok Sabha. Though he started his political career as a socialist, he joined the Congress in 1964. In 1972, the United Naga Integration Council, which he floated, merged with the Congress on the ground that He continues to guide the NGO he started for the development of the tribal areas.

Mark Zuckerberg is the most generous donor of US in 2013

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest and the most generous philanthropist of America in 2013. This was revealed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy on 10 February 2014. He had given almost 1 billion dollar of his fortune to the charity. The charity was made to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. He along with his wife Priscilla Chan dedicated their 2012 funds managed by the group for health and education. Mr. Zuckerberg at 30 is the youngest benefactor ever to top the annual charitable donations list.

In September 2012, his net worth was estimated by Forbes magazine at 19 billion dollar, making him the 20th richest in the United States. Last year, the Facebook founder and his wife occupied the number two spot in charitable giving, making donations of nearly 500 million dollar in 2012.

Over the past two years, Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, a physician, have given 36 million Facebook shares to the fund, valued at about 1.5 billion dollar.

Marco Lambertini appointed as director-general of WWF International

The global conversation organisation, WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) on 6 February 2014 appointed Marco Lambertini as director-general (DG) of the WWF International. His new role as the DG will start on 1 May 2014. At the time of this appointment, he was serving Bird Life International as its chief executive. He will succeed James P Leape, who was appointed as the director-general of WWF International in 2005. 

Lambertini holds an experience of 25 years as a global conservation leader. Prior to the Bird Life International, he served as the global director of Network and Programme for over a decade. Lambertini began his association with WWF as a youth volunteer growing up in his native Italy. 

Fritz Vollmar from Lenzburg, Switzerland was the first Secretary General of WWF International (the then World Wildlife Fund) from 1962-1978. During his tenure at WWF, he was responsible to establish an international secretariat along with building up the network of fund raising national organisation from its founder members namely UK, Switzerland and USA. 

John Thompson appointed Chairman of Microsoft

John Thompson was appointed as the Chairman of Microsoft on 5th February 2014 by the Board of Directors at a meeting held in Washington, US. He succeeded Bill Gates who assumed the role of Technology Advisor to the CEO of Microsoft. John Thompson had joined the Board of Microsoft in 2012.

Earlier, he was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of privately held Virtual Instruments. The products are designed to ensure the performance and availability of applications deployed in virtualised and private cloud computing environments. He was also the former chairman and CEO of Symantec Corp. Mr. Thompson stepped down as CEO in 2009, and stepped down from Board of Directors of Symantec in 2011.

UN appointed Vivek Lall as Special Advisor

United Nation appointed India based Vivek Lall as special advisor on cyber security on 3 February 2014. Vivek Lall will be responsible for steering the policy framework of the UN in the area of broadband and associated cyber security issues and oversee implementation. Vivek Lall is a renowned aerospace and cyber security expert. Currently, he is the president and CEO of Reliance New Ventures Limited.

Lall also heads the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue and has formed the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, and is actively engaged in India-US dialogue in various fields including defence, aviation, aerospace and cyber security.

Satya Nadella appointed as CEO of Microsoft

Satya Nadella was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Internet Giant Microsoft in Washington on 4th January 2014. Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Ballmer and he takes over as the third CEO of the Microsoft firm. Bill Gates is the founder and first CEO of Microsoft. Nadella is the first Indian to head the Microsoft in its 38-year history.

Nadella was born in Hyderabad, India and joined Microsoft in 1992. Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together.

Nadella holds a bachelor of degree in electrical engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology. Nadella completed masters in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He joined Microsoft in 1992 and he served as the Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group in 2012. His father BN Yugandhar is a former planning commission member and served as special secretary to former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.

Lewis Clarke youngest person to reach South Pole

Lewis Clarke, 16 years old became the youngest person to trek to the South Pole on 18 January 2014.Clarke spent 48 days at temperature of -40 Celsius and winds of up to 193 km/h. Clarke from Bristol, UK aimed to enter the record books as the youngest person in the world to ski from the Antarctic coast to the Pole using 1100 kilometer Hercules Inlet route.

An 18 year old Sarah Mc Nair Landry from Canada previously held the same coast to pole route in 2005. The British Antarctic Survey said that the Antarctic is the highest and coldest continent and is nearly as big as Europe in size which is entirely buried by snow and ice.