Current Affairs August 2016 - Appointments

News 1 - Rani Singh Nair appointed as the Chairperson of CBDT

Rani Singh Nair took over as the new chairperson of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) after Atulesh Jindal, who was appointed CBDT chief in February 2016, retired. Nair, a 1979-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the I-T cadre. She worked as member (Legislation and Computerisation) at CBDT. She will retire on October 31^st, 2016.

She is responsible to oversee effective execution of the ambitious one-time domestic black money disclosure programme, also called the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS). IDS is set to close on 30 September.

News 2 - Anant Maheshwari appointed as the President of Microsoft India

Anant Maheshwari has been appointed as the head of Microsoft in India. He will succeed Bhaskar Pramanik. Anant will join on September 1 as President and will take over the operations of the company with effect from January 1, 2017. As president, Maheshwari will be responsible for all of Microsoft’s product, service, and support offerings across India.

Prior to this appointment, Maheshwari was President of Honeywell in India. Anant worked with McKinsey & Co. for six years where he worked with clients across multiple industries.

News 3 - Sudhanshu Mani to take charge as the General Manager of Integral Coach Factory

Sudhanshu Mani has been appointed as the General Manager of Integral Coach Factory. Prior to this appointment, he has served as Chief Mechanical Engineer in Rail Wheel Factory of Bengaluru.

He has working experience of 36 years in Indian Railways in various fields of workshop management, railway operations, project management, planning and R&D.

Owned and operated by the Indian Railways, Integral Coach Factory is the only manufacturer of rail coaches located in Chennai, established in 1952.

News 4 - Deepak Iyer appointed as the MD of Mondelez India

Deepak Iyer has been appointed as Managing Director of Mondelez International's India Business and will replace Chandramouli Venkatesan. He will be part of the Asia Pacific Leadership Team and report into Maurizio Brusadelli, EVP & President, Asia Pacific, Mondelez International.

Prior to joining Mondelez, Deepak was Chief Executive and Managing Director at Bharti Axa General Insurance Co. Ltd. Before that, Iyer was CEO and Managing Director of chewing gum maker Wrigley India Pvt Ltd. He worked with PepsiCo Inc. for about 17 years across different roles and in different markets.

News 5 - Bhaskar Khulbe appointed as the Secretary to the Prime Minister

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved appointment of senior IAS officer Bhaskar Khulbe as the secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was Additional Secretary in Prime Minister's Office.

Mr Khulbe is a 1983 batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre. He looks after work related to Cabinet Secretariat and thrust areas of the government, among others. His appointment is effective 7^th August.

News 6 - CSS Corp appoints Manish Tandon as its new CEO

CSS Corp, a global Technology Support company, has appointed Manish Tandon as its new Chief Executive Officer. He will take over from “Tiger” TG Ramesh.

Manish is an IIT Kanpur alumnus and a Gold Medalist from IIM Bangalore. He has spent nearly two decades at Infosys building, delivering value to global clients across the IT-enabled Services value chain. He is currently the head of Healthcare & Life Sciences, Insurance and HighTech Manufacturing businesses at Infosys.

News 7 - Youssef Chahed elected as the new Prime Minister of Tunisia

Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi announced Youssef Chahed as the new Prime Minister of the Tunisia, defeating Habib Essid. The announcement came after parliament removed Habib Essid in a vote of no-confidence because of his inability to handle economic reforms and security threat issues.

Prior to this appointment, Youssef Chahed was handling duties minister for local affairs. The parliament took decision to overcome political disputes regarding inefficiency of tackling economic reforms.

News 8 - Vijay Rupani elected as the new Chief Minister of Gujarat

Vijay Rupani took oath as the 16^th Chief Minister of Gujarat while Nitin Patel took oath as Deputy Chief Minister in the presence of Governor O P Kohli. Eight Cabinet ministers and 16 other ministers also took oath during the ceremony replacing nine ministers from the Anandiben government.

Rupani is also the third CM of Gujarat to hail from Rajkot, after Ghanshyam Oza and Keshubhai Patel. Mr Rupani replaces Anandiben Patel who resigned as Chief Minister.

News 9 - Sandeep Kumar appointed as the Transport Commissioner of Delhi

Sandeep Kumar, a 1997-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, has been appointed as the Transport Commissioner of Delhi. He has replaced Sanjay Kumar, who was appointed as the commissioner a few months ago. Sandeep will take on the role of the Commissioner as an additional charge. He is also the Managing Director of Delhi Khadi and Village Industries Board.

Sanjay Kumar had been on leave for several weeks before he was divested of the post of commissioner. Before going on leave, Sanjay signed the AAP government's Premium Bus Policy without getting the approval of Delhi LG Najeeb Jung.

News 10 - K M Hanumantharayappa assumes charge as the new Chairman of Central Silk Board

K M Hanumantharayappa has assumed charge as new Chairman of Central Silk Board, Union Ministry of Textiles, for a period of three years. He is the 25^th Chairman of the Central Silk Board.

Hanumantharayappa succeeds N S Bissegowda and is a senior political leader from Bharatiya Janata Party. He had served as a Member to the Central Silk Board during 20002002 and is the President of Karnataka State Nekarara Horata Samithi and also served as Chairman, Karnataka Silk Marketing Board (KSMB) during 2010-2013. He had been awarded with the ‘Best Agriculturist Award’ by the Government of Karnataka.

News 11 - Pawan Munjal reappointed as the CMD & CEO of Hero MotoCorp

Hero MotoCorp has reappointed Pawan Munjal as its Chairman, Managing Director, and Chief Executive for a period of five years. Munjal's current tenure comes to an end on September 30, 2016.

The company also elevated its head of operations and supply chain Vikram Kasbekar as a Director on the company's board. Kasbekar has been with the company for close to 14 years. Besides, the company also appointed Neerja Sharma as the Company Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer.

News 12 - Dinesh Kumar Khara appointed as the Managing Director of SBI

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has appointed Dinesh Kumar Khara as the Managing Director of State Bank of India (SBI) for a period of three years, extendable by two years after review of his performance. He is presently working as MD and Chief Executive Officer of SBI Funds Management Pvt. Ltd.

The ACC has approved appointments of four General Managers as Executive Directors in various banks. Ashok Kumar Garg and Raj Kamal Verma have been appointed as ED of Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India respectively. Gopal Murli Bhagat and Himanshu Joshi have been appointed as ED of Corporation Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce respectively.

News 13 - Rajeev Krishnan appointed as the Managing Director of Max Hypermarkets India

Rajeev Krishnan has been appointed as the Managing Director of Max Hypermarkets India. He has taken over from Viney Singh who will continue on the board of the company as a Non-Executive Director.

Krishnan has over 29 years of global experience in companies such as Target Brands Inc., WalMart Stores Inc. and Mckinsey and Co. Krishnan will guide and direct the strategy of the Hypermarket & Supermarket business of the SPAR brand in India.

News 14 - Takehiko Nakao Re-elected for the Second Term as the ADB President

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Governors has unanimously re-elected Takehiko Nakao as President of ADB for a further 5 years beginning on 24 November 2016. Mr. Nakao is the ninth President of ADB. His predecessor was Haruhiko Kuroda.

Prior to joining ADB in 2013, Mr. Nakao was a senior official in the Ministry of Finance, Japan. Mr. Nakao also taught international finance as a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo in 2010 and 2011.

News 15 - BHEL appoints Akhil Joshi as their Director (Power)

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has appointed Akhil Joshi as Director (Power). He will be responsible for marketing, erection, commissioning, overall management of power projects and the after-market business for the company.

Mr. Joshi has a diverse experience of over 36 years, working in major segments of BHEL. Prior to this, he was Executive Director (MSX & HR) at BHEL’s Power Sector Headquarters in New Delhi. Mr. Akhil Joshi also held various leadership positions in Spares and Services business of Power Sector, Technology Licensing and International Operations divisions of BHEL.

News 16 - Sriram Rajamani appointed as the MD of Microsoft’s India lab

Sriram Rajamani has been appointed as the new Managing Director of Microsoft's India lab, based in Bengaluru. He will replace Chandu Thekkath and will spearhead Microsoft India’s continued focus on world-class research, innovation and collaboration with the scientific community.

Prior to joining the India lab, Rajamani headed the Software Productivity Tools group within Microsoft’s Redmond research lab. He is the co-winner of the CAV (Computer Aided Verification) 2011 award. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) named him as an ACM Fellow in 2016 for his contributions to software analysis and defect detection.

News 17 - D K Gayen takes charge as the new General Manager of the East Central Railway

D K Gayen was appointed as new General Manager of East Central Railway (ECR) replacing Rajeev Mishra. Prior to this appointment, he has been serving as Chief Mechanical Engineer of South Eastern Railway at Kolkata.

A 1979 batch officer of Indian Railway Service for Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), he has worked on several important posts.

ECR includes five divisions Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur and Sonepur.

News 18 - Sitaraman Shankar appointed as the Network18 Managing Editor

Sitaraman Shankar has been appointed as Managing Editor - Special Projects of Network18. He will work closely with Network18’s television news editors in multiple areas, and drive the scaling up of the flagship digital brand Moneycontrol. He will also serve as Group Training Editor and manage the content quality.

He has 22 years of experience in journalism, most of which was with Reuters. His last assignment was with Hindustan Times where he played a variety of roles including that of Deputy Managing Editor and Editor (Views).

News 19 - Birender Singh Yadav appointed as the next HC of India to Ghana

Shri Birender Singh Yadav has been appointed as the next High Commissioner of India to the Republic of Ghana.

He is expected to take up his assignment shortly. An IFS officer of 1997 batch, Yadav will succeed K. Jeeva Sagar in Ghana.

Presently, he is working as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.

News 20 - Apple rehires Flipboard Co-Founder, Evan Doll, for Health Software Role

Apple Inc. has hired Flipboard co-Founder Evan Doll. He was appointed as Director of health software engineering at Apple in July 2016. Apple wants to get deeply involved in the $9 trillion global healthcare market. Evan will help Apple develop more health-related software.

He had left Apple to found digital news magazine app Flipboard with Mike McCue. During his previous stint at Apple, from about 2003 to 2009, the software engineer helped develop the iPhone operating system.

News 21 - Cipla names Umang Vohra as the MD & Global CEO

Cipla Ltd announced the appointment of Umang Vohra as the Managing Director & Global Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective September 1, 2016. The current incumbent, Subhanu Saxena will step down from his position on August 31, 2016. Umang joined the company in October 2015 as the Global Chief Financial & Strategy Officer and was elevated as the Global Chief Operating Officer early 2016.

Samina Vaziralli, Executive Director and the Global Head- Strategy, M&A and Cipla New Ventures will be the Executive Vice-Chairman of Cipla effective September 1, 2016.

News 22 - Manjula Chellur appointed as the new Chief Justice of Bombay high court

Manjula Chellur has been transferred as Chief Justice of Bombay High Court. She was earlier Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court. She would be joining Bombay High Court on 24 August. Justice Girish Gupta would be the new Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court.

Chief Justice Chellur was the first lady Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court. She had joined the Karnataka Judicial Service as District Judge on 15 April 1988. Ms. Chellur will be only second woman Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, after Sujata Manohar in 1994. She replaces CJ Dhirendra Hiralal Waghela.

News 23 - Saraswat Cooperative Bank appoints Gautam Eknath Thakur as its new Chairman

The Saraswat Co-Operative Bank has appointed Gautam Eknath Thakur as its Chairman. He was unanimously elected by the bank's Board of Directors. Mr. Shashikant Keshav Sakhalkar was also unanimously elected as Vice-Chairman.

Thakur is credited for contributing majorly in making the cooperative conglomerate achieve the target of Rs 50 thousand crore turn-over. Founded in 1918, the largest co-operative lender currently operates in half a dozen States. It is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

News 24 - Centre appoints four new Governors

The Union Government has named former Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Najma Heptullah, as the Governor of Manipur, while BJP leader and former Rajya Sabha member V.P. Singh Badnore has been named the new Governor of Punjab.

BJP leader and former Nagpur MP Banwarilal Purohit has been appointed the Governor of Assam while Delhi BJP leader Jagdish Mukhi has been named Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The above appointments will take effect from the dates the incumbents assume charge of their respective offices.

News 25 - Urjit Patel appointed the new Governor of RBI; to assume office on September 5^th

Urjit Patel has been appointed as new Governor of Reserve Bank of India. He will succeed Raghuram Rajan. Mr. Patel was a RBI Deputy Governor prior to this elevation. He will assume office as the 24^th RBI governor for three years on 5^th September, a day after Rajan’s term ends.

Mr. Patel is a PhD from Yale University and has worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The Brookings Institution at Washington and the Massachusetts-based Boston Consulting Group.

News 26 - Sunil Mittal re-appointed as the Chairman of Bharti Airtel for the next 5 years

Sunil Bharti Mittal has been re-appointed as the Chairman of Bharti Airtel for another five years, with effect from October 1, 2016. He is the Founder of Bharti Enterprises, one of largest conglomerates in India.

Bharti Airtel offers mobile, fixed broadband and digital TV solutions to over 350 million customers across India, South Asia and Africa. The Group also has joint ventures with global leaders like Singtel, SoftBank, AXA, Del Monte etc.

News 27 - R S Sodhi of Amul India appointed on the board of India Post Payment Banks

R S Sodhi, Managing Director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), has been appointed as independent director on the board of India Post Payment Banks (IPPB). GCMMF sells the Amul brand of milk products.

Sodhi is one of the five independent members to be appointed on the board of IPPB. The board will have four in-house representatives. IPPB is set to be operational from March 2017 and plans to become a powerful and effective vehicle of real financial inclusion in the country.

News 28 - Jagdish Mukhi sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Jagdish Mukhi was sworn in as the 12^th Lieutenant Governor of the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Mr. Mukhi took over from Lt General A K Singh (Retd) who was appointed in July 2013.

The Senior BJP leader had been a minister and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly in the past. He was also a professor in Delhi University and has authored a book titled 'Company Law and Secretarial Practice'.

News 29 - Brajendra Navnit and V Sheshadri appointed as Joint Secretaries in PMO

Senior IAS officers Brajendra Navnit and V Sheshadri have been appointed as Joint Secretaries in Prime Minister's Office. They have been working as Director in the PMO. Navnit has been appointed as Jonint Secretary till July 2, 2019 whereas Sheshadri will have tenure till August 21, 2018.

Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi and Aramane Giridhar h ave been appointed as Joint Secretaries in Cabinet Secretariat. Anshu Sinha has been appointed as JS in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. IRS officer Dilip Sharma has been appointed as Director General in Election Commission of India for three years.

News 30 - Ashok Chawla to take over as YES Bank non-executive chairman

YES Bank has appointed Mr. Ashok Chawla as an Additional Director (Non-Executive) with effect from March 05, 20 16. YES BANK has also applied to the RBI to seek approval on the appointment of Mr. Ashok Chawla as the next Non-Executive Chairman of the Bank, upon expiry of term of current Non-Executive Chairperson, Ms. Radha Singh.

Mr. Ashok Chawla was the Chairman of the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”). He has been a distinguished civil servant with over 40 years of experience in various sectors of the economy in India as well as in International Multilateral agencies.

News 31 - Eminent Scientist P D Gupta appointed VC of Homi Bhabha National Institute

The Department of Person nel and Training has appointed eminent scientist P D Gupta as Vice Chancellor of Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI). He has been appointed to the post for five years.

The HBNI is an aided institution of the Department of Atomic Energy and is a deemed to be university under the UGC Act. The institute is dedicated to encourage pursuit of excellence in sciences (including engineering sciences) and mathematics in a manner that has major significance for the progress of indigenous nuclear technological capability.

News 32 - Nalin Jain appointed as CFO of Volvo Auto

Swedish carmaker, Volvo Auto, has appointed Nalin Jain as the new Chief Financial Officer and Jyoti Malhotra as the Director, S ales, Marketing and PR for India operations. The auto-maker has also appointed Rajeev Chauhan as the Network Director.

Volvo Auto plans to increase sales volume and secure a 10 percent market share in the luxury car segment by 2020, he added. The company is also looking at expanding its dealer network aggressively to Pune, Lucknow and Jaipur by December 2016.

News 33 - Pankaj Harjai appointed head of Lenovo's SMB business

PC maker Lenovo has appointed Pankaj Harjai as the head of its newly constituted Small and Medium Business (SMB) vertical. Pankaj has also taken charge of Lenovo's commercial channel business. He will report to Rahul Agarwal, Managing Director, Lenovo India.

Pankaj has been a part of Lenovo since August 2012. Prior to his appointment into the new role, he was the Sub Regional General Manager for the West Region. In his new role, Pankaj will lead sales, product and go-to-market strategy for the SMB vertical.

News 34 - Sharmila Tagore appointed as a new member of the BCCC with two others

Sharmila Tagore has been appointed as the new member of Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC), the self-regulatory body which hears complaints against TV content. The other two new members to have been appointed are theatre activist Arundhati Nag and film studies academician Ira Bhaskar.

They have been appointed for a term of three years in the eminent persons' category in place. They have replaced the outgoing members - retired IAS officer Bhaskar Ghose, actor Shabana Azmi and journalist Vir Sanghvi.

News 35 - Punit Misra named CEO of Zee Entertainment domestic broadcast biz

Zee Entertainment Enterprises has appointed Punit Misra as Chief Executive Officer for its domestic broadcast business with effect from October 1. He will report to Zee Entertainment Enterprises Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Punit Goenka.

Prior to this appointment, Misra was Executive Director-Sales and Customer Development at Hindustan Unilever and joined HUL as a management trainee in 1996. He had several stints in leadership roles across customer development, brand building, brand development and general management.

News 36 - Mukesh Mehta appointed as President of India Bullion and Jewelers Association

Mukesh Mehta has been appointed president of India Bullion and Jewelers Association (IBJA) for the tenure 2016- 2021. Mehta replaced Mohit Kamboj, who resigned from the post.

Mehta is the Director of Mark Bangles Pvt Ltd, Mumbai. He has been the member of the IBJA Board since the last four years. He has also served on various committees in the last four years. IBJA is a 97-year-old apex organization representing bullion dealers and jewelers.

News 37 - SN Subrahmanyan to be the next Larsen & Toubro chief

Larsen & Toubro’s Group Executive Chairman AM Naik named S N Subrahmanyan as his successor with effect from October 1, 2017.

Subrahmanyan will be elevated as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. He is currently the Deputy Managing Director and President. Before that he held the post of senior executive vice-president and had been on the board since 2011.

Mr. Subrahmanyan has been Construction Week magazine’s ‘Infrastructure Person of the Year – 2012’. He has also been voted the ‘Construction World – Man of the Year 2015’ by Construction World magazine.

News 38 - Amit Chandra appointed non-executive director of Tata Sons

Amit Chandra, Managing Director, Bain Capital, has been appointed as a non-executive director of Tata Sons with effect from August 26, 2016. With Mr Chandra’s appointment, the Tata Sons board now has 9 directors.

Mr. Chandra joined Bain Capital as managing director in early 2008 and is part of the firm’s leadership team in Asia. He is a member of the board of directors of Genpact, L&T Finance, Tata Investment Corporation, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Akanksha Foundation and GiveIndia. Earlier this year, he was named in the Forbes "Asia's Heroes of Philanthropy" List.