Surojit Chatterjee appointed as Senior Vice President of Flipkart

Homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart has appointed Google’s executive Surojit Chatterjee as Senior Vice President and Head of Consumer Experience and Growth. In the new role, he will be responsible for all Flipkart’s consumer experience across desktop as well as mobile and will directly report to Chief Product Officer (CPO) of company Punit Soni. Prior to this appointment, Chatterjee for last 8 years was working at Google and his most recent post was the global head of Mobile Search Advertising and AdSense for Search (AFS). He is also the founding member of Google’s mobile search ads. He had helped the search engine giant to make mobile search ads a growth engine for Google which had led into a multi-billion dollar business. Chatterjee holds a BS degree in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur and MS in Computer Science from SUNY Buffalo. He also holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and is credited with total 33 granted US patents to his name.

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated 35th edition of India International Trade Fair

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated 35th edition of India International Trade Fair (IITF) at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. The 14 day fair has been organised by India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), under aegis of Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry. In this edition over 7,000 firms from India and overseas are participating. This year Afghanistan has been roped as the partner country and Bangladesh is the focus country. Within Indian states, Goa and Jharkhand are roped as partner states, while Madhya Pradesh is the focus state. Theme of 2015 edition of IITF is Make in India in order to encourage companies to manufacture their products in India. The major objective behind this international trade festival is to focus on 25 sectors of Indian economy for skill enhancement and job creation. Some of these sectors are: automobiles, chemicals, Information Technology (IT), textiles, ports, pharmaceuticals, leather, aviation, tourism and hospitality, railway, auto components, wellness, design manufacturing, renewable energy, mining, bio-technology, and electronics etc.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has decided to pay a production-linked subsidy of Rs 4.50 per quintal directly to sugarcane farmers in the current crushing season. Decision in this regard was taken at CCEA meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Key facts This decision aims at helping cash strapped sugar mills clear arrears and would cost public exchequer about 1,147 crore rupees. The production subsidy would be given to offset the cost of sugarcane and facilitate the timely payment of cane prices to farmers. Currently, Sugar mills across the country are facing a liquidity crunch due to low prices of the sweetener in retail markets and they owe about 6,500 crore rupees to cane farmers. In the last two crushing seasons, Union Government had given sugar export subsidy to millers in order to help them clear cane dues to farmers. But it was discontinued this season due to World Trade Organisation (WTO) objections. Extension of Lines of Credit to African and other developing countries The CCEA also gave its approval to the extension of Lines of Credit to African and other developing countries for another five years from 2015-16. The Lines of Credit will be provided under Indian Development and Economic Assistance (IDEA) Scheme which has been in operation since 2005-06. IDEA scheme attempts to promote India’s strategic political and economic interest abroad by positioning it as an emerging economic power and partner for developing countries. The Union Government would make a budgetary provision to the tune of around 3,772 crore rupees for this scheme. It should be noted that Lines of Credit are an important component of India’s diplomatic strategy. It has been very useful tool in generating goodwill and building long term partnerships with different countries.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Every year on 25th November is observed as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (IDEVAW) across the world. Significance of Day: Raise awareness about violence against women and girls, end the violence against the women. Show that prevention is possible against violence of women. Key facts On occasion of this day, hundreds of monuments across the world were lit in orange to galvanise support for global action to end violence against women and girls. The orange colour symbolise a bright and optimistic future to free from violence against women and girls and will help unify the large-scale social mobilisation. Prevention is the theme of this year’s UNiTE campaign of IDEVAW which would be a 16 days-long activism against gender-based violence till 10th December 2015 i.e. till International Human Rights Day. Background: IDEVAW was commemorated in the memory of the Mirabal sisters who were three political activists from the Dominican Republic. They were brutally assassinated during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship (1930-1961) in 1960.

26 November is being observed as National Milk Day

Every year 26 November is being observed as National Milk Day (NMD) to mark birth anniversary Father of the White Revolution Dr.Verghese Kurien. Background: The idea of observing National Milk Day was first mooted by Indian Dairy Association (IDA) in 2014 on the lines of World Milk Day observed on June 1 under the aegis of UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The first NMD was observed on 26 November 2014 by all Indian diary sector majors including National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), IDA along with around 22 state level milk federations. About Dr.Verghese Kurien Verghese Kurien was born on 26 November 1921 in Calicut in then Madras Presidency of British India. He had died on 9 September 2012. Operation Flood: As a social entrepreneur he had started billion-litre idea-Operation Flood which was the world’s largest agricultural development programme. Operation had helped to transform India from a milk-deficit country into the world’s largest milk producer. Milk Co-operatives Movement: He had founded around 30 cooperative institutions of excellence (like AMUL, GCMMF, IRMA, NDDB) which are owned, managed by farmers and run by professionals. As the founding chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), Dr. Kurien was pioneer in establishment and success of the Amul brand of dairy products. Milk powder: Under his chairmanship, Amul achieved key invention of milk powder processed from buffalo milk. Awards and Honours: Ramon Magsaysay Award (1963), World Food Prize (1989), Padma Shri (1965), Padma Bhushan (1966) and Padma Vibhushan (1999).

T.S. Thakur as the Chief Justice of India

President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Justice T.S. Thakur as the Chief Justice of India (CJI) as per provisions of Article 124 of Constitution. T.S. Thakur will be 43rd Chief Justice of India and his appointment will come into effect from 3 December 2015. He will have tenure till January 3, 2017 i.e. till he attains the age of 65. Background The incumbent CJI H.L. Dattu had recommended Justice Thakur’s name for this top most post of Indian Judiciary, as he was senior-most judge of the apex court. Following the recommendation, the Union Law Ministry had processed his file and sent it to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for approval. From the PMO after its approval the file was forwarded to the President of India for approval. About Justice T. S. Thakur Born on January 4, 1952. He is the son of D.D. Thakur, who was an renowned advocate and eminent judge in the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) High Court and later served as Union Minister. Judicial career: Justice Thakur had enrolled as a Pleader in October 1972. Later, he started practising in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. He also had worked in Karnataka High Court, Delhi High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court. He had worked as Chief Justice (CJ) of both Delhi High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court. He was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court in 2009. In Supreme Court, Justice Thakur had headed of the bench which dealt with IPL spot-fixing scam. He also had headed of the bench which is monitoring the probe in the Saradha chit fund scam case.