8-02-2010

08/02/2010 : Indian-American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri has been appointed as a member of US President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with five others. Her book name "Interpreter of Maladies", received the Pulitzer Prize. Her other famous books "The Namesake" and "Unaccustomed Earth"


08/02/2010 : Suresh Tendulkar committee - related to analysis of poverty in India.

08/02/2010 : Agni-III, the missile with the longest range in India's arsenal, tested successfully from the Wheeler Island off Orissa - developed by DRDO - two stages of ignition - Both stages of Agni-III are powered by solid propellants. It is 17 metres long, has a diameter of two metres and a launch weight of 50 tonnes. It can carry payloads weighing 1.5 tonnes.

08/02/2010 : The Kirit Parikh Committee - tax on diesel cars - petrol, kerosene, diesel price regulation

08/02/2010 : Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) - Demands that a Gorkhaland State be carved out of the Darjeeling district and certain areas contiguous to it in north Bengal.

08/02/2010 : Rohan Bopanna - Tennis

08/02/2010 : Musunuri Lalit Babu - Chess

08/02/2010 : The Chinese currency Renminbi, or people's money, established in 1948, is popularly known as yuan

08/02/2010 : Cyclonic storm 'Phyan' - South Gujarat and North Maharashtra this year - following a deep depression in the South East and adjoining Central Arabian Sea.

08/02/2010 : UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura



08/02/2010 : National Education Day celebrated on Nov 11: It was celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India's first education minister. The govrnment has started major expansion of higher education by opening eight new IITs and 15 Central universities. It has also been decided to set up six IIMs, 10 NITs, 20 IIITs and 6,000 model schools during the 11th Plan (2007-12). It was in this context and on this occasion that the PM was remarking that we face difficulty in finding top level professors and lecturers in the newly created IITs, IISERs and other such institutions. This function was also attended by UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura.

08/02/2010 : Operation Cast Lead - Israel attack on Gaza.

08/02/2010 : Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Climate Change Challenge and Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Integrated Rural Energy Planning and Development at Bakoli, New Delhi

08/02/2010 : Naresh Narad Committee : In 2001, the Naresh Narad Committee examined the need for setting up of an upstream hydrocarbon regulatory authority. Though, it recognised the need to distance regulation from government, it was not unanimous on DGH's role. Later, the possibility of authorising common jurisdiction with the downstream regulator (Petroleum & Natural Gas Regulatory Board) was also discussed. Historically, Dasgupta Committee (1991) envisaged reservoir management as the essential function of a regulator. Kaul Committee (1992) added leasing development conservation.

08/02/2010 : Cairn oil field is in Barmer, Rajasthan

08/02/2010 : Road, transport and highway minister Kamal Nath

08/02/2010 : Udham Singh is the guy who killed Michael O'Dwyer in 1940, for the latter was the Governor of Punjab when the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre took place in 1919. The killing was retribution for his role in imposing martial law and defending the perpetrators of the Jallianwalla Bagh killings at the end of the First World War, carried out almost exactly twenty one years later.

08/02/2010 : Ghadar party - the ambitious revolutionary movement started in North America which struggled for India's liberation from British imperialism during the First World War.

08/02/2010 : Gas-based power plants in the country have seen over 35% increase in power generation during the first half of the financial year over the year-ago period, buoyed by the flow of gas from Krishna Godavari (KG) basin from April this year.

08/02/2010 : Indo - China border issue: In 1913-14, China, Tibet & Britain tried to hammer out the Simla Accord - a deal defining borders between Inner & Outer Tibet, and between Outer Tibet & British India. Henry McMahon, a British administrator, drew up 550 miles of the boundary demarcating British India and Outer Tibet. China walked out of the talks, rejecting the line between Inner and Outer Tibet, but the Accord nonetheless ceded Tawang and other Tibetan areas to the British Empire. Since then, China has declared the line invalid, citing the absence of its signature on the Simla Accord. After the collapse of Chinese power in Tibet, the McMahon line was, de facto, accepted as official, & Britain established administrations in the area. However, Tibet & later the People's Republic of China claimed Tawang district after Indian independence. With China all set to take over Tibet, India declared the McMahon line the official boundary in 1950. The North East Frontier Agency was created in 1954. The Tibetan uprising was suppressed by China & its self-ruling government abolished in 1959. The Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, and maps published by the Tibetan government-in exile now show McMahon Line as the southern border of Tibet. During the 1962 war, China acquired large parts of NEFA but voluntarily withdrew back to the McMahon line. It was only in 1985 that China declared its ownership claims on the eastern tract roughly corresponding to Arunachal Pradesh. Until then, it was prepared to cede this land to India if it was given the cold western desert of Aksai Chin in Ladakh, of strategic importance to China. India rejects China's claims over both, & post-1985 China has insisted that Arunachal Pradesh is theirs.