June 2012 Persons

B.K.Roy Burman- An anthropologist and social scientist, died on 26 June 2012. He served as Director of the Tribal Research Institute. Prof. Burman served as the chairman of numerous international, national and State-level committees. He was associated with non-government organizations and worked for the Scheduled Tribes. In addition, he had worked as the chairman of the Futorology Commission of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. He chaired the Union Planning Commission’s Study Group on Land Holding Systems of Tribals and the Union Home Ministry’s Committee on Forest and Tribals Backward Classes Unit.

Shankar Singh Vaghela-Former Gujarat chief minister, on 13 June took over as the chairman of India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), the PSU under tourism ministry. With Vaghela's appointment, ITDC Chairman and Managing Director Lalit Panwar becomes Vice Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the PSU.ITDC offers accommodation, catering, transport, duty free shopping, entertainment, publicity, consultancy, manpower training as well as hospitality education.

Alok Misra- Bank of India chairperson and managing director Alok Misra has been elected as the chairperson of The Indian Banks Association (IBA) for the current fiscal. The heads of Punjab National Bank KR Kamath, JP Dua of Allahabad Bank and Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank have been elected as deputy chairman, while Pratip Chaudhuri of SBI is the honorary secretary of the association for 2012-13.

Srikanth Sri Srinivasan- currently serving as principal deputy solicitor general in the Obama administration was nominated on June 11 by the president to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia widely considered to be the second-most important court in the nation. Srinivasan is the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. He is a highly-respected appellate advocate who has spent a distinguished career litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals, both on behalf of the United States and in private practice.

Mitra Dutta- a distinguished Indian-American engineer-physicist, who has studied at Guwahati and Delhi universities, has been named vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Shekhar Basu-He was appointed as the Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) on 19 June 2012. Basu, who earlier served as the Chief Executive of Nuclear Recycle Board of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay succeeded Ratan Kumar Sinha on the top position. Sinha was appointed as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission on 30 April 2012. Basu was the Project Director of the Plutonium Recycling Project at Kalpakkam, which built India's first indigenous Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) which is powered by enriched uranium.

Abid Hussain-Former Indian ambassador to US Abid Hussain died at the age of 85 in London on 21 June 2012. Hussain, a member of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), was one of those very few officers who served the Indian Foreign Service despite not being the member of the coveted service. In 1988, Hussain was awarded with Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award given by the Indian Government.

Radha Vinod Raju- the founding director of National Investigation Agency (NIA) died at the age of 62 on 21 June 2012. Raju also headed the special investigation team (SIT) which probed the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. The SIT headed by him, held LTTE culprit of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. National Investigation Agency (NIA), the counter terrorism law enforcement agency of India, was founded on 31 December 2008. The agency was founded amidst the growing incidents of terror attacks in India.

Dipankar Mukherjee- National Secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), passed away on 18 June 2012 in New Delhi at the age of 69. Dipankar Mukherjee was born in June 1943 at Calcutta in West Bengal. Mukharjee joined CITU as its full time member in 1991 and actively participated in trade union movement since then. He was elected National Secretary of CITU in 2003 and represented CITU in various forums. Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) is one of India’s largest associations of workers. Founded in 1970, the union is politically associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Nik Wallend-American Stuntman Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope on 15 June 2012. Wallenda took more than 25 minutes to complete his 1800-feet long precarious journey. No person in the past 100 years has accomplished this much dare act. Wallenda started the walk from the U.S. side of the falls and finished it to the Canadian side. The waterfalls of Niagara falls are located on the Niagara river which connect two of the five great lakes. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Collectively the waterfalls called the Niagra falls. The falls consist of three different water falls, the American falls, the Bridal Veil Falls in America and the Canadian Horseshoe falls in Canada. The Niagara Falls marks the international border between USA and Canada.

Fatou Bensounda-Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda was sworn in on 15 June 2012 as the International Criminal Court's new chief prosecutor. Bensouda was elected for a nine-year term.Born on 31 January 1961 in Gambia, Bensouda is the first woman and the first African to be appointed as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which is investigating 15 cases in seven countries, all of them African. Bensouda is the recipient of the ICJ International Jurists Award (2009), which was conferred on her by President of India Pratibha Devisingh Patil. Bensouda was given this award for her contributions to criminal law both at the national and International level.

Mehdi Hassan - Pakistani ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan died in Karachi on 13 June 2012 following a prolonged illness. Born into a family of traditional musicians on 18 July 1927 in Luna in Rajasthan, Mehdi Hassan had migrated to Pakistan with his family in 1947 at the time of partition. He had been presented with numerous honours including Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, Pride of Performance and Hilal-e-Imtiaz by the Government of Pakistan, Saigal Award in India and Gorkha Dakshina Bahu by the Government of Nepal. Once dubbed as the voice of God by Lata Mangeshkar, Hassan had a huge fan following both in India and Pakistan.

Vice Admiral D.K.Joshi-Government of India on 5 June 2012 nominated Vice Admiral Devender Kumar Joshi as the new Navy chief. Joshi will assume the charge after Admiral Nirmal Verma retires on 31 August 2012. Joshi, 58 is currently the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command.DK Joshi has been awarded the Param Vishist Seva Medal, the Ati Vishist Seva medal, Yudh Seva Medal, Nau Sena Medal and the Vishist Seva Medal.

V.S.Sampath-President Pratibha Patil appointed senior-most Election Commissioner Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath as the 18th Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India. He replaced S.Y. Quraishi on the constitutional position, whose term as the CEC is coming to an end on 10 June 2012.Born at Vellore in Tamil Nadu on 16 January 1950; VS Sampath joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1973 as the officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre. He took over as Election Commissioner on 21 April 2009. He will carry out his term till 16 January 2015 — either for six years in the Commission or till the age of 65, whichever comes earlier. H.S. Brahma is the other Election Commissioner. The other Election Commissioner is yet to be appointed by the President.

Justice M. B. Lokur –Justice Lokur took the oath as the Supreme Court judge on 4 June 2012. Prior to his elevation to the apex court he was serving as the chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The joining of Justice Lokur has taken the total number of the apex court judge to 26, which is still five short of the total strength of 31 judges.In one of his landmark verdicts as chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Justice Lokur had voided the Union government’s decision to provide 4.5 percent reservation in educational institutions and government jobs for Muslims within the existing reservation quota.