Current Affairs - Appointment & Resignation

• The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind on 26 August 2021 signed the warrants of the appointment of nine judges, including three women, to the Supreme Court who will be sworn in on August 31.
• The new judges include Justice B.V. Nagarathna, who will be in line to be the first woman Chief Justice of India in September 2027.
• The other women judges who have been elevated are Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Hema Kohli.
• The other appointees are Justices C.T. Ravikumar, M.M. Sundresh, Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, Vikram Nath and Jitendra Kumar Maheshwari, and former Additional Solicitor-General P.S. Narasimha.
• With the appointments, the working strength of the Supreme Court goes up to 33, against the sanctioned strength of 34.

• La Ganesan has been appointed as Governor of Manipur on 22^nd August 2021.
• Ganesan replaced Najma Heptulla, who retired earlier this month.
• A former Rajya Sabha MP, La Ganesan is the 17 Governor of Manipur.

• Ismail Sabri Yaakob has been appointed as the 9th Prime Minister of Malaysia on 21 August 2021.
• He succeeded Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned from the post after losing majority support in the lower house of parliament.
• He served as the 13th Deputy Prime Minister from July 2021 to August 2021 as well as the Minister of Defence.

• Dr Dhriti Banerjee has been appointed as the director of the Zoological Survey of India.
• She is the first female to lead the organization in over 100 years history of the Zoological Survey of India.
• She has been an eminent scientist conducting research in zoogeography, taxonomy, morphology among others. Since 2012, Dhriti has been engaged with ZSI's digital sequence information project.
• On the occasion of its centenary celebrations in 2016, Banerjee had co-authored the “The Glorious 100 Women’s Scientific Contribution in ZSI”, which chronicled the contributions of women scientists in the domain of animal-related groups.
• Started in July 1916, the ZSI is headquartered in Kolkata with 16 regional centres under the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change.

• Ariel Henry has been sworn in as the new prime minister of Haiti.
• He has also given the charge of acting president of Haiti since 20 July 2021 after Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.

• On 13th July 2021, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba was appointed as Prime Minister for the fifth time.
• Earlier, on 12^th July 2021, the Supreme Court of Nepal overturned Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's 21 May decision to dissolve the House of Representatives and ordered the appointment of Deuba.

• Canada on 6th July 2021 appointed the first Indigenous governor general in its 154-year history.
• Mary Simon, the 30th Governor General will serve as the Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada.
• Simon, an Inuit from northern Quebec and a former diplomat who has served as an ambassador for the Arctic, has been a champion for her people's rights.
• The governor general's role is mainly ceremonial, but she is the queen's representative to Canada and she does have power, but in reality she follows the direction of the prime minister.
• About Inuits: They are an Indigenous people, the majority of whom inhabit the northern regions of Canada. An Inuit person is known as an Inuk. The Inuit homeland is known as Inuit Nunangat, which refers to the land, water and ice contained in the Arctic region.

Prime Minister

Narendra Modi

Portfolios: Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Department of Atomic Energy; Department of Space

Cabinet Ministers

• Minister of Defence: Rajnath Singh
• Minister of Home Affairs; and Minister of Cooperation: Amit Shah
• Minister of Road Transport and Highways: Nitin Gadkari
• Minister of Finance; and Minister of Corporate Affairs: Nirmala Sitharaman
• Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare: Narendra Singh Tomar
• Minister of External Affairs: S Jaishankar
• Minister of Tribal Affairs: Arjun Munda
• Minister of Women and Child Development: Smriti Zubin Irani
• Minister of Education; and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship: Dharmendra Pradhan
• Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas; and Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs:Hardeep Singh Puri
• Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Minister of Labour and Employment: Bhupender Yadav
• Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment: Virendra Kumar Khatik
• Minister of Minority Affairs: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi
• Minister of Rural Development; and Minister of Panchayati Raj: Shandilya Giriraj Singh
• Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways; and Minister of AYUSH: Sarbananda Sonowal
• Minister of Health and Family Welfare; and Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers: Mansukh L Mandaviya
• Minister of Heavy Industries: Mahendra Nath Pandey
• Minister of Parliamentary Affairs; Minister of Coal; and Minister of Mines: Pralhad Joshi
• Minister of Commerce and Industry; Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution; and Minister of Textiles: Piyush Goyal
• Minister of Civil Aviation: Jyotiraditya Scindia
• Minister of Law and Justice: Kiren Rijiju
• Minister of Information and Broadcasting; and Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports: Anurag Thakur
• Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying: Parshottam Rupala
• Minister of Jal Shakti: Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
• Minister of Railways; Minister of Communications; and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology: Ashwini Vaishnav
• Minister of Culture; Minister of Tourism; and Minister of Development of North Eastern Region: G Kishan Reddy
• Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: Narayan Rane
• Minister of Steel: Ramchandra Pratap Singh
• Minister of Food Processing Industries: Pashupati Nath Paras

Ministers of State

Here is a list of new governors in eight states:

• Goa: PS Sreedharan Pillai, Governor of Mizoram, has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Goa.
• Tripura: Satyadev Narayan Arya, Governor of Haryana, has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Tripura.
• Jharkhand: Ramesh Bais, Governor of Tripura, has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Jharkhand.
• Karnataka: Union minister Thawarchand Gehlot has been appointed as the Governor of Karnataka.
• Haryana: Bandaru Dattatraya, Governor of Himachal Pradesh, has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Haryana.
• Mizoram: Hari Babu Kambhampati has been appointed as the Governor of Mizoram.
• Madhya Pradesh: Mangubhai Chhaganbhai Patel has been appointed as the Governor of Madhya Pradesh.
• Himachal Pradesh: Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar is now the Governor of Himachal Pradesh

• Former Allahabad HC Judge Shambhu Nath Srivastava has been appointed Chairman of Indian Federation of United Nations Associations (IFUNA).
• Justice Srivastava succeeds Mukul Sangma, a former chief minister of Meghalaya.
• IFUNA is a non-profit organisation, affiliated to the Geneva-based World Federation of United Nations Associaions (WFUNA), to promote objectives of the United Nations and its specialised agencies in the country.