Current Affairs - Persons In News

• Air Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari will take charge as the chief of the Indian Air Force after the incumbent, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, retires on September 30.
• Air Marshal V R Chaudhari, PVSM, AVSM, VM, was commissioned into the Fighter stream of Indian Air Force on 29th December 1982 and has held various Command, Staff and Instructional Appointments at various levels including the present one as Vice Chief of Air Staff.

On 14^th September 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh (UP).

About Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh

• Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was born into the ruling Jat family of Mursan estate in Hathras in 1886.
• Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, revolutionary, writer, social reformer, and internationalist.
• Raja gave up his own residence in Mathura to be converted into a technical school named Prem Mahavidyalaya in 1909.
• On December 1, 1915, he proclaimed the first Provisional Government of India outside India at the historic Bagh-e-Babur in Kabul. He declared himself president, and his fiery fellow revolutionary Maulana Barkatullah of Bhopal, prime minister, of the Provisional Government.
• Mahendra Pratap Singh, who was an alumnus of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, which later became the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), had given 3.04 acres of land to the university on lease for constructing a school in 1929.
• In 1929, Mahendra Pratap launched the ‘World Federation’ in Berlin.
• He was nominated for the 1932 Nobel Peace Prize by the Swedish doctor N A Nilsson, who was a member of the Commission of the Permanent International Peace Bureau.
• After almost 32 years of exile, Mahendra Pratap Singh finally returned to India in 1946.
• He entered Lok Sabha as an Independent candidate from Mathura in 1957.

After joining Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) as Excavation Engineer on 10^th September 2021, she became the first woman Excavation Engineer to work in an Open Cast Mine of CCL.

• On the occasion of the 75th Independence Day, Subedar Major (Honorary Lieutenant) Yogendra Singh Yadav, Param Vir Chakra, was conferred the rank of Honorary Captain by the President of India.
• Subedar Major (Honorary Lieutenant) Yogendra Singh Yadav, PVC is the youngest person ever to be awarded the highest gallantry decoration of the country during wartime, the Param Vir Chakra, at 19 years old. His actions led to the capture of major features of the Tiger Hill complex by 18 GRENADIERS.

Noted Supreme Court Judge Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman has retired on 12^th August 2021.

• In 1993, then Chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachaliah amended the court’s rules to designate him senior advocate at the age of 37.
• He was appointed Solicitor-General in 2011.
• He became only the fifth lawyer in the nation’s history to be directly appointed as judge of the Supreme Court in 2014.

Significant Role as a Judge

• Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code: Justice Nariman almost single-handedly steered the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Of the 164 Supreme Court judgments on the code, 81 were authored by him.
• Review Petitions: The Supreme Court amended its rules following his judgment that review petitions filed by condemned prisoners should be heard in open court and not within the judges’ chambers.
• Section 66A of the Information Technology Act: He struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act which armed the State with power to send people to prison for “uncomfortable” social media messages.
• Homosexuality: He cleansed a colonial smear from the Indian Penal Code by decriminalising homosexuality.
• Sabarimala Judgment: He was part of the majority on the Bench which held that women aged between 10 and 50 years cannot be barred from the Sabarimala temple on the biological ground of menstruation.
• Instant Talaq: His judgment on instant talaq found the Muslim man’s “capricious and whimsical” right “manifestly arbitrary”.
• Accountability of Political Parties: He held political parties accountable for the ‘criminal’ candidates they field in elections.
• Speaker’s Power: He urged Parliament to take away the Speaker’s power to decide disqualification under the Tenth Schedule. He said an independent tribunal should be formed for this function.

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari has become Brand Ambassador of Khadi Prakritik Paint.

• He will promote this paint across the country to encourage young entrepreneurs to take up the manufacturing of cow dung paint.

About ‘Khadi Prakritik Paint’

• It is cow dung based paint developed by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
• The project is being developed by Kumarappa National Handmade Paper Institute, Jaipur (a KVIC unit).
• An eco-friendly, non-toxic paint, called “Khadi Prakritik Paint” is a first-of-its-kind product, with anti-fungal, anti-bacterial properties.
• Based on cow dung as its main ingredient, the paint is cost-effective and odorless, and has been certified by Bureau of Indian Standards.
• The paint is free from heavy metals like lead, mercury, chromium, arsenic, cadmium and others.

• The tenure of NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Amitabh Kant has been extended by one year till June 30, 2022. This is for the third time that Kant’s tenure has been extended.
• He was first appointed as the CEO of the think tank on February 17, 2016, for a fixed two-year term.

• Labour and Employment Secretary, Apurva Chandra, completed his tenure as Chair of Governing Body of International Labour Organization on 25 June 2021 after holding the position for the period October 2020 to June 2021.
• Last year India had assumed the Chairmanship of the Governing Body of International Labour Organization after 35 years.
• The Governing Body (GB) is the apex executive body of the ILO which decides policies, programmes, agenda, budget and elects the Director-General.
• The ILO has 187 member states: 186 out of 193 UN member states plus the Cook Islands.
• It is headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland and Guy Ryder is the current Director General.

• Flying Officer Mawya Sudan has become the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to be inducted as a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF).
• She is the 12th female fighter pilot to be inducted in the IAF.

The United Nations Global Compact has recognised Sumant Sinha, Chairman & MD of ReNew Power as one of ten 2021 SDG Pioneers.

• SDG Pioneers are business leaders selected by the UN Global Compact for doing an exceptional job to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the implementation of the UN Global Compact Ten Principles on human rights, environment, labor, and anti-corruption.
• This honor comes in recognition of Sumant 's work to advance access to clean and affordable energy.

United Nations Global Compact

• The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to encourage businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation.
• The UN Global Compact is the world's largest corporate sustainability (a.k.a. corporate social responsibility) initiative with two objectives: "Mainstream the ten principles in business activities around the world" and "Catalyse actions in support of broader UN goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)".