General Awareness Updates – October 2009

Persons in News

Miss Venezuela Stefania Fernandez (left) has been named winner of the 2009 Miss Universe pageant in the Bahamas. Miss Dominican Republic Ada Aimee de la Cruz was the runner-up. Miss China Wang Jingyao was named Miss Congeniality and Miss Thailand Chutima Durongdej won Miss Photogenic.

Former President Kim Dae-jung (right), a giant in South Korea’s shift to democracy who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to forge reconciliation with the prickly communist North, has died, aged 85. The former political prisoner, once sentenced to death under one of the country’s early military rulers whom he relentlessly opposed, was elected South Korea’s president in December 1997 on his fourth attempt.

It was the first time in the country that power had shifted from a ruling party president to one from the opposition and firmly established democracy in a country that had spent its early years under a succession of autocratic rulers. Mr. Dae-jung was the architect of the “Sunshine Policy” of engaging communist North Korea which led to an unprecedented warming of ties between the foes. In the culmination of his efforts to improve relations with the North, he flew to Pyongyang in June 2000 for a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Legendary Norman Borlaug is no more

Norman Borlaug (left), hailed as the “Father of the Green Revolution” that made more food available for the world’s hungry, has died at age 95. Mr. Borlaug received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for developing high-yielding crops to prevent famine in the developing world. The Green Revolution, the development of crops such as wheat that delivered better yields than traditional strains, is credited with helping avert massive famines that had been predicted in the developing world in the last half of the 20th century. Experts have said his crusade to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant crops saved the lives of millions of people worldwide who otherwise may have been doomed to starvation.

His efforts to develop new crop varieties helped alleviate food shortages in places such as India and Pakistan, helping make developing countries self-sufficient in food production. In 2007, Mr. Borlaug also received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour of the United States. ‘We all eat at least three times a day in privileged nations, and yet we take food for granted,’’ Mr. Borlaug said in a recent interview. ‘’There has been great progress, and food is more equitably distributed. But hunger is commonplace, and famine appears all too often.’’

In 1944, he was appointed as geneticist and plant pathologist assigned the job of organizing and directing the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. This joint undertaking of the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation philanthropic organization focused upon scientific research in genetics, plant breeding and related fields. Within two decades, he succeeded in finding a high-yielding disease-resistant wheat. The Iowa-born scientist then worked to put newly developed cereal strains into extensive production.

K. Rosaiah has been sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. He succeeds Dr. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy (right) who died in a helicopter crash. Dr. Reddy died when the chopper in which he was travelling crashed into a mountain in the Nalla Malla forest region in Kurnool district. Also dead in the crash were his Principal Secretary K. Subramanyam, Chief Security Officer A. S. C. Wesley and pilot Group Captain S. K. Bhatia and co-pilot M. S. Reddy.

77-year-old Rosaiah, a low profile and non-controversial leader, has held various portfolios under different Chief Ministers but he is most popular as the Finance Minister. He, in fact, set a record by presenting as many as 15 Budgets to the AP Assembly.

United States Senator Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy, (left) a lion of the American Left and the last of the brothers who ruled U.S. politics for years, died of brain cancer, aged 77. Edward Kennedy was one of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history – a liberal standard-bearer who was also known as a consummate congressional dealmaker.

He was the brother of former American president John Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963; Senator Robert Kennedy, fatally shot while campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, and Joe Kennedy, a pilot killed in World War Two.

The Iranian Parliament has approved the first woman minister in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic. Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, the female health minister, is a hard-line conservative who has in the past proposed introducing segregated health care in Iran, with women treating women and men treating men.