Irish composer Eimear Noone will be the first woman to conduct an orchestra at the Oscars guest-segment. She will lead the 42-piece orchestra at the Academy Awards as it plays excerpts from five nominated scores on Sunday 9 February. The Galway-born conductor was invited to take charge by Oscars’ Music Director Rickey Minor.
World Leprosy Day is observed internationally on 30th January or the Sunday closest to that date. The main purpose of this festival is to increase public awareness of Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. This particular day was actually chosen to commemorate the death of Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, who understood the importance of this disease. World Leprosy Day creates awareness that leprosy is in fact curable.
Famous social worker, environmentalist, educationist and writer Tushar Kanjilal passed away. The Government of India awarded Tushar Kanjilal the 4th highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1986. He also received the Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 2008. Kanjilal is known for his contribution to education in remote Rangabelia in the Sundarbans in the 1970s and his work for the uplift of the people in the area.
Indian women’s team captain Rani Rampal became the 1st-ever hockey player worldwide to win the prestigious ‘World Games Athlete of the Year‘ award 2019. The winner was announced by The World Games after 20 days of polling by sports fans worldwide. Recently, Rani was also awarded with Padma Shri. She dedicated the award to the entire hockey fraternity, her team and the country.
US President Donald Trump has signed the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) North American trade pact with Canada and Mexico into law. The new deal makes changes to trading rules among the three countries. Among them are higher thresholds for how much of an automobile must be made in North America in order to trade vehicles duty-free; greater access to Canada’s dairy market; and easier unionization for Mexican workers.
Today, Economic Survey 2019-20 was presented in the Parliament by Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. The survey is prepared by the Chief Economic Advisor, Krishnamurthy V Subramanian. The report will be followed by a press conference where the Chief Economic Advisor and his team will discuss the economic roadmap for the next fiscal. It presents a summary of the performance of the government’s major development programmes undertaken during previous year. It also details the main policy initiatives of the government.
IDBI Federal Life Insurance appointed Mathivanan Balakrishnan as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and S P Prabhu as its Chief Investment Officer (CIO). Balakrishnan will oversee the areas of planning and budgeting, financial accounting & reporting, corporate taxation, investment operations, insurance accounting, audit and statutory compliance. Prabhu, who was earlier head of fixed income, will now oversee the management of the company’s investment portfolio of Rs 10,000 crore, spread across various asset classes.
Janak Raj, Executive Director of Reserve Bank of India, has been appointed as member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), replacing M D Patra, who was recently elevated as Deputy Governor of the RBI. The decision to appoint Janak Raj was taken at the 581st meeting of the central board on Wednesday. It is the highest interest rate setting body, which takes decisions based on majority vote. Each member has one vote but the RBI Governor get a casting vote in case of a tie.
Former England opener Alastair Cook and ex-West Indies team manager Ricky Skerritt were appointed as new members of MCC’s World Cricket Committee. They were sent official invitations, which they accepted. The committee involves taking decisions on important issues that concern the sport, as it also acts as an independent voice of opinions to cricket. The committee meets twice a year to discuss the issues. The next MCC World Cricket committee meeting will be hosted in Sri Lanka in March 2020.
Vakrangee Limited has appointed Ramesh Joshi as the Non-Executive Chairman of the company. Dinesh Nandwana has been re-designated from Executive Chairman as the Managing Director and Group CEO replacing Anil Khanna. A veteran in his field, Joshi held several leadership positions in the Reserve Bank of India and has been nominee director on behalf of RBI on the boards of various banks. He retired as an executive director of SEBI.