1-15 Feb 2013

• India signs 13th tax treaty(Tax Information Exchange Agreement) with Gibraltar (So far India has signed TIEAs with Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Macau, Liberia, Argentina, Guernsey, Bahrain and Monaco).
• Cameron to host Afghan peace meet between Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai.
• Eminent jurist and former Chief Justice J.S.Verma and a Bar Association delegation were forced to cancel the visit to SriLanka as some inaccuracy in visa application.(They were to head an international fact-finding mission to assess the legal issues involved in the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake)
• Scotland plans for independence which would see the country become formally independent in March 2016 — severing its 300-year-old union with the United Kingdom (U.K.). 
• Obama signs debt ceiling fix allowing the government to borrow to meet its needs until May 18(current 16.4 trillion dollar debt limit).The measure would also withhold pay from lawmakers starting in April unless a budget is passed.
• Ahmadinejad on historic Egypt visit  participating in the OIC meeting as the current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) .
• Death sought for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah, who was sentenced to life imprisonment  by a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh.
• U.S. govt. to sue S&P for ‘false’ mortgage ratings .
• Italy defence firm Finmeccanica  CEO Giuseppe Orsi held on graft charge (He is alleged to have paid $670 million in bribes for the sale of 12 helicopters to the government of India).
• North Korea conducts third nuclear test(N Korea only patron China).
• Ravi Shankar wins best music album award at the 55th Grammys,a day after being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by The Recording Academy.(Pandit Shankar passed away on December 11 at 92)
• Pope Benedict XVI announces resignation(first time a Pope has decided to step down in 600 years.Pope Benedict XVI is the first German to be elected Pope since the eleventh century.His conservative views had earned him the nickname of “Pope John Paul II’s Rotweiler”.)
•  Argo wins top Bafta(British Academy Film Awards) prize including Best Picture.
• Jordan's king Abdullah II inaugurates new parliament .
• Guatemala declares national coffee emergency over the spread of coffee rust, saying the fungus that has hit other Central American countries is affecting 70 per cent of this nation’s crop. 
• Venezuela devalues its currency Bolivar by nearly half from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. (first devaluation to be announced by Chavez’s government since 2010).
• ‘End of Soviet Union’ document is missing .
• Tunisia Uprising after killing of Chokri Belaid, a fierce government critic.
• Maldives presidential elections in September 2013(first election after President Mohamed Nasheed was replaced by his Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed, on February 7 2012).
• U.S. Federal Reserve hacked, confidential data leaked.
• British parliament approves gay marriage.
• RBI moots levy to discourage cheque usage.
• Nasheed takes refuge at Indian High Commission.
• Pope(pontiff) Benedict XVI will stay at the  summer residence Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome.
• Rocket( blue-fronted Amazon parrot), the polyglot parrot amazes.
• Ronald Dworkin dead (one of America’s most liberal philosophers and constitutional law experts celebrated) .
• French President Francois Hollande in India.
• Pak successfully tests nuclear-capable Hatf-II missile.
• Meteor rattles Siberian city,Russia.(video recorded from Ural Mountains.)
• Gabriel Kadiev (19), a Muslim football player whose signing with the Jerusalem club Beitar sparked a violent uprising by a hardcore group of racist fans, made his much anticipated debut recently to a rousing ovation. 
• Finmeccanica SpA, Italy’s biggest defense contractor, has appointed Alessandro Pansa as the new CEO to succeed Giuseppe Orsi, who was arrested  on charges of tax fraud and corruption including alleged pay-offs in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal with India.
• Australia cancels North Korea visit after nuke test but still plans to allow North Korea to re-establish its embassy.
• American Airlines and US Airways say they have agreed to merge in an $11 billion deal that would create the world’s biggest airline.
• Gold ETFs allowed to invest in Gold Deposit Schemes.
• Govt cuts import tariff values of gold, silver.
• Samsung takes on Nokia’s Asha with new Rex series (supports the TouchWiz user interface)
• Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been appointed Vice-President of The India Cements Ltd. (ICL)
• Bank accounts of two Sahara firms(Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd., and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd) frozen by SEBI.Click Here 
• Petroleum Ministry raises ‘red flag’ over Nagaland inviting EoI for oil and gas blocks but it stated that Nagaland govt claimed to derive its powers for such an exercise under Article 371-A (1) (a) of the Constitution.
• Rajesh Gopinathan is new CFO of TCS 
• Ratan Tata steps down as Director of Bombay Dyeing.
• Aircel launches ‘Mobile Money partnering with ICICI Bank and Visa similar to Vodafone’s M-Pesa service which first pioneered to great success in Africa.
• SEBI revises rules for amalgamation of companies :
•  asked listed companies to place before its audit committee the valuation report obtained from an independent chartered accountant.
• Vasudeva Rao is new IGCAR Director(Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research)
• India has dropped nine places to 140 in the list of 179 countries in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index(topped by three European countries — Finland, Netherlands and Norway. Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea continue to be at the bottom)
• Loans to become cheaper as RBI cuts policy rate 
• Lance-Naik Hemraj Singh and Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh were beheaded by Pak soldiers in Jan 2013.
• 16^th  National Conference on e-Governance on 11 - 12 February, 2013 in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
• During visit of Prime Minister of Mauritius Navin Ramgoolam  to India, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for strengthening collaboration in textiles sector was signed between the two Governments on February 7, 2012. 
• Kashmir all girl rock band Pragaash receiving threaths.(Vocalist-guitarist Noma Nazir (16), drummer Farah Deeba and Guitarist Aneeka Khalid (both 15) are receiving threats and abuses.)
• Justice Verma Committee not only clearly defined what a sexual assault was, but also suggested the addition of new sections in the Indian Penel Code so that those committing the acts of voyeurism, stalking and acid attacks are penalised severely.
• Bharti Airtel has launched an emergency hotline which allows customers to alert family and friends through a predefined list of 10 numbers should they find themselves in a dangerous situation.
• Ordinance to ensure that those who commit crimes against women face far tougher sentences: (It spares police and armymen)
• The new law, government sources said, is likely to include the death penalty — or imprisonment for the rest of the perpetrator’s natural life — in the rarest of rare cases.
• enhances the seven-year sentence for those convicted of rape to 20 years
•  criminalises public sexual harassment ranging from cat calls to groping, and provides more stringent punishment in specific cases of stalking and acid attacks. 
• The word “rape” has been replaced by the expression “sexual assault”. 
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