News : 26 Jan - 31 Jan 2014

News

Appointments : 

1. Sushil Koirala is set to become Nepal’s next Prime Minister after being elected on 26 Jan as the Parliamentary Party leader of the Nepali Congress, which emerged as the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly elections.
2. Hery Rajaonarimampianina : New president of Madagascar
3. U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, a Navy cyber-warfare specialist to be the next Director of the National Security Agency

Resignations/Retirements

Obituaries

Awards

1. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, the William Benton Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago, and Lloyd I. Rudolph, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago, will each receive the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India.Three Indian-Americans — Ashok Kumar Mago, Dr Siddharth Mukherjee and Dr. Vamsi Mootha — will receive the Padma Shri awards.  
2. Grammy Awards : Daft Punk, a French duo who hide their faces under robot-like helmets and have become elder statesmen of electronic dance music, won four prizes, including album of the year for Random Access Memories and record of the year for Get Lucky, their ubiquitous hit with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. 

Sports

1. Stanislas Wawrinka beat an injured Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3  in Australian Open final which will take the Swiss to third in the world. 

International

1. After decades of dictatorship and two years of arguments and compromises, Tunisians have a new constitution laying the foundations for a new democracy.An entire chapter of the document, some 28 articles, is dedicated to protecting citizens’ rights, including protection from torture, the right to due process, and freedom of worship. It guarantees equality between men and women before the law and the state commits itself to protecting women’s rights. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and outgoing Prime Minister Ali Larayedh signed the document 
2. Karzai’s government has presented evidence of dubious authenticity in an attempt to substantiate U.S. collateral damage in  Afghanistan to avoid signing the bilateral security agreement (BSA) with the United States – an agreement that would grant a legal basis for U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014.
3. Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich has offered the post of Prime Minister to one of the opposition leaders Arseny Yatsenyuk , in apparent effort to head off mounting violent protests against his rule. #ukraine Crisis
4. India and Japan signed 8 pacts and was an effort for continuing efforts in the direction of security,political and defense ties.More
5. The 13^th edition of joint exercise by the Indian Coast Guard and its Japanese counterpart held approximately at 20 nautical miles off Kochi. The bilateral exercise titled ‘Sahayog-Kaijin 2014’ was successfully conducted by both the countries. 
6. Teenage activist Malala Yousafzai’s bestselling book I am Malala cannot be discuss in her native province as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government stopped the University of Peshawar from holding a programme on it.

China - Jan 2014

1. China has overtaken India to become the largest contributor of Foreign Direct Investment to Nepal over the first six months of the current fiscal year, underlining the rising Chinese economic presence — and strategic influence — in the country.This marked a three-fold rise from the same period in the previous 2011-12 fiscal year, where Chinese investment reached $55 million.
2. In early December, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a bilateral treaty and issued a joint statement that said “China pledges unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the nuclear-free Ukraine and China further pledges to provide Ukraine nuclear security guarantee when Ukraine encounters an invasion involving nuclear weapons or Ukraine is under threat of a nuclear invasion.”In recent years, Ukraine has provided China with the Zubr-class amphibious hovercraft, the Soviet Varyag aircraft carrier (refurbished into China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier), and hundreds of Russian-made aircraft engines. The partnership guarantees that Ukraine will continue to provide China with military technology and technical expertise as Beijing continues military modernization efforts.
3. China has embarked on a program to build its own aircraft carrier