• Former Supreme Court judge, Justice Madan Bhimrao Lokur has been appointed to Supreme Court of Fiji’s non-resident panel for 3 years. 

• He was invited by the Chief Justice of Fiji and received the appointment letter on December 31, 2018. Over the years, Fiji has also invited judges from other countries like Singapore, South Africa, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka.

• Every year, the Supreme Court of Fiji conducts three sessions and Justice MB Lokur will be a part of August session which will begin on August 15 and conclude on August 30, 2019.

• Justice MB Lokur is a Honours graduate from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He enrolled as an advocate in July, 1977 and practised in the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court.

• He joined the Supreme Court in the year 1981 and was promoted as Senior Advocate in 1997. 

• He served as the Additional Solicitor General in 1998 and as the Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court in the year 1999, February. Later, he was appointed as the permanent judge in 1999.

• He has rendered his service to the Indian Law Review (Delhi Series) as the Editor from February 1983.

• He has also served as the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court and the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

• He was appointed as the judge of Supreme Court on June 4, 2012 and retired from his service on December 31, 2018.

 

 

• On 18th May, Veteran Telugu actor Rallapalli Venkata Narasimha Rao passed away at the age of 74 in Hyderabad.

• He had also worked as a staff artist in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

• He won the prestigious Nandi award for five time in undivided Andhra Pradesh.

• He was popularly known for his works: ‘Thoorpu velle Railu’, ‘Srivariki Prema Lekha’ and ‘Rendu Rellu Aaru’.

 

 

• Leoh Ming Pei, world famous chinese-american architect who designed Louvre Pyramid, the main entrance to the Louvre Museum which houses the Mona Lisa among other historical works of art passed away at the age of 102 in New York. 

• He was born in Guangzhou, Republic of China

• He is one of the most notable architects of the 20th century.

• His Notable Works are:

John F. Kennedy Library,

Boston National Gallery of Art East Building Louvre Pyramid,

Paris Bank of China Tower,

Hong Kong Museum of Islamic Art,

Doha Indiana University Art Museum Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Rock and

Roll Hall of Fame Miho Museum

He won various awards in the field of architecture, they are:

• The Arnold Brunner Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters(1963)

• The Gold Medal for Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1979)

• The AIA Gold Medal (1979)

• The first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association (1989)

• The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

• The Edward MacDowell Medal in the Arts (1998)

• The Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2010).

• In he was awarded the Pritzker Prize, sometimes called the Nobel Prize of architecture (1983).

 

 

• On May 15, 2019, 49 year old Nepali sherpa Kami Rita climbed Mt. Everest for the 23rd time and broke his own record for most summits on Mt. Everest. He successfully climbed the mountain from the Nepal side.

• Rita resides in Thame village of Solukhumbu district.

• For the first time, he had scaled the mountain in the year 1994.

• In 2017, he became the third person to climb the highest peak for 21 times along with the record held by Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi Sherpa.

• Rita has also climbed other world’s highest peaks including K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu and Lhotse.

 

 

• Nigerian Professor, Tijjani Mohammad Bande, has been appointed as the new President of the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA). 

• He is the second Nigerian to be appointed to this post, prior being Mr. Joseph Nanven Garba(1989-1990). Prof. Tijjani Bande will succeed María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés.

• Prof. Tijjani Bande was born at Zagga (Present-Kebbi State) and he was the permanent representative of Nigeria to the UN.

• He is a graduate in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria and holds MA (Political Science) from Boston University, USA  as well as Ph.D (Political Science) from the University of Toronto, Canada.

• He served the Le Centre Africain de Formation et de Recherche Administratives pour le Dèveloppement (CAFRAD) as the Director-General from January 2000 to February 2004.

• Between 2004 and 2009, he was the Vice-Chancellor Usman Danfodiyo University, Sokoto. He has also served as the Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Nigeria from 2010 to 2016.

• He is the recipient of Nigeria’s Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), one of Nigeria’s highest national honours. Along with this, he has also won merit awards from various institutions and Governments, including US and China.

 

 

• France has released Belhassen Trabelsi, brother-in-law of ousted Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, on bail while it mulls a extradition request from Tunisia.

• Lawyers Xavier Nogueras and Marcel Ceccaldi said in Marseille that they had obtained Trabelsi’s conditional release owing to procedural problems, confirming news initially announced by the Tunisian justice ministry.

• Trabelsi who faced charges of organised money laundering and has paid 100,000 euros in bail, must remain in France and report regularly to a local police station.

• Trabelsi, 56, who faced charges of organised money laundering and has paid 100,000 euros in bail, must remain in France and report regularly to a local police station.

• It was the second time that an appeals court in Aix-en-Provence, southeastern France, had ordered his release from a jail in Marseille. The first time was on March 28, but before Trabelsi walked free, the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor arrested him again based on a February 2017 warrant issued by a Tunisian magistrate.

• Tunisia`s extradition request refers to a series of convictions in absentia and three 10-year sentences handed down between February 2017 and June 2018 for financial crimes.

• The millionaire businessman and brother of Ben Ali`s wife Leila Trabelsi left Tunisia in January 2011 when the Arab Spring uprising forced the veteran leader to flee to Saudi Arabia.

• Trabelsi and his family flew in a private jet to Montreal to seek Canadian political asylum, a request that was denied twice. He disappeared in June 2016 just days before he was to be expelled from Canada, and was arrested in southern France in March 2019.