Padma Awards for the Year 2012 announced on the Eve of India’s 63rd Republic Day

The Padma awards for the year 2012 were announced on the eve of India’s 63rd Republic Day. The President approved 109 awards including one duo case (counted as one) and 14 in the category of Foreigners/ NRIs/ PIOs/ Posthumous. The Padma Awards 2012 comprise 5 Padma Vibhushan, 27 Padma Bhushan and 77 Padma Shri Awards. There are 19 ladies among the awardees.

The late cartoonist Mario Miranda and the late musician Bhupen Hazarika were amongst the five people awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Dharmendra and Shabana Azmi were confirmed for Padma Bhushan along with 25 more awardees.

Kerala Governor and Former Puducherry Chief Minister, M O H Farook passed away in Chennai

Kerala governor and former Puducherry chief minister and MP, M O H Farook died in Chennai on 26 January 2012. veteran Congress leader, Farook was born in Karaikal on 6 September  1937.

He had participated in the struggle for liberation of Pondicherry as a student, during 1953-54 when Pondicherry was a French colony and served as a member of the Central Haj Committee in Mumbai from 1975 to 2000.

Farook was a three-time chief minister of Puducherry. He served from 9 April 9 1967 to 6 March 1968; from 17 March 1969, to 3 January 1974 and from 1985 to 1990. He also served as the speaker of the Puducherry legislative assembly.

He was thrice elected to the Lok Sabha from Puducherry in 1991, 1996 and 1999 and served as a Union minister of state for civil aviation and tourism between June 1991 and December 1992 in the P.V. Narasimha Rao Government.

He was appointed as the Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in September 2004. He was appointed Jharkhand Governor in 2010. He was sworn in as the 19th Governor of Kerala in September 2011.

Farook, a seasoned politician and a senior Congressman was an able administrator, who had the vision to develop Puducherry to its full potential. He was the architect of modern Puducherry.

Farook had the distinction of being the youngest Speaker of the Puducherry Assembly in the late 1960s.

Mahesh Rangarajan appointed as Director of Nehru Memorial Museum & Library

Environmental historian and political commentator Mahesh Rangarajan was selected and appointed as director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, one of the country's top centres for research on modern Indian history. The Delhi High Court had earlier struck down his original appointment on the grounds of an invalid selection process. Dr. Rangarajan's appointment had been challenged in court by a history professor from Rohtak.

Government funded institution, NMML had invited applications rather than advertising the position. The court ruled that the process was in violation of the prescribed procedure and the law and had quashed Dr. Rangarajan's appointment.

However while asking NMML to start the appointment process anew, the court stated that the institution was free to re-appoint Dr. Rangarajan to the post as per established procedure if he was found to be the best candidate for the post.