First published in 2012 by Hachette India
(Registered name: Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt Ltd)
An Hachette UK company
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This edition copyright © Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt Ltd 2012
Contributors: Pritesh Tejani, Debapriyo Ghosh, Michelle Oraa Ali,
Tarini Verma, Dhruv Bhasin, Ayushi Agarwal, Tista Basu
The copyright details and credits for photographs are on page 256.

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1NEWS: INDIA

India’s Mission Against POLIO

India celebrated a long-sought milestone in its fight against polio on 13 January 2012. For the first time, no case of polio was reported in a year. The last known case, in a two-year-old girl in West Bengal, occurred on 13 January 2011. India is looking forward to being dropped out of the list of polio-endemic countries if no more cases are reported till June 2013.

A National Shame

According to the HUNGaMA (hunger and malnutrition) Report released by the Prime Minister on 10 January 2012, about 42 per cent of Indian children under the age of five are grossly underweight and 59 per cent of them are stunted.

“We appreciate those who are fighting against corruption in the country.”

AKHILESH YADAV

Good News For NRIs

In a move to fulfil a long-standing wish of millions of NRIs, the Government issued notifications for registration of overseas electors under the Representation of People Act 1950, in January 2012. NRIs can now vote and participate in the election process if they are physically present in their constituencies at the time of voting.

Thumbs Up For AKHILESH YADAV

A total of 223 parties vied for 403 seats in the Assembly elections held in seven phases from 8 February to 3 March 2012 in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the world’s largest sub-national democracy. The Samajwadi Party ended up with 224 seats to form the state government without any need for a coalition. Thirty-eight year-old Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son and the man behind the Party’s historic win in the elections, became the youngest Chief Minister of UP. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Mayawati was wiped out with only 80 wins against its unprecedented 206 seats in 2007. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 47 seats while the Congress Party got only 28 seats.

Suresh Kalmadi, former CWG chief, who was arrested in April 2011 on charges of corruption, was granted bail in January.

More than 5,000,000 students performed the Surya Namaskar across Madhya Pradesh to set a Guinness World Record on 13 January.

GOOGLE EARTH:
A Miracle

Five-year-old Saroo Brierley went to sleep on a train in 1986. When he woke up 14 hours later, he was in Kolkata. The illiterate boy was later adopted by a family in Tasmania, Australia. Brierley knew his home should be roughly 1,400 kilometres from Kolkata, because he remembered the approximate length of the train ride. He drew a circle with its radius around Kolkata on a map and began searching on Google Earth. After four years of searching, he identified a familiar landscape in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. Saroo went to Khandwa in March 2012 and met his mother after 25 years.

UGGGHHH!

According to the Household Amenities Census Report released in March, nearly half of India defecates in the open, but at the same time more than 63 per cent have access to either a landline or a mobile phone. Interestingly, nearly half (47.2 per cent) of India also has a television set at home.

Kabaddi! Kabaddi! Kabaddi!

The Indian national women’s Kabaddi team clinched the maiden Women World Cup Kabaddi championship title. In the final held in Patna on 4 March, the Indian team defeated Iran 25-19. Sixteen countries participated in the event.

A Newspaper For The Blind

Reliance Drishti, an initiative by Reliance Foundation in association with National Association for the Blind (NAB) launched the country’s first national Hindi periodical in Braille in March 2012. The fortnightly paper is distributed free of cost to more than 300 institutions working with the visually impaired.

Three BJP ministers quit in February after they were caught watching an objectionable video in the Karnataka Assembly.

Sachin Tendulkar scored his 100th international century on 16 March during an ODI against Bangladesh in Dhaka.

Indo–Pak Relations

In the first visit to India by a Pakistani head of state in seven years, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on 8 April 2012 and expressed the desire to improve relations between the two countries.

Monsoon Mission

The Indian Cabinet gave its approval to a ‘National Monsoon Mission’ in April 2012. The purpose is to equip the weather department with high-end computers, radars and scientific manpower to generate more detailed and accurate forecasts for big regions and smaller areas as well. The new system will be implemented over the next five years and is expected to benefit the agricultural sector immensely.

Museum On INDIAN CINEMA

On the occasion of the 59th National Film Awards ceremony in New Delhi on 3 May, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni announced that a museum on Indian cinema is being built in Mumbai, chronicling the history of the industry and its global impact. It will be ready by May 2013.

Risat-1 Successfully Launched

India’s first indigenous all-weather Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1) was successfully launched on 26 April 2012. The 1,858 kg spacecraft, the country’s first microwave remote sensing satellite, was injected into orbit by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, near Chennai.

India joined the club of nations having Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) after test firing its 5000-km range Agni-V ICBM.

Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha were nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the President of India on 26 April.

CALCUTTA IN 1912

A collection of 178 photographs capturing the life and times of 1912 Calcutta were discovered in a shoebox in Edinburgh in May 2012. The photographs were wrapped in copies of ‘The Statesman’ newspaper dating back to 1914.

Indian Premier League

Kolkata Knight Riders clinched their maiden Indian Premier League title by beating reigning champions Chennai Super Kings in the final match on 27 May.

Facebook Calling

Nive Jayasekar, a 17-year-old girl from Coimbatore, walked away with a prize of $10,500 after winning a contest at a Hackathon held in California in June. Impressed with her knowledge of mobile-app development, Facebook gave her an on-the-spot offer to join the company. Nive decided to do a summer internship with them.

A unique village

Punsari, a village in Gujarat, has put the country’s metros to shame. The village flaunts a WI-FI AND OPTICAL FIBRE broadband network, classrooms with CCTV cameras, its own mini-bus transport system and 25-odd CCTVs located on important junctions to spot litterbugs. The Panchayat pays
an annual premium of T25 lakh against insurance for each of the 6,000 villagers who have a cover of T1 lakh and a mediclaim policy of T25,000. The village was awarded the ‘Best Village Panchayat’ award in May 2012.

ALERT: Are You Being Bullied?

According to Microsoft’s Global Youth Online Behaviour Survey Report released in June, 53 per cent of Indian children aged between 8–17 years acknowledged being bullied online, just behind China (70 per cent) and Singapore (58 per cent). The survey covered more than 7,600 children of that age group across 25 countries such as the UK, US, Australia, Germany, Pakistan and Japan.v

The Rupee tumbled to an all-time low of 57.27 against the dollar on 22 May.

In the steepest ever increase, petrol prices went up by about T7.5 per litre across the country in May.

HOME AFTER 30 YEARS

Sixty-nine-year-old Surjit Singh, an Indian who was jailed in Pakistan for 30 years on charges of espionage, returned home on 28 June after being released from the Kot Lakhpat
Jail in Lahore.

Floods Affect Wildlife At KAZIRANGA

Assam experienced the worst monsoon floods since 1998 in June 2012 as 27 of its 28 districts were inundated with water. The Kaziranga National Park was submerged under water, killing at least 559 animals. More than 400 hog deer and 14 of the endangered one-horned rhinos were found dead. The floods also killed 126 people and displaced 2.2 million.

RED RAIN! Really?

A mysterious red rain fell for about 15 minutes in Kannur, Kerala, on 5 July. Although it was initially believed that the rain was coloured by fallout from a meteor burst, the Meteorological Department later clarified that red rain is a rare phenomenon due to atmospheric pollution. The pollution in the air gets dissolved with the rainwater, resulting in red rain. It is not harmful.

Space Odyssey

India-born astronaut Sunita Williams and two other space scientists reached the International Space Station (ISS) on 17 July onboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA. Williams, Russian Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency flight engineer Akihiko Hoshide have joined current station residents Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revi. The team will conduct more than 30 scientific missions over four months. Sunita Williams took over the command of the International Space Station in September 2012.

Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari, a key figure behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was arrested at the New Delhi airport on 21 June.

Amitabh Bachchan carried the Olympic flame in London on 26 July, a day ahead of the Olympic games opening ceremony.

India’s 13th President

PRANAB MUKHERJEE was sworn in as the country’s 13th president on 25 July 2012. The 76-year-old politician, who has spent over four decades in active politics and held key positions in the government, resigned as India’s finance minister in June to contest the Presidential election.

London 2012

With 2 silver and 4 bronze medals in its kitty, India’s performance at the London Olympics was the best ever so far. India stood 55th in the final medals tally.

AS BLACK AS COAL

The biggest scam in India’s history, the coal allocation scam, came to light when the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) accused the government of providing the nation’s coal deposits to commercial entities in an irregular manner instead of publicly auctioning them from 2004 to 2009. This amounts to a loss of T10.67 lakh crore to the exchequer. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe coal block allocations since 1993.

India Prepares Orbiting Mars Satellite

On 5 August, the Indian cabinet cleared a proposal from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for launching a small, crewless satellite to orbit Mars in November 2013. The government has already allocated about $41 million for the Mars mission, which will cost an estimated $112 million.

Electricity supply in 21 states was affected following the collapse of three power grids in the country on 31 July.

Forbes magazine ranked Sonia Gandhi as the sixth most powerful woman in the world in its list of 100 women.

NEWS: WORLD

Disaster At Sea

A luxury cruise liner, the COSTA CONCORDIA, ran aground off the coast of Tuscany on 13 January, killing at least 11 people and forcing the 4,200 people on board to evacuate using lifeboats.

Alert: UN WARNING

With the world’s population likely to grow to nearly 9 BILLION by 2040 from 7 billion currently, a UN report released in January warned that time is running out to ensure that there is enough food, water and energy for a rapidly rising global population. In fact, even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy and 30 per cent more water to ensure a minimum level of sustenance for everyone.

WORLD’S SHORTEST MAN

At 54.6 cm, a 72-year-old Nepali, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, entered the Guinness World Records in February as the shortest adult ever. He weighs 12 kgs.

The End Of An Era

The last surviving veteran of the First World War, Florence Green, died in February 2012, just days before her 111th birthday. She was a member of the Women’s Royal Air Force during the war.

TRAGEDY AT THE STADIUM

A football match in Port Said, Egypt, ended in tragedy when more than 70 people were killed in a melee that broke out after the final whistle. More than 1,000 were injured as fans, some armed with knives, invaded the pitch after a match between top-tier clubs al-Masry and al-Ahly. This resulted in a stampede at the stadium, where nearly 40,000 people had come to watch the match. The military police used teargas to disperse the violent mob.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was selected for the 2011 US National Humanities medal.

Adele, whose 21 is the fastest-selling album in eight years, won six awards at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in February.

Breakthrough In AIDS Cure

In March, US researchers made a breakthrough in the search to cure AIDS using a cancer drug to attack HIV in its hardest-to-reach places, inside certain immune-system cells. They are hopeful that further research and trials will bring success.

STOP PRESS:

Encyclopedia Britannica

On 13 March, ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA announced that after 244 years, dozens of editions and more than 7 million sets sold, no new editions will be put to paper. The 32-volume set of 2010 is the last printed edition.

Thumbs Up! Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released in October 2010 after almost 20 years of house arrest, won a seat in the parliament in the by-elections held in April 2012 in Myanmar.

A Tribute To The Titanic

A cruise liner, the BALMORAL, made a voyage in April to mark the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster by sailing along the same route. A memorial service was held in the early hours of the morning of 15 April above the exact spot in the Atlantic Ocean where the Titanic went down.

Cameron Goes Down to the Deep

Canadian film director James Cameron descended nearly seven miles, in a special submarine on 25 March, to touch the deepest known point on Earth, the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean.

Koalas have been added to the list of threatened species in Australia.

Mutinous soldiers in Guinea-Bissau staged a coup and took control of the capital city, Bissau, on 12 April.

Quite A Mystery

After a mysterious massive die-off of over 3,000 DOLPHINS along the northern coast of Peru in April, more than 1,200 pelicans were found dead in the same region some days later. Investigations revealed that the deaths may have been caused by a virus. Another theory suggests that a shift in ocean currents may have moved rich shoals of anchovy away from the coastline, leaving the birds without enough food.

Microsoft Certified at Eight

An eight-year-old Pakistani boy, Shafay Thobani, has became a Microsoft Certified Technology specialist after mastering complex Internet protocol and domain name systems.

SUPERMOON

The biggest full moon of 2012 called the Supermoon or perigee full moon occurred on 5 May. The perigee is the point in a satellite’s elliptical path around the Earth at which it is closest to the centre of the earth. When in perigee, the moon is 356,955 km away from us. The Moon has not been this close to Earth in about 18 years.

Aid To Afghanistan

On the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden on 1 May, President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan and signed an agreement with President Karzai promising development aid for 10 years after US troops withdraw from the country in 2013.

Passport After 24 Years

Myanmar issued a passport to Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2012, allowing her to travel abroad for the first time in 24 years. She visited Oslo in June to finally receive the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in person.

Life Imprisonment

Shakeel Afridi, a Pakistani physician who helped the CIA to track down Osama bin Laden by collecting DNA samples from residents of bin Laden’s compound, was sentenced to 33 years’ imprisonment for treason on 23 May.

Vladimir Putin became the President of Russia for the third time on 6 May.

Tokyo Skytree, the tallest broadcasting tower in the world at 634 m, is opened to public in May.

Record: Highest Marathon

More than 150 runners completed the world’s highest marathon on Mount Everest, held each year to mark the first conquest of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and his sherpa Tenzing Norgay. The race starts in Gorak Shep, close to Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,356 m, and finishes around 2,000 m lower in the town of Namche Bazaar.

Former Egyptian President Sentenced

Former President of Egypt, HOSNI MUBARAK, was sentenced to life in prison on 2 June for being an accomplice in the killing of unarmed protestors during the uprising in Egypt in 2011.

A Royal Celebration

As part of a four-day celebration to mark her 60th anniversary on the throne, the 86-year-old British monarch, QUEEN ELIZABETH sailed down the River Thames in London on a red and gold royal barge, part of a flotilla of 1,000 ships, on 3 June 2012. The festivites included a Coronation Cup horse race and a concert at Buckingham Palace.

NASA Hails New Era In Space

A space cargo ship, THE DRAGON, developed by Space X, an American private space transportation company, made a splash-landing in the Pacific Ocean on 31 May marking a successful end to the first mission by a commercial company to resupply the International Space Station.

Venus In Transit

PLANET VENUS passed directly between the Sun and Earth, appearing as a small dark dot across the Sun’s face, on 6 June 2012. Transits of Venus repeat every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of up to 121.5 years. The next pair of transits will occur on 11 December 2117 and on 8 December 2125.

Francois Hollande was sworn in as the 24th president of France on 15 May.

A Nigerian plane went down in a crowded neighbourhood in Lagos on 3 June, killing more than 150 people.

MISSION MARS

NASA’s most advanced Mars rover, CURIOSITY, landed on the Red Planet on 5 August 2012. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars after a 36-week flight. Curiosity is on a mission to determine whether Mars has ever had the conditions to support life. The project, which is expected to last 2 years, will cost $2.5 billion.

Shipwreck Discovered

The wreck of the ship that carried Captain Robert Scott on his doomed expedition to the Antarctic a century ago was discovered off the coast of Greenland on 16 August.

The Greatest Olympian

MICHAEL PHELPS won his 19th Olympic medal on 31 July to become the greatest Olympian of all time, surpassing Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina’s record of 18.

Career GOLDEN SLAM

SERENA WILLIAMS crushed Maria Sharapova in the final of the Olympics to become the second woman to complete a career Golden Slam — a gold medal, plus wins in all four Grand Slam tournaments in 2012. The first was Steffi Graff.

Eureka: The God particle

CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory located in Switzerland, announced the discovery of the long-sought after subatomic particle, HIGGS BOSON, also called the God particle, in July. The Higgs Boson is one of the final puzzle pieces required to understand why objects in the Universe have mass. Higgs is named after a British physicist while Boson is in honour of Satyendranath Bose’s work with Albert Einstein to define one of the basic classes of this particle in the 1920s.

The Pinta Island Tortoise was declared extinct after the death of its last known individual in June.

A Chinese spacecraft docked with an orbiting module to make China the third country, after the US and Russia, to successfully perform the mission.

Syria Crisis

Syria has been in the grip of civil war since January 2012. PROTESTERS IN SYRIA have been demanding the end to nearly five decades of Ba’ath Party rule, as well as the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad. More than 20,000 people have lost their lives and nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have escaped across the Middle East. International diplomatic peacemaking efforts have failed to restore any peace. Former Prime Minister Riyad Farid Hijabo, who resigned on 6 August and joined the opposition forces, revealed that Assad’s Government is on the brink of a collapse.

VOLCANO ALERT

Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano has been erupting intermittently since October 1999. However, an increase in volcanic activity in August 2012 prompted the authorities to raise the security alert from moderate to high.

IRAN’S NUCLEAR CONTROVERSY

Iran and the West have been at odds over its nuclear programme for years. While American and European officials believe Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons, Iran’s leadership says that its goal in developing a nuclear programme is to generate electricity without dipping into the oil supply it prefers to sell abroad. In February 2012, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran has moved its production of low-enriched uranium towards bomb-grade material. The IAEA requested for access to the Parchin site in Iran, where high-explosives research pertinent to nuclear weapons may have taken place. The Iranian Government denied access and insisted that enrichment activities are intended for peaceful purposes. Consequently, the US imposed a multitude of sanctions on Iran. Despite this, all talks between the IAEA and the Iranian Government have failed to strike a deal or resolve any concerns so far.

Facebook estimates that there are as many as 83 million fake accounts online.

Forty-year-old Wade Michael Page opened fire at a gurudwara in Wisconsin, US, killing six people on 5 August 2012.

NEWSMAKERS

People to Remember

WHITNEY HOUSTON (9 August 1963 – 11 February 2012)

Whitney Houston was one of the world’s bestselling music artists, having sold over 172 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time.

DARA SINGH (19 November 1928 – 12 July 2012)

Dara Singh will be remembered for one of the most exciting fights in the history of wrestling competitions when he lifted an almost 200 kg King Kong of Australia and twirled him around! Dara Singh retired from wrestling in 1983. He joined the film industry in the 1950s and went on to do television in the late 1980s.

RAJESH KHANNA (29 December 1942 – 18 July 2012)

The ‘first real superstar of Indian cinema’, Rajesh Khanna appeared in more than 160 films, starting with Aakhri Khat in 1966. In 1969, his role as a dashing young pilot in Aradhana made him a superstar. Rajesh Khanna was awarded a Filmfare Special award in 1991 for having starred in 101 films as the solo lead hero.

EUGENE LUTHER GORE VIDAL (3 October 1925 – 31 July 2012)

A liberal American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist, Vidal’s illustrious career spanned more than six decades. His celebrated bestselling novels include Myra Breckenridge and Burr, and he worked on the screenplays of both Caligula and Ben Hur.

VILASRAO DESHMUKH (26 May 1945 – 14 August 2012)

Vilasrao Deshmukh began his political journey in 1974 and joined mainstream politics in 1980. He was the chief minister of Maharashtra twice and became the Union Minister for Science and Technology in July 2011. One of his three sons is Bollywood actor, Riteish Deshmukh.

NEIL ARMSTRONG (5 August 1930 – 25 August 2012)

Neil Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first man to walk on the Moon on 20 July 1969. He joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962 and went to space for the first time in 1966.

VERGHESE KURIEN (26 November 1921 – 9 September 2012)

Best known as the ‘Milkman of India’, Verghese Kurien turned 10 million farmers into a legendary dairy cooperative, making India the world’s largest producer of milk. He won several awards including the Padma Vibhushan, the World Food Prize and the Magsaysay Award for community leadership.