24 MARCH 2015: Ex Singapore PM Lee Kuan Yew passed away..!

Ø  Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father and first Prime Minister of Singapore who transformed the tiny island into one of the wealthiest and least corrupt countries in Asia, died on Monday morning. He was 91. Mr. Lee was Prime Minister from 1959, when Singapore gained full self-government from the British, until 1990, when he stepped down. Late into his life, he remained the dominant personality and driving force in what he called a First World oasis in a Third World region.

Ø  Charming Shashi Kapoor, whose nuanced acts in memorable films like Deewar , Satyam Shivam Sundaram , Trishul and Kabhi Kabhie captivated Hindi film buffs, will be conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2014.

Ø  GIFT-City in Gujarat will benefit from the move to allow greater capital account convertibility in financial SEZs.

Ø  At a time when the Union government has junked his crucial report on the conservation of the Western Ghats, ecologist Madhav Gadgil has been chosen for the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for 2015. The prize, instituted in 1973, is awarded by the Tyler Prize Executive Committee with the administrative support of the University of Southern California. Dr. Gadgil, who was chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), will share the $200,000 cash prize with American marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco for their work in changing policy and especially for their “leadership and engagement in the development of conservation and sustainability policies in the United States, India and internationally,” said a release issued by Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement Executive Committee. The winners will receive the prize and a gold medallion at a private ceremony in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, on April 24. They will deliver public lectures on their work at The Forum in the University the day before the award ceremony.

Ø  Mars One’s ambitious mission to send four people to colonise the red planet in 2024, which includes three Indians among its 100 finalists, has been pushed back by two years. Mars One, a Netherlands-based non-profit, aims to send four people on a one-way trip to the red planet every two years. Out of these 100 finalists, 24 will be trained to go to the Red Planet. The company has now pushed its planned launch of the first humans on Mars back by two years. The four-member crew will now depart for Mars in 2026 and land near the outpost in 2027. The proposal is based on the Percy Mistry Committee report in 2007, which had recommended a slew of reforms to enable India to set up financial districts on the lines of those in London and New York. The financial SEZs are also aimed at attracting to India the huge volumes of global trading in rupee and the National Stock Exchange’s index Nifty that right now take place offshore in locations such as Singapore, London and Dubai. On Sunday, SEBI had set up some of the norms under its purview required for giving shape to International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) such as GIFT. The norms aim to ease the setting up of stock exchanges and capital market infrastructure in such centres.