Journalism of Courage
Sanna Marin - When Sanna Marin took oath in December as Finland's prime minister, she became the youngest head of the government in the world. She heads a coalition of four other parties that are all led by women. The 34-year-old replaced Antti Rinne who stepped down amid political turmoil caused by a strike of postal workers.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl who began a global movement by demanding action on climate change, was named Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year in December. The teenager, who had made headlines by angrily thundering “How Dare You” at the world’s most powerful leaders at the UN Climate Summit for their inaction, was honoured by the magazine. Sixteen-year-old Thunberg is the youngest individual ever to be named TIME’s Person of the Year. Thunberg and others have been demanding that countries scale up their current efforts on climate action in view of mounting evidence that the world was not doing enough to prevent the catastrophic impacts of climate change.
Jacinda Ardern - Jacinda Ardern’s leadership as the New Zealand Prime Minister was lauded in the aftermath of Christchurch shootings. While she worked on tightening the gun laws in the country, her first response to the massacre was exemplary, too. Immediately after the shooting — even before the dead could be reliably counted — she had spoken up for immigrants: “They have chosen to make this their home. They are us. The person who perpetrated this is not us.” Her symbolic gestures — wearing a hijab while comforting the families, refusing to use the name of the chief suspect, among others were appreciated too. (Reuters)
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was in news for encouraging and fueling the Amazon wildfires. His government has scaled down the deterrent measures that were earlier in place and the number of running fires is known to have increased by 84% when compared to last year. Bolsonaro, who has been in office since January 2019, is a staunch climate change sceptic. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro has called climate change predictions a hoax and advocated allowing businesses to expand by rolling back environmental safeguards.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was at the centre of a storm after a series of violent pro-democracy protests broke out over her handling of a bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial. Protesters formed a sea of black along roads, walkways and train stations across Hong Kong’s financial centre to vent their frustration and anger at the extradition bill and the government’s handling of the resulting demonstrations. The protests are also the largest in Hong Kong since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 and have garnered international attention with the US supporting Hong Kong over China.
Sexual trafficking charges against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein had roiled the US. His apparent suicide in a federal jail stunned the world. His relationships with President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew fueled conspiracies that many knew about his alleged sex crimes. Epstein was accused of running a racket under which girls were lured to his residences, where he would abuse them. Epstein allegedly made the girls give him nude and semi-nude massages, while also making them engage in sexual acts with him in exchange for money. The girls were sometimes as young as 14. (Reuters)
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive for coronavirus on March 27 and was quarantined at his home. However, Johnson's condition worsened and had to be hospitalised and moved into intensive care on April 6. The government said that the decision was a precaution and that he had been in good spirits earlier in the day.(AP/File)
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 was awarded to Abiy Ahmed Ali, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, for “his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea”. Ethiopia and Eritrea, longtime foes who fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, restored relations in July 2018 after years of hostility. In July 2018, Abiy Ahmed, who had become Prime Minister of Ethiopia, the second-largest country in Africa by population, stepped across the border into neighbouring Eritrea. In the Eritrean capital Asmara, he held President Isaias Afwerki in a warm and tight embrace, announcing to the world that the 20-year war that had killed at least 80,000 people in two of Africa’s poorest countries, had finally come to an end.
On December 19, Donald Trump became the third US President to be impeached. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who launched the inquiry into the impeachment in September. Pelosi then sharpened the focus of Democrats’ against Trump in November and accused the president of committing bribery when he withheld vital military assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was seeking its commitment to publicly investigate his political rivals. The charges, which Pelosi stood firm about, were obstruction of Congress and pressuring Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation against Trump’s political rival and former vice-president Joe Biden, who is the Democratic presidential candidate for the 2020 elections.
The 2019 Nobel prize in Economics or more formally the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” was awarded jointly to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” Born in Mumbai, Banerjee is the second Indian after Amartya Sen to win the Nobel prize in Economics. Like Sen, Banerjee, too, is an alumnus of Presidency College, now Presidency University. Both Banerjee and Duflo, who are a couple and have written a noted book titled “Poor Economics”, are associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On December 12, both Banerjee and Duflo received the prize in Sweden.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped the Forbes' list of world's most powerful women for the ninth year running. The publication, which annually compiles a list of influential women leaders from around the world in politics, business and entertainment, hailed Merkel for standing up to US President Donald Trump's racist comments against four Democratic Congresswomen and for allowing over a million Syrian refugees into Germany.
President Donald Trump On October 28 announced the death of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during an overnight raid led by US military forces in Syria, a major victory as he fights a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry. Trump said Baghdadi killed himself by igniting his suicide vest. Al-Baghdadi was often described as the most wanted individual in the world. The United States designated him a terrorist some eight years ago and declared a bounty of $10 million (more than Rs 70 crore) on his head. Believed to have been born in Iraq perhaps in 1971, Baghdadi had proclaimed himself Caliph of the Islamic State in 2013.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in news this year for a number of decisions including revoking Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, the passage of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in both houses of Parliament, Triple Talaq Bill and also for winning Lok Sabha elections with a huge mandate. Both Article 370 and CAA were met with criticism across the country.
Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured on the morning of February 27 after his MiG21 Bison aircraft was shot down by Pakistan. His parachute landed across the Line of Control (LoC) and he was in Islamabad’s custody for nearly 60 hours. Abhinandan returned on March 1 after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan announced he would be released him as a “gesture of peace”. Tensions between Pakistan and India escalated after the IAF bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp near Balakot inside Pakistan.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai replaced Larry Page as CEO of parent Alphabet Inc, extending a long retreat from public roles and active management by Page and Sergey Brin at the company they co-founded 21 years ago. Pichai, 47, who has spent 15 years at Google, rose to prominence while leading the development of Google’s Chrome browser. He later led product development and engineering across all of Google’s services for a year before gaining the CEO title and adding with it oversight of Google’s advertising and cloud computing business.
Since taking over as ISRO chairman in 2018, K Sivan, has driven the Chandrayaan-2 mission to realisation despite multiple delays, including technical problems with the Vikram lander. The mission has not failed, although the attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon certainly has. Recently, the ISRO chairman was spotted on an IndiGo flight. He was greeted with a thundering round of applause from fellow passengers.
The year 2019 truly belonged to Indian opener Rohit Sharma across the formats. With his 28th ODI hundred on December 18 against West Indies, Rohit completed his 7th ton in 2019. Earlier in the year, he became the first batsman to hit 5 hundreds in a single edition of the World Cup and finished the tournament as the highest run-scorer. Things fell in line for the swashbuckling opener in Tests as well when he slammed 176 and 127 in his maiden Test as an opener at Vizag against South Africa. Later, Rohit also went on to hit his maiden double hundred at Ranchi.
