Saturday, August 01, 2009 NEW DELHI: Nirupama Rao took charge as India's foreign secretary on Saturday morning, the second woman to head India's foreign service. Rao succeeded Shivshankar Menon at a brief ceremony in South Block. Chokila Iyer was the first woman to serve as India's foreign secretary in 2001. A topper of the 1973 Indian Foreign Service batch, Rao also became the first woman spokesperson of the external affairs ministry in 2001. She then went on become the Indian envoy to Sri Lanka and then China before returning to New Delhi. In her 36-year-long career, she has served also as ambassador in Peru and deputy chief of mission in Moscow.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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