UN Secretaries General  

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, abbreviated UNSG, is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations.

The current Secretary-General is Ban Ki-moon of South Korea who took office on 1 January 2007. His first term expired on 31 December 2011. He was re-elected, unopposed, to a second term on 21 June 2011.

Residence

The official residence of the Secretary-General is a five-story townhouse in Sutton Place, Manhattan, in New York City, United States. The townhouse was built for Anne Morgan in 1921, and donated to the United Nations in 1972

#	Portrait	Secretary-General	Dates in office	Country of origin	UN Regional Group	Reason of withdrawal
–		Gladwyn Jebb	24 October 1945 – 1 February 1946	United Kingdom	Western European & Others	Served as Acting Secretary-General until Lie's election
		After World War II, he served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in August 1945, being appointed Acting United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946 until the appointment of the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie.
1		Trygve Lie	2 February 1946 – 10 November 1952	Norway	Western European & Others	Resigned
		Lie, a foreign minister and former labour leader, was recommended by the Soviet Union to fill the post. After the UN involvement in the Korean War, the Soviet Union vetoed Lie's reappointment in 1951. The United States circumvented the Soviet Union's veto and recommended reappointment directly to the General Assembly. Lie was reappointed by a vote of 46 to 5, with eight abstentions. The Soviet Union remained hostile to Lie, and he resigned in 1952.
2		Dag Hammarskjöld	10 April 1953 – 18 September 1961	Sweden	Western European & Others	Died in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), while on a peacekeeping mission to the Congo
		After a series of candidates were vetoed, Hammarskjöld emerged as an option that was acceptable to the Security Council. Hammarskjöld was re-elected unanimously to a second term in 1957. The Soviet Union was angered by Hammarskjöld's leadership of the UN during the Congo Crisis and suggested that the position of Secretary-General be replaced by a troika, or three-man executive. Facing great opposition from the Western nations, the Soviet Union gave up on its suggestion. Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)  in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century".Hammerskjöld was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961
3		U Thant	30 November 1961 – 31 December 1971	Burma	Asian	Declined to consider a third term.
		In the process of replacing Hammarskjöld, the developing world insisted on a non-European and non-American. U Thant was nominated. However, due to opposition from the French (Thant had chaired a committee on Algerian independence and the Arabs(Burma supported Israel), Thant was only appointed for the remainder of Hammarskjöld's term. Thant was the first Asian Secretary-General. The following year, Thant was unanimously re-elected to a full five-year term. He was similarly re-elected in 1966. Thant did not seek a third term.
4		Kurt Waldheim	1 January 1972 – 31 December 1981	Austria	Western European & Others	China vetoed his third term.
		Waldheim launched a discreet but effective campaign to become the Secretary-General. Despite initial vetoes from China and the United Kingdom, in the third round Waldheim was selected to become the new Secretary-General. In 1976, China initially blocked Waldheim's re-election, but it relented on the second ballot. In 1981, Waldheim's re-election for a third term was blocked by China, which vetoed his selection through 15 rounds. In the mid-1980s, it was revealed that a post-World War II UN War Crimes Commission had labeled Waldheim as a suspected war crminal – based on his involvement with the Wehrmacht Heer army of Nazi Germany. The files had been stored in the UN archive.
5		Javier Pérez de Cuéllar	1 January 1982 – 31 December 1991	Peru	Latin American & Caribbean	Refused to be considered for a third term.
		Pérez de Cuéllar was selected after a five-week deadlock between the re-election of Waldheim and China's candidate,Salim Ahmed Salim  of Tanzania Pérez de Cuéllar, a Peruvian diplomat, was a compromise candidate, and the first Secretary-General from the Americas. He was re-elected unanimously in 1986.
6		Boutros Boutros-Ghali	1 January 1992 – 31 December 1996	Egypt	African	The United States vetoed his second term.
		The 102-member Non- Aligned Movement insisted that the next Secretary-General come from Africa. With a majority in the General Assembly and the support of China, the Non-Aligned Movement had the votes necessary to block any unfavorable candidate. The Security Council conducted five anonymous straw polls—a first for the council—and Boutros-Ghali emerged with 11 votes on the fifth round. In 1996 the United States vetoed the re-appointment of Boutros-Ghali, claiming he had failed in implementing necessary reforms to the UN.
7		Kofi Annan	1 January 1997 – 31 December 2006	Ghana	African	Retired after two full terms
		On 13 December 1996, the United Nations Security Council recommended Annan. He was confirmed four days later by the vote of the General Assembly He started his second term as Secretary-General on 1 January 2002.
8		Ban Ki-moon	1 January	South Korea	Asia-Pacific	Incumbent
		Ban became the second Asian to be selected as the Secretary-General. He was unanimously elected to a second term by the General Assembly on 21 June 2011. His second term began on 1 January 2012.Prior to his selection, he was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006.

GK Corner

1. Who designed the "Param Vir Chakra"?
Ans: Savitri Khanolkar

2. What was the name of first electric train in India?
Ans: Deccan Queen (Started in 1929 and travelled from Kalyan to Pune)

3. Name the American President who remained in that Chair for the longest period of time?
Ans: Franklin D Rooswelt ( March 1933 to April 1945)

4. Which is the town lying between two continents?
Ans: Istanbul

5. Who designed the 'Gateway of India'
Ans: George Wittet

March 8 - International Women's Day

The UN theme for International Women's Day 2013 is "A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women,"while International Women's Day 2013 has declared the year's theme as The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum.

In 1869 British MP John Stuart Mill was the first person in Parliament to call for women's right to vote. On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. Women in other countries did not enjoy this equality and campaigned for justice for many years.

In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

The very first International Women's Day was launched the following year byClara Zetkin on 19 March (not 8 March). The date was chosen because on 19 March in the year of the 1848 revolution, the Prussian king recognized for the first time the strength of the armed people and gave way before the threat of a proletarian uprising. Among the many promise he made, which he later failed to keep, was the introduction of votes for women.

Plans for the first International Women's Day demonstration were spread by word of mouth and in the press. During the week before International Women's Day two journals appeared: The Vote for Women in Germany and Women's Day in Austria. Various articles were devoted to International Women's Day: 'Women and Parliament', 'The Working Women and Municipal Affairs', 'What Has the Housewife got to do with Politics?', etc. The articles thoroughly analyzed the question of the equality of women in the government and in society. All articles emphasized the same point that it was absolutely necessary to make parliament more democratic by extending the franchise to women.

Success of the first International Women's Day in 1911 exceeded all expectation.

Meetings were organized everywhere in small towns and even the villages halls were packed so full that male workers were asked to give up their places for women.

Men stayed at home with their children for a change, and their wives, the captive housewives, went to meetings.

During the largest street demonstration of 30,000 women, the police decided to remove the demonstrators' banners so the women workers made a stand. In the scuffle that followed, bloodshed was averted only with the help of the socialist deputies in Parliament.

In 1913 International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Wommen's Day ever since.

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. In adopting its resolution, the General Assembly recognized the role of women in peace efforts and development and urged an end to discrimination and an increase of support for women's full and equal participation.

 International Women's Day is marked by a national holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Poster of Women's Day, March 8, 1914

Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history.shtml

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Reflections

SNOW RAIN IN WASHINGTON DC

The Earth is adorning itself like a bride, at least here in Washington DC. It is a shower of white snow that appeared suddenly from the skies.

I was supposed to fly to San Francisco in the morning to attend the URI Global Council and Staff Meeting scheduled to commence tomorrow, but 650 flights were cancelled.

No other option but to part take in the glorious game of Nature and think of Creation’s amazing blessings. Last time I saw snow like this was in 1988 when I was a student at the BosseyEcumenical Institute, Geneva. It was much fun then as we had plenty of time to play with snow outside in the white garden ground. We were 64 students from different countries. Today I can only watch the play of rosy petals, falling from heaven’s rich gardens. The game will continue for a whole day, it is reported. Soil will be purified. Rivers will be full soon. Trees will start flowering without waiting any more.

Some painful thoughts suddenly started hunting me. How long will be the Nature sportive like this? Will there ever be such showers from above, if the global warming persists at this speed?

Let us not teach the Earth to be angry. Let her be a loving Mother forever.

Dr. Abraham Karickam

WINTER IN WASHINGTON

Most of the times when I arrived in Washington DC, the whole city appeared like a beautiful park, with trees and flowers all over. But today I see only withered branches. No leaves to be seen on any of the trees. Nature is preserving energy! In winter it cannot spend much sun rays for photosynthesis. How cautious is Nature in protecting its reserves! And the trees are all throbbing for a new flowering, a rebirth; getting ready to cover the whole world in glorious hues again. There will be a riot of colors, assures my old time friend and class mate Kunjumone, as he drives me around Maryland.  But will the trees have different souls, when they take a new form in a different season? The soul will be the same. All Scriptures teach us about the immortality of the soul. There are many Holy Books, but the message is the same- the message of peace, love and eternal life.

Nature has its own mechanism to preserve everything good, tiding over the odds of seasons. But how do we people treat our Mother Earth? On the verge of collapse, still we go on plundering the resources; even water is scarce and bottled! Let us turn to Nature in humility and learn new lessons- lessons for a new tomorrow.

Dr. Abraham Karickam

Reflections

KAMAL'S FILM--A POEM IN CELLULOID

Kamal’s film CELLULOID is a poem in the reels. It enchanted me from the very first scene to the last, as it unfolded the life history of J.C Daniel, the first one to champion the cause of a movie in Kerala’s soil. Every great move is  a big sacrifice, but in Daniel’s life it was a sacrifice only as it spoiled his whole life. His pioneering  Movie ‘VIGATHA KUMARAN’ tells the story of a lost child. But this film is centred around a few persons who virtually lost their lives in the process of making a cinema- Daniel, Janet, Rosy etc. Rosy’s case was most pathetic and tragic—the first woman movie actor in Kerala was crucified in the name of her caste and colour.

Art is supposed to bring all purusharthas to the one who weds it. But here it was just the opposite. All the heroes and heroines suffered the fate of Prometheus. But at last, Kamal has given them a re-birth. Finally art justified itself.

Dr. Abraham Karickam

Reflections

BURJ KHALEEFA--DREAMING HIGH

I passed by Burj Khaleefa in Dubai several times yesterday, while traveling to various destinations with Shibu, Jeny, Sanju and Shon. This tallest building in the world fascinates me like anything and I want to have a glimpse of it every time I am here. It symbolizes the urge of human being to rise up to the sky so as to reach out to the unknown recesses of the universe. This insatiable quest has been alive in the humans from the beginning of history. Several world class artists have expressed this angst through their spirited creations--  The Republic, Utopia, Arcadia, New Atlantis, Brave New World and so on. We find many heroes of Valmiki, Kalidasa and Shakespeare wandering to many regions of the world and beyond. Hemingway’s Old Man goes out into the deep sea for eighty days in search of the biggest catch ever. My novel "Super Souls Revisited " is also an attempt in this line. As long as there is life in a being, this journey to the unknown will continue. We go passing the space to unravel the hidden mysteries and one day there will be a new Burj Khaleefa that can really kiss the skies and still we will be searching beyond that point.

Abraham Karickam