National
Nyay Kaushal
‘Nyay Kaushal’, India's first-ever Eresource centre inaugurated by Chief justice of India S A Bobde at Judicial Officers Training Institute in Nagpur on October 31. It will facilitate e-filling of cases in the Supreme Court, any High Court and district courts across the country to enable speedy justice for litigants.
Online platform under control
The union government brought films, audio-visuals, news and current affairs content on online platforms under the domain of the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
As per the notification issued by the Cabinet Secretariat on 10 November 2020, the content made available by online providers like Over-The-Top (OTT) such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Aha, Hotstar will also come under the ministry. With this, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has the power to regulate policies related to news, audio, visual contents and films available on online platforms.
51 DTH Education Channels
On 4 November 2020, Prasar Bharati and Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and GeoInformatics, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology signed an agreement to make 51 Direct-To-Home (DTH) Education TV channels. The aim of this agreement is to bring quality educational programmes to every household, including those in rural and remote areas. The services will be available free of cost for all the viewers throughout the day.
Ganga Utsav 2020
‘Ganga Utsav 2020' organized by National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) between 2-4 November 2020. The festival inaugurated by Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The festival aims to connect masses to the cause of Ganga river rejuvenation and sensitive them about ecological issues through conversations and entertainment. The iconic Indian comic book actor Chacha Chaudhary has been named the brand ambassador for the Namami Gange project.
Care centre for elephants
The Elephant Rehabilitation Centre at Kottoor in Kerala is set to become the largest care and cure centre for elephants in the world. Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) allocated Rs. 108 crore to implement this Elephant Rehabilitation Centre to be commissioned in February 2021. This prestigious project includes the construction of various reservoirs and check dams at the Neyyar Dam and also special facilities for the care of elephant calves.
Project Future Ready
To enhance the employability skills and providing career guidance to college students, Dell Technologies, American India Foundation (AIF), National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and the University of Mumbai made an agreement. The project is set to impact over 1 lakh students in Mumbai and Delhi NCR, of which 60% are female. The project aims to provide skills development for these students through career mentoring, leveraging online skilling platforms and providing market aligned skills training for employability and inculcating entrepreneurial mind-set.
International
Hashim Thaci resigned
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci resigned. He will face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague, Netherlands. Thaci, a former senior leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla group fought in his country's 19981999 war for independence from Serbia. After the end of the war in 1999, he was Prime Minister of Kosovo and was elected president in 2016. The main allegation that Thaci and several others are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents.
Malabar Naval Exercise
The Navies of India, the United States, Japan and Australia participated in the first phase of Malabar naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal between 3-6 November 2020. India’s side represented by Destroyer Ranvijay, frigate Shivalik, off-shore patrol vessel Sukanya, fleet support ship Shakti, submarine Sindhuraj, advanced jet trainer Hawk. USA’s USS John S McCain, Australia’s HMAS Ballarat and Japan’s JS Onami participated in the exercise.
India’s resolutions in UN
India’s resolution in the UNO General Assembly on the measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has been cosponsored by more than 75 countries was adopted by consensus. Recently, the First Committee of UNO General Assembly, which deals with disarmament, global challenges and threats to peace that affect the international community, adopted two resolutions which were sponsored by India - Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons' and Reducing Nuclear Danger' - under the Nuclear weapons' cluster.
Interpol cybercrime related communication
Interpol created two secure and flexible services to facilitate cybercrime-related communication among law enforcement agencies. First one is the Cybercrime Knowledge Exchange workspace that handles general, non-police information and is open to all relevant users. The second one is the ‘Cybercrime Collaborative Platform-Operation’ which assists in the law enforcement operations, with access restricted to the operational stakeholders only. INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) is an inter-governmental organization having 194 member countries facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. Jurgen Stock is the present SecretaryGeneral of INTERPOL.
SCO Council of Heads of State
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 20th Summit of SCO Council of Heads of State via videoconferencing on 11 November 2020. India extends full support to observe the 20th anniversary of SCO in 2021 as the "SCO Year of Culture”.
Others
Women's IPL T20
Trailblazers (118 for 8) defeated Supernovas (102 for 7) by 16 runs in the final of the Women's T20 Challenge 2020 to win their maiden title, hosted by Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah. Smriti Mandhana, the captain of the Trailblazers received the player of the match award. Radha Yadav of Supernovas became the first player to take a five-wicket haul in the history of the tournament. She was conferred with Player of the Series award.
2020 Emmett Leahy Award
2020 Emmett Leahy Award conferred on Dr. Dinesh Katre, Senior Director at C-DAC for his outstanding contributions on the digital information and records management. Dr. Dinesh Katre led the development of the DIGITALAYA, e-Library and Archiving System which played an important role in the ISO 16363 certification of world’s first trustworthy digital repository.
JCB Prize for Literature 2020
Malayalam author S Hareesh won the JCB Prize for Literature 2020 for his book “Moustache”. It was translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil and published by HarperCollins India. The JCB Prize for Literature is regarded as the richest literary prize in India. As per the norm, the Malayalam author will receive a Rs. 25 lakh cash prize and the translator will receive an additional Rs.10 lakh. The book, which is the author’s debut novel, is a contemporary classic mixing magic, myth and metaphor into a tale of far-reaching resonance.
Model Questions
1. Who was conferred with the honorary rank of General of the Nepali Army recently?
1) Admiral Karambir Singh 2) Air Chief Marshal R K Bhadauria
3) Army chief General M. M. Naravane 4) CDS General Bipin Rawat 5) Ajit Kumar Doval
2. An Indian diplomat was elected to the U.N. Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly. He/ she is…
1) Vidisha Maitra 2) Ajay Kumar Bhalla 3) Michael Irani 4) Rajkiran Rai G 5) Apurva Chandra
3. Indian coast guard ship ‘C-452’, designed and built by L&T was commissioned in Ratnagiri in…
1) Karnataka 2) Manipur 3) Mizoram 4) Maharashtra 5) Odisha
4. Bongaigaon District Administration in which state launched ‘Mission Sampoorna’ in a bid to improve the health condition of the malnourished children?
1) Meghalaya 2) Assam 3) Uttarakhand 4) Chhattisgarh 5) Himachal Pradesh
5. First country in the world successfully sent the 6G communications test satellite into the orbit from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center is..
1) China 2) Israel 3) USA 4) Japan 5) Russia
6. Formula One Grand Prix winner list give. The wrong option is……
1) Emilia Romagna - Lewis Hamilton 2) Russian - Valtteri Bottas
3) 70th Anniversary GP- Max Verstappen 4) Italian- Pierre Gasly 5) All of above correct
7. Which nation offering F-18 naval fighter jets for the Indian Navy's requirements of combat jets for its aircraft carriers?
1) UK 2) Russia 3) USA 4) Italy 5) Germany
8. On 5 November 2020, who was appointed as the chairperson of the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas?
1) Neetu David 2) Niranjan Bhat 3) Amitabh Kant 4) Bimal Jalan 5) M M Kutty
Key: 1-3; 2-1; 3-4; 4-2; 5-1; 6-5; 7-3; 8-5.
