General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

Nov 30, 2018

Maharashtra Assembly Passed Bill for Maratha Quota

The Maharashtra legislature unanimously approved a bill to offer 16% reservation in government jobs and university seats to Marathas, a politically influential community that makes up 30% of the state's population.
The passage of the bill takes caste-based reservation in the state to 68%, breaching a Supreme Court-mandated cap of 50% and making a legal challenge likely.
Both houses of the state legislature passed the Maharashtra State Reservation (of seats for admission in education institutions in the state and for appointments in the public services and posts under the state) for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018.
This will make Maharashtra the state with the second-highest reservations in the country, after Tamil Nadu, which has 69% caste-based quotas.

Nov 29, 2018

India among Countries Worst Hit by Climate Change

Ahead of the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change begins in Katowice, Poland, a Lancet report has raised concern on the debilitating impact of climate change on human health across the world. India is one of the countries worst hit by heat stress and labour hours lost as a result.

According to the Lancet Countdown 2018 on Health and Climate Change report, globally each person was exposed to an additional 1.4 days of heat wave between 2000 and 2017 compared to the baseline period of 1986 to 2005. In 2017, an additional 157 million heat wave exposure events took place, which is 18 million more heat exposure events than in 2016.

India Won't Attend SAARC Meet

According to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, India will not attend the SAARC summit in Pakistan and unless the neighbouring country stops sponsoring terror activities even as she welcomed Islamabad's decision to build the Kartarpur corridor.

India had pulled out of the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit that was to be held in Islamabad in 2016 after the deadly terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in September that year.

UPSC Gets New Chairman

Arvind Saxena has been appointed as chairman of the Union Public Service Commission, which conducts examination to select bureaucrats, diplomats and police officers.

Saxena will have a tenure till August 7, 2020, when he attains the age of 65 years.

He has been working as acting head of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) since June 20.

Saxena joined the UPSC as a member in May 2015. Prior to joining the UPSC, he was working as director of the Aviation Research Centre (ARC).

Nov 28, 2018

Defence IPRs

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated an ambitious mission, "Raksha Gyan Shakti", to promote self-reliance in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in defence.

Under the mission, the target for the year 2017-18 is to train 10,000 personnel of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU) and Ordnance factory Board (OFB) on IPR and facilitate filing of at least 1,000 new IPR applications.

ABHM Will Contest 2019 Lok Sabha Polls Independently

The Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) leader and granddaughter of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Rajashree Choudhury, said that the Mahasabha will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls independently. However, the organisation is yet to decide the number of seats it would contest in the general elections and has kept open the alliance possibilities as well.

On alliance, she said that it will depend on decisions and situation, and wondered which party will come close to ABHM's strict and distinct ideologies.

She also made it clear that the Ram temple issue at Ayodhya will be the poll plank of the mahasabha along with eradication of corruption, and establishing Hindutva ideologies.

Giridhar Malviya Next Chancellor of BHU

Former Allahabad High Court judge Giridhar Malviya was elected as the Chancellor of BHU, which was founded by his grandfather Madan Mohan Malviya.

Justice (retd) Malaviya, a BHU alumnus, will succeed Karan Singh.

Nov 27, 2018

Neiphiu Rio Launches Tourist Police

Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio launched the Nagaland Tourist Police which will work for the safety and security of the tourists and report any crime against them to the nearest police station. He also flagged off tourist police vehicles and inaugurated an Integrated Police Control Room for tourists.

Iravatham Mahadevan Passes Away

Iravatham Mahadevan one of the world's leading scholars on the Indus Valley Script, the pre-eminent scholar on the Tamil Brahmi script, and a man of many accomplishments, passed away.

A former member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Mr. Mahadevan joined the service in 1954 and took voluntary retirement in 1980, after holding various positions in the Central and Tamil Nadu governments.

In August 1987, he became the Editor of the Tamil daily, Dinamani and served the paper for four years.

Mr. Mahadevan was awarded the Padma Shri in April 2009.

He was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1970 for his research on the Indus script and the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research in 1992 for his work on the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.

Lakshminarayana Joins Politics

Former joint director of Central Bureau of Investigation V. V. Lakshminarayana, who took voluntary retirement this March, announced his entry into politics.

The Andhra IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre joined Lok Satta, a political party founded by retired IAS officer and former legislator Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan.

Lakshminarayana will be reviving the party that had gone defunct four years ago after Jayaprakash Narayan wound it up as a political force and has been running it as a social organisation. He declared that the party would contest the next assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.

Next Chief Election Commissioner

President Ramnath Kovind has cleared the appointment of former bureaucrat Sunil Arora as the Chief Election Commissioner.

Arora, who is currently election commissioner, will take over the top job at the poll panel on December 2, when the incumbent O. P. Rawat demits office. Ashok Lavasa is the second election commissioner.

A former secretary in the ministry of information and broadcasting, Arora has also served as the secretary in the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship. A 1980-batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre, Arora has served stints in ministries such as finance, textiles and planning commission and served as joint secretary in the ministry of civil aviation.

Nov 26, 2018

Indus Waters Treaty

The Government of India has decided to fast-track three projects, including construction of two dams, to arrest the unutilised water of its share under the bilateral Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan.

The three projects include the Shahpur Kandi dam project, a second Sutlej-Beas link in Punjab and the Ujh Dam project in Jammu and Kashmir.

Under the Indus Waters Treaty, waters flowing in three of Indus tributaries, the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, have been allotted to India; while the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus waters have been allotted to Pakistan.

InterGlobe Aviation Chairman Passes Away

InterGlobe Aviation, which operates the country's largest airline IndiGo, said that its chairman Devadas Mallya Mangalore passed away. He was also a non-executive independent director. He had served as the CMD of Bank of Baroda and Bank of Maharashtra.

Share on

TCY Analytics (View Subscription Plans)

Subscribe to GK Updates

I want to receive

GK Tags

October GK, September GK, August GK, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ENVIRONMENT, BUSINESS AND ECONOMY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, SPORTS, NATIONAL AFFAIRS, DEFENCE, PERSONS IN NEWS, DAYS AND EVENTS, AWARDS AND HONOURS, GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND SCHEMES, GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION, ART AND CULTURE, BOOKS AND AUTHORS, TOURISM AND HOTEL INDUSTRY AWARENESS, ART AND CULTURE, LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Start Discussion

On any topic

Take Tests

Compiled from GK updates

Login

Sign Up

Forgot Password

Download TCY App

Unlock All Services and Enjoy The Premium Benefits

US$ 10

US$ 13

US$ 15

US$ 17

US$ 19

US$ 20

US$ 21

US$ 22

US$ 23

US$ 24

US$ 25

US$ 26