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• US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he wants an explanation from Ankara over threats to close two strategic military bases used by the United States in Turkey.


• Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close the Incirlik and Kurecik bases while speaking to a pro-government television channel. The two bases sit on Turkey's southwest coast, near the border with Syria.

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• ArcelorMittal SA said it had formed a joint venture with Nippon Steel Corp to run Essar Steel, the bankrupt steel company that ArcelorMittal has taken over.


• Last month, Supreme Court had cleared the way for ArcelorMittal to take over Essar Steel following a legal tussle that dragged through multiple courts for over two years.


• ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel had bid jointly for Essar, which has a capacity of 10 million tonnes of steel per year.

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• A University of Massachusetts accounting professor was removed from the classroom by school officials just weeks before the end of the semester after she showed students a parody of Adolf Hitler's rant from the 2004 movie "Downfall."


• The four-minute clip has sparked controversy on the flagship Amherst campus. University officials called the video shown in Catherine West Lowry's class "objectively offensive," according to a statement from UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski.

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• Women may have to wait more than two centuries for equality at work, according to a report showing gender inequality growing in workplaces worldwide despite increasing demands for equal treatment.


• While women appear to be gradually closing the gender gap in areas such as politics, health, and education, workplace inequality is not expected to be erased until the year 2276, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

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• Cuba's Communist government is prepared if the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump decides to sever diplomatic relations although it hopes that does not come to pass, a top Cuban diplomat said.


• Relations were re-established five years ago this week under former Democratic President Barack Obama following half a century of hostility, a stance that earned the United States lots of goodwill from Latin America, which has been clamoring for such a detente for years.

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• India has slipped four places to rank 112th globally in terms of gender gap amid widening disparity in terms of women's health and survival, and economic participation - the two areas where the country is now ranked in the bottom-five, an annual survey shows.


• While Iceland remains the world's most gender-neutral country, India has moved down the ladder from its 108th position last year on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report to rank below countries like China (106th), Sri Lanka (102nd), Nepal (101st), Brazil (92nd), Indonesia (85th) and Bangladesh (50th).

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• Activists Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, historian Irfan Habib, economist Prabhat Patnaik and some organisations approached the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and sought direction to strike it down.


• The plea filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan sought direction to declare the Act as unconstitutional and illegal.

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• The Supreme Court said it will hear on December 18 a batch of pleas, including those by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and royal scion of Tripura Pradyot Kishore Deb Barman, challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).


• A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant said the pleas will be heard along with other pending matters coming up for hearing.

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• Former President Pranab Mukherjee has called for almost doubling the strength of Parliament’s lower House or Lok Sabha to 1,000 lawmakers from the current 545 keeping in view the increase in population since 1977 when an embargo on increasing the number of seats in legislative bodies was imposed.


• In his Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, Mukherjee argued that the last increase in the Lok Sabha’s strength took place almost half-a-century ago and that, too, on the basis of 1971 census.

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• The United Nations Security Council will meet at China’s request to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, diplomats said.


• The council will meet behind closed doors for the first time since a similar gathering in August, which was also called by Pakistan ally China after India removed the decades-old autonomy the area enjoyed under the Indian constitution.

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• The Uttarakhand state commercial tax department has unearthed what it suspects to be a financial fraud to the tune of Rs 8,500 crore under Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Uttarakhand and six other states, commercial tax department officials said.


• Sowjanya (who goes by her first name), commissioner of the commercial tax department, Uttarakhand, said apart from Uttarakhand, the fraud involves six other states/Union Territories — Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Delhi.

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• The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) is scheduled to release the admit cards for Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test (PSTET) 2018 examination, December 16. PSTET 2018 examination is scheduled to be held on December 22, 2019.


• Candidates who have applied for the exam can download they are admitted card from the official website PSTET 2018 at pstet.net.

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• The Uttar Pradesh Exam Regulatory Authority will conduct UPTET 2019 examination on December 22, 2019. The examination will be held in two shifts 10 to 12:30 pm and 2:30 to 5 pm.


• The Uttar Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (UPTET) admit card 2019 was released on December 12, 2019, by UP exam regulatory authority on its official website updeled.gov.in. Candidates, who haven’t downloaded their admit card, should visit the official website and do the same.

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• UP Board schools will receive admit cards for the forthcoming High School and Intermediate examinations 2020 by January 31, 2020.


• According to reports made available by the Board, all admit cards besides exam attendance format, list of examinee to appear at different examination centers, etc would be provided to the office of district inspector of schools (DIOS) in all the 75 districts latest by January 25, 2020, after which the same would be provided to all schools by January 31, 2020.

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• The Indian authorities are proactively establishing institutional checks to empower citizens rather than allowing big techs to control customer data for their own ends, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said in its latest report.


• The report, however, said the Indian model does not necessarily transpose well to all jurisdictions. “Different countries may wish to adopt different models, in part due to different starting points.

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• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday invited ideas and suggestions for the Budget 2020-21 from citizens through the website mygov.in to make the budget-making process “participative and inclusive”.


• “Those wishing to give inputs on #Budget2020 please do so using @mygovindia - Inviting Ideas and Suggestions for Union Budget 2020-2021,” she tweeted. The Budget is expected to be presented on February 1.

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• The All India Football Federation (AIFF) tasked its disciplinary committee to investigate the allegedly racist remarks made against Mumbai City FC's Serge Kevyn Angoue by Saudi Arabian referee Turki Mohammed Al Khudayr in an Indian Super League match.


• Mumbai City FC head coach Jorge Costa had alleged that the referee, who officiated his side's match against Bengaluru FC, called Kevyn a monkey.

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• Rafael Nadal finished the season on top of the world to give the men’s rankings a familiar look but a new crop of women is showing the old guard can be overthrown.


• The Spanish world number one and Novak Djokovic won two Grand Slams each in 2019, holding Father Time and their young rivals at bay for another year.


• But Ashleigh Barty and teenager Bianca Andreescu were two new faces on the list of women’s Major winners as familiar names slipped from view.

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• UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), has removed the ‘Carnival of Aalst’ of Belgium from its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity List.


• The 2019 carnival featured a parade float that included racist and anti-Semitic representations which mocked the Orthodox Jews. The carnival was added to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010.

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• English cricket player Benjamin Andrew Stokes (Ben Stokes), was named as the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) Sports Personality of the Year 2019. He also became the 5th cricketer to bag the coveted trophy and the first cricketer after England’s Andrew Flintoff(Cricketer) who won in 2005.


• Ben Stokes was awarded for his key role in England’s win in the 2019 cricket World Cup which was held in England and Wales in the United Kingdom(UK).

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• Lieutenant General Manoj Mukund Naravane will take the reins of the Indian Army after current chief General Bipin Rawat’s term ends on December 31, two senior officers aware of the developments said.


• The appointments committee of the Cabinet has cleared Naravane’s appointment as the next army chief, said the first officer on the condition of anonymity. The Centre is yet to make an official announcement.