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• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a controversial law allowing independent journalists and bloggers to be labelled as “foreign agents”, a move that critics say will violate media freedom.


• Russian legislation passed in 2012 already gave authorities the power to brand media organizations and NGOs as foreign agents, a term that has Soviet-era overtones.


• The new law, which now extends to individuals, will come into effect immediately, according to a document published on the Russian government website.

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• Kamala Harris, the first Indian American woman to run for the White House, has said she quit the race because she does not have the financial resources needed to continue and she is “not a billionaire” who can fund her own campaign.


• Harris’s campaign was struggling with depleting resources and it had shut down several offices in recent weeks and laid-off staffers. And there had been reports of bitter in-fighting among factions in the campaign.

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• Climate change is harming human health as more people suffer from heat stress, extreme weather and mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.


• The UN agency, in a report issued a day after a climate summit began in Madrid, urged governments to meet ambitious targets to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions saying it could save a million lives a year through lower air pollution alone.

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• While most Democrats want to see him impeached, most Republicans do not. And the televised hearings last month that were meant to build public support for impeachment appear to have pushed the two sides further apart.


• With Democrats and Republicans increasingly dug in, the balance may shift according to the feelings of those few Americans who do not favour either party and are nearly evenly split on impeachment: political independents.

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• President Donald Trump said a trade deal with China might have to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020, denting hopes that the two largest economies would soon reach an initial deal to ease their damaging trade war.


• "I have no deadline, no," Trump told reporters in London, where he was due to attend a meeting of NATO leaders.

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• The BJP leadership underscored the significance of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill by equating its importance with the move to nullify Article 370 provisions, with senior leader Rajnath Singh asking party MPs to be present in large numbers when Home Minister Amit Shah tables it in Parliament.


• The Union Cabinet is likely to clear the bill in a cabinet meeting amid strong opposition. Similarly, the Bill to amend the SPG Act was also passed amid a walkout by Congress MPs.


• Rejecting the opposition's criticism of the Citizenship Bill, which seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there, Singh asserted that the BJP has always worked to unite the country and its people. Stay tuned to IndiaToday.in to get all the latest updates on Parliament proceedings.

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• Over five years after the Nirbhaya Fund was constituted to help government agencies combat cases of violence against women, utilisation of funds by states still remains low across the country, according to data presented by the government in Parliament.


• The corpus was formed in the aftermath of the gang rape and murder of a paramedical student in Delhi in December 2012, an incident that sparked widespread protests and also led to stricter anti-rape laws.

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• Parliament passed a bill to merge two Union territories Daman & Diu, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli into one unit.


• The Rajya Sabha passed the Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Bill, 2019 through voice vote. Lok Sabha had passed this bill on November 27.


• Responding to the bill, minister of state for home G Kishen Reddy said that the measure will help in strengthening administrative efficiency and fast track the development of the two union territories.


• Merging will also help in cutting down administrative costs, he said, adding the move was supported by civil societies along with the elected member of Parliament of that area.

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• India and Sweden have put in place a roadmap to drive collaboration in research and innovation, including partnerships and funding for projects focused on smart cities and clean technologies.


• The roadmap was the outcome of the first high-level dialogue on innovation that was jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf in New Delhi.

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• Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday informed his party colleagues in Parliament that the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) 2019, which seeks to fast-track grant of Indian citizenship to members of minority communities from three Muslim-majority nations in India’s neighbourhood, will be placed before the house soon.


• The Union Cabinet is expected to consider the CAB- 2019 tomorrow.


• Singh, addressing a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s parliamentarians, asserted that the proposed legislation was as important as the August 5 move to nullify Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The CAB seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

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• India and Australia are set to hold their third combined dialogue of the defence and foreign secretaries on December 9, with the Indo-Pacific and preparations for Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s visit next year expected to top the agenda.


• This year’s edition of the talks, popularly known as the 2+2 dialogue, assume additional significance as they come months after India, Australia, Japan, and the US decided to upgrade their interactions in the “Quadrilateral” format to the ministerial level in September.


• Australia’s foreign secretary Frances Adamson and defence secretary Greg Moriarty will meet their Indian counterparts Vijay Gokhale and Ajay Kumar in New Delhi, people familiar with planning for the dialogue said.

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• Bokaro Steel City was a once-booming industrial township which developed around the Bokaro Steel Plant, one of the largest and oldest in the country, owned by the Steel Authority of India Ltd, a state-run company.


• The company isn’t doing well, and so both Bokaro Thermal and Bokaro Steel, once posh industrial towns, are almost in ruins today.


• Residential quarters are falling apart, public spaces and utilities are unmaintained and dysfunctional. Neither Congress nor BJP activists in Bokaro Steel City want to talk about these issues though. One of the Congress workers at the party’s office says that villagers’ votes matter more than that of plant employees. Indeed, no permanent workers are being hired.

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• The JEE Main 2020 will be conducted by The National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to Undergraduate Programs in NITs, IIITs and other Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), etc. in the next academic year (2020-2021) in two phases, the first phase for Admissions to B.E./ B.Tech(Paper-1) & B. Arch/ B. Planning (Paper-2) from 6th Jan to 11th Jan 2020 and the second phase for admissions to B.E./ B.Tech (Paper-1) & B. Arch/ B. Planning (Paper-2) between 3rd April to 9th April 2020. Students have the option to appear in one or both phases. The result will however consider the students’ performance in the best of the two phases.

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• Reserve Bank of India has released the RBI Grade B Phase 1 marks sheet and cut off marks 2019 on Monday, December 2, 2019. Candidates who have appeared in the examination can check their marks sheet online at rbi.org.in.


• The Phase 1 recruitment examination was held on November 9, 2019, and the results were declared on November 18, 2019.

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• Domestic stock markets rebounded from the day's lows on Wednesday despite weakness in Asian peers amid waning optimism about US-China trade talks.


• The S&P BSE Sensex index recouped as much as 245.3 points from its day's low of 40,544.82, and the broader NSE Nifty benchmark climbed to touch 12,026.50 on the upside, rebounding 74.95 points from its intraday low of 11,951.55.


• The emergence of buying interest in banking stocks in mid-morning deals pushed the markets higher; however, selling in metal and energy shares capped the upside.

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• Kerala-based private sector lender CSB Bank had a bumper listing on Wednesday morning. The stock debuted on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) at Rs 275, which marked a premium of 41 per cent over the issue price of Rs 195.


• At 11 am, the stock traded at Rs 298, up 53 per cent over its issue price. The Rs 410-crore CSB Bank IPO, which closed for subscription on November 26, was subscribed 87 times. The IPO was priced in a band of Rs 193-195 per share.

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• Gabriel Jesus scored twice as Manchester City showed no signs of giving up their Premier League title without a fight as a 4-1 victory at Burnley cut the gap on unbeaten leaders Liverpool to eight points.


• Pep Guardiola's men have struggled to match the blistering standards they set in back-to-back title-winning seasons, but looked more like their old selves in what could have been a tricky trip to Turf Moor.

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• English author Tony Joseph has won 12th ‘Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize’ for his 2018 book, ‘Early Indians - The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came’.


• Tony Joseph, a journalist-author won against four other debut writers and the award was announced Shakti Bhatt Foundation.

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• The National Assembly of Republic of Mauritius has unanimously elected Prithvirajsing Roopun, as new President of the island nation, a largely ceremonial post.


• He was former arts and culture minister of country. The motion for his election as new President was presented by Prime Minister, Home Affairs and External Communications, Minister of Defence, Minister for Rodrigues, Outer Islands and Territorial Integrity.

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• Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their roles at the helm of parent firm Alphabet and handing the reins to current Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the company said.


• Pichai will take over from Page as CEO of the holding firm, a Silicon Valley titan that includes Google as well as units focused on "other bets" in areas including self-driving cars and life sciences.


• Page and Brin, who is currently Alphabet president, "will continue their involvement as co-founders, shareholders and members of Alphabet's board of directors," the company said.