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• The Japanese government officially announced to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC), enabling Japan to pursue commercial whaling in its adjacent waters, including its Exclusive Economic Zone.


• Japan will resume commercial whaling in July 2019 and the whaling area will not include the Antarctic Ocean or the Southern Hemisphere.


• The move came more than three months after the global body for the conservation of whales rejected a Tokyo-led proposal to lift a 32-year ban on the commercial hunting of the ocean mammals.


• Japan could no longer take advantage of the IWC exemption for scientific whaling because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas requires its signatories to work through “the appropriate international organizations” for marine mammal conservation.


• The country consumes between 3,000 tons to 5,000 tons of whale meat in a year according to the government of Japan.

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• Former two-time Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the first-ever female leader of a Muslim nation.


• Benazir, along with her mother Nusrat Bhutto, inherited the leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party after the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979.


• She was assassinated on December 27, 2007, at a rally in Rawalpindi, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

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• The tribal Baduga community in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu celebrated their annual Heddaiyamman festival.


• In connection to this festival, People will observe 48 days fast and walks in religious processions and holding up a holy shaft which symbolizes the miracle of the traditional Badaga goddess.


• Week long celebrations will continue in different villages including Petthala, Beragani, and Ketti.

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• The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet, presided over by the chief minister Yogi Adityanath, gave its nod to constitute a Bundelkhand Development Board (BDB) and a Poorvanchal Development Board (PDB).


• The development boards for Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal will be headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath or someone nominated by him.


• Besides Chairman, the board will include two deputy-chairmen, two experts, 12 official members and 11 non-government members and their tenure would be for a period of three years.


• The cabinet also approved the setting up of the UP Traders Welfare Board to address the problems faced by traders in the state with regards to the GST.


• The cabinet also gave its nod to a proposal of giving 25 per cent discount to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on the purchase of land for establishing a Rs 2,300-crore software development unit in Noida which would employ 30,000 people.


• The cabinet also approved the proposal for grant of “exceptional pension” to police personnel who slip into a coma as a result of serious injuries suffered during discharging their duties.

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• Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat launched the ‘Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana’ in Dehradun.


• Under the scheme, each household in the state will be able to avail medical treatment of up to 5 lakh rupees annually.


• A total of 99 government and 66 private hospitals have been selected under the scheme.


• Under this, the CM also signed MOUs with private hospitals and also announced availability of free of cost OPD facilities for children and elderly people in the state.


• It will benefit 23 lakh households and cover 1,350 critical diseases.


• He also distributed scheme-related golden cards to beneficiaries.


• He also launched the mobile application and website for ‘Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana’.


• Additionally, the chief minister also announced that the state’s dedicated air ambulance service will be operational from 26 January, 2019.

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• On the eve of the 94th Birth Anniversary of the Former Prime Minister Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated 158 Development Projects in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.


• He also laid the foundation stone for 418 projects, making it a total of 576 projects worth ₹161 crores.


• He also announced that foundation stone of two more flyovers will be laid by February 2019. This project would have 104 km long, 8 lane road across Lucknow to minimize traffic congestion problems.

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• The West Bengal cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced approval of an online system for mutation of property.


• To ease the process of property mutation and check illegal practices.


• The cabinet also approved a proposal by Flipkart to set up a logistic hub at Haringhata, in the Nadia district, at an estimated investment of Rs 991 crore.


• The cabinet has also given its nod for regularizing land ownership in Midnapore’s Khas Mahal, which is a government land that was leased out to individuals for residential purposes for a fixed period of time.

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• on the eve of former late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 94th birth anniversary dubbed as ‘Good Governance Day’, Chief Minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar launched 485 schemes of 37 departments under ‘Digital Haryana’ initiative.


• Among the schemes thus launched on the occasion, a few the chief minister inaugurated 22 ‘Antyodya Saral Kendras’for all district headquarters from Karnal, This made Haryana the first state to have a launch of 4,000 Atal Seva Kendras in rural areas, 22 at district headquarters, 51 at sub-divisional level and 20 Antyodya Saral Kendras at Tehsil level, simultaneously A toll free Antyodaya Helpline number was inaugurated.


• A SARAL App would be launched so that people could get all information about schemes on their smart phones at home.

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• The Power Ministry mandated the use of smart prepaid electricity meters in the country beginning April 2019. The transition is expected to be completed by next 3 years.


• This would help in reduction in AT&C losses, better health of DISCOMs, incentivising energy conservation, ease of bill payments and doing away with the paper bills.


• Smart meters, thus inducted, are a part of the overall advanced metering infrastructure solutions (AMI).


• For this, state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) introduced two global tenders for procuring a total of 10 million smart meters.


• Additionally, he government also plans to install 10 million prepaid meters in Uttar Pradesh as part of the Saubhagya scheme which aims to electrify over four crore households till March 2019.

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• The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) announced extension of ban on import of milk and its products, including chocolates, from China for four months till April 23, 2019.


• The ban was first imposed in September 2008 and later extended due to the suspicion of presence of melamine in some milk consignments from China.


• The ban has been imposed as a preventive measure as India doesn’t import milk and its products from China.


• India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of milk. It produces around 150 million tonne milk annually.


• Uttar Pradesh is the leading state in milk production, followed by Rajasthan and Gujarat.

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• Investments in the Indian capital market through participatory notes climbed to Rs 79,247 crore in November after hitting a nine-and-a-half year low at the end of preceding month.


• P-notes are issued by registered foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to overseas investors who wish to be part of the Indian stock market without registering themselves directly.


• According to Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) data, the total value of P-note investments in Indian markets– equity, debt, and derivatives rose to Rs 79,247 crore till November-end from Rs 66,587 crore at October-end.

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• Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting became the 25th Australian cricketer to be officially inducted into the International Cricket Council’s Hall of Fame at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).


• A three-time World Cup winner (including two World Cups as captain in 2003 and 2007), Ponting did a lap of honour as part of his induction during the tea break on Day-1 of the Boxing Day Test between India and Australia at MCG.


• In February 2018, he was also inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.


• Ponting is the highest run scorer for Australia in both Tests and ODIs, with 13,378 runs in the longest format and 13,704 runs in the 50-over format.


• Other 2018 inductees in the list include India’s Rahul Dravid and England’s Claire Taylor, bringing the total members in the prestigious list to 87.

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• American Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest woman to win 50 World Cup ski races with victory in the slalom in the French Alps recently. The 2014 Olympic champion, who led after the first run in Courchevel, finished 0.29sec ahead of Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova and 0.37sec ahead of Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter in third place.


• Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark holds the record for both men and women with 86 career successes. Shiffrin’s fellow US racer Lindsey Vonn has the most female wins with 82 victories across all five alpine disciplines.

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• The Mohammed Rafi Award was conferred to late music composer Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar and playback singer Usha Timothy in Mumbai.


• Kudalkar, of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo, was given the Mohammed Rafi Lifetime Achievement Award consisting of 1 lakh rupees and a trophy.


• He had a successful and long partnership with Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma and as music composers.


• Timothy was honoured with the Mohammed Rafi Award and 51,000 rupees.


• She had sung 1,000 songs in multiple Indian languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bhojpuri and Marathi, among others.


• The awards, instituted by the NGO Spandan Arts, were handed over by Shelar.

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• 13 years old class 8 student from KC High School in Chennai, Aadi Sai Vijaykaran became the first Indian to win the Junior Debate Championship at the World Scholar’s Cup held at Yale University, USA from November 16-21.


• The theme for the cup was ‘An Entangled World: diplomacy, human relationships, the science of memory, and literature, art and music’.


• The Tournament of Champions of World Scholar’s Cup is a competition for young debaters from around the world in which only 2000 participants out of 40,000 qualified for the final of “The tournament of Champions”.

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• Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) organized a Swachch Bharat Grand Challenge as a part of the Swachhta Pakhwada held from 1st to 15th November 2018 to reward innovative solutions by DIPP recognized Start-ups in the country.


• The awards were given away by Secretary DIPP, Ramesh Abhishek in New Delhi.


• Four areas of sanitation, waste management, water and wastewater management and air management were selected for the grand challenge.


• In Air sector the first prize was given to Maclec technical project laboratory pvt. Ltd of Delhi and 2nd Prize toSmall Spark Concepts Technologies Private Limited of Pune.


• In sanitation sector 1st Prize was given to Altersoft Innovations India Private Limited of Kerala (Cochin) and 2nd Prize was given to Naturesani Private Limited of Telangana.


• In waste sector 1st Prize was given to Sanshodhan An E-Waste Exchange Private Limited of Telangana and 2nd Prize was given to Flycatcher Technologies LLP of Maharashtra (Mumbai).


• In water sector 1st Prize was given to REVY Environmental Solutions Pvt Ltd of Gujarat and 2nd Prize was given to EF Polymer Private Limited of Rajasthan.


• Prize money for the Swachch Bharat Grand Challenge Was Rs. 2 lakh for the 1st prize and Rs. 1 lakh for the 2nd prize along with a certificate of appreciation.

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• The Madhya Pradesh government honoured noted sitar player Manju Mehta with the 2018 Tansen Samman, at the Tansen Music Festival in Gwalior.


• She received the award from Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, for her contribution to the field of music.


• The award consisted of a cash award of Rs 2 lakh and a memento.

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• Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd appointed retired Indian Administrative Service official Bijay Kumar as its deputy managing director.


• The company also appointed N Srinivasan as a non-executive director.

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• Dronacharya awardee C A Kuttappa has taken over as India’s chief boxing coach.


• The 39-year-old Kuttappa, credited with shaping some of the country’s most successful boxers such as Vijender Singh, M Suranjoy Singh and Shiva Thapa among others, took over from veteran coach S R Singh.

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• The isolated central Asian country, Turkmenistan, where many of the social media sites including Facebook and Whatsapp are banned, launched its own and the first Turkmen messaging app BizBarde that will allow the exchange of messages, files, photos and videos.


• Eziz Beknazarov is the CEO of BizBarde app developing company.


• The privately developed BizBarde app can be installed via the Google Android platform in addition to Apple’s iOS and Microsoft home windows.


• Turkmenistan, the ex-Soviet republic, is one of the world’s most isolated regimes that have blocked many western services including Twitter and Viber, along with popular Russian networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte.


• The country regularly finds itself at the bottom of global rights and press freedom rankings because only officially sanctioned media are allowed to operate and internet access is provided solely by the state-owned Turkmen Telecom.

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• Captain Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, released the book ‘Prince, Patron and Patriarch Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala’, co-authored by the Maharaja’s grandson, Brigadier (Retd) Jagjit Singh, and Cynthia Frederick in Chandigarh.


• Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore was also present on the occasion of the launch of the book.


• The book which is published by Roli Books is a candid tribute by a grandson to the erstwhile exceptional royal king of Kapurthala.


• Maharaja Jagatjit Singh is considered as one of the scripters of modernization of Kapurthala who brought Patiala and Kapurthala on the world map through modernization.

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• Social worker and Padma Shri awardee Sulagitti Narasamma passed away in BengalurU. She was 98 years old. She was awarded multiple honours for performing the traditional deliveries during her 70 years of service. The social worker breathed her last at the BGS Hospitals in Bengaluru.


• In a life that was in all its sense dedicated to social service, Narasamma had helped deliver more than 15,000 babies, free of charge, in Krishnapura, a remote village in Pavagada Taluk in Karnataka.