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• An American adventurer has become the first person to complete a solo trek across Antarctica without assistance of any kind. Mr Colin O’Brady, 33, took 54 days to complete the nearly 1,600 km crossing of the frozen continent from north to south.


• Mr O’Brady and an Englishman, Army Captain Louis Rudd, 49, set off individually from Union Glacier in a bid to be the first to complete a solo, unassisted crossing of Antarctica.


• In 2016, an English army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Worsley, a friend of Capt Rudd’s, died while trying to complete an unassisted solo crossing of Antarctica.

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• Italy’s Mount Etna active volcano erupted. The last major eruption was in 1992.


• Mount Etna, or Etna, is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania.


• It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate.

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• Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant released the Second Delta Ranking of the Aspirational Districts Programme.


• The ranking shows the incremental progress achieved by 111 aspirational districts (out of 115) during June 1, 2018 to October 31, 2018, across six key development sectors.


• Three aspirational districts from West Bengal did not participate, while one district of Kerala could not take part because of floods.


• The 6 developmental sectors are: Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water Resources, Financial Inclusion, Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure.

Source: Cick Here

• The 12-day 3rd ‘Dwijing Festival’ celebrations commenced in the on the banks of the Aie river in Chirang district of Assam. It will continue till January 7, 2019.It will be organised by Assam Tourism and Bodoland Tourism.


• The festival started as Aie River Festival in 2016-17 to promote river tourism in the rural areas under the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC). It started under the name of ‘AIE RIVER WINTER FESTIVAL’.


• The name was officially changed to “Dwijing (river bank in Bodo language)” in 2017.


• The association of the Hagrama Bridge, the longest rural river bridge of the state, with the festival increased its popularity.

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• President Ram Nath Kovind approved two state bills of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.


• The Tamil Nadu Vanniyakula Kshatriya Public Charitable Trusts and Endowments (Protection and Maintenance) Bill 2018 and The Himachal Pradesh Early Childhood Care and Education Centers (Registration and Regulation) Bill 2017.


• It aims to prevent misuse, misappropriation of properties and income by people.


• It will apply to all charitable trusts and endowments created and administered by persons or organisations of the Vanniyakula Kshatriya community.

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• The four day long 12th Annual Indian Subcontinent Decision Sciences Institute (ISDSI) conference commenced in SPJIMR, Mumbai.


• The conference will continue till December 30, 2018.


• The theme of this international conference is “Data Driven Decision Making in the Digital Age”.


• The main objective of this conference is to provide a platform for academicians, researchers and practitioners to Disseminate research, providing insights into the challenges, opportunities, emerging strategies and analytical tools in the domain of decision making.


• Present case studies on application of tools and techniques.


• Explore cutting- edge ideas, results and share experiences.

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• Shri. K J Alphons, Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism, handed over a Memorandum of Understanding under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ project to M/s Resbird Technologies for development of a mobile Audio Guide App for five iconic sites.


• Amer Fort (Rajasthan), Kaziranga (Assam), Colva Beach (Goa), Kumarakom (Kerala) and Mahabodhi Temple (Bihar) are the five iconic sites for which the mobile Audio Guide App is to be developed.


• Besides this, seven shortlisted agencies under ‘Monument Mitras’ project were handed over the Letters of Intent, which will give them the opportunity to associate their CSR activities with a heritage site if their Vision Bid is selected.


• Till now, ten Memoranda of Understanding have been executed with various Monument Mitras for development, operation and maintenance of tourist amenities at heritage and tourist sites across India.

Source: Cick Here

• National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Odisha, Shri Naveen Patnaik at Sikhya O Anusandhan (SOA) University. The theme for this year NCSC is “Science, Technology and Innovations for a clean, Green and Healthy Nation.” The event will conclude on 31st December 2018.


• In 2017, NCSC was held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from 27th December to 31st December.


• National Children’s science Congress (NCSC) provides a platform to the children to showcase their creativity and ability to innovate.


• The National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC), Government of India supported the NCSC 2018 in which Children in the age group of 10-17 years including school students including differently abled children will participate.


• Children from 10 member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five Gulf countries will also participate in the event.

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• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched a ‘Survey on Retail Payment Habits of Individuals (SRPHi)’ in 6 cities including four metropolitan cities.


• The survey will cover a sample of 6,000 individuals from various socio-economic backgrounds across six cities of: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Guwahati.


• The fieldwork for the survey was carried out by Sigma Research & Consulting Pvt Ltd.


• The survey would capture payment habits of individuals and this will provide some idea about awareness and usage habits of digital payment products.

• According to a research from CRISIL, the Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of security-service SMEs would be at 18-20% over the next 2 financial years.


• Security-service SMEs consist of 60-65 per cent of market share and have shown the similar growth rate of 18-20% for the past 3 financial years.


• The growth would be determined by the factors like Infrastructure development, Urbanisation, The growing incidence of crime and terrorism, and The low police to population ratio.


• In terms of infrastructure development, the CAGR is at 5% for the past 3 years (calendar years 2015 to 2018) and would be the same for the next3 years.


• Also, more than three-fourths of the SMEs in the industry are present in the manned guarding segment.


• Other segments, such as cash management services and electronic security services constitute 25-30% of the pie.

Source: Cick Here

• Divya Patidar Joshi from Madhya Pradesh was crowned with the Mrs. India 2018 title at the Mrs. India My Identity Beauty Pageant 2018 finale held in New Delhi.


• She defeated 24 promising contestants and won all the rounds of Beauty with Brain contest along with Best Cat Walk title.


• With this win, in the year 2019, she would be representing India for Mrs. Universe title.

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• Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh was conferred the ‘Champions of Change’ award by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu in Delhi. He was recognised for his leadership role in transforming the governance in the north-eastern state.


• At a programme to identify the progress made in 115 ‘aspirational’ districts, Manipur was chosen for its all-round development on various parameters in all its ‘aspirational’ districts.


• In the event, the Vice President gave away 47 such awards.


• Other such awardees are Union Minister of State for Food Processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan and Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey.


• The award selection jury was led by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishna and former Supreme Court judge Sudha Mishra.

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• The Defense Ministry appointed Air Marshal Rajeev Sachdeva who had served in three out of four wings of Integrated Defense Staff (IDS) headquarters as the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defense Staff (Operations).


• Air Marshal Sachdeva was commissioned as an Indian Air Force pilot in December 1981 and has logged over 7200 hours of transport and instructional flying experience.


• Apart from being a Category ‘A’ flying instructor, he has also held some of the prestigious appointments in Air Force, Joint Services and National Technical Research Organization (NTRO). He has also been an Air Force examiner and has also commanded a front line transport squadron, a transport base and the college of Defense Management.


• He was the Senior Air Staff Officer at Southern Air Command headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram prior to his present appointment.

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• Indian-American Rajesh Subramaniam was named as the President and Chief Executive Officer of US multinational courier delivery giant, FedEx Express.


• Subramaniam, currently the Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of FedEx Corporation, will assume his new role on January 1, 2019.


• He replaces David L Cunningham at the Tennessee-headquartered company.


• Subramaniam, an IIT-Bombay graduate from Thiruvananthapuram, has been with FedEx for more than 27 years.


• He has held various executive-level positions in the company.

Source: Cick Here

• The mechanical branch of Central Railway‘s Nagpur division has developed a new AI-powered robot named USTAAD (Undergear Surveillance through Artificial Intelligence Assisted Droid) which examines parts of the coach in real time with a HD camera and transmits them over WiFi.


• The new Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered robot will click photos and record videos of the train, under the gears and then transmits them over WiFi to engineers for maintenance and repair.


• Since USTAAD can watch and examine areas which cannot be seen and approached by humans usually, due to the narrow spaces between under-gear parts, it will reduce chances of human error while examining under gear equipment on Indian Railways trains.


• The special features of the robot include HD (high-definition) camera that can be rotated in any direction as per commands given by the engineer and can capture video as well as still photographs with zoom in or out facility.


• It is also equipped with LED flood light which enables to capture the videos in low light as well as in dark mode.


• The robot is also capable of capturing sound of flat tyre, during placement of the rake on the Pit Line in order to keep a check on the train’s swift journey.

Source: Cick Here

• The Year 2018 has been a great year for Indian scientists and technologists. Indian scientists have brought laurels for the country in a wide range of fields ranging from nanotechnology to weather which are not in limelight apart from space and defence.


• A protective gel named as Poly-oxime Gel was developed by Scientists from Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru which will be very useful for the agriculture sector.


• Scientists from Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar have developed world’s Thinnest Material by making usage of Magnesium Diboride. It has its utility in next-generation materials and UV absorbing films.


• Space weather warning model was framed by scientists of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata and it helped in making predictions regarding sunspot cycle activities.


• The state of Sikkim was able to achieve a real-time landslide warning system with help of the scientists from Amrita University and Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority.

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• Former Kashmir University (KU) Vice Chancellor (VC) and Padma Shri awardee Professor Hamidi Kashmiri passed away at his residence in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 86.


• He was the reciepient of Ghalib Award, Sahitya Akademi in 2005 and Padma Shri in 2010.


• He was a writer, educationalist and poet who had written 50 books.