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• December 1 is seen as the World AIDS day globally to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness.


• It was founded by UN organization World Health Organization (WHO) in 1988 as the first ever global health day.


• Thus, 2018 marked the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day.


• The theme for the 2018 version is “Know Your Status”.


• WHO advocates to achieve 2 goals at the 30th anniversary.


• Urge people to know their HIV infection status through testing, and to access HIV prevention, treatment and care services.


• Urge policy-makers to promote a ‘health for all’ agenda for HIV and related health services, such as tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis and non-communicable diseases.

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• On December 1, 2018, the Border Security Force, BSF along with Pakistan and Bangladesh celebrated its 54th Raising Day.


• The main ceremony was celebrated at Chhawla Camp in New Delhi.


• BSF has been India’s first wall of defence since 1965.


• The motto of BSF is: Duty Unto Death.

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• On 30th November 2018, a report by UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) which was released ahead of AIDS day estimated that 1,20,000 children and adolescents aged 0-19 were living with HIV in India in 2017, the highest number in South Asia.


• The report titled ‘Children, HIV and AIDS: The World in 2030’ warned that around 80 adolescents will be dying of AIDS every day globally by 2030 if progress in preventing transmission is not accelerated.


• In India, an estimated 120,000 children and adolescents aged 0-19 were living with HIV in 2017. In Pakistan, this number was 5800, followed by Nepal (1,600)and Bangladesh (less than 1,000).


• In 2017, the estimated number of children under 5 years old newly diagnosed with HIV was 43 per cent lower than the comparable estimate in 2010 a decline greater than the 35 per cent recorded globally.Children aged from 10–19 years fell by 25 percent between 2010 and 2017.


• “The report makes it clear, without the shadow of a doubt, that the world is off track when it comes to ending AIDS among children and adolescents by 2030,” said UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore.

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• On November 30, 2018, Australia became the first country in the world to criminalize the act of falsely inducing children into orphanages as a form of slavery.


• The Modern Slavery Bill was passed by both houses of parliament and under it the new law, so-called “orphanage trafficking” will be treated as a slavery and trafficking offense.


• Evidence shows that about 80 per cent of these children have family who could care for them if they had the right support.

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• On November 30, 2018, the UK government amended the Offensive Weapons Bill 2018 to ensure right to possession of kirpans by Sikhs.


• The move would maintain status quo in continuing to legally safeguard the sale, possession and use of large kirpans and to not criminalise the Sikh community for the sale or possession of one.


• The move was led by the first female Sikh MP in the House of Commons, MP Preet Kaur Gill.


• The bill is aimed at strengthening existing legislative measures on offensive weapons, focusing on corrosive substances, knives and certain types of firearm.


• It would also ban the sale of corrosive substances to anyone under the age of 18.

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• India took over the chairmanship of Kimberley Process from EU during the four-day 15th Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) Plenary 2018, that was held in Brussels, Belgium, from 12th-16th November 2018.


• The chairmanship of the KPCS for India would be operation from January 2019.


• And the next Intersessional session is slated to be held in India as Chair.


• Botswana and the Russian Federation will serve as Vice-Chair during the period of 2019-2020.


• The 4-day Plenary witnessed discussion on environmental challenges in diamond mining and industry responsibility.


• In the 4-day long plenary, India was represented by Commerce Secretary, Dr. Anup Wadhawan.


• India’s role as the Chairman of KPCS would consist of Improving living standards of people who are dependent on the production, trade and manufacture of diamonds, Uplifting Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining (ASM) through capacity building, technical assistance and education on valuation.


• On the sidelines, India held bilateral meetings with Botswana, USA, Russian Federation & World Diamond Council to discuss on various issues related to KPCS and its working groups.

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• On November 30, 2018, NITI Aayog initiated a series of Development Dialogue through its first event on “Health Systems for A New India: Building Blocks” in New Delhi.


• The conference featured senior government functionaries, and eminent national and international experts in the healthcare space.


• The conference focused on strengthening governance, policy and regulatory frameworks and institutions for a developed health system that can grow to a globally competitive healthcare insurance.


• The Development dialogue would encourage long-term social and economic development.


• Overall, the series aims to facilitate multi-sectoral conversations on India’s developmental issues, which constitute a part of the country’s 15 year vision document.

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• On November 29, 2018, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India approved formula for compensation to the patients receiving faulty Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) hip implants manufactured by M/s. DePuy International Limited, U.K (M/S Johnson & Johnson Pvt Ltd).


• The approved formula would see patients being compensated anywhere between Rs. 30 lakh and Rs. 1.23 crore, depending on the age and level of disability of the patient.


• The decision was taken by a Central Expert Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. R.K. Arya, Director, Sports Injury Centre that determined the quantum of compensation.


• This was based on the recommendations of an expert committee, constituted by the Ministry, under the Chairmanship of Dr. Arun Kumar Agarwal, that examined the issues relating to faulty ASR Hip Implants.


• Furthermore, all state and union territory governments have been requested by the ministry to form state-level committees to examine affected and send their recommendations to the central committee that has proposed the compensation formula.

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• India is facing a major malnutrition crisis as it holds almost a One-third of the world ‘stunted children’, according to a Global Nutrition Report 2018.The report classifies India as experiencing two forms of malnutrition anemia and stunting. Stunting or low height for age is caused by long term insufficient nutrient-intake and frequent infections.


• With 46.6 million children who are stunted, India tops the list among 140 countries followed by Nigeria ( 13.3 million) and Pakistan (10.7 million).


• India also accounted for 25.5 million children who are wasted followed by Nigeria (3.4 million) and Indonesia (3.3 million).


• The World health organization is a Global Nutrition Report Partner.

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• On December 1, 2018, the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the four day 13th edition of CII Agro Tech India-2018 in Chandigarh.


• The fair would conclude on December 4, 2018.


• The International Agro Technology and Business Fair was organized by Confederation of Indian Industries.
  
• The theme for the 2018 edition was “Technology in Agriculture: Increasing Farmer’s Income”.


• Great Britain was the partner country while the focus countries were Canada and China.


• Also the host states were Punjab and Haryana and the partner ministries included Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

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• India’s first international indigenous film festival will take place in February next year in Odisha.


• It will be an initiative of activist film collective ‘Video Republic’.


• The three-stop event will kick off in Bhubaneswar on February 19 and 20, moving on to Puri from February 21 to 23 and will eventually culminate in an interaction with the adivasi communities at Niyamgiri.


• Films made by indigenous people or made by non-indigenous film makers in collaboration with the indigenous communities will be shown in the event.

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• On November 30, 2018, the Tamil Nadu government hiked the health insurance cover under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme (CMCHIS) from Rs two lakh to Rs five lakh.


• This would come into effect from December 1, 2018 and would benefit 1.58 crore families as a cashless scheme.


• Through this the state would cover 1027 medical procedures for most of those who earn less than Rs. 72,000 per annum.

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• On December 1, 2018, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) code mandatory for all market transactions regulated by the central bank.


• The LEI is a 20-character unique identity code assigned to entities who are parties to a financial transaction.


• The participants of the implementation include Government securities markets, Money markets (markets for any instrument with a maturity of one year or less) and Non-derivative forex markets.


• However they exclude individuals and transactions undertaken on recognised stock exchanges.


• This is a key measure taken by RBI to help improve the quality of risk management by bettering the accuracy of the financial data in the system.

• On December 1, 2018, RBI announced the date of its implementation of the Net Stable Funding Ration (NSFR) norms to be from April 1, 2020.


• In the backdrop of global crises since 2007, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) proposed certain reforms to strengthen global capital and liquidity regulations with the objective of promoting a more resilient banking sector.


• The NSFR norms were thus issued and from the aforesaid date the NSFR norms would be active in the Indian banking sector.


• The norms would be applicable for Indian banks at the solo as well as consolidated level, whereas, foreign banks operating as branches in India, the framework would be applicable on stand-alone basis (for Indian operations only).

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• On November 28, 2018, State Bank of India (SBI) revised its fixed deposit (FD) interest rates on select maturities by 0.05-0.10 per cent or 5-10 basis points.


• The hiked interest rates are on deposits below Rs. 1 crore.


• These changes were done ahead of the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review outcome on December 5.

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• On 30th November 2018, Central Statistics Office (CSO) released a report showing that Indian Economy grew at 7.1 per cent in the second quarter (July-September) of 2018-19 which is lower than the first quarter in which GDP growth was 8.1 per cent.


• As per the report of CSO, despite having Manufacturing growth at 7.4, Indian Economy growth moderated in the second quarter of 2018 but it is higher than the second quarter of 2017-18 which shows a growth rate of 6.3 per cent.

• On November 30, 2018, a Double taxation avoidance agreement came into effect between India and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of People’s Republic of China.


• The agreement would ensure avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income and improve transparency in tax matters.


• It would also stimulate more the two-way flow of investments, technology and personnel from India to HKSAR and vice versa.


• The agreement was originally signed on March 19, 2018 between the 2 countries.

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• 22 Years old Australian Golfer, Minjee Lee became the first woman to win prestigious Greg Norman Medal as the best Australian golfer on the international stage after her brilliant performance in 2018.


• Minjee Lee who breaks into the Top 10 of the world ranking with the sixth rank joined the Jason Day and Marc Leishman in the list of winners of Australian golf’s prestigious individual honour.

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• On 28th November 2018, Barcelona striker Lionel Messi surpassed his long rival Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal after scoring his 106th Goal against PSV Eindhoven to reclaim the Champions League Record of having the most goals for a club.


• Portugal star, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 105 goal playing for Real Madrid and leads the competition’s all time chart with 121 Champion league goals.

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• Four Indian-origin women have been named by Forbes among America’s top 50 female technology moguls, a list that includes tech heavyweights IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Netflix executive Anne Aaron.


• Padmasree Warrior, former Chief technology officer (CTO) of Cisco, Komal Mangtani, senior director at app-based cab aggregator Uber, Neha Narkhede, chief technology officer and co-founder of streaming platform Confluent and Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, CEO and founder of identity-management company Drawbrige are in the list.


• Padmasree Warrior (58) served in executive positions at both Motorola and Cisco and is now the US CEO of the Chinese electric-autonomous-vehicle startup NIO.


• Mangtani, an alumnus of Dharmsinh Desai Institute of Technology in Gujarat, heads business intelligence at Uber. Currently, she serves on the board of nonprofit organization. Women Who Code and led Uber’s USD 1.2-billion donation and partnership with Girls Who Code to increase access to computer science.


• Narkhede, who studied at Pune University, had as a software engineer at LinkedIn helped develop Apache Kafka, which can process the huge influx of data coming from the site in real time.


• Forty-three-year-old Sivaramakrishnan’s company, Drawbridge, uses large-scale artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify the different devices people.

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• On November 30, 2018, India’s Olympic and world champion shooter Abhinav Bindra was conferred the Blue Cross, the ISSF’s highest award at the General Assembly in Munich.


• He is the first Indian to be awarded the Blue Cross.


• It was bestowed upon him for his outstanding services as the chairman of the International Shooting Sport Federation’s Athletes Committee.


• Also the committee has brought out a comprehensive Athletes Handbook, for the benefit of shooters around the world.


• Bindra was succeeded in the post by the American shooter Kimberly Rhode.

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• 66 Years old Salome Zurabishvili has won Georgia’s presidential election, becoming the first woman to hold the office in the country. She will take oath for the office on 16th December 2018.


• The French-born ex-diplomat, backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, had taken 59.52 % of the total votes and defeated her rival candidate Grigol Washadze who received 40.5% of the votes.


• The election was seen as a test of Georgia’s democratic credentials as it seeks European Union and NATO membership.


• She had served as Foriegn Minister of Georgia from March 20, 2004 to October 19, 2005 and was previously an ambassador in the French Foreign Service.

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• Unilever’s Chief Executive Paul Polman will step down next month after ten years in the job. The Anglo-Dutch group was forced to ditch a controversial post-Brexit plan to move its headquarters from London to the Rotterdam, Netherlands.


• Mr Polman will be succeeded by Alan Jope, the Scottish executive who has been running Unilever’s beauty and personal care business, its biggest division.


• The new CEO’s agenda will be Unilever’s bid for GlaxoSmithKline’s Indian Horlicks nutrition business, where it is competing against consumer giant Nestle, as well as handling any fallout from a possible no-deal Brexit as Britain is due to leave the EU in March 2019.

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• On 29th November 2018, A Chinese Internet Technology firm, Link Sure Network which markets itself as a Global Innovative Mobile Internet Company specializing in free internet access, content and location based services unveiled a plan to provide free worldwide WiFi service with a constellation of 272 satellites by 2026.


• The Company founded in 2013 in Shanghai will launch its first satellite in 2019 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Northwest China’s Gansu province and by 2020 it will launch 10 satellites. The Company will invest 3 Billion Yuan (USD 431.4 million).

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• On December 1, 2018, the former US President George HW Bush passed away at 94.


• He was the 41st president of the United States and had been in leadership during the end of the Cold War.

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• On November 29, 2018, bollywood singer Mohammed Aziz passed away at 64.


• Born in Ashoknagar, West Bengal, he was famous for the evergreen tracks such as “My name is Lakhan”, “Aap ke aa jane se” and “Dil le gayi teri bindiya”.


• He was a versatile singer who had a prominent presence in Bollywood, Bengali and Odia film industries with a total record of 20,000 songs.


• He made his film debut with Bengali film, “Jyoti”.