Source: Cick Here

• Portuguese airline Hi Fly decided to bring about a change by introducing single-use plastic free flight.


• The flight took off from Lisbon to Natale, Brazil, without a single piece of single-use plastic on board.


• Other airlines such as Air New Zealand and Alaska Airlines are also following similar approaches to reduce their plastic usage on board.

Source: Cick Here

• The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted two Russian Resolutions on International Information Security (IIS) and has been backed by India regarding the same.


• This has been done for achieving democratic, inclusive and transparent UN negotiations process on security in the use of information and communication technologies.

Source: Cick Here

• A single-member Hooda panel, set up by the Defence Ministry and the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) has recommended creation of new specialised units for information warfare in areas where the counter-insurgency operations are being conducted.


• The panel which was set up by the government based on the recommendation of Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra about five months ago was headed by former Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General (retired) DS Hooda who had overseen the surgical strikes conducted across the Line of Control (LoC) in 2016.


• He has recommended that the Army should set up the specialised information warfare units on an experimental basis and evolve them as per the output received from their operations besides restructuring of the cyber warfare operations.


• It has recommended that the Army and the Air Force should sort out their issues such as the ownership of attack helicopter and utilisation of air defence assets which are common for both the services.


• He has also suggested scaling down the size of regular Army by about 20 per cent and instead, having a reserve Army which can be called upon for war-fighting in case of conflicts.


• The panel has also suggested that the Army Special Forces which are used for tactical operations against terrorists in both Jammu and Kashmir and the North-eastern states should be utilised in a better way.

Source: Cick Here

• The Railways enhanced the combined reservation quota of lower berths for senior citizens, female passengers of age 45 or above and pregnant women passengers in mail, express, Rajdhani and Duronto trains.


• In Rajdhani, Duronto and other fully air-conditioned trains, the number of lower berth seats earmarked for Senior citizens, Women of age 45 or more and pregnant women passengers will be increased from 7 to 9.


• In Sleeper, AC–Three tier and AC-two tiers trains 12 lower berths seats are presently reserved for Senior citizens, Women of age 45 or more and pregnant women passengers.


• The seats in Sleeper, AC- three tiers and AC-two tiers train will be increased to 13 for the trains having single coach of the designated class. For the trains having more than one coach of designated class, the seats will be increased to 15.

Source: Cick Here

• Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, attented the inaugural function of ALIMCO’s 6th Auxiliary Production Unit and State-of-the-Art Limb Fitting Center as the Chief Guest in Village Nawada, Tigaon, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad.


• The foundation stone for establishment of State-of-the-Art Rehabilitation Center was laid on June 16, 2018.


• For the establishment, Chief Minister Haryana approved appox. 5 Acre land at Village NawadaTigaon, Block Ballabhgarh, District Faridabad (Haryana) to ALIMCO at the lease rate of Rs. 1/- per Acre per year.


• This facility is equipped with high-end machines for providing best and quality service to the Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjans).


• Contemporary Assistive Aids and Devices like Motorized Tricycle, Wheelchairs, Walking Stick and Crutches etc. will be manufactured in ALIMCO’s Auxillary Production Unit of Nawada, Faridabad.


• At Present, it has 5 Auxiliary Production Centres (AAPCs) situated at Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jabalpur (MP), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Chanalon (Punjab) and a new production unit in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh).

Source: Cick Here

• The Center has given an extension of six months to complete the ongoing exercise for updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam by 30th June, 2019 as the enumeration of citizens in the NRC cannot be completed within the earlier specified date of 31st December, 2018.


• The Registrar General of India, Mr. Sailesh issued a notification that stated the Central Government considers the extension necessary in lieu of public interest to complete the update of National Register of Citizens.


• The first notification regarding the same was issued by the Government on 6th December, 2013 and had set a deadline of 3 years to complete the entire process but since then five extensions have been given but the exercise had not been completed.


• The draft NRC was published on 30th July, 2018 and excluded 40 lac people from the list which stirred a huge controversy. It included 2.9 crore people out of the total 3,29 crore applications.

Source: Cick Here

• Chariot festival was celebrated in Madurai Meenakshi temple in Tamil Nadu.


• The Chapparam (Chariot) festival symbolizes the importance of preserving all kinds of food and fodder.


• A specialty of the festival is that the chariot of Goddess Meenakshi is pulled by lady devotees alone.

Source: Cick Here

• The Thrissur, Kerala-based ESAF Small Finance Bank has received the Reserve Bank approval to operate as scheduled bank making it the fifth scheduled bank that operates from Kerala after Federal Bank, South Indian Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, and Dhanlaxmi Bank.


• The ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd has received the RBI’s approval for inclusion in the second schedule of the RBI Act, 1934 paving its way to operate as scheduled bank.


• In 2016, RBI gave approval to ESAF MFI along with 9 other applicants to start banking operations as a small finance bank and within two years of its commencement of operations, it has received the scheduled bank tag.


• On the operation front, the ESAF Small Finance Bank has a network of 432 outlets across 13 states with 2.6 million customers and a loan book of Rs 4,660 crore and deposits if over Rs 3,300 crore.


• Its capital- to-risk-weighted-asset (CRAR) ratio stands at 27.39 per cent.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the relaxation offered to banks for offering liquidity support to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) until March 31st 2019, the facility which was initially available up to 31st December 2018.


• In order to facilitate banks to lend to NBFCs and Housing Finance Corporations (HFCs), it has allowed banks to use government securities equivalent to their outstanding credit for non-bank lenders, NBFC and HFC, in addition to the outstanding credit they had for October 19, to comply with the requirements of the liquidity coverage index (LCR).


• The highly liquid assets that banks and financial institutions hold to meet their short-term obligations is known as LCR.


• Besides this the facility of single borrower limit for NBFC (not financing infrastructure), which was increased from 10% to 15% of the capital funds until December 31, 2018 has been extended until March 31, 2019.


• After the NBFC sector faced a short-term fund crisis in September, the RBI allowed the banks to reckon government securities as liquid assets within the mandatory statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) needs up to 0.5% of the bank’s deposits for incremental lending to NBFCs and HFCs after October 19 under the Facility to Avail Liquidity for Liquidity Coverage Ratio (FALLCR).

Source: Cick Here

• Public sector banks have approved more than 1.12 lakh loan applications of MSMEs worth of 37,412 crore rupees under the government’s ’59 minutes’ loan scheme.


• As per reports given out by the Union Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla, as on 25th of December, out of over 1.31 lakh applications, the state-owned banks have accorded in-principal approval to 1.12 lakh applicants.


• Also sanctions have been made in respect of 40,669 cases totalling over 14 thousand crore rupees.

• India’s Fiscal deficit for April-November stood at Rs 7.17 lakh crore which is 114.8 per cent of earlier full-year estimates of fiscal deficit that was predicted to be Rs 6.24 lakh crore, or 3.3 per cent of the GDP, for FY19.


• It is slightly more than the 112 per cent recorded in the same period last fiscal i.e., FY18.


• Total expenditure up to November was Rs.16,13,208 crore which is 66.1 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs 24.42 lakh crore.


• This shows that the main reason for the deficit was in the difference in tax receipts that stood at Rs 8.9 lakh crore which is 49.32% of corresponding BE 18-19 of Total Receipts.

Source: Cick Here

• Telangana’s MNJ Institute of Oncology and Regional Cancer Centre entered Guinness Book of World Records ‘for organising the largest men’s Health Awareness programme on prostate cancer on a single day.’


• The programme was organised on October 26, 2018 and 487 participants took part in it.


• This is the first Guinness World Records achievement for the state government in the field of medicine.


• The hospital also received recognition from ‘High Range Book of World Records’.


• Thus these made MNJ Institute the first and only government hospital in the state of Telangana to get 2 world records.

Source: Cick Here

• Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) secretary Shahbaz Ahmed resigned over mistreatment of the national sport in the country.


• He had earlier been the captain and has been serving as the secretary for 3 years.

Source: Cick Here

• An Official data released by Government of India that has to be submitted to the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention of Climate change in every 2 years says that India’s total Greenhouse emissions grew by more than 22 per cent between 2010 and 2014.


• The greenhouse gas emissions reached a level of 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014 and has created a net carbon sink of at least 300 million tonnes.


• Carbon dioxide absorption through forests and croplands has also gone up. The energy sector including electricity generation, transport and other fuel combustion activities are the main reason for the above mentioned effect.

Source: Cick Here

• The Union Environment Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan on behalf of the Indian government submitted India’s 6th National Report (NR6) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the inaugural session of the 13th National Meeting of the State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) in New Delhi.


• The meeting was organized by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).


• He also released the document ‘Progress on India’s National Biodiversity Targets: A Preview’.

Source: Cick Here

• Former Nigerian President Shehu Shagari passed away at 93. He was the 2nd President of Nigeria.


• He was in power as the President from 1979 to 1983.

Source: Cick Here

• Oscar-and Grammy-winning lyricist Norman Gimbel died at 91.


• He was best known for writing the lyrics of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “The Girl From Ipanema”.


• He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.