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• The day is celebrated in honor of the maritime force's role during the war with Pakistan in 1971 when Indian warships attacked Karachi port and successfully hurt Pakistani operations in the western coast.


• The Day is also celebrated to highlight the role the Navy plays in securing the country's marine borders during peacetime and carrying out humanitarian missions.


• Operation Trident, the codename for the naval attack on Karachi, is considered one of the most successful operations in the post-World War II era.

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• Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate & Myanmar leader, will be stripped of Freedom of Paris award over her failure to speak out against a crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.


• The move, which follows similar decisions by Glasgow, Edinburgh and Oxford, would make Myanmar’s de facto leader the first person to lose the freedom of the French capital, a purely symbolic award. The move will be finalised by the city council at a meeting in mid-December 2018.

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• India’s first indigenously designed locomotive-less (engine less) train known as Train 18, breached the 180 kmph speed limit during test run in Kota-Sawai Madhopur section.


• When this train is made operational, it will become the country’s fastest train. It is touted as next generation Shatabdi Express and will connect metros with other important cities.

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• On 3rd December 2018, 8th session of the foreign Office Consultation between India and Sudan was held in New Delhi to review the entire gamut of bilateral relations that include political, trade, investments, defence and security.


• The Indian side was led by the Dr B. Bala Shankar, Joint Secretary (West Asia and North Africa) in the Ministry of External Affairs and Sudanese side was led by Mahmoud Fadl Abdel Rasoul.

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• On December 3, 2018, the first bilateral air exercise 5-day “SHINYUU Maitri-18” commenced at the Air Force station in Agra in northern state of Uttar Pradesh.


• The theme of the exercise is: ‘Joint mobility and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) on transport aircraft’.


• It would be attended by the Japanese Air Self Defence Force (JASDF) from Japan’s side and Indian Air Force (IAF) from the Indian side.


• The JASDF’s ‘C2′ aircraft is participating along with IAFs ‘AN-32’ and ‘C-17’.

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• In February 2019, India’s first international indigenous film festival will take place in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The fest is an initiative of activist film collective Video Republic that has been campaigning for indigenous communities in the State.


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

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• The National Green Tribunal (NGT) instructed the Delhi government to deposit an environmental compensation of Rs.25 crore with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for failing to curb air pollution in the Capital.


• A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said in case the State government failed to comply with the orders, a sum of Rs.10 crore per month will be levied.

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• On December 3, 2018, the Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $85 million loan in New Delhi, under the Odisha Skill Development Project to promote skill development in Odisha.


• This project would also receive a $2 million technical assistance grant from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, financed by the Government of Japan. It will be administered by ADB.


• The agreement was signed between Additional Secretary in the Finance Ministry Sameer Kumar Khare and Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission Kenichi Yokoyama.


• Under this project, the World Skill Center (WSC), an advanced skill training centre would be established in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.


• The operationalization of the WSC would be supported by Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES), Singapore and Odisha Skill Development Authority.


• The WSC would mainly support a network of Government ITIs and develop skills and capacity of polytechnics, college of engineering, and other private skilling
  
• centres under State’s TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) programs.
Under the Project, over 1.5 lakh people would learn skills in priority sectors, including manufacturing, construction and services for formal employment, It would

• provide 8 training courses for 13,000 full-time students, training for 5,000 teachers, and train 1,000 assessors.


• Additionally, the WSC will have an entrepreneurship incubation centre, a career counselling and placement centre, a curriculum design and development centre, and education technology deployment centre.

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• On 4th December 2018, The Economic Development Board (EDB), the investment promotion arm of the Kingdom of Bahrain signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Maharashtra Government to promote FinTech in their respective markets.


• The MoU was signed by Dr. Simon Galpin, Managing Director of EDB, and Mr. S.V.R. Srinivas, IAS Principal Secretary, Directorate of Information Technology.

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• On December 3, 2018, Crisil cut India’s growth forecast for current fiscal, by 10 basis points, to 7.4 per cent citing weakening global GDP and trade growth as the reasons for the decline.


• Due to lower global trade and GDP growth, emerging economies such as India would face a downward growth.


• The decline is due to the global growth prospects that are turning weaker than earlier estimate and if the liquidity problems persist that might effect the demand, further hampering the GDP. India’s export will have a slow trajectory of growth compared to the early part of 2018.


• However, India’s growth in fiscal 2019 will be faster compared to the previous fiscal despite the decline.


• As for the rest of the fiscal of 2019, growth will find support from private consumption, continuous government spending on construction activities, favourable inflation and revision in government salaries at the state level.

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• On 3th December 2018, an annual football award, 2018 Ballon d’Or Award was announced.Real Madrid’s Croatia midfielder Luka Modric was named winner of the 2018 Ballon d’Or.The award functions held in Paris (France).


• Juventus forward and 2017 winner Ronaldo came second, while Atletico Madrid and France striker Antoine Griezmann came third.


• Paris St. Germain’s France forward Kylian Mbappe, who also collected the Kopa award for the best under-21 player, was fourth, with Barca forward Messi finishing fifth.


• The Ballon d’Or is an annual football award presented by France Football. It has been awarded since 1956.


• 2018 FIFA World Cup held in Russia won by France beating Croatia in the finals.2022 FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place in Qatar.

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• The 3rd ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) India Business Summit was organised by the ASEAN India Business Council (AIBC) Malaysian Chapter in KualaLumpur, Malaysia.


• Spice Garden group of restaurants owner Pardeep Batra was awarded the special ASEAN – India Achievement award for the businessman of year.

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• The UK’s Cambridge Dictionary has recently declared “Nomophobia”, the word that describes the stress and anxiety caused by being separated from your mobile, as People’s Word of the year 2018.


• The word is defined as the fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or unable to use it. Based on the results of a popular vote, Nomophobia was chose over the other shortlisted words – ‘gender gap’, ‘ecocide’ and ‘no-platforming’.

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• On 3rd December 2018, Ajay Narayan Jha, the current expenditure secretary, in the Ministry of Finance has been appointed as the new finance secretary, by the Union Government.


• Ajay Narayan Jha, is a 1982-batch IAS officer of Manipur- Tripura cadre, and has succeeded Hasmukh Adhia who retired on November 30.


• Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led appointments committee of the Cabinet has cleared Jha’s appointment to the post.


• Jha is an alumnus of St Stephens College. He is also an MPhil in public administration from Delhi University. Besides he is a recipient of World Bank scholarship to pursue masters in economic policy management from McGill University in Canada.


• There are five secretaries in the Finance Ministry, and the senior most of them is normally designated as the Finance Secretary.


• Recently the government also announced that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO and the chairman of Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), Ajay Bhushan Pandey will be the next Revenue Secretary while continuing to work for UIDAI and GSTN.

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• On December 3, 2018, Private sector YES Bank appointed the former chief of IRDAI and LIC, TS Vijayan, as Additional Director (Independent) on its board for a period of five years.


• Vijayan is also a member of the ‘Search and Selection Committee’, which was set up by the bank to identify a suitable successor to the Managing Director and CEO.


• Rana Kapoor, MD and CEO of YES Bank, will step down from his current position on January 31, 2019.

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• On 03rd December 2018, Debt-laden Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Company (IL&FS) , appointed N Sivaraman as group Chief Operating Officer (COO).


• Sivaraman will be part of the core operating committee and report to Vineet Nayyar, vice chairman and managing director, IL&FS Group.

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• On 03rd December 2018, the State Bank of India has roped in Asian Games gold medalist Swapna Barman as brand ambassador for its digital app YONO(You only need one).


• YONO is an integrated digital banking platform offered by State Bank of India (SBI) to enable users to access a variety of financial and other services such as taxi bookings, online shopping, or medical bill payments.

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• On 3rd December 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced the appointment of Jon Ridgeon as its new CEO following approval by the IAAF Council on the first day of its 215th Council Meeting in Monaco.


• British former hurdler JonRidgeon will take up the new role in March 2019.


• He succeeds Olivier Gers, who resigned in March, and Nigel Garfitt, who has served as acting CEO.


• Ridgeon, 51, competed in both the 110m and 400m hurdles between 1984 and 1996, winning silver in the shorter event at the 1987 World Championships and represented Great Britain in the 1988 and 1996 Olympic Games.


• He was also one of the architects of the IAAF’s Diamond League Series, an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions.

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• On 3rd December 2018, the first manned Soyuz spacecraft since the failure of 11th October launch which carries Russian, American and Canadian astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS).


• Three Astronaut Oleg Kononenko from Russia, Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency were part of this manned mission.


• The Astronauts successfully docked at the ISS and they will stay at the International Space Centre for six and half months.


• It was the first manned voyage for the soviet-era Soyuz since a launch failure in October which was caused due to a sensor damage during the assembly at Baikonur Cosmodrome.

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• On 3rd December 2018, SpaceX founded by Elon Musk, launched India’s first privately built satellite ExseedSAT 1 along with 63 other satellite from 18 countries from the Vandenberg air force base in California, USA.


• ExseedSAT 1 was built at a cost of Rs. 2 Crore by the Mumbai based Startup Exseedspace.


• ExseedSAT 1 which weighs around 1 kg is an open radio transponder that works on ham frequencies.


• The satellite will have a life span of 5 years and it will allow people to receive signals on 145.90 Mhz frequency with the help of a TV tuner.

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• The Ministry of Home Affairs released a booklet in English language titled “A Handbook for Students on Cyber Safety” to aware the Students and Adolescents about the cyber safety.


• The book explains the various kinds of Cyber-crimes like identity theft, job fraud, email spoofing and how children can overcome them.


• The booklet also address the problems associated with increased use of smartphones, Social Media, Online gaming.


• As per the directions of Supreme court of India, MHA last year set up a Cyber and Information Security Division (C&IS) to check the rapid growth of cyber-crimes and cyber threats.