Source: Cick Here

• On November 2, 2018, the 18th Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Council of Ministers Meeting was held in Durban, South Africa.


• The Theme of the IORA meeting was: “IORA: Uniting the Peoples of Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Middle East through enhanced cooperation for Peace, Stability And Sustainable Development”.


• South Africa is the current chairman of the IORA organization.


• The Meeting was chaired by Honourable Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Foreign Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa, and Chair of the Association.


• Declaration on Guidelines for Enhancing Interaction with Dialogue Partners in IORA was adopted.


• The eThekwini Communique was produced as the final outcome document of the 18th COM.


• Launch of a special initiative entitled the “IORA Nelson Mandela ‘Be the Legacy’ internship programme” was done to empower the youth and pay tribute to Nelson Mandela.


• Maldives was admitted as the 22ndmember of the Association while Turkey and the Republic of Korea were admitted as the 8th and 9th Dialogue Partners in IORA. This made membership of IORA increase to 22 and the number of Dialogue Partners was increased to 9.

Source: Cick Here

• Singapore has maintained its rank as number one Asian city in the Sustainability Index by engineering firm Arcadis.


• The Sustainability Index assessed cities based on 3 pillars: profit pillar, people pillar and planet pillar.


• Singapore secured fourth place in global rankings. As per the study, Singapore ranked first for the profit pillar that assesses the business environment and economic performance of cities.


• Singapore ranked 31st out of 100 cities, for the people pillar that tests social mobility and quality of opportunity and life.


• Singapore secured 41st spot for the planet pillar that assesses the management of energy use, pollution and emissions.


• As per the study, Singapore is one of the world’s most active Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) testing environments.

Source: Cick Here

• India has ranked 12th in the world in terms of web-borne threats, according to a recent report by global cybersecurity company, Kaspersky Lab.


• In the 3rd quarter (July- September), 32.8 % of users were attacked by web-borne threats in India.


• Kaspersky Lab products detected 48,093,743 Internet-borne malware incidents on computers of KSN participants in India.


• Regarding vulnerabilities in browsers and their plugins (drive-by download), infection happened when visiting an infected website, without any intervention from user and without their knowledge.


• This is the most used method by cybercriminals for these kind of attacks.


• During July-September 2018, Kaspersky Lab products detected 68,405,291 local malware incidents on computers of KSN participants in India.


• Overall, 56.1 % of users in India were attacked by local threats during this period, placing India at 53rd sport globally.

Source: Cick Here

• On 3rd November 2018, over 20 countries committed to the Changsha Declaration at the end of a forum on international development cooperation in Changsha, China.


• 26 countries and 11 international organisations including Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed the Changsha Declaration.


• The Changsha Declaration focuses on agricultural and rural development. It aims to eliminate poverty and hunger.


• It aims to enhance the efforts towards South-South Cooperation, an initiative for eliminating hunger and malnutrition through mutual sharing and exchange of good practices, resources, and know-how between countries of the global south.


• At the forum, Director-General for FAO Jose Graziano da Silva announced plans to set up an International Centre of Excellence for Agriculture Innovation and Rural Development in Beijing, China.


• The centre will offer training in agriculture innovation and promote investment in rural areas to reach the first 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger.

Source: Cick Here

• On October 28, 2018, External Affairs Minister Smt. Sushma Swaraj reached Doha, the capital of Qatar to start her 2 day visit.


• She visited the state of Qatar at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.


• A booklet titled ‘Welcome to Qatar’, prepared by the Embassy for Indians coming to Qatar for employment, was released by EAM at the event.


• On October 30, 2018, External Affairs Minister Smt. Sushma Swaraj reached Kuwait, the ‘Land of the Pearls’ to start her 2-day visit to the country.


• She visited the state of Kuwait at the invitation of Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H.E. Sheikh Sabah Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.


• She also paid floral tributes to the statue of Gandhiji at the Indian Embassy in Kuwait.

Source: Cick Here

• On November 2, 2018, Indian Railways announced elimination of all Unmanned Level Crossings (UMLCs) on Broad Gauge.


• There were 3479 Unmanned Level Crossings on Broad Gauge routes of which, 3402 UMLCs have been eliminated in last 7 months.


• 77 UMLCs have also been planned to be eliminated by December 2018.


• All Unmanned level crossings on routes having speed more than 130 KMPH and on Sub-urban routes have been eliminated.


• 12 Zonal Railways have been freed from UMLC on Broad Gauge route.


• Accordingly, accidents at UMLCs have reduced from 65 in 2009-10 to 3 in 2018-19.

Source: Cick Here

• On November 3, 2018, the 3-day 78th annual conference of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics was held in New Delhi.


• It was organized by The Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, International Food Policy Research Institute, Delhi; and Tata-Cornell Institute,Ithaca, USA.

Source: Cick Here

• On November 3, 2018, Oil Marketing Companies (IOCL, HPCL & BPCL) and CSC e-Governance Services India Limited signed an MOU for collaboration in LPG services.


• This will be done under Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (PMUY).


• The MOU was signed in presence of Minister of Law & Justice and Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.


• The MOU consists of Booking new LPG connection (Ujjwala & General category), Booking of LPG refills (14.2 Kg cylinders).


• Supply & distribution of LPG cylinders (storage up to 100 Kgs,) through CSCs.

Source: Cick Here

• The highlight of the visit was the Italian prime minister’s participation at the 24th edition of the India-Italy Technology Summit was held in New Delhi.


• important discussions that took place on India-Italy to re-iterate Political cooperation, to fast-track trade, two-way investments, to set up institutional framework to enhance economic Cooperation, to build Centres of Excellence around cultural heritage, research, to enhance Technology Partnership, etc.

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• On November 4, 2018, RBI allowed banks to support bonds sold by non-banking finance/housing companies.
  
• According to the permit, it allowed banks to provide partial credit enhancement (PCE) to bonds issued by the systemically important non-deposittaking non-banking financial companies (NBFC-ND-SIs) registered with the Reserve Bank of India and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs)registered with National Housing Bank.


• This shall be done by maintaining the exposure limit of the bank within the aggregate PCE exposure limit of 20 percent.


• Additionally, the exposure of a bank should be restricted to 1 percent of its capital funds or net worth for a single borrower.


• This move will help for affordable housing finance and lower rated retail NBFCs by easing fund-raising by the NBFCs from the debt market. This will also remove the fear of defaults.


• The bonds by the NBFCs shall have maturities not less than 3 years.


• The bank-backed-proceeds from the bonds should only be utilized for refinancing the existing debt of NBFCs or HFCs.

Source: Cick Here

• On 2nd Friday 2018, Simone Biles became the first ever gymnast to win 13 world championship gold medals, by winning her 13th gold medal at the world gymnastics championships in Doha, Qatar.


• Simone Biles has surpassed the previous all-time record of 12 world championship gold medals by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo, made in 1996.


• She won her 13th career gold medal in the individual vault competition. She won a total of the 3 gold medals and 1 silver medal, in the championship at Doha.


• She won gold in the team and all-around events. She won silver medal in the uneven bars event.


• She is 21 years old and hails from America. She has become the first American gymnast to win a world championship medal on all four events. Now she has 18 world championship medals overall.

Source: Cick Here

• Ambati Rayudu has retired from the long-form of cricket, including the Ranji Trophy, to focus on limited-overs cricket.


• Ambati Rayudu is 33 years old. He will continue to play international and domestic matches of the shorter version.


• He has played first class cricket for 17 years. He made his debut when he was 16 years old. He has scored 6,151 runs in 97 matches and has scored 16 hundreds.


• He played his first ODI (One Day International) match in 2013.

Source: Cick Here

• On 1st November 2018, Dinkar Asthana was appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Lao People’s Democratic Republic.


• Dinkar Asthana is an Indian Foreign Service Officer (IFS) of the 1990 batch. Currently, he is Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.


• He has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Lao People’s Democratic Republic. He replaces Mr. Ravi Shankar Aisola. He will take up this assignment soon.

Source: Cick Here

• Indian Coast Guard has launched a new offshore patrol vessel named ICGS Varaha from a corporate shipyard near Chennai, Tamil Nadu.


• ICGS Varaha has been designed and built indigenously. This is the 3rd vessel in a series of 7 similar ships to be handed over to the Coast Guard.


• All the vessels would be delivered by March 2021. ICGS Varaha will be soon equipped with advanced navigation and communication equipment, sensors and machineries.


• The weapons will include a 30 mm gun with Fire Control Systems. It will be able to carry a twin-engine helicopter and 4 high-speed boats for Search and Rescue and Maritime Patrol.


• It also has pollution response equipment to hold the oil spill at sea.