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1. Sangeeta Verma, a former Indian Economic

Services (IES) officer has been appointed as a
member of Competition Commission of
India (CCI). (Ashok Kumar Gupta is the
chairperson of CCI).
2. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has
been conferred with the ‘Champions of
Change’ award by Vice President. Manipur was
chosen for its all-round development on various parameters in all its
‘aspirational’ districts.

1. The Union Cabinet has approved a budget

of Rs 10,000 crore for India’s
Gaganyaan project which aims to carry
three human beings for a maximum period
of seven days in space.
2. Odisha has launched “Khushi
Scheme” which aims to provide good
menstrual hygiene care to women of the
state.
3. Odisha government announced a 10,000 crores Krushak
Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA)
scheme to empower small, marginal & landless farmers as well as
landless labourers.
4. Keonjhar Police, Odisha, in collaboration with India Post has issued
10 postage stamps, each featuring the Ashok Chakra Awardees
from Police across the country, under the “My Stamp” scheme. The
stamps are of Rs 5.00 denomination and have the background
picture of Sun Temple, Konark.
 1. The new norms released by the government
for the foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-
commerce, bars e-commerce firms from selling
products of entities in which they have an equity
stake.
2. President of Uzbekistan (Capital: Tashkent,
Currency: Som), Shavkat Mirziyoyev
announced 2019 as the ‘Year of Active
Investment and Social Development’ in the backdrop of proposed
investments from India to boost his country’s economy.
3. As per recently released Public Enterprises Survey 2017-18,
Indian Oil Corporation, ONGC, and NTPC were the top three
most profitable PSUs in 2017-18.
4. According to report - “In the Dark: How Much Do Power Sector
Distortions Cost South Asia,” India’s power sector has an
“efficiency” gap that costs the Indian economy 4.13% of GDP a
year, equivalent to $86 billion in the fiscal year 2016.
5. Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM)
constituted a Logistics Development Committee under the
Chairmanship of Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman of EAC-PM.
6. ICICI Bank projected the GDP to increase to 7.4% in 2019-20.
7. According to Bloomberg, with the market capitalization valued at
Rs 10.40 lakh crores, Deepak Parekh-led HDFC group overtook
Tata Group become the country’s largest conglomerate.
8. During Bhutanese (Capital: Thimpu, Currency: Ngultrum) PM Dr.
Lotay Tshering’s recent visit to India, India announced to provide
grant assistance of INR 4500 crores towards Bhutan’s 12th Five
Year Plan.

1. RBI has set up a six-member expert

committee, headed by its former governor
Bimal Jalan, to review the economic capital
framework of the central bank i.e. to suggest
how the central bank should handle its reserves
and whether it can transfer its surplus to the
government.

2. ESAF Small Finance Bank (headquarters:

Thrissur, Kerala) has received the RBI approval to operate as a
scheduled bank. Now five scheduled banks operate from Kerala other four
are Federal Bank, South Indian Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, and Dhanlaxmi
Bank.

3. RBI has shortlisted six major IT companies, TCS, Wipro, IBM

India, Capgemini Technology Services India, Dun & Bradstreet
Information Services India, and Mindtree Ltd. to set up digital
Public Credit Registry (PCR) to capture details of all borrowers and willful
defaulters.

4. Punjab National Bank (PNB) in collaboration with Uttar Pradesh

government launched a special card called PNB Rupay card, for
Kumbh Mela 2019.

5. RBI launched a ‘Survey on Retail Payment Habits of Individuals

(SRPHi)’ in 6 cities- New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru
and Guwahati to capture payment habits of individuals and this will
provide some idea about awareness and usage habits of digital payment
products.

6. Reserve Bank of India has cleared a proposal to give existing Rs 1000-

crore corpus to Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for
funding microfinance institutions (MFIs).

7. Pakistan government approved the issuance of “Panda Bonds” in

Chinese currency.

8. As per RBI’s ‘Trends & Progress of Banking in 2017-18’ report,

system-wide Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPA) of banks rose to 11.2
% or at Rs 10.39 trillion in FY18 from 9.3 % in FY-17.

9. As per financial Services Secretary, Rajiv Kumar, Provision Coverage

Ratio (PCR) of Public sector bank has gone up from 46.04 percent
as of March 2015 to 66.85 percent as of September 2018, PCR gives
an indication of the provision made against bad loans from the profit
generated. Higher the PCR, lower is the unexposed part of the bad debt.

1. The Chief Minister of West Bengal has

been awarded the Skoch Chief Minister of
the Year Award for the year 2017
recognizing her contribution in the overall
development of West Bengal.

2. India’s 7 minutes “Finding Beauty in Garbage” won best Short

documentary film in Asia South East International Short Film Festival at
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

3. Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh received the South Indian

Education Society (SIES) Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati
National Eminence Award.

4.  Union Government has launched Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda

Prabandhan Puraskaar annual awards to recognise the excellent work
done by individuals and institutions in the country in the field of
disaster management.

5. C.R.I. pumps won the National Energy Conservation Award 2018 in

the pumps category for the fourth time.

6. The Madhya Pradesh Government has conferred the annual Tansen

Samman upon eminent Sitar Player Manju Mehta for her contribution
in the field of Hindustani classical music.

7. Aadi Sai Vijaykaran became the first Indian to win the Junior
Debate Championship at the World Scholar’s Cup held at Yale University,
USA.

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

1. Himachal Pradesh, Kerala (both have a

score of 69), and Tamil Nadu (score: 66) have
been ranked on top 3 positions of the first-of-
its-kind Sustainable Development Goals index
released by NITI Ayog. UP with a score of 42 was ranked last.

2. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) was awarded

Swachh Survekshan 2018 award for Best Capital City in the Solid Waste
Management.

3. National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) has become

third accreditation body in the Asia Pacific Region to become
internationally equivalent in the region, the other two being the
accreditation bodies of Hong Kong and Mexico.

4. Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh have been

adjudged best performing states under maternity benefit programme
Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY).

5. Niti Ayog has released the second Delta Ranking of the 111 districts
under Aspirational Districts programme (total districts in the programme are 115).
The five districts which have shown most improvements are Virudhunagar
(Tamil Nadu), Nuapada (Odisha), Siddharth Nagar (Uttar Pradesh),
Aurangabad (Bihar) and Koraput, Odisha.
6. Indian Stock market overtook Germany’s recently to become the
world’s seventh largest stock market.

7. In the “misperception index” according to the MORI Perils of

Perception Survey 2018, India was ranked 12th.

8. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh released the list of top 10 performing police
stations across the nation, the top three police stations in India for 2018
are Kalu (Bikaner, Rajasthan), Campbell Bay (Andaman & Nicobar
Islands) and Farakka (Murshidabad, West Bengal).

1. 17-day long International Gita Mahotsav

2018 was held in Kurukshetra, Haryana.
Mauritius was the partner country and Gujarat
was the partner state.

2. Shri Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the 12th

Global Healthcare Summit in Mumbai.

3. Governor of Manipur, Dr. Najma A. Heptulla inaugurated the 5-day long

42nd Indian Social Science Congress at the Kalinga Institute of
Industrial Technology (KIIT), Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

4. 12th Annual Indian Subcontinent Decision Sciences Institute

(ISDSI) conference was held in Mumbai. 

Theme: “Data-Driven Decision Making in the Digital Age”.

5. National Children’s Science Congress was recently held in

Bhubaneswar, Odisha (CM: Naveen Patnaik, Governor: Ganeshi Lal).

Theme: “Science, Technology, and Innovation for a Clean, Green and

Healthy Nation.”

6. Sahitya Kala Parishad organized the sixth edition of five-day long

Yuva Natya Samaroh at Kamani Auditorium in New Delhi.

7. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched the Information Fusion

Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) at Information Management and
Analysis Centre (IMAC) Gurugram, Haryana.

8.  15th edition of a two-day Global SME Business Summit was

organized by the Ministry of MSME and CII in New Delhi. The theme of the
event was ‘Building Partnerships through Global Value Chains.’

9. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently inaugurated the sixth center

of International Rice Research Institute South Asia Regional Centre
(IRRI SARC) in Varanasi.
10. 3rd edition of the annual river festival, Dwijing Festival was
recently held on the bank of River Aie at Chirang district, Assam.

11. Winter Solstice which is the shortest day of the year in the Northern
Hemisphere whereas the Summer Solstice which is the Longest Day
of the year in the Southern Hemisphere was recently observed on
December 21.

12. National Mathematics Day: December 22

13. National Farmers Day: December 23.

Celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of the 5th Prime Minister

of India, Choudhary Charan Singh.

14. National Consumers Day: December 24

Theme: “Timely Disposal of Consumer Complaints”

Attempt IBPS Clerk Mains Free Test

1. PM Narendra Modi recently announced setting

up of Sardar Patel Award for National
Integration while addressing an all-India
conference of DGPs/IGPs in Kevadia,
Gujarat.

2, “Early Indians: The Story of Our

Ancestors and Where We Came From”
written by Tony Joseph, was released recently.

3. Amarinder Singh CM of Punjab released the book ‘Prince, Patron and

Patriarch Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala’, co-authored by
the Maharaja’s grandson, Jagjit Singh, and Cynthia Frederick.

3. Railways have 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 an HD camera
and transmits them over WiFi.

4. Telangana’s MNJ Institute of Oncology and Regional Cancer Centre

entered Guinness Book of World Records ‘for organizing the largest men’s
Health Awareness programme on prostate cancer on a single day.’

5. PM Modi inaugurated India’s longest rail cum road bridge of 4.94

km Bogibeel bridge, which on the river Brahmaputra between
Dibrugarh and Dhemaji districts of Assam (CM: Sarbananda Sonowal,
Governor: Jagdish Mukhi.)

6. Recently, Odisha forest department added another olive ridley mass

nesting site Bahuda Rookery at the beach on Bahuda river mouth in
Ganjam district. The two other renowned nesting sites of Olive Ridley
turtles are Gahirmatha and Rushikulya also in Ganjam District.

7. The Union Government has decided to rename Ross, Neil and

Havelock islands of Andaman as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Island,
Shaheed Dweep, and Swaraj Dweep, respectively.

8. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (Governor: C Vidyasagar

Rao) has launched the ‘Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee
International Schools’ for students in rural areas.

9. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar (Governor: Satyadev

Narayan Arya) has announced the renaming of Child Care Institutes
being run in the state as Jagannath Ashrams.

He also inaugurated the World Herbal Forest Project, a collaboration of

Patanjali and Haryana Government, at Morni Hill, near Chandigarh.

10. Prime Minister recently released a commemorative stamp and coin

on the Paika Rebellion at the IIT, Bhubaneshwar campus. He also
announced setting up of a chair on the Paika Rebellion, in Utkal
University, Bhubaneswar.

11. Tamil Nadu and central government have announced the setting up of
country’s first music museum in Thiruvaiyaru, the birthplace of
Saint Tyagaraja.

12. 20-year-old Vedangi Kulkarni from Pune has become the fastest
Asian to cycle the globe. She has completed the 29,000 km distance in
159 days.

13. The union government released a commemorative coin worth Rs

100 in honor of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his
94th birth anniversary.

14. Sadaiv Atal, the Samadhi of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (near Rajghat)
was dedicated to the nation on the birth anniversary (25 December,
celebrated as Good Governance day) of the former Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee.

15. A postal stamp dedicated to Nabin Chandra Das, inventor of

Rosogolla was launched during the three-day festival, Bagbazar-O-
Rosogolla Utsob marking the 150th year of its invention.

16. “A Rural Manifesto – Realising India’s Future through her

Villages” authored by BJP MP Varun Gandhi was released in Bengaluru
recently.

17. Kuno, in Madhya Pradesh, was notified as ‘national park’.

18. A single-member Hooda panel (DS Hooda), set up by the Defence

Ministry and the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) has
recommended the creation of new specialized units for information
warfare in areas where the counter-insurgency operations are being
conducted.

19. Delhi Police recently became first police force in the country to
digitize all malkhanas across every police station in the state under
the e-malkhana project.

Attempt NIACL AO Prelims Free Test

1. ‘Hand-in-Hand’ military exercise was

recently held between India and China in
China’s Chengdu city.

2. As per official data submitted by Government

of India to the secretariat of the UN Framework
Convention of Climate change, India’s total
Greenhouse emissions grew by more than
22 percent between 2010 and 2014.

3. Turkmenistan (Capital: Ashgabat, Currency: Manat) where social

media sites including Facebook and WhatsApp are banned, launched its
own and the first Turkmen messaging app “BizBarde”.

4. Recently Italy’s Mount Etna volcano erupted resulting in numerous

earthquakes.

5. Gitega has been declared as the new political capital of Burundi,

Bujumbura, the previous capital of Burundi will serve as the economic
capital of the country.

6. Google recently has selected 87 news organizations from 23

countries including 10 from India for funding under its Global News
Initiative (GNI). The funding aims at helping the organizations in building
video capabilities and experiment with new formats for video journalism.

7. Thailand recently became the first Southeast Asian nation to

legalize medical marijuana and kratom for medical use and research.
8. American adventurer Colin O’Brady became the first person to
complete a solo journey across Antarctica, unaided and
unsupported.

1. India’s junior golfer Arjun Bhati wins US

Kids Junior Golf World Championship held in
Malaysia.

2. B V P Rao was elected as the President

of Archery Association of India (AAI).

3. Lewis Hamilton was awarded with Drivers’

Driver of the Year after claiming the 5th World
Drivers’ Championship.

4.  Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting became the 25th Australian
cricketer to be officially inducted into the International Cricket
Council’s Hall of Fame.

5. Croatia’s football captain Luka Modric was named the Balkan

Athlete of the year beating Men’s tennis world number one player Novak
Djokovic.

1. Legendary filmmaker and Phalke awardee,

Mrinal Sen, passed away in Kolkata.

2. Tamil writer and Sahitya Akademi award

winner Prabhanjan passed away recently.

3. Veteran Rabindra Sangeet singer Dwijen

Mukhopadhyay passed away recently.

4. Night angel of Assam’ singer Dipali Borthakur passed away

recently.

5. Former Union Minister Jai Narain Prasad Nishad died recently in

Delhi.

6. Famous Bengali poet Nirendranath Chakraborty passed away in

Kolkata, West Bengal recently.

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