1) World Toilet Day: 19 November
•World Toilet Day (WTD) is observed globally on 19 November to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. World Toilet Day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
•The day was established by the World Toilet Organization in 2001 and officially declared by the UN General Assembly in 2013. This year the theme remarks on the importance of “Sustainable sanitation and climate change”.
2) World Philosophy Day: 19 November
•World Philosophy Day is observed on the third Thursday of November every year. This year World Philosophy Day falls on 19 November 2020. The Day encourages academic exchange and highlights the contribution of philosophical knowledge in addressing global issues. The 2020 edition invites the world to reflect on the meaning of the current pandemic, underlining the need, more than ever before, to resort to philosophical reflection in order to face the multiple crises we are going through.
3) Madhya Pradesh govt announces ‘Gau Cabinet’ for protection of cows
•The Madhya Pradesh government, led by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has decided to set up a ‘Gau Cabinet’ for the protection, conservation and promotion of cows in the state. The Cabinet will comprise of the departments of animal husbandry, forests, panchayat and rural development, revenue, home and farmers welfare.
•The first meeting of the Cabinet will be held at 12 pm on ‘Gopashtami’ on November 22 at the Cow Sanctuary in Agar-Malwa district named ‘Kamdhenu Gau Abhyaranya ‘. It is India’s first cow sanctuary which was set up by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Madhya Pradesh government in September 2017.
4) Japan & Australia signs defence deal to counter China
•Japan and Australia have signed a ‘landmark’ defence pact in a bid to counter China’s growing influence in the South China Sea and over the Pacific island nations. The deal called Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) was signed between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.
•RAA will allow Japanese and Australian troops to visit each other’s countries and conduct training and joint operations. The treaty will strengthen its security ties and facilitate cooperation between defence forces.
5) India’s Param Siddhi ranked 63rd in most powerful supercomputers
•According to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Indian supercomputer, Param Siddhi has achieved 63rd rank in the list of 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world. Param Siddhi is the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC. The Top 500 project which ranks the top 500 non-distributed computer systems in the world is published twice a year.
•The first of these updates always coincides with the International Supercomputing Conference in June, and the second is presented at the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference in November.
6) BCCI announces MPL Sports as Official Kit Sponsor
•The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced its partnership with Mobile Premier League (MPL) Sports, the athleisure wear and sports merchandise brand from Mobile Premier League, India’s largest esports platform, as the new kit sponsor and official merchandise partner for the Indian Cricket Team.
