1) India invites UK’s Johnson as 2021 Republic Day chief guest
•United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is expected to be the chief guest at 2021 Republic day with Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally inviting him.
•Johnson, on his part, has invited PM Modi to the G-7 summit in the United Kingdom next year. The last British prime minister at the Republic Day parade was John Major in 1993.
2) New Zealand declares climate emergency
•New Zealand has declared a “climate emergency” and promised to make its public sector carbon neutral by 2025.
•New Zealand now joins 32 other countries that have declared a climate emergency. They include Japan, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.
•Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern told legislators that the climate emergency declaration was “an acknowledgement of the next generation – an acknowledgement of the burden that they will carry if we do not get this right and do not take action now”.
3) Karnataka’s 1st 11.5-megawatt power plant being set up at Bidadi
•In Karnataka, Chief Minister, BS Yediyurappa laid the foundation stone for an 11.5-megawatt power plant based on municipal waste in Bidadi, Bengaluru.
•It is first of its kind power plant in the state being set up by the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) and will help in converting 600 tonnes of municipal waste into 11.5-megawatt energy.
•This power plant will add 80.59 million units of power to the existing power grid. The power plant project is being constructed at a cost of Rs. 260 crore and is likely to be operational by 2022.
4) Yogi Adityanath rings the bell at BSE for listing bond of LMC
•Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath rang the bell at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), to mark the listing of bonds of Lucknow Municipal Corporation on the exchange.
•The bonds of LMC were launched on November 13, with a coupon rate of 8.5 per cent and had tenure of 10 years. The issuance had garnered 4.5 times subscription.
•Lucknow is the 9th city in India and first from UP, to have raised municipal bonds for fundraising. It is also the first city to issue municipal bond after the launch of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme.
•Lucknow Municipal Corporation is the first civic body from North India to issue a bond on BSE.
•The funds raised through the bond will be invested in various infrastructure schemes, being implemented under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Scheme, in Lucknow.
•Ghaziabad will be the next city of the state to issue a municipal bond and it will be followed by Pragyaraj, Varanasi, Agra and Kanpur.
5) RBI orders HDFC Bank to halt its digital launches
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued an order to HDFC Bank with regard to certain incidents of outages in the internet banking, mobile banking and payment utilities of the lender over the past 2 years, the private sector bank informed to the stock exchanges.
•The RBI also noted the recent outages in the HDFC Bank’s internet banking and payment system on November 21, 2020, owing to a power failure in the primary data centre.
•All launches of the Digital Business generating activities planned under its program ‐ Digital 2.0 (to be launched) and other proposed business generating IT applications and sourcing of new credit card customers.
•In addition to this, the order also states that HDFC Bank’s board should examine the lapses and fix accountability.
6) Lt Gen Rajeev Chaudhary becomes new Director-General of BRO
•Lt Gen Rajeev Chaudhary has been appointed as the 27th Director General of Border Roads Organisation (BRO).
•His appointment is effective from 1st December 2020. Lt Gen Chaudhary succeeds Lt Gen Harpal Singh who has been appointed as the new Engineer-in-Chief of the Indian Army.
•The BRO is responsible for construction and maintenance of all border roads including those along the frontiers with China and Pakistan.
7) India ranked 8th in Global Terrorism Index 2020
•In the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2020, India has been ranked at 8th spot globally in the list of countries most affected by terrorism in 2019.
•The GTI score of India is 7.353 out of 10. India recorded 277 Deaths, 439 Injuries & 558 Incidents due to Terrorism in 2019.
•With a score of 9.592, Afghanistan has topped the index as the worst terror impacted nation among the 163 countries.
•It is followed by Iraq (8.682) and Nigeria (8.314) at second and third place respectively.
•Qatar (0.014) took the 133rd Rank followed by Uzbekistan (0.010) in the 134th Rank and around 29 Countries (score of 0.000) took the 135th Rank which means they are Least Affected Countries or Face No Impact due to Terrorism.
8) International Day of Persons with Disabilities: 03 December
•The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is observed annually on December 3.
•The IDPWD day was proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly. The 2020 theme: ‘Not all Disabilities are Visible’.
•The day is celebrated to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development, and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.
