About:

• The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (or SGPC) is an organization in India responsible for the management of gurdwaras, Sikh places of worship in three states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh and union territory of Chandigarh.
  
  
• SGPC also administers Darbar Sahib in Amritsar.
  
  
• The SGPC is governed by the chief minister of Punjab.
  
  
• The SGPC manages the security, financial, facility maintenance and religious aspects of Gurdwaras as well as keeping archaeologically rare and sacred artifacts, including weapons, clothes, books and writings of the Sikh Gurus.
  
  
• It was formed in 1920.
  
  
• The first and the only woman and also incumbent President of SGPC is Jagir Kaur .
  
  

About:

• Guru Nanak (1469 – 1539), also referred to as Baba Nanak was the founder of Sikhism and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus.
  
  
• His birth is celebrated worldwide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Katak Pooranmashi ('full-moon of the Katak')
  
  
• Journeys (Udasis): During first quarter of the 16th century, Nanak went on long udasiya ('journeys') for spiritual pursuits. He visited several places in "nau-khand" ('the nine regions of the earth'), presumably the major Hindu and Muslim pilgrimage centres.
  
  
• He preached the message of ik onkar ('one God'), who dwells in every one of his creations and constitutes the eternal Truth. With this concept, he would set up a unique spiritual, social, and political platform based on equality, fraternal love, goodness, and virtue.
  
  
• Nanak's words are registered in the form of 974 poetic hymns, or shabda, in the holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, with some of the major prayers being the Japji Sahib; the Asa di Var; and the Sidh Gohst.
  
  

About:

• The Target Olympic Podium Scheme is a flagship program of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports which is an attempt to provide assistance to India’s top athletes.
  
  
• The Scheme looks to add a premium to the preparations of these athletes so that they can win Olympic medals in 2020 and 2024 Olympics.
  
  
• Under the Scheme, the Department of Sports shall identify athletes who are potential medal winners in 2020 / 2024 Olympics.
  
  
• The idea of the Scheme is to also keep an eye in the future and fund a Developmental Group of Athletes who are medal prospects for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles Games in 2028.
  
  
• The Mission Olympic Cell is a dedicated body created to assist the athletes who are selected under the TOP Scheme. The MOC is under the Chairmanship of the Director General, Sports Authority (DG, SAI).
  
  

About:

• This grant will be provided to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for Research & Development of Indian COVID-19 vaccines.
  
  
• The COVID-19 Vaccine development Mission with end-to-end focus from preclinical development through clinical development and manufacturing and regulatory facilitation for deployment, would consolidate all available and funded resources towards an accelerated product development.
  
  
• Led by Department of Biotechnology and implemented by a dedicated Mission Implementation Unit at Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC),the existing activities under National Bio Pharma Mission (NBM) and Ind-CEPI Mission will provide complementary strengths to this Mission.
  
  

About:

• The Marine Commandos, abbreviated to MARCOS and officially called the Marine Commando Force (MCF), is the special forces unit of the Indian Navy that is responsible for conducting special operations.
  
  
• MARCOS was founded in February 1987. MARCOS are capable of operating in all types of environments; at sea, in air and on land.
  
  
• The force has gradually acquired experience and an international reputation for professionalism. The MARCOS regularly undertake specialised maritime operations in Jammu and Kashmir through the Jhelum River and Wular Lake.
  
  

About:

• Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building with a height of 829.8 metre and asteroid 2000 WO107, which was discovered in 2000, has a diameter is 820 metre.
  
  
• The massive asteroid has been classified as a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA). NEA is a group of comets and asteroids pulled into the orbit due to the gravitational forces of nearby planets, which allows them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.
  
  
• Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has classified it as a ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’ due to its predicted close pass with Earth.
  
  

About:

• Originating in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the trans-border Yarlung Zangbo flows into Arunachal Pradesh where it is called Siang and then to Assam as Brahmaputra before flowing into Bangladesh.
  
  
• The dam could come up in the Medog county of TAR, which is close to Arunachal Pradesh.
  
  
• China has already built several smaller dams on the Yarlung Zangbo river.
  
  
• The new dam’s ability to generate hydropower could be three times that of central China’s Three Gorges Dam, which has the largest installed hydropower capacity in the world.
  
  

About:

• Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) is a “not–for–profit” Section-8 Public Private Partnership (PPP) company.
  
  
• It is promoted jointly by the Technology Development Board (TDB), Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
  
  
• The Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry had, in 2010, recommended incorporation of a Government’s arm’s length entity under PPP mode to professionally manage the Government’s funds for providing flexibility to industry for undertaking R&D along with global partners.
  
  
• The GITA platform encourages industrial investments in innovative technology solutions by
  • Mapping technology gaps,
    
    
  • Undertaking expert evaluation of technologies available across the globe,
    
    
  • Facilitating techno–strategic collaborative partnerships appropriate for Indian economy,
    
    
  • Connecting industrial and institutional partners for synergistic matchmaking and
    
    
  • Providing soft funding for technology development / acquisition / deployment.
    
    
  
  
  

About:

• Regional office of National Highway Authority of India clarified that the IMS project is in resonance with Environment Impact Assessment. As per Detailed Project Study approximately only 1,940 trees are proposed to be felled.
  
  
• A compensatory afforestation of 25,000 trees shall be carried out by the NHAI on the available vacant spaces on the National Highway Projects land in and around Nagpur.
  
  
• Inter-Modal Station proposed to be constructed at Ajni, with a Land Acquisition of 44.4 acres of Indian Railway land, available adjacent to Railway tracks, for handling capacity of over 3 lakhs passengers per day with a facility of Bus Stand , Railway Station and a Metro Station in the proposed vicinity. This Project is taken up for development of the city of Nagpur.
  
  

About:

• IMAC, based in Gurgaon, was established in November 2014.
  
  
• It is jointly operated by the Navy and Coast Guard.
  
  
• It is the nodal centre for maritime security information collation and dissemination. It is the cornerstone of the National Command Control Communication and Intelligence Network for monitoring maritime traffic in India’s area of interest.
  
  
• IMAC’s task is to facilitate exchange of maritime security information among various national stakeholders, and generate a common operational picture.
  
  

About:

• A new bill banning accent-based discrimination, or ‘la glottophobie’, was approved with 98 votes against three, and spurred a lively debate in the lower house of the French parliament.
  
  
• If passed, the new law will make linguistic discrimination a criminal offence along with sexism, racism and other forms of outlawed bigotry.
  
  
• A person found guilty of discrimination on the basis of regional accents could face a maximum of three years in prison and a fine of up to €45,000 (INR 39.8 lakh).
  
  

About:

• Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967.
  
  
• She was credited with "one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century".
  
  
• The discovery was recognised by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, but although she was the first to observe the pulsars, Bell was not one of the recipients of the prize.
  
  
• That Bell did not receive recognition in the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics has been a point of controversy ever since.
  
  

About:

• The Dev Deepavali is also known as "the Diwali of the Gods" or "Festival of Lights of the Gods".
  
  
• It is the festival of Kartik Poornima celebrated in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.
  
  
• It falls on the full moon of the Hindu month of Kartika (November - December) and takes place fifteen days after Diwali.
  
  
• The steps of all the ghats on the riverfront of the Ganges River, from Ravidas Ghat at the southern end to Rajghat, are lit with more than a million earthen lamps (diyas) in honour of Ganga and its presiding goddess.
  
  
• The gods are believed to descend to Earth to bathe in the Ganges on this day.
  
  

About:

• In 1977, the General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine.
  
  
• Palestine is recognized officially as the State of Palestine by the United Nations and other entities.
  
  
• It is a de jure sovereign state in Western Asia claiming the West Bank (bordering Israel and Jordan) and Gaza Strip (bordering Israel and Egypt) with Jerusalem as the designated capital, although its administrative center is currently located in Ramallah.
  
  
• The entirety of territory claimed by the State of Palestine has been occupied since 1948, first by Egypt and Jordan and then by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967.
  
  

About:

• The country has now entered a technical recession with two successive quarters of negative growth.
  
  
• Agriculture, which was the only sector to record growth between April and June this year, grew at the same pace of 3.4% in the second quarter.
  
  
• Manufacturing gross value-added (GVA) staged a sharp recovery to record 0.6% growth between July and September after collapsing 39.3% in the first quarter.
  
  
• Electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services also recorded 4.4% growth in the second quarter, recovering from a 7% contraction in Q1.
  
  
• But it remained a bleak quarter for several sectors, including mining, services such as retail trade and hotels, construction and financial services.
  
  
• While the 7.5% contraction in GDP came as a positive surprise, there are concerns about a decline in government spending and the worsening fate of two key sectors compared to the first quarter.
  
  

The Guidelines provide for –

• License issued by the State Government is a mandatory re-requisite for permitting business operations by the aggregator.
  
  
• For regulating the aggregators, the guidelines specified by the Central Government may be followed by State Governments.
  
  
• In order to ensure compliance with the license requirements the Act stipulates penalties under Section 93 of the Act.
  
  
• These Guidelines seek to establish a regulatory framework for aggregators by State Governments to ensure that the aggregator’s are accountable and responsible for the operations executed by them.
  
  
• The business shall also be considered as a service provided by the aggregators to serve the larger public interest in terms of generation of employment, commutation facilities to the public which is cost effective and comfortable.
  
  

About:

• Now helmets in India will come under compulsory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification and publication of Quality Control Order (QCO). According to a recent report, the new norms will see the 1.2 kg weight limit for helmets being done away with, which was implemented in 2018.
  
  
• The rule restricted the sale of imported helmets in India that did not carry the ISI mark and weighed considerably more than the weight cap under the BIS norms.
  
  
• However, the revised standard will allow the sale of imported helmets, though they will still need to comply with the Indian Standard (IS) norms.
  
  

About:

• Every year, for the past 10 years, 27 November has been celebrated as the ‘Indian Organ Donation Day’ in the country.
  
  
• The National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) is mandated under the Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act 2011 to carry out activities for promotion of organ donation from deceased persons.
  
  
• Tamil Nadu has been adjudged the best in organ donation in the country for the sixth consecutive year.
  
  

About:

• The portal will have all the major steps the Government is taking at both national and international levels to address the climate change issues.
  
  
• It will be a single-point information resource that provides information on the different climate initiatives taken by various Line Ministries enabling users to access updated status on these initiatives.
  
  
• He also said that India has practically achieved its  pre-2020 climate action targets.
  
  

About:

• To this end, the DST will incorporate a system of grading institutes depending on the enrolment of women and the advancement of the careers of women faculty and scientists.
  
  
• The concept borrows from a programme started by the UK in 2005 called the Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network), which is now being adopted by many countries.
  
  
• The Athena SWAN Charter is an evaluation and accreditation programme in the UK enhancing gender equity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM).
  
  

About:

• The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report is commonly known as the Brereton Report.
  
  
• It is a report into war crimes committed by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) during the War in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
  
  
• The investigation was led by Paul Brereton, who is both a New South Wales Supreme Court judge and a major general in the army reserve.
  
  
• The final report was delivered on 6 November 2020. The redacted version was released publicly on 19 November 2020.
  
  

About:

• Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling (BEOSP) is also known as brain fingerprinting.
  
  
• It is a neuro psychological method of interrogation in which the accused’s participation in the crime is investigated by studying their brain’s response.
  
  
• The BEOSP test is carried out via a process known as electroencephalogram, conducted to study the electrical behaviour of the human brain.
  
  
• Under this test, the consent of the accused is first taken and they are then made to wear caps with dozens of electrodes attached to them.
  
  
• The accused are then shown visuals or played audio clips related to the crime to check if there is any triggering of neurons in their brains which then generate brainwaves. The test results are then studied to determine the participation of the accused in a crime.
  
  

About:

• an exclusive bouquet of documentary films on folk art and paintings - Lok Virasat - is being showcased, between November 27–29, 2020 on FD website and You Tube channel.
  
  
• The films being streamed include:
  • The Kingdom of God , on the great Indian heritage of art and culture with focus on various folk art traditions,
    
    
  • Bhavai - Fading Memories, a film on Bhavai - a folk art of Gujarat,
    
    
  • Naman – Khele, a film on the ancient folk art performed in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra,
    
    
  • Sahi Jata, The Fusion Cult, a film on the unique fusion of muscle and music in the form of folk art on the back-drop of the ancient Orissa town of Puri and
    
    
  • Therukoothu : Dancing For Life , a film depicting the age old Tamil folk art.
    
    
  
  
  

About:

• The bill is titled, “Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill” and was passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament on November 24, making Scotland the first country to take such a step.
  
  
• The bill was passed with the aim of tackling “period poverty”, which is when some people who need period products struggle to afford them.
  
  
• One of its central objectives is to “end the silence and stigma” that surrounds menstruation and also aims to remove “gendered barriers”. The bill aims to ensure that those who menstruate have “reasonably convenient” access to period products free of charge.
  
  

About:

• It laid out 18 Investment Opportunities Areas  (IOAs) in six critical SDG enabling sectors, that can help the country push forward on the trajectory of Sustainable Development.
  
  
• The six focus sectors identified in the map include education, healthcare, agriculture and allied activities, financial services, renewable energy and alternatives and sustainable environment.
  
  
• Of the 18 IOAs identified, 10 are already mature investable areas that have seen robust Private Equity and Venture Capital activity. The remaining eight IOAs are emerging opportunities, which have seen traction from early-stage investors.
  
  
• The map has also identified eight ‘white spaces’, which have seen investor interest and have the potential to grow into IOAs in five to six years with policy support and private sector participation.
  
  

About:

• What is it? The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket.
  
  
• History: It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England and South Africa. It took up its current name in 1989.
  
  
• What it does? It organises world championship events such as Cricket World Cup, Women's Cricket World Cup, ICC T20 World Cup, ICC Women's T20 World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy and Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
  
  
• What it doesn’t?
  • The ICC does not control bilateral fixtures between member countries (which include all Test matches), and neither does it govern domestic cricket within member countries.
    
    
  • It does not make or alter the laws of the game, which have remained under the governance of the Marylebone Cricket Club since 1788.
    
    
  
  
  
• Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
  
  

About:

• External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar said this during the 2020 Afghanistan Conference organized in Geneva. The two day conference was co-hosted by the United Nations, the Government of Afghanistan, and the Government of Finland.
  
  
• Dr Jaishankar also announced that India had just concluded with Afghanistan an agreement for the construction of the Shatoot dam, which would provide safe drinking water to two million residents of Kabul city.
  
  
• India had earlier built the 202-kilometer Phul-e-Khumri transmission line that provided electricity to Kabul city.
  
  

About:

• To improve welfare of Indian seafarers on abandoned vessels and safety of such vessels, the Bill has provisions for repatriation of abandoned seafarers have been enhanced, in line with the Maritime Labour Convention regulations.
  
  
• To promote ease of doing business, the Bill does away with requirement of general trading licence for Indian vessels.
  
  
• It also enables electronic means of registration, and grants statutory recognition to electronic agreements, records, and log-books, in addition to electronic licenses, certificates and payments, stated the release.
  
  
• The Bill has clauses to increase India’s tonnage and to make the vessel a tradeable asset.
  
  
• To promote India as a bankable shipping jurisdiction and avoid situations leading to wreck, the proposed Bill seeks to introduce for the first-time statutory framework for regulating maritime emergency response against maritime incidents
  
  
• To make India an active enforcement jurisdiction, the Bill incorporates powers of the Director-General to take action against vessels that are unsafe, and pose a threat to safety of life at sea and environment
  
  
• The Bill also encourages active enforcement of pollution prevention standards.
  
  

About:

• Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) is a unique number given to documents attested by Chartered Accountants in Practice. It is an 18 digits system generated unique number which shall generated separately for each document.
  
  
• Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), in its gazette notification dated 2nd August, 2019, had made generation of UDIN from ICAI website mandatory for every kind of certificate/tax audit report and other attests made by their members as required by various regulators.
  
  
• This was introduced to curb fake certifications by non-CAs misrepresenting themselves as Chartered Accountants.