UTTAR PRADESH

• Up govt to provide power connection to poor and farmers; bpl card not necessary

• Uttar Pradesh government will provide power connections to poor and farmers even if they do not have Below the Poverty Line (BPL) card.

• Poor families have to pay Rs 550 to get a connection in installments of Rs 50. The government will provide power connection to 60 lakh such families as per commitment of Yogi Adityanath government to link the poor and the deprived with development scheme.

• This initiative will also help farmers to double their income as they would get power connections under subsidised rate. Under this scheme, pump sets including submersible and coupling set of 10 lakh farmers will be replaced till 2022. 

   

   

  INTERNATIONAL

   

  ·        UN Security Council imposes new sanctions on North Korea

   

  • The UN Security Councilapproved tough new sanctions against North Korea in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says is capable of reaching anywhere on the US mainland.
  • The resolution adopted by the council includes sharply lower limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working overseas within 24 months and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items including coal and oil to and from the country.
  • The resolution, adopted in response to North Korea’s sixth and strongest nuclear test explosion on Sept. 3, banned North Korea from importing all natural gas liquids and condensates.

   

  • India ranks 109th in mobile internet speed and 76th in fixed broadband

   

  • India has ranked 109th in mobile internet speeds and 76th in fixed broadband speeds in Ookla’s November Speedtest Global Index, where the country’s average mobile speed was 8.8 Mbps and broadband speed was 18.82 Mbps.

   

  • Norway ranked first in the world for mobile internet, with an average download speed of 62.66 Mbps, as of November.

   

  • Singapore led in the fixed broadband category, with a 153.85 Mbps average download speed.

   

  NATIONAL 

   

  ·        Nation Celebrates Kisan Diwas is celebrated 23rd December

   

  • Kisan Diwas (Farmer’s Day) is observed every year on 23 December to celebrate the birth anniversary of the fifth prime minister.
  • He was the PM of India for a very short tenure starting from 28th of July 1979 until 14th January 1980.
  • A Kisan leader, Late Chaudhary Charan Singh belonged to a peasant family. This was the reason he could relate himself to the issues of the farmers and therefore, he did the best to support them.
  • When he became the Prime Minister of India in July 1979 he made many changes to improve the lives of the farmers.
  • This is also an interesting fact that as the Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Charan Singh never visited the Lok Sabha.

   

  ·        Vijay Rupani Remains Gujarat Chief Minister and Nitin Patel His Deputy

   

  • Vijay Rupaniwill continue as chief minister of Gujarat and Nitin Patel as his deputy chief minister, the Bhartiya Janata Party has made the announcement after a meeting of the party’s newly-elected legislators in the state’s capital Gandhinagar.
  • The BJP had won 99 seats, only seven more than it needed for a majority to form government and 16 less than it had won last time.

   

  ·        Union Cabinet approves auctioning of 680 FM channels under Phase III

   

  • The Union cabinet approved an auction of 683 privateFM radio frequencies in 236 cities across the country under Phase III of FM radio privatization.
  • The sale of these channels in Phase III is likely to generate direct and indirect employment to more than 10,000 persons on a pan-India basis.
  • The third batch of FM auctions will cover cities with no private FM radio presence, including cities in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir and north-east states where the population is less than 100,000. With the completion of FM Phase III auctions, the government is planning to cover all the 29 states.

   

  ·        Made-In-India Surface-to-Air Missile QRSAM successfully test fired from Odisha coast

   

  • Made-In-India’ Surface-to-Air MissileQRSAM was successfully test fired by the Defence Research and Development Organisation from a defense base off Odisha coast.
  • The homegrown canister-based high-speed weapon system can deceive enemy radars making it difficult to be detected, is capable of destroying aerial targets, tanks, bunkers and short-range missiles.
  • The short-range weapon system was fired from a canister mounted on a rotatable truck-based launch platform at the Launching Complex-I (LC-I) of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea.
  • It is a highly mobile air defence system which can destroy multiple targets at a distance of 25 km in less than one minute. Considered to be a unique system in its class, the missile is expected to supplement medium-range surface-to-air missile Akash.

   

  ·        AYUSH Ministry opens its arms to boost the exports of Ayurvedic products

   

  • AYUSH Ministry hands with Commerce and Industry Ministry; Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Pharmexcil to organize the International AROGYA 2017 – First Edition of International Exhibition and Conference on AYUSH and Wellness with the theme‘Enhancing the export potential of AYUSH’.
  • This event was attended by many dignitaries and manufacturers. During the conference important topics relating to Standardization and Quality Control in AYUSH Sector, Enhancing the export potential of AYUSH and Business opportunities, Integrative Healthcare.

   

  ·        MEA Launched SAMEEP to Take Indian Foreign Policy to Students across Country

   

  • Indian Affairs With an aim to bring the foreign policy to the masses the External Affairs Ministry has come up with an initiative called SAMEEP – ‘Students and MEA Engagement Programme’. 
  • Under this MEA official will talk to students to help them better understand foreign policy.
  • The main objective of SAMEEP is to take Indian foreign policy and its global engagements to students across the country.
  • Under this programme, all the ministry officers – under-secretary and above – will be asked to go to their hometowns, particularly their alma maters.

   

  ·        Union Government Launched Ganga Gram project at Ganga Gram Swachata Sammelan

   

  • The Union government had formally launched the ‘Ganga Gram’ project at the Ganga Gram Swachata Sammelan in New Delhi.
  • As part of its clean Ganga mission – Namami Gange, the Ganga Gram project is an integrated approach for the holistic development of villages situated on the banks of the holy river with the active participation of villagers.