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- G20 nations accepted India's proposal to allow the world's fastest growing economy to celebrate 75 years of independence in a very special way.
- Italy, the designated host for the G20 meet in 2022 gracefully stepped aside accepting Prime Minister's proposal for India to be the host in 2022 instead of 2021.
- Clearly Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Reform, Perform, and Transform mantra was at the centre stage during India's intervention at the G-20 Summit in Buenos Aires.
- Prime Minister Modi called for Reforms In WTO and other multilateral agencies.
- A sentiment that was echoed by several leaders and was reflected in the Argentina G20 declaration.
- PM Modi's call for collective performance on sustainable development agenda and transforming the new global economic world order was also prominently featured in the G20 Leaders declaration.
- A sustainable food future was also a key focus of the summit.Prime Minister's pitch for inclusive financing of businesses through schemes like India's Mudra Yojana and the Start up mission too found recognition.
- G20 leaders agreed to include innovative financial mechanisms and partnerships, such as impact investment for inclusive and sustainable growth.
- PM Modi also called upon all G20 leaders to join International Solar alliance to address the issue of Energy Security for All .
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- Sunil Arora on 2 Dec. took charge as the Chief Election Commissioner of India . He succeeded OP Rawat who retired on 2 Dec. Arora was appointed as election commissioner in September 2017.
- He will have a nearly two-and-a-half-year tenure as Chief Election Commissioner with 2019 General Elections to be conducted under his stewardship.
- Sunil Arora has served in several key positions as a bureaucrat, including as information and broadcasting secretary, secretary in the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship and chairman and managing director of Indian Airlines.
- Talking to media, CEC Arora said that conducting free and fair elections is his priority and his team would make its best efforts in this direction.
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- The last day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw a hectic flurry of bilateral meetings beginning with a very special breakfast catch up with Argentine President Maurisio Macri.
- He accepted PM's invitation for an official visit to India next year.
- Then came the meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa whom PM Modi officially invited to be the Chief guest of the Republic day celebrations next year.
- PM Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also met on the sidelines of G20 Summit.
- They exchanged views on importance of multilateralism in a rapidly changing world and the need to strengthen cooperation in counter terrorism.
- PM Narendra Modi also held a bilateral with Dutch PM Mark Rutte. PM invited Netherlands to participate in river rejuvenation and inland waterways infrastructure projects, and shared views on climate change and regional situation.
- The meeting with President of EU Commission Jean Claude Juncker and President of EU Council Donald Tusk saw discussions focused on strengthening India-EU relations, including joint effort to counter terrorism in all forms.
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- With the direst warnings yet of impending environmental disaster still ringing in their ears, representatives from nearly 200 nations gathered 2 Dec. in Poland to firm up their plan to prevent catastrophic climate change.
- The UN climate summit comes at a crucial juncture in mankind’s response to planetary warming. The smaller, poorer nations that will bare its devastating brunt are pushing for richer states to make good on the promises they made in the 2015 Paris agreement.
- In Paris three years ago, countries committed to limit global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.
- But with only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, the world has already seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes made more destructive by rising seas.
- In a rare intervention, presidents of previous UN climate summits issued a joint statement as the talks got underway in the Polish mining city of Katowice, calling on states to take “decisive action to tackle these urgent threats”.
- “The impacts of climate change are increasingly hard to ignore,” said the statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. “We require deep transformations of our economies and societies.”
- 20 leaders on 1 Dec. agreed a final communique after their summit in Buenos Aires, declaring that the Paris Agreement was “irreversible”.
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- The Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust, which manages the saint’s samadhi at Shirdi in Maharashtra’s Ahmedanagar district, will provide Rs 500 crore to build a canal network for a dam.
- The Nilwande Dam is located on Pravara River and is expected to benefit 182 villages in Sangamner, Akole, Rahata, Rahuri and Kopargao tehsils in Ahmednagar district and Sinnar in Nashik.
- A senior official of the Trust said a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed with the state government’s Godawari-Marathwada Irrigation Development Corporation in this regard.
- “The trust will give Rs 500 crore for the project but will not charge interest on it,” he said, though he refused to divulge details of tenure of repayment etc.
- The official said the temple trust provides money for social work regularly but the amount it had allocated for the Nilwande Dam was “huge” and a “rare thing”.
- A state Water Resources department official said the Nilwande Dam had begun storing water but the right and left bank canals needed to be built for it to be used for irrigation and drinking water purposes
- The Nilwande Dam, this June, received Rs 2,232 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sanjivani Yojana.
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- The government has constituted a six-member committee to look at selling as many as 149 small and marginal oil and gas fields of state-owned ONGC and Oil India to private and foreign companies to boost domestic output, sources said.
- The panel is headed by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and includes Cabinet Secretary P. K. Sinha and Oil Secretary M. M. Kutty.
- Sources said the committee is a follow-up of the October 12 meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review domestic production profile of oil and gas and the roadmap for cutting import dependence by 10% by 2022.
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- America's fighter aircraft F-15 arrived at AFS Kalaikunda on 1 Dec. as part of the US contingent to take part in an India-US joint exercise 'Cope India 2019' in West Bengal.
- The 12-day exercise will commence on December 3 and continue till December 14 at Air Station Kalaikunda and Air Station Arjan Singh (Panagarh) in West Bengal.
- The exercise will host more than 40 aircraft including F-15 and C-130H aircraft of USAF. The fighter aircraft would operate from AFS Kalaikunda (KKD) and the transport aircraft from AFS Panagarh.
- The contingent of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will comprise of Su-30MKI, Mirage-2000, Jaguars, IL-78, C-130J, AWACS and AEW&C aircraft. Indian Air Force welcomed US Air Force personnel as the contingents started landed in India during the week.
- The US consulate said that the exercise showcases efforts and commitment of the two nations to a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
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- The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, 2 December, marks the date of the adoption, by the General Assembly, of the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (resolution 317(IV) of 2 December 1949).
- The focus of this day is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child labour, forced marriage, and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.
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