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Indian cricketer Smriti Mandhana named in ICC Women's Team of the Year

India bats woman Smriti Mandhana was on 14 December 2016 named in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women's Team of the Year 2016.
●    With this inclusion, she became the first Indian woman cricketer to figure in the prestigious list.
●    The team will be captained by Stafanie Taylor of West Indies.
●    Besides the captain and Smriti, the team features three players from New Zealand, two players each from Australia, England and South Africa.
●    Rachel Priest of New Zealand is the wicket-keeper of the team.
●    Kim Garth of Ireland was included in the list as the 12th player.
●    The 12-member team was selected based on their performance between 14 September 2015 and 20 September 2016.
●    The list was prepared by a panel consisting of Clare Connor (Chair), Mel Jones and Shubhangi Kulkarni.
●    The list was announced by ICC chief executive David Richardson at the ICC headquarters in Dubai.

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Old Rs. 500 notes unacceptable from Dec 15 midnight

The Centre will not extend the deadline of December 15 to use old 500 rupee notes for certain activities such as paying utility and hospital bills and purchasing cooking gas cylinders.
●    "Exemptions for use of old Rs 500 notes will end on 15 Dec midnight," economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted. 
●    The Centre had withdrawn the facility to use old Rs 500 notes at petrol pumps from the midnight of December 2.
●    The decision was taken after an assessment that the exemption was being grossly misused to launder black money and that scrapping it will not affect movement of goods. 
●    It had also stopped the use of old Rs 1,000 notes.
●    The Centre had allowed use of old Rs 500 notes for a string of activities up to December 15 midnight. 
●    This included for making payments in government hospitals for treatment and pharmacies there for buying medicines with doctor's prescription.

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Yahoo hacked again

Yahoo, already reeling from its September disclosure that 500 million user accounts had been hacked in 2014, disclosed Wednesday that a different attack in 2013 compromised more than 1 billion accounts.
●    The two attacks are the largest known security breaches of one company’s computer network.
●    The newly disclosed 2013 attack involved sensitive user information, including names, telephone numbers, dates of birth, encrypted passwords and unencrypted security questions that could be used to reset a password. 
●    Yahoo said it is forcing all of the affected users to change their passwords and it is invalidating unencrypted security questions — steps that it declined to take in September.
●    It is unclear how many Yahoo users were affected by both attacks. 
●    The internet company has more than 1 billion active users, but it is not clear how many inactive accounts were hacked.
●    Yahoo said it discovered the larger hacking after analyzing data files, provided by law enforcement, that an unnamed third party had claimed contained Yahoo information.

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Rajya Sabha passes Disability Bill

The Rajya Sabha on 14 December 2016 passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 by voice vote. 
●    The proposed legislation will replace the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 after its passage by the Lok Sabha and approval of the President.
●    It fulfills the government’s responsibilities under the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities to which India is a signatory. 
●    It will benefit around 2.8 crore disabled population in the country.
●    The bill deals with a range of issues – rights, social protection, reservations, welfare schemes – for the all round development of disabled.
●    The bill identifies 19 conditions as disabilities against the seven disabilities identified by the existing Act.
●    Under the bill, persons with at least 40% of a disability will be entitled to reservations in education and employment and preference in government schemes.
●    It authorises the district courts to provide for two types of guardianship – limited guardianship and plenary guardianship. 
●    In order to ensure its stricter compliance, it specifies punishments for the violators. The guilty will be punished with imprisonment up to six months, and/or fine of Rs 10000.

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Sushma Swaraj in 'Global Thinkers of 2016 list'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday congratulated External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on being named in the Global Thinkers of 2016 list compiled by the Foreign Policy magazine.
●    Swaraj was named in the decision makers category along with the Democratic Party nominee for US presidential election Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch among others.
●    External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup also tweeted, "MEA proud to be led by EAM @SushmaSwaraj, who receives yet another recognition for her unique brand of diplomacy."
●    The magazine complimented Swaraj "for fashioning a novel brand of Twitter diplomacy".
●    "From evacuating Indians from Yemen to helping replace lost passports, Swaraj has earned the nickname the common tweeples leader for her aggressive use of Twitter," the magazine noted.

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NGT orders national ban on 'manja'

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) put a temporary nationwide ban on the use of manja on 14 December 2016.
●    The order was passed by a bench chaired by NGT Chairperson Swatanter Kumar, who said that the sharp glass coated manja used for flying kites poses a serious threat to humans, birds and animals alike. 
●    The panel stated that the ban would apply on nylon, cotton and Chinese manjas that are coated with glass and metal.
●    Apart from this, the Manja Association of India has been told to submit a report on the harmful effects of the kite strings to the Central Pollution Control Board.
●    PETA in its petition had stated that the glass-coated string poses a great danger to both humans and animals and causes numerous deaths every year. 
●    The animal rights body also raised concerns regarding minors employed by the cottage industry for manja manufacturing, as due to inhaling of harmful substances, they are more susceptible to respiratory problems.
●    Acting on the same, the green tribunal had earlier issued notices to all state governments, asking for their response on PETA’s plea.

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PM Modi ranked 9th in Forbes list of World's Most Powerful People

The Forbes’ magazine's annual list of World’s Most Powerful People was released on 14 December 2016. 
●    Prime Minister Narendra Modi was ranked among the top 10 most powerful people in the world. He was ranked at 9th place on the list of 74 people.
●    The list was topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the fourth straight year. 
●    Putin is followed by President-elect of the US Donald Trump (2nd), German Chancellor Angela Merkel (3rd) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (4th).
●    Top 10 in the list are:
Rank    Name    Country/Organisation
1    Vladimir Putin (64)    Russia
2    Donald Trump (70)    The United States
3    Angela Merkel (62)    Germany
4    Xi Jinping (63)    China
5    Pope Francis (79)    Roman Catholic Church
6    Janet Yellen (70)    The United States
7    Bill Gates (61)    Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
8    Larry Page (43)    Alphabet
9    Narendra Modi (66)    India
10    Mark Zuckerberg (32)    Facebook


 

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India Signs Open Skies Agreement With Six Countries During ICAN 2016 

International Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN) - 2016 were held recently in Nassau from 5th to 9thDecember, 2016.  In an informal conversation with media persons Shri R.N. Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation said that  the Conference was attended by 106 countries out of ICAO membership of 191 countries. India held negotiations with 17 countries and “Memorandum of Understanding” was signed with 12 countries.   The major issues resolved at these negotiations as per the directions in National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP 2016) are:
●    Increase in traffic rights:- India renegotiated traffic rights with Oman increasing the entitlements with 6,258 seats effective from Summer 2017 as the existing entitlements were nearly exhausted. The points of call remained unchanged.
●    India agreed with Saudi Arabia to increase the capacity by 8000 seats per week from IATA season when Indian carrier’s utilization reaches 80%. This was in response to the needs of increasing traffic between the two countries where Indian carriers have been utilising open sky in Damman to mount more flights than the Saudi Arabian side. 
●    Indian also agreed with Ghana to increase the present allocation of 2 frequencies to 7 frequencies per week to encourage connectivity between the two countries.
●    Open Skies agreement as per NCAP 2016 :- allows unlimited number of flights to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai, was signed with six countries namely Jamaica, Guyana, Czech Republic,   Finland, Spain and Sri Lanka. The new arrangement will encourage connectivity and passenger travel between India and these countries.
●    New Air Service Agreements were signed with Jamaica and Guyana.
●    Resolution of other issues relating to Air Services Agreement was also completed with Ghana, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Hong Kong, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

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Mahila Police Volunteer Initiative launched in Haryana 

The Mahila Police Volunteer initiative was launched in Haryana today. By launching the initiative in Karnal and Mahendragarh districts, Haryana became the first state to adopt this scheme. Originally conceived by the Union Ministry of Women & Child Development, Mahila Police Volunteer is a joint initiative with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Haryana today inducted the first batch of 1000 Mahila Police Volunteers. These volunteers have already been trained by the state State Police Authorities on their role and responsibility.
●    The Minister of Women & Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi in her message for the launch event has said, “The Ministry of Women and Child Development has undertaken a large number of initiatives for creating a safe and enabling environment for women in India. 
●    The Mahila Police Volunteers scheme is one such initiative. It envisages creation of a link between the police authorities and the local communities in villages through police volunteers who will be women specially trained for this purpose. We expect to have at least one such volunteer in every village whose primary job will be to keep an eye on situations where women in the village are harassed or their rights and entitlements are denied or their development is prevented.
●    Launching the initiative, the Chief Minister of Haryana, Shri Manohar Lal Khattar said that the age-old concept of women empowerment is finally taking shape as words are being put into action. Doubts were raised over the implementation of women empowerment in Haryana but the state took it up as a challenge, the Chief Minister explained. 


 

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Indian Railways bags highest ever 27 National Energy Conservation Awards for the Year 2015-16 

The continuous efforts of Ministry of Railways and Zonal Railways to embrace various energy efficient technologies and energy conservation measures had resulted in bagging 27 National Energy Conservation Awards (NECA) this year, highest ever by Railways. These awards are given annually by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) which is under aegis of Ministry of Power, Government of India to aware people about the importance of energy as well as conserving the energy by using energy efficient equipments & systems and for encouraging energy conservations in various energy intensive sectors. This year a total of 156 awardees were selected out of 921 applications in various categories.
●    These awards were given in 22 major category (like Railways, hospitals, office buildings, industry, power, plant etc.) covering 53 different subsectors of large and medium scale industries mainly on the basis of improvement in specific energy and energy conservation initiatives based on recommendations of an Award Evaluation Committee under Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). 
●    Electrical Energy Management Directorate of Ministry of Railways has enunciated a number of policies for implementation by Zonal Railways for reducing the energy intensity and electricity consumption. These includes
●    Installation of 100% LED lights at all Railway buildings & installations.
●    Using of 3 phase energy efficient locomotives.
●    Net zero energy building concept for new Railway stations
●    Use of BEE Star rated equipments  in Railway applications
●    Energy audits of large load centres, to assess demand profile and actual end use to map energy consumption pattern
●    Implementation of energy efficiency related works with Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) over Railways

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