National

India and Russia to conduct 2+2 talks

• External affairs minister of India S Jaishankar and Defence minister of India Rajnath Singh are set to conduct 2+2 talks with Foreign affairs minister Sergey Lavrov of Russian Federation and Defence minister of Russian Federation Sergey Shoygu.
• This talks are expected to be held during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s to India on December 6.
• The talks are expected to be focused on defence agreements, science and technology and trade agreements.
• The two much awaited defence deal from Russia to procure AK 203 assault rifles and the Igla-S very short range air defence systems may be concluded during the talks.
• Russia is said to ink the Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics support Agreement with India and a Memorandum of Understanding between Navy to Navy co-operation.

‘Rashtra Raksha Samparan Parv’ was inaugurated

• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated three day ‘Rashtra Raksha Samparan Parv’ in Jhansi.
• The Defence festival is celebrated on the birth anniversary of Rani Laxmi Bai.
• During the inauguration Defence Minister addressed the people, he added that 2 lakh women have appeared in NDA entrance examination, and admissions for women are set to open in Sainik schools.

Additional fact-

• Rani  Laxmi Bai was born on Nov 19, 1828. She was the queen of Maratha princely state of Jhansi.
• She was one among the leaders to lead Indian Rebellion of 1857 to resist the British Raj.
• After her defeat in the battle against Sir Hugh Rose, British annexed Jhansi using Doctrine of Lapse.
• The women unit of Indian National Army was named after Rani Laxmi Bai.

Doctrine of Lapse-It was an  annexation policy used by Lord Dalhousie to annex the princely states under the control of East India company, where the ruler did not have legal male throne.

Satara, Jaitpur and Sambalpur, Baghat, Udaipur, Jhansi and Nagpur were annexed using Doctrine of Lapse.

Madhya Pradesh to provide ration only for fully vaccinated

• Food and Civil Supplies department issued an order to the MP govt. - stating that the beneficiaries receiving subsidised & free food grains at from ration shops should be fully vaccinated.
• Currently 76% of the people in Madhya Pradesh have been vaccinated.
• Indore has restricted the entry of people who are not fully vaccinated inside markets, Indore Zoo & public gardens.
• People who are not vaccinated are barred to use intercity & indra city government busses.
• Unvaccinated people are not allowed to book hotels & lodges.

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released

• The 16th Annual Status of Education Report was released, it reported on the schooling status of children between 5-16 age groups.
• The key findings of the report showed that, enrollment of children in Private school saw a low from 32.5% in 2018 to 24.4% in 2021.
• Among the older children in age groups of 15-16, saw a high in government school enrollment from 57.4% in 2018 to 67.4% in 2021.
• After the pandemic hidding the country, over two-thirds of all children enrolled have a smart phone at home (67.6%), ever a quarter of these have no access to it (26.1%.).
• The report also found that smart phone ownerships has doubled since 2018 (36.5% in 2018 to 67.6% in 2021).
• The ASER survey was conducted in 25 states and 3 union territories covering 518 districts.

Government approves provisioning of mobile service for villages

• The centre has approved to provide mobile services for 7,289 villages spread over five states.
• The project aims to provide 4G mobile services for all the 44 aspirational districts covering 7,287 villages in Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha.
• The project is funded by Universal Service obligation fund with an estimated cost of Rs. 6,466 crore, and aimed to be completed in 18 months.

Finance and Economics

Six Central Public Sector Enterprises is open for bid

• Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), has invited private players do bid for six Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE).
• Centre is in move to privatise six CPSE namely – BPCL, BEML, Shipping Corp, Pawan Hans, Central Electronics, NINL.
• Tuhar Kanda Pandey, Secretary of DIPAM also said that Initial Public offering for Life Insurance Corporation is expected on January.

GDP to likely grow – Economic Advisory council

• Economic Advisory council to PM (EAC-PM) has announced that the GDP of country will likely grow by 10% in 2021-22.
• Chairman of EAC-PM Bibey Debroy mentioned that the forecast for real growth were in 8.5% – 12.5% at the beginning of the FY-22.

SEBI introduces investors charter to protect investors

• Securities & Exchange Board of India launched investor charter to protect the interest of investors in the market.
• It helps the investors to understand the risks in investment, and invest in fair.
• It also helps investors in grievance redressal mechanism, it also provides alternate dispute resolution in agreements between investors & intermediaries.
• It also announced the do's & don't for the Investors.
• Do’s
  • Read documents carefully before investing
  • Know risks involved before investing
  • Know about Grievance Redressal Mechanism
  • Know about fees, charges, margins, premium etc.
  • Preserve relevant transaction related documents
• Dont’s
  • Don't share your critical information like account details, login IDs, Password, OIs with any one.
  • Don't make payment's in cash while making investment, beyond the prescribed limit.

Sports

Indian men won Bronze Medal

• Indian men archers won Bronze Medal by defeating Bangladesh in the Asian Archery championships.
• Aman Saini, Abhishek Verma, Rishabh Yadav jointly bagged the bronze medal for India.

Miscellaneous

• November 18^th is observed as World's Philosophy Day.