October, 2016 current affair’s (For Clat)

1.      The noted music director and violinist, Uttam Singh has been named for 2016 Lata Mangeshkar Award for Lifetime Achievement for his contributions in the field of music by the Maharashtra government. The award carries a citation, a trophy and Rs. 5 lakh in cash.

2.      The telugu author and eminent scholar, Prof. Kolakaluri Enoch has been honoured with the 29th Moortidevi Award 2015 for his novel "Ananta Jeevanam". The novel portrays the struggle of a weak, downtrodden and common man from Rayalseema in the face of a cyclone.

3.      Tamil Nadu has topped the list of endemic flowering plant in India, according to the recently released publication of Botanical Survey of India (BSI) titled "Endemic Vascular Plants of India".As per the latest publication, Tamil Nadu accounts for the highest number of species with 410, followed by Kerala (357 species) and Maharashtra (278 species). 

4.      Somesh Sharma of Rashtradoot Saptahik has been elected as the new President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) for 2016-17. He succeeded P V Chandran of Grehalakshmi (Mathrubhumi Group). The INS is a kind of pressure group which works to protect the interest of newspaper industry in particular and print media in general. Its headquarters are at Rafi Marg, New Delhi. 

5.      The United Nations' (UN) International day of Older Persons is observed every year on October 1 to raise awareness about issues affecting the elderly and to appreciate the contributions that older people make to society.The 2016 theme is "Take a Stand Against Ageism".

6.      The very strong Typhoon Chaba is expected to hit the southern islands of Japan, with a speed of 290 km/ hr. The typhoon is likely to threaten lives and bring damage to property across the Ryukyu Islands and mainland Japan.

7.      Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, will be the chief guest for the 68th Republic Day celebrations of India on January 26, 2017.

8.      The short film "Murga", which was directed by young filmmaker Katyayan Shivpuri from Maharashtra, has won the first prize at the Swachh Bharat Short Film Festival (SBSFF). The short film promotes the idea of clean India in which "Murga" as the metaphor depicts the victims that citizens have made of themselves and of the children by not keeping the surroundings clean. Minister of Information and Broadcasting, M Venkaiah Naidu awarded Katyayan with a certificate and a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh.

9.      The Japanese scientist, Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components. Dr Ohsumi's work is important because it helps to explain what goes wrong in a range of illnesses, from cancer to Parkinson's. The prize was awarded by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

10.  Prof. S Sivakumar, a professor at the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, has been appointed as the full-time Member of the 21st Law Commission of India (LCI). The 21st LCT was constituted by the Union Government for a period of 3 years from September 1, 2015 and will have its tenure only till August 31, 2018. The present Law Commission has not submitted any report till date. Justice Balbir Singh Chauhan, the former Supreme Court (SC) judge, is the Chairman of the commission.

11.  The Chinese currency "Yuan" has officially become a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s basket of global reserve currencies. With this, yuan has joined the U.S. dollar, the euro, the yen and British pound in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket, which determines currencies that countries can receive as part of IMF loans. The yuan is the first to be added to SDR since the euro in 1999. China will use this opportunity to further deepen economic reforms and open up the sector to promote global growth.

12.  Jharkhand has become the first Indian state to implement Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in Kerosene. The scheme is being implemented in 4 identified districts of the State from October 1, 2016. These districts are Chatra, Hazaribagh, Khunti and Jamtara. Under the DBT Scheme, PDS kerosene is being sold at non-subsidised price and the subsidy is being transferred to consumers directly into their bank accounts. The purpose of the initiative is to rationalize subsidy and plugging the leakages. 

13.  The British-born scientists, David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz have been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter. The discoveries have paved the way for designing new materials with all sorts of novel properties. All three laureates are conducting their research at universities in the United States. They will share the 8m kronor (£727,000) prize; it was announced by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden.

14.  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently released its 4th bi-monthly monetary policy statement for the year 2016-17. As per the monetary policy statement, the policy repo rate under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) has cut by 25 bps to 6.25 %, the reverse repo rate under the LAF stands adjusted to 5.75 % and the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate to 6.75 % and also Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) is at 20.75 %. The decision to cut interest rates is consistent with the aim of achieving a midterm inflation target of 4 % within a band of + or – 2 %. Though, the RBI has kept the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) of scheduled banks unchanged at 4.0 % of Net Demand and Time Liabilities (NDTL). It is first time that the newly constituted Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has made India's first collective interest rate decision. The next monetary policy review will be announced on December 7, 2016.

15.  The World Space Week (WSW) is an annual event i.e. observed from 4-10 October every year in various parts of the world including Europe and Asia. It is officially defined as an international celebration of science and technology and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition. The 2016 theme is "Remote Sensing: Enabling our Future", which celebrates Earth observation from space for the betterment of the human race.

16.  Dr. K J Yesudas, the veteran Carnatic vocalist and playback singer, has become brand ambassador of Haritha Keralam (Green Kerala) project of the Kerala government. The project is a massive initiative envisaged for a garbage-free and clean state.

17.  The State Bank of India (SBI) has become the first domestic bank of India to open a branch in the capital city of Yangon, Myanmar. Ghanshyam Srivastava has been appointed as the chief executive of SBI Yangon branch. The Yangon branch is the 54th foreign branch of SBI, which has extended the global presence of SBI in 37 countries through 198 offices.

18.  Prof. Nayanjot Lahiri has been awarded the 2016 John F. Richards Prize for her book "Ashoka in Ancient India". The book has been critically acclaimed for its riveting account of charismatic emperor Ashoka who spoke to his people through his edicts, his victories and loss that left a legacy that surpassed him. Lahiri is a professor of History at the Ashoka University in Haryana. The John F. Richards Prize is awarded annually by the American Historical Association (AHA) to the best book in South Asian history published in English. The prize will be awarded at the Association's 131st Annual Meeting in January, 2017.

19.  The World Teachers' Day (WTD) is observed every year on October 5 to mobilize support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers. The 2016 theme is "Valuing Teachers, Improving their Status".

20.  The 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) India Economic Summit has been inaugurated by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on October 6, 2016. The theme of the summit is "Fostering an Inclusive India through Digital Transformation'. The 2-day summit will focus on issues like digital transformation and regional economic integration. At least 600 participants from a little over 30 countries will take part. 

21.  Antonio Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal, will become the 9th new Secretary General of the United Nations after the UN Security Council declared him to be the unanimous choice in the 6th straw poll. Guterres, who led the UN refugee agency for 10 years, will succeed Ban Ki-moon in 2017.

22.  Sushil Chandra, a 1980 batch officer of Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre), has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy making body for the Income Tax department. He will replace Rani Singh Nair, who retires on October 31, 2016. Currently, Chandra is the member (Investigation) of the CBDT. 

23.  The first edition of the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) 2016 has been inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee on October 5 in New Delhi. The 4-day summit is organized by The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) with theme "Beyond 2015: People, Planet and Progress". It will be one of the first international platforms to discuss the new agenda post the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the signing of the Paris Agreement. The attempt will be to initiate discussions on methodologies to be adopted to chalk a path to realize the goals beyond 2015. The summit would emphasis on the need to limit the rise of climate change.

24.  The book "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" has been authored by Arundhati Roy, which will release in June 2017. It is fiction-based novel and will be published by Hamish Hamilton UK and Penguin India.

25.  Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian President, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to 6 million people. The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process.

26.  Arun Jaitley, the Union Finance Minister, has chaired the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Meeting at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters in Washington DC, United States. During the meeting, two important issues- the "Economics of Climate Change and Financing Climate Adaptation and Mitigation" and "International Taxation-a Commonwealth Conversation around the Panama Papers" were discussed and deliberated. Apart from this, Jaitley also chaired the Governing Council meeting of the BRICS'Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The CRA is a framework for the provision of support through liquidity and precautionary instruments in response to actual orpotential short-term balance of payments pressures. 

27.  Pawan Chamling, the Chief Minister of Sikkim, has been honoured with the prestigious 2016 Sustainable Development Leadership Award (SDLA) of the The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in recognition of his vision and leadership in environment and sustainable development leading to the establishment of Sikkim as the first and only organic state in India. Chamling was presented with the award by President Pranab Mukherjee during World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

28.  The Union Ministry for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has constituted a high-level technical team to visit the river Cauvery basin area in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to assess the ground situation. GS Jha, the Chairman of Central Water Commission (CWC), will head the Cauvery supervisory committee and will submit its report to the Supreme Court by October 17, 2016.

29.  The Bathukamma festival is a floral festival, which is celebrated every year by the Hindu women of Telangana. The 9-day festival indicates the beginning of Sharath Ruthu.This year, Telangana women have established a new world record with the largest participation ever in the traditional Batukamma festival. A record 9,292 women performed the customary dance around the 20-foot Batukamma flower arrangement set in the centre of the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad, seeking blessings and benevolence of the deity for the happiness and prosperity of the State. The spectacular performance garnered the State a place in the prestigious Guinness Book of Records. With this, Telangana women have broken the earlier record set by 5,211 Kerala women for the largest Onam congregation.

30.  India's first-ever international arbitration centre has set up in Mumbai, Maharashtra on October 8, 2016. The Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) has been launched by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, which will help in resolving disputes worldwide between different companies or individuals. The world-class facility will bring greater transparency, accountability and credibility to the process of resolving overseas arbitration. Till now, the closest arbitration centre for India was in Singapore.

31.  UK-born Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland have won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics for their contributions to contract theory. Their theories are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design. They will share the 8m kronor ($924,000) prize; it was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden.

32.  The International Day of the Girl Child (IDGC) is celebrated annually on October 11 to recognize girls' rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. The 2016 theme is "Girls' Progress = Goals' Progress: What Counts for Girls". 

33.  The 3rd edition of the SAARC Sufi festival will be held at the Diggi palace in Jaipur from October 14-16, 2016. The event is being organized by SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL). In it, SAARC Sufi scholars, poets, Sufi musicians, singers and dancers and performers will participate excluding Pakistan. The festival would be a melange of Sufi dance and music performances, poetry, book readings, book launches and interactive sessions. The topics like Sufism and its inter religious links, Sufi-Bhakti harmony, promoting sufi tenets for world peace, teachings of Sufism and application in today's life, women in Sufism, etc will be discussed.

34.  India's remote and high altitude research station "Himansh" has recently opened at a remote region in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh above 13,500 ft (> 4000 m). It is established by National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences to better study and quantifies the Himalayan glacier responses towards the climate change. The research station will provide the much needed fillip to the scientific research on Himalayan glaciers and its hydrological contribution.

35.  India has been ranked 97th out of 118 countries in the 2016 Global Hunger Index (GHI). The focus of the 2016 GHI is to present a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger, focusing on how the world can get to Zero Hunger by 2030.The GHI is a multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of countries' hunger situation. It describes India's hunger situation as "serious". The Index is released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

36.  The book "The Legend Of Lakshmi Prasad" has been authored by Twinkle Khanna, which will be launch on November 2016.

37.  Indian Railways has recently signed pact with Germany for running high-speed trains in India. The pact will deepen the collaboration and strengthen ties between the two countries for bilateral cooperation in the rail sector.

38.  The 2016 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to US musician and poet Bob Dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. Dylan is the first American to receive the award since 1993. The prize of 8 million Swedish kronor will be awarded to him. The literature prize is given for a lifetime of writing rather than for a single work.

39.  King Bhumibol Adulyadej (88) of Thailand has recently passed away in Bangkok. He was the world's longest-reigning monarch and was seen as a stabilizing figure in a country hit by cycles of political turmoil and multiple coups. Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn will be the new monarch.

40.  Portugal's ex-Prime Minister, Antonio Guterres has been officially appointed as the 9th UN secretary-general by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). For this, the 193 member states of the UNGA adopted a resolution by acclamation to appoint Guterres. He will become the world's top diplomat on 1st January 2017 when Ban Ki-moon's second five-year term ends on December 31, 2016.

41.  Brazil has won the first-ever BRICS U-17 football tournament by defeating South Africa in the final by 5-1 demolition of in the title clash in Margao, Goa.

42.  The United Nations' (UN) International Day of Rural Women is observed every year on October 15 to recognize rural women's importance in increasing agricultural and rural development worldwide. The 2016 theme is "Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too", which tries to bring focus on farmers, fishers and pastoralists who are standing on the frontlines of food insecurity as temperatures rise, weather patterns become less predictable and climate-related disasters become more frequent.

43.  China has successfully launched its longest-ever manned space mission "Shenzhou-11" spacecraft into space by a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre near the Gobi Desert, China. The two astronauts will stay in space for 30 days to test complex's ability to support human life. They will also conduct medical and scientific experiments. The purpose of the mission is to dock with the Tiangong-2 space laboratory and gain experience from a 30-day residence and to test its life-support systems.

44.  The 104th edition of Indian Science Congress (ISC) 2017 will be held at the Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh from January 3 to 7, 2017. In the 2017 ISC, 9 Nobel Laureates from the United States, Japan, France, Israel and Bangladesh would attend the event and share their experiences. In addition to this, a huge contingent of 200 scientists from foreign nations, 10,000 scientists representing various national laboratories, faculty and research scholars from Indian universities and several others will take part in the event to exchange their views on a range of scientific issues, both on national and international level.

45.  ICICI Bank has become the first Indian lender to complete a banking transaction using blockchain technology. This remittance transaction has been completed in partnership with Emirates NBD, a lender from the West Asia. Blockchain is a digital ledger which keeps real-time record of each and every transaction and is shared among a distributed network of computers, more like a shared spreadsheet.

46.  The book "Jinnah Often Came To Our House" has been authored by Kiran Doshi and is shortlisted for The Hindu Prize 2016. It provides a glimpse on the personal life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

47.  The book "The Adivasi Will Not Dance" has been authored by Hansda Sowendra Shekhar, which is shortlist for The Hindu Prize 2016. It is about a visit to Jharkhand by the President of India to inaugurate a thermal power station that is coming up on land from which Santhals have been evicted.

48.  The 2nd joint tactical exercise "Sino-India Cooperation 2016" has been held between India and China in the area of Border Personnel Meeting Hut at Chushul Garrison of Eastern Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). During the day long exercise on Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) a fictitious situation of earthquake striking an Indian Border village was painted. Afterwards, joint teams carried out rescue operations, evacuation and rendering of medical assistance. The Indian team for the exercise was led by Brigadier R S Raman and that of the Chinese was led by Sr Col Fan Jun.

49.  London has topped the 2016 Global Power City Index, as per 2016 GPCI report, which was recently released by the Japan-based Mori Memorial Foundation's Institute for Urban Strategies. The report ranks 42 major cities of the world across six key measures of economy, research and development, culture, accessibility, environment and livability. Mumbai, the only Indian city, ranked 39th on the list of the world's leading global cities for business, innovation and culture.

50.  Sir David Cox has been awarded with the first International Prize in Statistics, which will be presented to him in July 2017 at the World Statistics Congress in Marrakech. The award carries $75,000 and is considered the highest honor in its field. It recognizes an individual or team for major achievements using statistics to advance science, technology and human welfare. It also helps to raise media and public awareness of the growing importance of statistics to modern life and promotes understanding of the myriad and diverse ways statistics affects the lives of every person alive today. 

51.  The very strong Typhoon Haima has recently hit the Philippines that cause widespread destruction. The houses are destroyed as communities take shelter from sustained winds of more than 225km/h. After Philippines, Haima made landfall over Haifeng County, Shanwei in the Guangdong province of China.

52.  Lamberto Bertole has honoured the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader with the Milan Honorary Citizenship award at a ceremony held at the Arcimboldi Theatre in Milan, Italy. Bertole is the Chairman of the Council of Milan.

53.  Indian Railways have won the World Railway Shooting Championship Cup at Saint Mandrier, France. This is the first time that Railways have won this competition. Indian Railways team won a total 10 medals – 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze to bag the Overall Championship at the 15th USIC- the International Shooting World Championship. The USIC is the International railway sports association, whose purpose is to encourage the practice of amateur sport among railway employees all over the world.

54.  The Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) is located in Andhra Pradesh. It is in news because Lutrogale perspicillata (smooth-coated otter) has been sighted for the first time in the mangrove forest adjacent to the KWS in Krishna district. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), conservation status of the Smooth-coasted Otter is at vulnerable list.

55.  The book "Andhere se ujale ki aur" has been authored by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, which recently launched at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. The book is a compilation of blogs and articles by Jaitley that have appeared at various times.

56.  The Central Council of Homoeopathy (CCH) is a statutory apex body under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Department of AYUSH. It is in news because the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has recently arrested Dr. Ramjee Singh, the President of the CCH, and a private person on charges of accepting Rs.20 lakh in bribe to give a favourable inspection report for setting up of a homeopathy college. The headquarters of CCH is at New Delhi.

57.  The Almatti Dam is a hydroelectric project on the Krishna River at the Bagalkot district in North Karnataka. It is in news because the dam has been chosen for the World Bank's Award of Excellence for best utilization of funds (Rs. 72 crore) for renovation to increase the strength of the dam.The project was taken up under the Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) for strengthening the reservoir, one of the largest reservoirs in Karnataka. The World Bank (WB) had granted Rs.72 crore to the Krishna Bhagya Jal Nigam Limited to prevent seepage which could damage the dam.

58.  India has won the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup by defeating Iran in a final by 38-29 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. This was India's 3rd World Cup in the Standard Style version of Kabaddi.

59.  North Korea has won the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World cup by defeating Japan in the final by 5-4 on penalty shootout in Jordan. With this, North Korea has become the first team to win the tournament twice.

60.  India's first railway university will be set up in Vadodara, Gujarat, which will help in carrying out innovation and modernization for the Indian Railways. Initially, the present campus for National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR), Vadodara, will be used to start the railway university. After land acquisition, a full-fledged university will be started.

61.  The United Nations Day is observed every year on October 24 to mark the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter. With the ratification of this founding document by the majority of its signatories, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, the United Nations officially came into being. The 2016 theme is "Freedom First". This year's UN Day will be used to highlight concrete actions people can take to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

62.  India's first startup magazine "Cofounder" has been launched by Adhish Verma and Arunraj Rajendran. The magazine will talk about real stories behind the early stage startups and entrepreneurs. It would emerge as the new data storage and communications medium and through its first launch of magazine are essential to inform Indian CEOs and CIOs of the different startups to aware the startup life, the struggles and the journey.

63.  The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be held in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018. It is a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The official mascot for the World Cup is "Zabivaka". In Russian language Zabivaka means "the one who scores", a wolf who radiates fun, charm and confidence. The wolf will not only promote the event and entertain crowds at the stadiums, but also become an ambassador for Russia and a worldwide celebrity.

64.  The first National Tribal Carnival will be launched in New Delhi to promote a sense of inclusiveness amongst the tribals. The carnival will showcase and promote various facets of tribal culture on a large scale. The underlying idea is to preserve and promote various facets of the tribal life relating to culture, tradition, customs and their skills and to expose it to the general public with a view to utilizing the potential for overall holistic development of the Scheduled Tribes (STs). 

65.  The book "Dogs at the Perimeter" has been authored by Madeleine Thien. It's story is about the Cambodian genocide, which is as powerful as history, as magical as myth and a light shining on one of the darkest chapters of modern history.

66.  The 4th edition of the India-Sri Lanka joint military exercise "MITRA SHAKTI 2016" has started at Sinha Regimental Centre in Ambepussa, Sri Lanka from October 24 and will be continued till November 6, 2016. The main focus of this edition of the joint exercise is to enhance inter-operability while carrying out Counter Insurgency (CI)/Counter Terrorism (CT) operations under the United Nations Mandate. 

67.  Jammu and Kashmir (J & K) has the highest life expectancy in India for all ages, barring life expectancy at birth, as per recently data released by the Registrar General of India (RGI). The RGI publishes state level life expectancy-defined as the estimate of the average number of additional years that a person of a given age can expect to live – data for different ages: 0 (at birth), 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70. Though, Kerala has the highest overall life expectancy at birth, followed by Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.

68.  Paul Beatty has won the 2016 Man Booker Prize for his racial satire, 'The Sellout' at a ceremony in London's Guildhall. With this, he becomes the first American writer to win the Man Booker Prize. The novel tells the story of a young black man who tries to reinstate slavery and racial segregation in a suburb of Los Angeles. It is a satire on United States constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship and the holy grail of racial equality. The Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel, written in the English language and published in the UK. 

69.  India has been ranked 87th out of 144 countries on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index for 2016, improving from its 108 position in 2015. The list is topped by Iceland, followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden and Rwanda. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual benchmarking exercise that measures progress towards parity between men and women in four areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment.

70.  Junko Tabei (77), who was the first woman to climb the world's highest peak "Mount Everest", has recently passed away in Tokyo, Japan. She reached the summit of Mt.Everest in 1975. In 1992, she also became the first woman to scale the "Seven Summits", or the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents.

71.  India has been ranked 130th out of 190 countries in the World Bank's Ease of doing business index for 2017. The list is topped by New Zealand, followed by Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, the UK, the US, Sweden and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The latest edition of 'Doing Business' 2017 report examines regulations that enhance or constrain business activity of countries and ranks them according to the impacts of their regulatory environment on business. The rankings are based on ten parameters – starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

72.  The one-man judicial committee on One Rank One Pension (OROP) has submitted its report to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The Centre had appointed the committee, under the Chairmanship of retired Chief Justice of Patna High Court L Narasimha Reddy, to look into the anomalies, if any, arising out of implementation of OROP.

73.  Nadia Murad Basee and Lamiya Aji Bashar have been honoured with the 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the won the European Union's prestigious human rights award. Both are survivors of sexual enslavement by Islamic State (IS) and have become spokespersons for women afflicted by the terrorist group's campaign of sexual violence. They are also public advocates for the Yazidi community in Iraq, a religious minority that has been the subject of a genocidal campaign by IS militants. The Sakharov award will be presented to them in a ceremony that will be held in Strasbourg, France on December 14, 2016. The annual Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, established in 1988, is named after the Soviet physicist and outspoken dissident Andrei Sakharov and is awarded to individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to the fight for human rights across the globe.

74.  Antartica's Ross Sea has been declared as world's largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) after the landmark international agreement among 24 countries and the European Union in the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting in Hobart, Australia. The Ross Sea is one of the last intact marine ecosystems in the world, which covers 1.6 million square kilometers. It is home to penguins, seals, Antarctic toothfish and whales.

75.  Legendary Kashmiri singer and Padma Shri awardee, Raj Begum (89) has recently passed away in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir. She was also called the "Nightingale of Kashmir", whose captivating voice has ruled generations of Kashmiri music lovers. She was one of the most recognized female singers in the Kashmir Valley, who rendered thousands of songs from Radio Kashmir in Srinagar and in live concerts at other places in India and abroad.

76.  The book "Family Life" has been authored by Akhil Sharma, an Indian born-American author. The novel is the autobiography of the author, which mirrors the author's own experience of emigrating from India to America as a child. The 2016 International Dublin Literary Award has been awarded to him for his novel "Family Life".

77.  India has won the gold medal at the 2016 Asian Men's Hockey Champions trophy by defeating arch-rivals and defending champions Pakistan by 3-2 in the final at Kuantan, Malaysia. This is the second time India have won the title of this tournament.

78.  Mariano Rajoy Brey , the leader of conservative Popular Party (PP), is the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Spain, after winning a parliamentary vote. Till date, he was the acting Prime minister of Spain. 

79.  Himachal Pradesh has been declared India's second "Open Defecation Free (ODF)" state after Sikkim.The state has successfully achieved 100% coverage and total rural sanitation coverage in the state, with all 12 districts in the state achieving both these feats. With this newly acquired status, Himachal Pradesh will entitle to receive World Bank funding under Rs 9,000 crore projects to sustain sanitation campaign.