Notes:
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 has been released by the NGO Pratham. As per the report, student enrolments increased to more than pre-pandemic levels.
The report however warned that the learning gap widened for foundational skills in reading and arithmetic, reversing several years of improvement.

Notes:
India has been urging Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment which was brought in after the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement of 1987.
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the government will implement 13th Amendment, which provides for devolution of power to minority Tamil community. He also informed that a Social Justice Commission would be established to address the grievances of all communities.

Notes:
Mastercard announced the new phase of its flagship Girls4Tech programme in India, which will benefit over 10,800 girls from 30 government schools in Tamil Nadu.
This scheme is supported by the Mastercard Impact Fund and run in partnership with the American India Foundation (AIF). The expansion of the programme aims to reach additional 1 lakh female students across the country by 2024 to encourage them to take up Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Notes:
China’s population has declined for the first time in 61 years, statistics released by its National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The gap between the most populous country in the world and India, which is second-most populous, has narrowed to less than 40 million (4 crore) people. The country’s population earlier witnessed a decline in the 1960s under Mao Zedong’s leadership, during the Great Chinese Famine.

Notes:
The annual rate of inflation based on all India Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is 4.95% for the month of December 2022.
The figure was 5.85% recorded in November, 2022. The decline in the rate of inflation in December is primarily contributed by fall in prices of food articles, mineral oils, crude petroleum & natural gas, food products, textiles and chemicals and chemical products.