Notes:
Varsha Varman from Madhya Pradesh has won the women’s trap gold at the 62nd National Shotgun championship 2018 in Jaipur, Rajasthan. She shot 38 in the final to get the better of Junior World Cup finalist Soumya Gupta of Delhi, who ended with 37 hits for the silver medal. Defending champion Shagun Chowdhary of ONGC won bronze with a final round effort of 30. Earlier, Varman won the bronze at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games in the women’s double trap team event, along with Shagun Chowdhary and Shreyasi Singh.

Notes:
Prof Punyasloke Bhaduri was awarded the prestigious Swarnajayanti Fellowship by the central government for 2017-18 in the discipline of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Under this scheme, scientists are provided with generous support to pursue research in the frontier areas of science and technology. It is awarded for a period of 5 years. The Swarnajayanti Fellowship is given by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to Indian nationals, in the age group of 30-40 years having Ph.D in Science/ Engineering/ Medicine and a regular position in a recognized Indian academic/ research organization. Bhaduri belongs to the department of Biological Science and Centre for Climate and Environment Studies at the IISER (Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research) Kolkata.

Notes:
The Kerch Strait is a strait that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Its’ also a narrow sea passage that divides Crimea from mainland Russia. The strait is spanned by the recently completed 11.8 mile Kerch Bridge, connecting Crimea to Russia. Recently, it is in news because Russia’s coast guard opened fire on & seized three Ukrainian ships after a tense standoff in the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula. Russia blamed Ukraine for provoking the incident, which sharply escalated tensions that have been growing between the two countries since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Now, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko implement martial law for 30 days over the incident. The imposition of martial law permits the Ukrainian government to impose a range of drastic measures, if deemed necessary, including placing a ban public gatherings, restricting media freedoms, limiting the movement of Ukrainian nationals as well as foreign nationals and suspending elections. Hence, the confrontation at sea has raised fears of a wider military escalation and the UN Security Council (UNSC) hold an emergency session to consider a response.

Notes:
Playback singer Mohammed Aziz (64) has passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on November 27, 2018. Born in Ashoknagar, West Bengal, he was the voice behind evergreen tracks such as “My name is Lakhan”, “Aap ke aa jane se” and “Dil le gayi teri bindiya”. Aziz, who has over 20,000 songs to his credit, has sung in Bollywood, Bengali and Odia film industries. He has recorded several devotional bhajans and Sufi songs as well. has recorded several devotional bhajans and Sufi songs as well. He made his film debut with Bengali film, “Jyoti”. His career spanned over three decades and his collaboration with music composers like Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rahul Dev Burman, Naushad, OP Nayyar, Bappi Lahiri, Rajesh Roshan and Ravindra Jain have resulted in some of most iconic songs that people remember.

Notes:
The International Gita Festival 2018 will be held at Kurukshetra in Haryana from December 7-23 to commemorate the birth of ‘Srimad Bhagwat Gita’, the sacred scripture containing invaluable advice of Lord Krishna that he proffered to Arjuna, the third Pandava in the battlefield of Kurukshetra on the first day of the famous 18-day battle in the Mahabharata. In the fest, Mauritius will be the partner country and Gujarat the partner state. Approx 200 famous painters from across the country would reach Kurukshetra to draw paintings on the walls of Kurukshetra on the theme of the Mahabharata under the ‘paint-the-wall’ competition. Artists from India as well from Mauritius, Indonesia, Iran, Turkmenistan and Russia will perform during the annual festival.Apart from this, the Gita festival will also be organised in Mauritius on February 2019.