Notes:
The Maharashtra government has launched Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee International Schools in Mumbai on the occasion of 94th birth anniversary of the late Prime Minister. The school is affiliated to the Maharashtra International Education Board (MIEB) with an aim to achieve higher education standards in rural areas.

Notes:
Divya Patidar Joshi has been crowned the prestigious Mrs India 2018 at the Mrs. India My Identity Beauty Pageant 2018 finale in Delhi on December 25, 2018. Hailing from Madhya Pardesh’s Ratlam, Divya won the crown of Mrs India from among 24 promising contestants. She won all the rounds of Beauty with Brain contest along with Best Cat Walk title. Now, she will represent India at the Mrs Universe 2019 event.

Notes:
On 26th December, the tribal Baduga community in the Nilgiris district of Tamil nadu is celebrating their annual Heddaiyamman festival. In this connection, thousands of devotees clad in the traditional white dress of the community flocked to places like Kannerimukku and Kerbetta near Kotagiri and Hallu Kerai near Coonoor to pay obeisance to their presiding deity. People observe 48 days fast and walk in religious processions, holding up a holy shaft which symbolizes the miracle of the traditional Badaga goddess. The celebrations will continue throughout the coming week in different villages including Petthala, Beragani, and Ketti. The Badagas are an indigenous tribal group in the Nilgiris and occupy more than 400 remote hill villages in the district.

Notes:
On 27th December, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat launched a universal health coverage scheme, which is known as the ‘Atal Ayushman Uttarakhand Yojana’. Under the scheme, each household in the state will be able to avail medical treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh annually. The scheme will benefit 23 lakh households and will cover 1,350 critical diseases. A total of 99 government and 66 private hospitals have been selected under the scheme. With this, the hill state has become the first in the country to offer universal health coverage.

Notes:
On December 26, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has been conferred the “Champions of Change” award by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu for exemplary leadership in bringing about transformation in governance in the Northeastern state at an event organized at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The other awardees included Union Minister of State for Food Processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan and Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey. The award was instituted by the Centre to identify remarkable progress made in 115 “aspirational” districts whose development is being monitored by NITI Aayog. The event was attended by eminent jurists, politicians, social leaders etc. The award is an initiative of the Interactive Forum of Indian Economy, a Government of India (GoI) recognized NGO.

Notes:
The Odisha forest department is all set to add another Olive Ridley mass nesting site to its wildlife map at the Bahuda river mouth in Ganjam district to lure the endangered sea turtles to come over for mass nesting in 2019. Around 3-km stretch of the beach from Sunapur to Anantpur at Bahuda rookery is being developed as a possible olive ridley mass nesting site. The Bahuda rookery is located around 20 km to the south of Rushikulya rookery coast, a major mass nesting site of olive ridleys on the Indian coastline. In Odisha, Gahirmatha marine sanctuary and Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district are the two main Olive Ridley nesting sites. Of these sites, Gahirmatha marine sanctuary is the world’s largest rookery of endangered Olive Ridley Sea Turtles. Odisha is home to 50% of the total world’s population of Olive Ridleys and about 90% of Indian population of sea turtles.

Notes:
Luka Modric, who led Croatia to their first-ever FIFA World Cup final, has been named the 2018 Balkan Athlete of the year. Modric won the Champions League for the third time in a row with his club “Real Madrid” in May 2018 before leading Croatia to the 2018 World Cup final, where they lost 4-2 to France. He also won the prestigious Ballon d’Or for the first time earlier in December 2018. While Tennis player Novak Djokovic of Serbia got 2nd position in the Balkan poll, and Romania’s Simona Halep third. The poll was organized by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and included the national news agencies of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched a ‘Survey on Retail Payment Habits of Individuals (SRPHi)’ to capture payment habits of individuals in six cities, including four metropolitan towns. According to RBI release, the survey will cover a sample of 6,000 individuals from various socio-economic backgrounds across six cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Guwahati. The survey seeks qualitative responses from individuals on their payment habits. The findings may provide some idea about awareness and usage habits of digital payment products.

Notes:
The Pakistan Cabinet has recently approved the issuance of first-ever Chinese renminbi-denominated bonds to raise loans from China’s capital markets. The Panda bonds will be denominated in Chinese yuan. It is expected that the possible transaction size of bonds will be equivalent to $500 million in two different tranches. They will help the government diversify the investor base of capital market issuance and provide a source of raising renminbi (RMB). The size, tenure and pricing would be determined on the basis of market response at the time of issuance. Earlier, in March 2018, the Philippines became the first Association of Southeast Asian Nations member to issue Panda bond.

Notes:
The Delhi Police has become the first police force in the country to digitize all malkhanas, when Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik inaugurated the e-malkhana project in the remaining 10 districts at Chinamaya Mission. A booklet on e-malkhana functioning was also released on the occasion and a short film on how the project was executed was shown. Malkhanas are rooms for keeping seized arms and ammunition, across every police station in the state. Under the new innovative system, details of the case property are first entered into the software and a photograph is uploaded. The case property is packed in a cardboard box to prevent damage, and a unique barcode is generated for the same. The box is then placed on to a specific almirah or rack whose details are entered in the software. This makes location of the case property easier by simply entering details of the case property in the software module. The software also allows the details of any case property being visible at the simple click of a button. According to the official release, around 3, 11,600 case properties have been encrypted in digital form across all the police stations in the state.