Indian-American Thomas Kurian, former Oracle President of product development and technologist, will become the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google Cloud in early 2019. Thomas Kurian will replace Diane Greene. Thomas Kurian will join Google Cloud on 26th November 2018. Diane Greene will continue as CEO till January 2019 and help Thomas Kurian transition into the leadership role. Thomas Kurian resigned from Oracle in September 2018. He had worked in Oracle for 22 years. He had been a member of Oracle’s Executive Committee for 13 years. He hails from Bengaluru.

• The report titled ‘Children, HIV and AIDS: The World in 2030’ was released by UNICEF on 29 November 2018.
• According to the report, in India, an estimated 120,000 children and adolescents aged 0-19 were living with HIV in 2017.
• The report noted that South Asia has made substantial progress in reducing HIV risks and vulnerability among children, adolescents, pregnant women and mothers.

On November 29, 2018, the High Level Empowered Committee (HLEC) chaired by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha released its recommendations for stressed thermal power projects. This committee was set up by Government of India in July 2018 and aimed at suggesting measures to resolve the challenges faced by the thermal projects. This report focused on 34 thermal power stations, totaling to a capacity of 40 gigawatt (GW), which are entirely fuelled by coal and lignite. The problems arose when after the twelth Five Year Plan, 99 GW capacity of plants were added against a requirement of 88GW which led to overabundance and lower productivity. Other factors included: the debt burden of the distribution utilities and the financial stress and the erratic coal supply.

The Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, co-hosted by Kenya, Canada and Japan, was held in Nairobi.

Scientists have found that MRI brain scans can help predict whether a person will develop dementia in the next three years before the symptoms of the disorder appear. In a study, researchers from Washington University and the University of California, San Francisco in the US used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans to predict dementia with 89 per cent accuracy.

On 27th November 2018, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued norms for interoperability among clearing corporation which is expected to bring down the compliance costs for market intermediaries and thereby the trading costs a well. Interoperability among clearing corporations means linking of multiple clearing corporations in order to allow market participants to effectively consolidate their clearing and settlement functions at the single clearing corporation. SEBI has directed all the clearing corporations to establish peer-to-peer link for ensuring interoperability. Interoperability will lead to efficient allocation of capital for the market participants.

On November 29, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched its earth observation satellite ‘ Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS) into orbit from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. Beside HysIS, The rocket ‘PSLV-C43’ successfully injected 30 small satellites of 8 nations into their designated orbits. With this launch, India will have an eye in the sky to capture the images of the earth surface in high definition. The satellite HysIS can send pictures and data in multiple frequencies with high resolution. Its data will be useful in many fields including agriculture, forestry, soil survey, geology, coastal zone studies, inland water studies, environmental monitoring and pollution detection from industries. The primary mission of the HysIS, whose mission life is five years, is to study the earth’s surface in visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. In simple words, HysIS is the India’s first hyperspectral imaging satellite for advanced Earth observation and ISRO’s first full-scale working satellite with this capability.

The government will give a subsidy of 5 percent for non-basmati rice exports for the four months to 25 March, 2019

A protocol on Hygiene and Inspection requirements for the export of Fish Meal and Fish Oil from India to China was signed on November 28, 2018 in New Delhi. The signing of Protocol formalises the consensus reached by both sides on hygiene and inspection requirements of fish meal and fish oil to be exported from India to China, and will enable India to commence export of fish meal and fish oil to China.

On 27th and 28th November 2018, the two day Second edition of India-UAE Strategic Conclave organized by Economic Times, India was held in the Capital of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abu Dhabi. Indian Ambassador to the UAE, Mr. Navdeep Suri inaugurated the conclave where Key Business leaders and senior government officials lay down the blueprint to improve Economic cooperation between the two countries and explore the opportunities to enhance trade.

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on November 26, 2018 launched the ‘PAiSA’ – Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access, a centralised electronic platform for quicker processing of loans under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM). The web platform was designed and developed by Allahabad Bank, the nodal bank under the scheme.

On November 27, 2018, a non-profit organization named the India Autism Center (IAC) in association with West Bengal government will build a world-class autism township near Kolkata at a cost of Rs 500 crore. This is a one-of-its-kind initiative,IAC,a non-profit organization under Section 8 of Companies Act, 2013 -will come up over a 52-acre plot at Sirakol in South 24 Parganas in the next five years. The soft launch of the project has been scheduled for January, 2019 and is expected to come up by 2023. This will house facilities for 350 residents and daycare centre for over 200 children.

The Uttarakhand government on November 25, 2018 decided to rename the Dehradun airport after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpaye. The proposal to rename the Jolly Grant airport after Vajpayee was approved by the state cabinet at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.

On November 27, 2018, central bank of India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in consultation with the government of India, reduced the mandatory hedging provision to 70 per cent from 100 per cent. Its objective is to ease the External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) norms. This move would enable Indian companies to borrow foreign currency-denominated ECBs for better liquidity as they don’t have to have a 100% hedge coverage. However, the ECBs thus raised should be ECBs under Track I, which refers to medium-term borrowings with average maturity between three and five years.

The government will give a subsidy of 5 per cent for non-basmati rice exports for the four months to March 25, 2019, the trade ministry said in the order dated Nov. 22.

As per the 6th edition & 2019 version of India Skills Report, Andhra Pradesh topped the list of states with the highest employability followed by Rajasthan and Haryana. Andhra Pradesh is one of the preferred hiring destinations in India, with the highest employability in India. Employability has risen to 47%, with female employability at 46% and male participation at 48%. It is high in B.Tech/ B.E. whereas that of MBAs are low.

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.

Odisha government has come out with lexicons of 21 such languages to keep vanishing tribal languages in circulation. The bilingual tribal dictionaries will be used in multilingual education (MLE) initiated by the State government at the elementary level in tribal-dominated districts.

Popular Assamese singer, Nahid Afrin was appointed as the first ‘Youth Advocate’ of the north eastern region by the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) to fight for child rights at an event held in Guwahati. Nahid Afrin from Biswanath Chariali, Assam made her playback debut in 2016 in the Bollywood film Akira, starring Sonakshi Sinha and won several awards

Kannada actor and politician Ambareesh passed away on November 24, 2018 due to cardiac arrest, sources said. He was 66. Known as a “rebel star”, Ambareesh had acted in over 200 films and had carved a niche for himself in the Kannada film industry.

On November 27, 2018, according to an annual report named- “Global Wage Report 2018/19: What Lies behind Gender pay gaps”, released byInternational Labour Organisation (ILO), India recorded the highest average real wage growth in South Asia during 2008-17. The Global wage growth in 2017 was not only lower than in 2016, but fell to its lowest growth rate since 2008. In the advanced G20 countries, real wage growth declined drastically especially in Europe (excluding Eastern Europe) countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In emerging and developing countries of the G20, real wage growth has fluctuated in recent years, rising from 2.9 per cent in 2015 to 4.9 per cent in 2016, and then falling back to 4.3 per cent in 2017. Workers in Asia and the Pacific have enjoyed the highest real wage growth among all regions over the period 2006–17 led by countries such as China, India, Thailand and Vietnam.