1. Indian-American Neera Tanden is a brilliant policy mind with critical practical experience across governments, President-elect Joe Biden has said after he formally announced her nomination as the Director of Office of Management and Budget at the White House.
2. The UK on Wednesday became the first country in the West to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, making way for kickstarting mass vaccination, by granting emergency use authorisation to the coronavirus vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech.
3. China on Wednesday rejected U.S. accusations it is weakening its enforcement of U.N. sanctions against North Korea, but said more efforts are needed toward reaching a political settlement and greater attention should be paid to the impact of the sanctions on ordinary North Koreans.
4. The government in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has signed agreements with a Chinese company and a local renewable energy firm for the construction of 700MW hydropower project at an estimated cost of USD 1.35 billion in the region as part of the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a media report said on Wednesday.
5. Cyclone ‘Burevi’ forms in Bay of Bengal, likely to hit South Tamil Nadu on December 4
6. India has ‘strongly’ rejected the criticism of its Kashmir policy by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
7. The National Green Tribunal has directed that there would be a total ban on the sale and use of all kinds of firecrackers during COVID-19 pandemic in the NCR and all cities/towns in the country where the ambient air quality falls under the 'poor' and above category.
8. The Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), the nodal agency for maritime data fusion set up after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, will soon become a National Maritime Domain Awareness (NDMA) Centre.
9. The Indore district administration has decided to initiate action under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against two dairy owners for allegedly using a banned chemical to process milk, an official said.
10. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for India’s manufacturing shows that the sector’s expansion as well as the pace of new orders slowed down while employment declined further as business optimism faded during the month of November.PMI is an indicator of business activity in the manufacturing and services sectors.
11. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has launched the virtual edition of Aadi Mahotsav - Madhya Pradesh.The next focus state would be Gujarat, followed by West Bengal.
12. 56^th 'Raising Day' event of the Border Security Force (BSF) was held on 1^st December 2020 in New Delhi. The BSF was raised in 1965 after the India-Pakistan war.
13. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday gave a call to all doctors practicing modern medicine to withdraw non-essential and non-COVID services on December 11 in protest against a Central Council of Indian Medicine notification which authorises post-graduate practitioners in specified streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform general surgical procedures.
14. People in the state of Odisha will more need to dial different numbers like 100, 101, 102, 104, 108, 181 and 1098 for emergency services of police, ambulance, fire brigade  and women helpline. Single helpline number ‘112’, which will function soon, will provide all the emergency assistances by the  police department.
15. The Odisha Government provided interim compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of the alleged custodial death victim in Puri. This was informed by the Government counsel in the Orissa High Court during its hearing on the Puri custodial death.
16. As per the tax department, income tax refunds of ₹38,105 crores have been issued in 57,68,926 cases and corporate tax refunds of ₹1,02,105 crores have been issued in 1,99,165 cases
17. We are currently operating at around 70% of our pre-COVID capacity and we hope that the growth will continue into 2021', IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta said
18. Braving cold, farmers protesting at Delhi's Singhu border say prepared for long haul
19.  India has invited UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the chief guest for the country’s Republic Day celebrations on 26 January.2021
20. India accounted for the largest absolute reduction in malaria cases in South-East Asia, from approximately 20 million cases in 2000 to 5.6 million in 2019, as per the World Health Organization (WHO).

(Collected from Mass Media)