1. Exit-polls handover big victory for BJP in Gujarat, AAP in Delhi civic polls: The final phase of elections in Gujarat concluded yesterday. Exit poll results indicate a big win for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat and a narrow victory in Himachal Pradesh. Also, as per exit-poll predictions, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to sweep Delhi civic polls.
2. FM asks DRI to keep a close watch on gold smuggling: Unveiling “Smuggling in India Report 2021-22” on the 65th founding day of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked DRI to find “if there is any relation between higher gold imports and higher detection of gold smuggling.”
3. India and Germany sign migration and mobility agreements: Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock, who is on a two-day visit to New Delhi, met Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar today. Both nations signed agreements on migration and mobility.
4. Supreme Court makes sharp remarks on religious conversions through lure: Acknowledging that forced religious conversion is a very serious matter, the Supreme Court bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar, on Monday, said Charity is welcome, but its purpose should not be ‘conversion.’
5. IMD warns of extremely very heavy rainfall in North Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and South Andhra Pradesh on December 8: IMD has warned that the Depression over the Bay of Bengal will gradually intensify into a Cyclonic Storm and reach the Puducherry, North Tamil Nadu, and South Andhra Pradesh Coast by December 8. It has also predicted Extremely Heavy rainfall in the region on Thursday.
6. Iran gives in to anti-hijab protests, set to abolish morality police: In a major policy shift, the Iranian government announced that it is abolishing the morality police, buckling to prolonged protests over the custodial death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
7. US Epidemiologist, who worked with Wuhan lab, calls Covid-19 a human-made virus: According to a report in The New York Post, epidemiologist Andrew Hub in his new book “The Truth About Wuhan” has revealed that Covid-19 is a human-made virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. He has also claimed that the US government had funded coronaviruses in China.
8. Russia remains the biggest oil supplier to India: Russia continues to be the biggest supplier of oil to India for the second consecutive month. As per Votexa data, Moscow supplied 909,400 barrels per day (BPD) of Crude to India this November, which is roughly 21% of oil imported by the country.
9. Sikh woman in Brampton, Canada gunned down: In what appears to be a case of targeted killing, 21-year-old Pawanpreet Kaur, employed in a gas station at Brampton in Canada, was gunned down on December 3. According to Peel Regional Police statement, despite life-saving attempts in Kaur, she succumbed to the injuries.
10. 2022’s word of the year is Goblin mode: ‘Goblin mode’ is the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year for 2022. The slang term refers to “a type of behavior unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms of expectations.”
Image: Economic Times