NATIONAL

CDSCO in process of pandemic readiness report

• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation working on the pandemic readiness report is set to finalise the process in delivering the report.
• The report is expected to be submitted to the government in 30 days.
• The proposal in the report includes adding more staffs to the organization and improving the laboratory infrastructure aimed to ensure the countries preparedness for more pandemics and health emergencies in the near future.
• The board has also signed Mou;s with various countries like Argentina and Brazil to share the knowledge and best practices in handling the pandemic.

WTO ministerial meeting Postponed

• The 12^th World Trade Organization(WTO) ministerial meeting that was set to take place in Geneva was postponed because of the surge in new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
• Due to the postponed of the meeting the Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal had spoke with his South African counterpart Ebrahim Patel on the TRIPS waiver agreement to handle the the pandemic.

Additional Fact-

1. World trade Organisation director- Ngozi Okonjo Iweala
2. WTO headquarters-Geneva, Switzerland

Four new Panels for EPFO

• Labour and Employment Minister Bhupendra Yadav has approved four new ad-Hoc committees for the functioning of Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO).
• Two committees on Pension Reforms and IT and communications will be headed by Labour Secretary Sunil Barthwal.
• Another committee on EPFO’s internal human resources and establishment matters will be chaired by Ministry of State for Labour and Employment Rameshwar Teli.
• The Pension reforms committee will have a 8 member board and the IT and communications committee will have a 10 member board.
• The committees will be making reports on different functioning of EPFO.

COVOVAX approval delayed

• The Subject Expert Committee on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has asked for more data from the Serum Institute for the approval of the COVOVAX vaccine for emergency use purpose.
• The Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trial on safety and immunogenicity data has been conducted and submitted to the Expert committee.
• The Subject Expert committee has also noted that the approval of the vaccine for emergency use was not granted at the country of origin also.

INTERNATIONAL

Katrin Jakobsdottir to continue as Iceland’s PM

• Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left Green Movement will continue as the prime minister of Iceland for four more years.
• The Left green Party and Centre right progressive party together has won 28 out of 63 seats in the parliament on September.

Iran resumes on Nuclear talks

• Iran is set to resume nuclear talks known as Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action(JCPOA), the country will also conduct talks with remaining partners China, Russia, Germany, France and UK.

New PM elected to Czech

• Petr Fiala has been appointed as the new Prime minister of Czech, He was appointed by the Czech President Milos Zeman.

BANKING, FINANCE AND ECONOMICS

NPCI doubles number of users for Whatsapp Pay

• The Whatsapp has been permitted by the National Payments Corporation of India to double its users using Whatsapp Pay.
• Currently 40 million users will be permitted to use the payment module from the 20 million last year.
• Whats app pay working on Unified Payments Interface has also planned to introduce India’s First features.

Additional Fact-

Whatsapp Director Payments- Manesh Mahatme.

Hinduja to raise its stake in Indusland Bank

• The private sector lender Hinduja Group of companies is ready to raise its stake in the Indusland International Holding Ltd.
• Currently it holds a stake of 16.4%, the move to raise its stake comes after the RBI;s decision to increase the maximum stake holding capacity.
• The company is planning to acquire a stake of 26% which would need $1.1 billion.

SPORTS

India wins PSA tour title.

• Saurav Ghosal of India has won the Professional Squash Association after three years defeating Miguel Rodrigues of Colombia.
• Previously Ghoshal has won the PSA title on 2018 at Kolkatta.

Ramkumar wins Bahrain Ministry of Interior Tennis Challenger

• India’s tennis player Ramkumar Ramanathan won his first Challenger level singles tennis in Bahrain Ministry of Interior Tennis Challenger defeating Evgeny Karlovskiy.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Nov 29^th is observed as International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.