HIMACHAL PRADESH

Jai Ram Thakur was onday sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Himachal Pradesh along with 11 other ministers at a ceremony at the historic Ridge Ground here.
Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 52-year-old Thakur, a five-time MLA from Seraj, and other ministers which included six new faces.
The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, BJP veteran L K Advani and a host of union ministers.
The cabinet is complete as all 12 berths have been filled while two MLAs would be accommodated as speaker and deputy speaker.
Rajiv Bindal will be the speaker of the legislative assembly.

INTERNATIONAL

India will be establishing a Centre of Excellence in Information Technology (CEIT) at Al Azhar University, Egypt’s highest religious authority and one of the world’s most eminent seats of Sunni Muslim learning.

All the equipment and course material has reached Egypt and premises are being prepared for CIET, which will provide high-tech education and skills to the country’s youth, India’s Ambassador to Egypt, Sanjay Bhattacharyya, said.

Birmingham Games officials did not pick shooting, which features in the list of optional sports, for the final programme.

Instead the organisers chose judo, table tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, diving, cycling and 3v3 basketball as the seven optional sports apart from the 10 mandatory ones.

The final list of sports for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games is set to be finalised by end of the year.

Meanwhile, there are chances that cricket could feature at the 2022 edition, albeit in a mixed-gender Twenty20 (T20) format.

India has announced a development assistance of $25 million for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, from where thousands of Rohingya Muslims recently fled following incidents of violence against the community.

This came a day after Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar visited Myanmar and met Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.

An estimated 6,00,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State since late August after large-scale violence there.

· India and Russia hold talks to firm up economic & cultural relations

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is holding a meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation with visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
Mr Rogozin arrived in New Delhi. He is accompanied by senior Russian Government officials and representatives of trade and industry.
The meeting will enable the two sides to review the progress achieved by various Working groups and Sub-groups under the IRIGC-TEC and also discuss new areas of cooperation that could strengthen bilateral trade and investment.

NATIONAL

Good Governance Day is observed in India annually on 25 December, the birth anniversary of former-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Good Governance Day was established in 2014 to honor Prime Minister Vajpayee by fostering awareness among the Indian people of accountability in government.

In keeping with this principle, the Government of India has decreed Good Governance Day to be a working day for the government.

· Bengaluru to Host 7th International Coffee Festival

The seventh edition of the India International Coffee Festival (IICF)will be held in Bengaluru from January 16-19.
The four-day IICF 2018, being organized by the India Coffee Trust and State-run Coffee Board to promote the Indian coffees globally.
As per the officials, IICF 2018 would be a precursor to the International Coffee Organisation’s World Coffee Conference being hosted by India in Bengaluru in 2020.

Maharashtra set to generate 25,000 MW electricity through solar power.
Rather Maharashtra as a state tops in generating power through renewable energy around 7,500 MW.
The one state in producing power through renewable energy, with 7,500 MW generation capacity.
The government wants to take to this capacity to 10,000 MW.

Women are making inroads in all walks of life, successfully breaching the glass ceilings, but judiciary still seems to be a male bastion with women constituting only 28% of the current strength of 17,160 judges across all subordinate courts, high courts and the Supreme Court.The information gathered by the Union Law ministry paints a very dismal picture on the strength of women judges in the subordinate courts which is as low as 28% of the current strength of 16,443 judges, or 4,704 women judges in all. The situation in the Supreme Court and 24 High Courts is worse.
In fact, the women judges in the apex court account for just 4% of its current strength of 25 judges. There is only one woman judge in the SC—Justice R Banumathi. No woman judge has been appointed in the apex court in the last three years since August 2014.

Reservation for women in lower courts have been provided by at least 11 states ranging from 05% in Jharkhand to 35% in Bihar. Delhi, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat, Himachal, J&K, Kerala, MP, Punjab and Haryana are among more than 13 states that have no quota for women in the judiciary, according to the Law ministry information recently gathered from the High Courts.

Seeking to protect farmers from price volatility by ensuring guaranteed price for their produce, the Centre will come out with a draft model law on contract farming this month.

Contract farming is a system in which agro-processing/exporting or trading units enter into a contract with farmers to purchase a specified quantity of any agricultural commodity at a pre-agreed price. Integration of fruits and vegetable growers with agro-processing units will help farmers not only in getting better price for their produce but also in reducing post-harvest losses.

“Idea of the contract farming law is to protect farmers from price volatility, particularly in perishable items. Such a law will protect farmers from market fluctuations as it will ensure assured and better price of agricultural and horticultural produce to them through advance agreements.

Though Punjab had enacted a law on contract farming in 2013, it has so far not implemented it. States like Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have done this through amendments to their existing laws on agricultural marketing for select crops.