17th December 2019 Current affairs

1. Former Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf has been given death penalty for his unlawful decision of imposing emergency in 2007. The judgement was delivered by a special court in Pakistan on December 17, 2019. 

2. India was ranked at the 112th position in the recently released Gender Gap Index-2019. The index was released by the World Economic Forum. India’s rank has slipped from its previous 108th position in 2018. 

3. Iceland was ranked as the world’s most gender-neutral country in the WEF’s Gender Gap Index-2019, followed by Norway at the second position and Finland at the third position. 

4. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 (CAB) proposes to grant Indian citizenship to the religious minorities who have fled from three of India’s neighbouring nations- Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan- due to religious persecution or the fear of being persecuted. 

5. India will become the first Asian Country to Host International Geological Congress. India will be hosting the 36th International Geological Congress (IGC) in Delhi during March 2-8, 2020. 

6. Lieutenant General Manoj Mukund Narvane, Deputy Chief of the Indian Army, will be the next Chief of the Indian Army. The current army Chief Bipin Rawat is retiring on December 31. Narvane has served in various roles in the Army during his 37-year tenure. 

7. The ‘Surya Kiran’ military exercise between India and Nepal concluded on 16 December 2019. It is organized alternately in India and Nepal. Surya Kiran XIV had participation of about 300 soldiers from both the armies. 

8. The objective of FASTag is to provide smooth route for movement of vehicles at tolls across the country without any line. Earlier, the last date for FASTag was December 15, which has now been extended to January 15, 2020.  

9. Tehran University of Iran has created a robot that can understand, speak and translate 100 different languages. It can also recognize faces and can even kick a football. It is named ‘Surena’. It is weighing 70 kg and capable of running at a speed of 0.7 km per hour. 

10. Indian author Amitabha Bagchi has won DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019, for his novel ‘Half the Night is Gone’. This is his third novel and it is largely based on the age-old zamindari scheme.