Current Affairs of 30th December 2018

1. Qatar is withdrawing from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as of January 2019, Saad al-Kaabi, the country’s Energy Minister said on Monday, December 3, 2018. The decision came after Qatar, one of OPEC’s smallest producers but the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter, reviewed ways to enhance its role internationally and plan long-term strategy, including focusing on its gas industry, he said.

2. The National Green Tribunal on Monday asked the Delhi government to deposit Rs 25 crore with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for their failure to curb the problem of pollution in the city.

3. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to put a stop to their tit-for-tat tariffs row, which had roiled world markets for months

4. Five northeast states have signed separate MoUs with the Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL), a central PSU, to implement smart city projects. Seven cities of the five states would come under the purview of the MoUs signed for developing cloud-based Integrated Command and Control Centre for implementation of the Smart City Mission, sources said. The seven cities are Imphal in Manipur, Itanagar and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh, Kohima in Nagaland, Namchi and Gangtok in Sikkim and Shillong in Meghalaya.

5. A Sri Lankan court issued an order preventing Mahinda Rajapaksa from acting as Prime Minister.

6. A Delhi court on Monday discharged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and six others in a case of alleged rioting in front of the house of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2012. According to the prosecution, on August 26, 2012, Kejriwal and others had held a demonstration against coal scam in front of Singh’s house and in order to stop them, water cannons were used following which the volunteers became violent.

7. Binny Bansal, Flipkart’s co-founder, Chairman and Group CEO, resigned following an independent investigation of an allegation of serious personal misconduct against him, the company’s parent Walmart said in a statement.

8. Chanda Kochhar quits as CEO of ICICI Bank

9. Pawan Singh has become the first Indian to be elected one of seven member’s of the Judges Committee of the International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF).

10. NASA’s InSight spacecraft designed to burrow beneath the surface of Mars landed on the red planet after a six-month, 300 million-mile (482 million-kilometre) journey and a perilous, six-minute descent through the rose-hued atmosphere.