·       The veteran journalist Vinod Dua, who started his career with Doordarshan in the black and white era and went on to make his mark in the digital space in the decades that followed, died in Delhi's Apollo hospital on Dec 4 . He was 67.

·       Vinod Dua was a pioneer in Hindi broadcast journalism with stints in Doordarshan and NDTV and eclectic interests ranging from politics to cooking. He hosted the popular food programme "Zaika India Ka" for NDTV that saw him exploring distinct food cultures of different cities and towns in India.

·       He also anchored "Jan Gan Man Ki Baat" for The Wire Hindi.

·       In 2008, Vinod Dua was honoured with the Padma Shri for journalism.

·      He was also the first electronic media journalist to receive the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award.

·       The Assam government will bestow civilian awards on an array of personalities from diverse fileds, including industrialist and philanthropist Ratan Tata and Olympian Lovlina Borgohain , in the first year of these recognitions, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Dec 4 .

·       While Tata's name had already been announced for the state's highest civilian award ‘Assam Baibhav' on Dec 2, Sarma declared the awardees for ‘Assam Saurav' and ‘Assam Gaurav'.

·       The CM said the awards will be conferred on Asom Divas, celebrated on December 2 to commemorate the rule of Swargadeo Chaolung Sukapha , who founded the Ahom dynasty in Assam, which ruled the state for 600 years.

·       Ratan Tata was named as the recipient of the ‘Assam Baibhav' award for his contribution towards cancer care facilities in the state.

·       Among the five persons to be honoured with ‘Assam Saurav' are Olympian medallist Lovlina Borgohain, artist Neel Pawan Baruah and National Health Mission state director Lakhsmanan S.

·       Prof Kamalendu Deb Krori and Dr Dipak Chand Jain will also be awarded with ‘Assam Saurav' for their contributions in the field of education and business management, respectively.

·       The recipients of ‘Assam Gaurav' include Munindra Nath Ngatey, who has been in-charge of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the state, Dr Basanta Hazarika, among those at the forefront in the fight against the virus since the start of the pandemic, ANM nurse Namita Kalita and ASHA worker Bornita Momin.

·       Kalita has so far administered nearly one lakh Covid vaccines, the highest number of jabs given by an individual during the pandemic, while Momin had successfully vaccinated Phuloguri Garo Gaon in Sonitpur district by creating awareness and overcoming superstitious beliefs of villagers.

·       The chief minister said the ‘Assam Baibhav' award carries a cash component of Rs 5 lakh, the ‘Assam Saurav' Rs 4 lakh and ‘Assam Gaurav' Rs 3 lakh.

·       The ‘Assam Saurav' will have three recipients and ‘Assam Gaurav' - 15.

·       Sarma said from next year, the awards would be decided on people's recommendations, and a public portal will be soon launched for this purpose. Two committees will then scrutinise the names and finalise the list.

·       The senior bureaucrat Alka Upadhyaya has been appointed as the chairperson of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)

·       Sanjay Bandopadhyay has been named chairman, Inland Waterways Authority of India .

·       Dharmendra S Gangwar will be Secretary, Department of Border Management, and Sundeep Kumar Nayak has been appointed as Director General, National Productivity Council, Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade.

·       Upma Srivastava  has been named Secretary, National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

·       Juthika Patankar  has been appointed as Secretary, Central Information Commission.

·       Anita Praveen  will be Special Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

·       Ashish Srivastava  has been appointed Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.

·       G Asok Kumar  will be Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga.

·       Neelam Shammi Rao has been appointed as Central Provident Fund Commissioner, Employees' Provident Fund Organization, Amit Agrawal will be Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, and Deepti Umashankar as Establishment Officer & Additional Secretary, Department of Personnel & Training.

·       Vivek Aggarwal   has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Department of Revenue.

·       Hari Ranjan Rao will now be Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications.

·       Shyamal Misra  has been appointed as Joint Secretary, Department of Home, Ministry of Home Affairs.

• The government on Dec 3 has  sought Parliament's nod for gross additional spending of over Rs 3.73 lakh crore in the current financial year.

• As per the second batch of supplementary demands for grants tabled in Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, the net cash outgo would be over Rs 2.99 lakh crore and Rs 74,517 crore extra expenditure would be matched by savings by different ministries.

• The amount includes extra spending of Rs 58,430 crore towards fertiliser subsidy, over Rs 2,000 crore towards various schemes of the Department of Commerce and over Rs 53,000 crore by the Department of Expenditure under various export promotion schemes.

• Former BSP MLA from Debai constituency Shribhagwan Sharma, also known as Guddu Pandit, has been booked on charges of abusing the Prime Minister and the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.

• The case was lodged in the Ahmadgarh Police Station of Bulandshahr district at the complaint of local BJP leader Giriraj Singh.

• India has achieved the target of 40 per cent of its installed electricity generation capacity being from non-fossil energy sources.

• The country's installed renewable energy (RE) capacity stands at 150.05 GW, while its nuclear energy-based installed electricity capacity is 6.78 GW.

• This brings the total non-fossil fuels based installed energy capacity to 156.83 GW -- which is 40.1 per cent of the total installed electricity capacity of 390.8 GW, in line with the Prime Minister's announcement at the recently concluded COP26 climate change conference.

• The government is committed to achieving 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030   

• Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala  has  joined the Congress in the presence of state Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and party state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu

• Moosewala, whose real name is Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, hails from Moosa village in Mansa district and his mother is a village head. The singer had earlier faced criticism for promoting violence and gun culture in his songs.

• Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that the state government will confer its highest civilian award 'Assam Baibhav' on Tata Trusts chairman Ratan Tata for his contribution to building cancer treatment facilities in the state.

• The Assam government and Tata Trust are collaborating for setting up 19 Cancer Care Units in the state. The foundation stone for the project was laid in June 2018 in presence of Ratan Tata.

• Tata Trusts had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Assam government during the Advantage Assam - Global Investment Summit 2018, held in February that year, giving a formal shape to the project.

• The highest civilian award was announced on the occasion of Asom Divas, celebrated on December 2 every year to commemorate the rule of Swargadeo Chaolung Sukapha, who founded the Ahom dynasty in Assam that ruled the state for 600 years.