• Admiral R Hari Kumar assumed command of the Indian Navy on  Nov 30  as the 25th Chief of the Naval Staff. He succeeds Admiral Karambir Singh who retires upon superannuation after an illustrious career spanning over 41 years.

• Admiral R Hari Kumar is an alumnus of the prestigious National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, and was commissioned into the Indian Navy on January 1, 1983.

• The Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry said it has received a requisition from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to delete Parivara and Talwara communities of Karnataka from the OBC list.

• Responding to a question in the Lok Sabha on the reason for the delay in deletion of the communities from the list, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Pratima Bhoumik said in terms of Article 343A(2) of the Constitution, only Parliament can include in or exclude from the Central List of SEBCs, after a presidential notification of the Central List of SEBCs.

• Responding to another question, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment A Narayanswamy said the ministry has initiated 12 pilot shelter homes, namely Garima Greh, for transgender persons and provided financial assistance to community-based organisations (CBOs) for setting up of these homes.

• These pilot shelter homes are located in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha .

• The urban unemployment rate has increased to 9.3% in the January-March 2021 period from 9.1% in the year-ago period, according to a periodic labour force survey by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

• While 9.3% is lower than the peak urban unemployment level of 20.8% recorded in the April-June quarter of last year, it is still at higher than pre-Covid levels.

• The figures, released on Nov 30 , also showed that unemployment among women is rising as 11.3% of women in the labour force found themselves without a job in the January-March 2021 quarter compared to 10.6% in the year-ago period. Unemployment among males remained at the same level as last year, at 8.6%.

• Labour force participation rate (percentage of persons in labour force in the population) in urban areas came down to 47.5% in the January-March quarter of 2021, compared to 48.1% in the same period a year ago.

• Women’s participation in the labour force at 21.2% in the January-March quarter was lower than 21.9% in the same quarter previous year though it was better than 20.6% in the October-December 2020 quarter.

• The working population ratio, defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population, stood at 43.1% in January-March 2021, down from 43.7% a year ago.            

• According to the monthly unemployment data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), joblessness in the country stood at 7.13% as on November 29.

• The government has constituted a committee to revisit the criteria for determining the economically weaker sections (EWS) to provide them reservation. The government had informed the Supreme Court last week that it has taken a decision to revisit the criteria.

• The committee members are former finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, member secretary of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) V K Malhotra and principal economic advisor to the government Sanjay Sanyal. The committee has been asked to complete its work within three weeks.

• In an official memorandum , the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry said the government constituted the committee in accordance with the commitment given to the Supreme Court to revisit the criteria for determining the economically weaker sections (EWS) in terms of the provisions of the explanation to Article 15 of the Constitution.

• The committee will revisit the criterion in determining the EWS category keeping in view the observations of the Supreme Court.

• It will also examine various approaches so far followed in the country for identifying EWS and recommend criteria that may be adopted for identifying EWS category in the future.

• The Centre’s earlier decision to set an annual income of `8 lakh to determine EWS was criticised by the Supreme Court. The panel was formed after that.

Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II on Nov 30  as it shed another vestige of its colonial past and became a republic for the first time in history.

Several leaders and dignitaries, including Prince Charles, attended the ceremony  in a popular square where the statue of a well-known British lord was removed last year amid a worldwide push to erase symbols of oppression.

The drive to become a republic began more than two decades ago and culminated with the island’s Parliament electing its first-ever president last month in a two-thirds majority vote. Barbados Governor General Sandra Mason   sworn in  on Nov 30  as the island marked its 55th independence from Britain.

Mason, 72, is an attorney and judge who also has served as ambassador to Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Brazil. She will help Prime Minister Mia Mottley lead the wealthy Caribbean island of more than 300,000 people that is dependent on tourism, manufacturing and finance.

Barbados did not need permission from the U.K. to become a republic, although the island will remain a member of the Commonwealth Realm. It’s an event that the Caribbean has not experienced since the 1970s, when Guyana, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago became republics.

Barbados became independent from the United Kingdom in November 1966, more than three centuries after English settlers arrived and turned the island into a wealthy sugar colony based on the work of hundreds of thousands of African slaves.

• The former Sri Lankan minister and legendary cricketer Arjuna Ranatunga has resigned from the Opposition United National Party, citing dissatisfaction with the outfit's workings.

• In a letter to UNP leader and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe , Ranatunga said the UNP has not managed to revive and rebrand itself after the recent electoral losses, which led him to resign.

• The UNP formed in 1946, suffered its worst electoral defeat in the last parliamentary election held in August 2020, where it failed to win a single seat.

• Ranatunga,  held a ministerial position in the previous government led by the UNP between 2015 and 2019. Ranatunga joined the UNP against family tradition.  His father Reggie Ranatunga was a minister in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

• After retirement from cricket in 2000, Ranatunga entered politics in 2001 as a member of the SLFP.

• His younger brother Prasanna is the current Minister of Tourism in the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

• Ranatunga has switched between political parties and administrative roles in Sri Lankan Cricket often since 2001.

• Turkish authorities have arrested a prominent member of an opposition party over accusations that he engaged in “political and military espionage ”.

• A court in Ankara ordered Metin Gurcan , a retired army officer and founding member of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party, or DEVA, jailed pending the outcome of a trial.

• Gurcan, who wrote articles on Turkish foreign policy and defense issues, last year founded the DEVA party together with its leader, Ali Babacan — a former deputy prime minister who broke away from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party.

• The politician and defense analyst is accused of selling alleged secret information to foreign diplomats . Gurcan rejected the accusations during his questioning .

• A trial date is expected to be set after the court approves a prosecutors' indictment against Gurcan.

• The highest court in the Maldives has overturned the prison sentence of the country's former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who had been convicted of money laundering.

• A three-member Supreme Court bench unanimously annulled the five-year jail term and USD 5 million fine slapped on Yameen two years ago by a lower court. The former leader had recently been moved to house arrest.

• Yameen ruled the Maldives, an Indian ocean archipelago state known as an expensive tourist destination, from 2013 to 2018, before losing a re-election bid to current President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

• He was accused of corruption and stifling dissent and the media during his time in office.