·       The Asian Development Bank has approved a USD 1.5 billion (around Rs 11,185 crore) loan to India for COVID-19 vaccine procurement.

·       The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is expected to co-finance an additional USD 500 million for the project .

·       Beijing-based AIIB is a multilateral development bank focused on developing Asia.

·       The loan from ADB will fund at least 66.7 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses for an estimated 31.7 crore people

·       It will support India's National Deployment and Vaccination Plan which aims to fully vaccinate 94.47 crore people aged 18 years and above, accounting for 68.9 per cent of the population .

·       The CBI Special Director Praveen Sinha  has been  elected as a delegate for Asia on the executive committee of the Interpol, capping an "intense" and "well-coordinated" campaign across the world by India.

·       The elections for various positions for the top panel were held were at the ongoing 89th Interpol General Assembly in Istanbul.

·       The Interpol (International Criminal Police Organisation) brings together police forces from around 190 countries and has emerged as a vital body for tackling the rising spectre of trans-national crimes and terrorism.

·       The Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra has asked the chief secretary to clarify the constitutional status of six advisers to the chief minister following allegations by the opposition that the appointments were unconstitutional.

Twelve of the 17 Congress MLAs in the Meghalaya Assembly on  nov 25   joined the Trinamool Congress, dealing a body blow to the grand old party in the northeastern state, their leader and former chief minister Mukul Sangma said.

·       The  BSP Legislature Party leader in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Shah Alam resigned as an MLA and from his party, saying their chief Mayawati does not trust him.

·       The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Punjab's Raikot Jagtar Singh Jagga joined the Congress, in a move that is being seen as a setback to the main opposition party in the state months before the assembly polls.

·        The MLA of Bochahan in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district Musafir Paswan died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Delhi .  Paswan, an MLA of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), was 66.

·       The eminent Assamese Sahitya Akademi Award-winning poet Sananta Tanty died at a private hospital in New Delhi after a prolonged illness.

·       ---Tanty received several awards and recognitions, including the Sahitya Akademi in 2016 for 'Kailoir Dinto Amar Hobo' (Tomorrow Will Be Ours), a collection of his poems in Assamese.

·       Staying the course to give the BJP a poll booster ahead of the Assembly elections in five states, the Union Cabinet on  Nov 24  gave its nod to extend the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana — wherein 5 kg of foodgrains per person is given each month — till March 2022. The Cabinet also approved the legislative proposal to repeal the three contentious farm laws enacted by Parliament last year, to give effect to the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, which was also aimed at mitigating the potential electoral damage to the BJP in poll-bound states.

·       PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, announced in the wake of the imposition of nationwide lockdown last year, will cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 2.60 lakh crore, with its fifth phase from December 2021 to March 2022 alone costing Rs 53,344 crore.

·       The BJP-led government at the Centre had started giving poll cushion to the party after the outcome of the largest by-elections in which the saffron outfit saw reversals in Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Rajasthan with Madhya Pradesh being the sole exception. The decision to reduce the excise duty on petrol and diesel was the first major step, which was followed up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the repeal of the three contentious farm laws. The legislative proposals to amend the list of the scheduled tribes for Uttar Pradesh and Tripura are also on the cards.

·       PM Garib Kalyan Yojana claims to cover 80 crore people in its ambit and is running uninterrupted since April 2020, with the first four phases witnessing allocation of 600 lakh tonnes of foodgrains to states and Union territories.

·       The Centre is currently on an infrastructure inauguration and foundation-laying spree in UP, with the PM slated to lay the foundation of the Jewar international airport in the state on Nov 25 . He had unveiled the Pooravanchal expressway recently.

·       Four out of five states heading for the Assembly elections during February-March 2022 are currently ruled by the BJP, with the Congress being the main rival of the saffron outfit in Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab. The crucial state of Uttar Pradesh is bracing for a multi-cornered contest.

·       Sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years (females per 1,000 males) in Tamil Nadu has plummeted from 954 in 2015-16 to 878 in 2020-21, according to the data from the second phase of the National Family Health Survey-5 released on  Nov 24

·       Worryingly, the survey showed 57.4 per cent children aged 6-59 months are now anaemic compared to 50.7 per cent in the previous survey, while 48.3 per cent of pregnant women aged 15-49 are anaemic compared to 44.4 per cent before. 

·       West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Nov 24  met Prime Minister Narendra Modi but skipped meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi, triggering speculation about her future political moves.

·       Mamata said  that she invited Modi to inaugurate the Bengal Global Summit (BGS) in Kolkata in April next year and that the PM accepted the invite, adding that political differences should not impact Centre-state ties. During the meeting with the PM, she raised the issues of BSF’s territorial jurisdiction, central debts to states, political violence in Tripura, and the crisis faced by jute industry in West Bengal.

·       Earlier in the day, she met BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, fuelling speculation that he might join the TMC. Both the leaders rejected the notion.

·       Those who joined the Trinamool include Congress leader Kirti Azad, former Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar and expelled JD(U) MP Pavan Verma.

·       To help realise the national ambition, election strategist Prashant Kishor has been working with the party on a long-term basis.