1) PM Modi meets world leaders on sidelines of G20: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 November 2014 carried on with his hectic international diplomacy holding parleys with world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, over bilateral meetings and informal discussions on the fifth day of his whirlwind three-nation 10-day tour. More meetings are on the anvil during the remaining days in Australia and Fiji, where hewill be making a day-long visit.
3) Farhan selected UN Women’s first male Goodwill Ambassador: Bollywood actor-director Farhan Akhtar has become the first man in UN Women’s history to be appointed its Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia. In his new role, the 40-year-old actor will serve as an advocate for UN Women’s newly-launched HeForShe initiative for gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women’s other Goodwill Ambassadors include British actor Emma Watson, Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand.
4) Children's film fest began in New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated the National Children's Film Festival (NCFF) at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. It is organized by the Children's Film Society of India (CFSI). The three-day festival aims at showing children's films which are either made or shot in India. The festival, that has been organised by CFSI every alternate year, will conclude on Sunday. The central theme of this year's NCFF has been declared as Swachhta and keeping this in mind, there will also be a workshop on how to make the best stuff out of waste products.
5) Ratan Tata inducted on board of the INTERPOL Foundation: Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata was inducted on the board of Interpol Foundation to contribute to two new global initiatives aimed at combating organised crime and terrorist activities by the international police organisation.
6) DD National to be relaunched as 'Desh Ka Apna Channel': In a bid to attract more viewers, public broadcaster Doordarshan is relaunching its national channel as "Desh ka Apna channel" with a slew of new programming. Apart from new programmes, the channel will be repackaged in new colours - purple and pink. "We want that Doordarshan be the preferred channel of the people. So from November 17, a repackaged channel with fresh content will be beamed to viewers across the country," an official said.
7) Union Ministry of HRD decided to use Sanskrit as 3rd language in KVs : Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has decided to use Sanskrit as a third language in schools of Kendriya Vidyalaya (KVs) in place of German language. The decision to discontinue German was taken after the meeting of Board of Governors of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) on 27 October 2014. The meeting was headed by Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani.
8) Dhanush missile successfully test-fired: India has successfully test-fired its nuclear-capable Dhanush ballistic missile from a naval ship off the Odisha coast on Friday night. The surface-to-surface Dhanush, a naval variant of India's indigenously-developed 'Prithvi' missile, was test fired from a ship in the Bay of Bengal at around 7.40 PM by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) of the defence force. "The missile launch was part of an exercise by the armed forces and the missile reached the designated target with high precision," Director of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) M V K V Prasad said.
9) Government launched modified DBTL scheme in 54 districts: For the benefit of lakhs of households, the Central government has launched a modified Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme in 54 districts in 11 states starting November 15, 2014 whereby LPG consumers who have not yet availed the benefit will be able to get cash subsidy amount transferred into their accounts to buy Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders at market price. This scheme will be implemented in the rest of India on January 1, 2015.
