# Nivar cyclone

• Cyclone “Nivar” over the southwest “Bay of Bengal” is likely to intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm and expected to bring heavy rainfall to Puducherry, Coastal and north interior Tamil Nadu.

• Wind speeds at the time of landfall are expected to reach 120-130 Kmph increasing to 145 Kmph.

• 22 National disaster response force (NDRF) teams are on standby and 3,444 relief camps have been kept ready. A public holiday has been declared in Tamil Nadu on 25 november.

# Chinese apps ban

• The government on 24 november blocked 43 more mobile apps including major chinese ones such as Ali suppliers, Ali express, Camcard citing threat to national security, integrity and sovereignty.

• The ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) issued an order under section 69A of the information technology act blocking access to 43 mobile apps.

• This decision of banning apps has been taken on the basis of the comprehensive reports received from Indian cyber crime coordination centre.

• This ban is an extension of 177 apps banned earlier including Pubg, Tik tok, UC browser and many others.

# Ordinance on religious conversions

• The Uttar Pradesh government gave its nod to an ordinance that makes religious conversions a non-bailable offence inviting penalties upto 10 years in prison if found to be effected for marriage or through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurements or other allegedly fraudlent means.

• The Uttar pradesh unlawful religious conversion prohibition ordinance, 2020 was cleared by the cabinet.

• An important provision in the ordinance is:- if a minor woman or a woman from the scheduled caste or scheduled tribe communities was converted through the said unlawful means, the jail term would be a minimum of three years and could be extended to 10 years with a fine of 25,000 rupees.

# Priority for local tenders

• The government has tightened its procurement norms under “atmanirbhar bharat abhiyan” to make it tougher for ministries to pursue global tenders for contracts upto 200 crores.

• This plan is mandated by the department of promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) to boost the local MSMEs. Only in case of non-availability of sufficient number of local vendors, a global tender is allowed.

# Today in India’s history

• 25 november 1948 – National cadet cirps was first established.

• 25 november 1999 – Baba Amte, a gandhian a noted social worker, is chosen for the Gandhi peace prize.

• Karnataka and Tamil nadu governments agree on a “unified command” for the STF operations against Veerappan.