News in Short

• The first phase of the Malabar Naval exercise including Australia along with Japan and the U.S., is scheduled to be held next week off the Visakhapatnam coast.
• This is the first time Australia will be joining the exercise after 2007 and it will bring all four countries of the Quadrilateral grouping together for military games.
• Malabar began as a bilateral exercise between India and the U.S. in 1992 and became trilateral in 2015 with the addition of Japan. The second phase is scheduled to be held from November 17 to 20 in the Arabian Sea.

• Kerala was adjudged the best governed state in the country while Uttar Pradesh ended at the bottom in the large states category, according to the Public Affairs Index-2020 released by the Public Affairs Centre.
• Four southern states, Kerala (1.388 PAI Index point), Tamil Nadu (0.912), Andhra Pradesh (0.531), and Karnataka (0.468) stood in the first four ranks in the large state category in terms of governance.
• Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Bihar were at the bottom of the ranking, scoring negative points in the category. They got - 1.461, -1.201 and -1.158 points respectively.
• In the small state category, Goa ranked first with 1.745 points, followed by Meghalaya (0.797) and Himachal Pradesh (0.725)
• Worst performers who scored negative points are Manipur (-0.363), Delhi (-0.289), and Uttarakhand (-0.277), according to the PAC report.
• Chandigarh emerged the best governed union territory in the category of UTs with 1.05 PAI points, followed by Puducherry (0.52) and Lakshadweep (0.003).
• Dadra and Nagar Haveli (-0.69), Andaman, Jammu, and Kashmir (-0.50), and Nicobar (-0.30) were the least performers.

• A strong earthquake struck in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, triggering panic among residents.
• The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.9, in Turkey and was centered in the Aegean northeast of Samos. AFAD measured the magnitude at 6.6.
• Tremors were felt across the eastern Greek islands and as far as the Greek capital, Athens, and in Bulgaria. In Turkey, it shook the regions of Aegean and Marmara, including Istanbul.

• Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to refrain from deliberately targeting civilians in a conflict over the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, where hundreds have been killed in more than a month of fighting.
• The worst fighting in the South Caucasus for more than 25 years has brought into sharp focus the increased influence of Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, in a former Soviet region considered by Russia to be within its sphere of influence.
• Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but is populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians.

• A stone idol of Sun God (Surya), dated back to 10th century, was found in the farmland of Kalagodu village in Gummagatta mandal of Anantapur district.
• Historians have confirmed that it belonged to the period of the Nolamba kings, who ruled the region (large parts of Karnataka and some areas in Andhra Pradesh now) for over 300 years.
• Situated on the banks of the Vedavathi river, the iconography is similar to some other sculptures found in this region and the locals said there could be some more such sculptures in the vicinity.