News in Short

• The Telangana government has appointed senior IAS officer Somesh Kumar as the new Chief Secretary to the government. He succeeds Shailendra Kumar Joshi.
• Somesh Kumar is presently serving as Special Chief Secretary (Revenue) and will have a tenure up to December 31, 2023. 
• Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to appoint the outgoing Chief Secretary Joshi as Advisor to the government on irrigation matters.

• The Kerala Assembly almost unanimously passed a resolution pressurising the Centre to withdraw the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
• O. Rajagopal, the only Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator, was the sole dissenting voice in the House.
• The ruling and Opposition members accused that the new citizenship law chipped away at the secular foundation of the Constitution.

• Computer scientist R. Ramanujam will receive The Indira Gandhi prize for popularisation of science for the year 2020.
• The prize was instituted by Indian National Science Academy in 1986 and is given once in three years to either a career media professional or a career scientist who has made outstanding contributions to science popularization in English or in other languages.
• Prof. Ramanujam who is with The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, has been associated for over thirty years with a Tamil science magazine Thulir, which is published by the Tamil Nadu Science Forum.

• The government has announced that General Bipin Rawat will take over as the country’s first-ever Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or tri-Service chief.
• The CDSwill also provide “single-point military advice” to the government as well as function as the military advisor to the PM-led Nuclear Command Authority.
• Though the three Service chiefs will retain full operational control over their forces, the CDS will clearly be the “first among equals” in the hierarchy.

• General Manoj Mukund Naravane has taken charge as the Chief of Army Staff, succeeding General Bipin Rawat.
• Before taking charge as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff in September, Lt. Gen. Naravane was heading the Eastern Command of the Army, which takes care of India's nearly Four-thousand-kilometre-long border with China.
• He has also commanded a Rashtriya Rifles battalion in Jammu and Kashmir and an infantry brigade on the eastern front.
• He was also part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka and had served as India's defence attache at the Indian Embassy in Myanmar for three years.