News in Short

• India's flagship global conference on geopolitics, the Raisina Dialogue, began with seven former heads of state or government sharing their perspectives on challenges facing the world, including the US-Iran tensions, Afghan peace initiatives and climate change.
• The flagship conference, which is jointly organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation, has been India's contribution to global efforts to discover solutions, identify opportunities and provide stability to a century that has witnessed an eventful two decades.
• The three-day conclave will bring together 700 international participants, of which 40 per cent of the speakers will be women, emphasising India's commitment to gender equality.

• The Jammu and Kashmir administration has allowed mobile Internet in parts of Jammu region and broadband in hotels, travel establishments and hospitals but only on white-listed websites.
• Internet service providers will offer broadband facility (with Mac binding) to all institutions dealing with essential services, hospitals, banks as also government offices.
• Mac Binding means to enforce a client machine to work from a particular Internet Protocol address.
• The order also said that the 2G mobile connectivity on post-paid mobiles for accessing white-listed websites including e-banking will be allowed in districts of Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Udhampur and Reasi, all in the Jammu region.

• Indian skipper Virat Kohli was named captain of both the ICC's Test and ODI teams of the year besides winning the 'Spirit of Cricket' award.
• Opener Rohit Sharma was named the ICC's '2019 ODI Cricketer of the Year' for his incredible run of form.
• English all-rounder Ben Stokeswalked away with “Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy” for cricketer of the year award.
• Australia fast bowler Pat Cummins was named the Test Player of the Year.
• India seamer Deepak Chahar won the T20 International Performance of the year.
• Australia's Marnus Labuschagne was named as Emerging Cricketer of the Year.
• Scotland's Kyle Coetzer was declared the Associate Cricketer of the Year.

• Amazon India announced that it is pumping $1 billion into India to help digitize small and medium-sized businesses. Amazon has previously invested about $5.5 billion in India.
• The company is also eyeing scaling locally produced products from India, in line with Make in India program.
• The announcement was aimed at two-day conference called AmazonSmbhav, that is aimed at exploring ways for the e-commerce giant to work with small and medium sized businesses and merchants.

• Alejandro Giammattei has been sworn in as Guatemala's new president, replacing President Jimmy Morales.
• The former surgeon and prison chief won the presidency in August with a "tough-on-crime" platform.
• Giammattei assumes leadership of a country in which 59% of its citizens live below the poverty line and nearly 1 million children below the age of 5 are estimated to live with chronic malnutrition.