• The Ministry of Law and Justice has amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, on October 22, allowing senior citizens and disabled people in the absentee voter list.
• Differently abled people and those over 80 years of age can now cast their vote through postal ballots.
• The absentee voter refers to a vote cast by someone who is unable to go to the polling station. In both these categories there are people who are unable to reach the polling stations and thus are unable to cast their votes.
• At present, voting through postal ballots is available to the armed forces and those on poll duty.
• The poll officer will attest the absentee voter in the case of senior citizens and person with disability in the form 13A.

• To bring down cost of treatment and to encourage Siddha and other systems of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy and ayurveda, Common Service Centres (CSCs) will now provide telemedicine services in collaboration with the Ministry of Ayush through video conferencing in rural areas.
• To run this scheme, Ayush Ministry will arrange doctors for low-cost health services to rural people at their doorsteps.
• For this service, CSCs will use BharatNet broadband network of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
• The service will be first launched in Tamil Nadu and it will be extended in other states later.
• Initially, the service will be available for free, but later there may be some nominal charges to recover the cost of service.

• The Union government has notified new rules under the Right to Information Act.
• It reduced the tenure of information commissioners from five years to three.
• Gave the government the discretion to decide on “conditions of service” for which no express provisions are made in the rules.
• The Chief Information Commissioner’s salary has been fixed at Rs 2.5 lakh and an information commissioner’s at Rs2.25 lakh.
• The government had been given the “power to relax” the provisions of the rules.

• The Reserve bank of India (RBI) has approved merger of 13 District Co-operative Banks (DCBs) of Kerala with the Kerala State Co-operative Bank to form ‘Kerala Bank’.

• NSE Indices has launched a quality-factor based smart-beta mid-cap index called Nifty Midcap150 Quality 50. The Nifty Midcap150 Quality 50 index includes the top 50 companies from its parent Nifty Midcap 150 index, selected based on their 'quality' scores.

On 4 November, 2019, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India launched Youth Co:Lab which aims at accelerating social entrepreneurship and innovation in young India by recognizing young people as drivers of sustainable development.

• It is a youth lab programme through which young entrepreneurs and innovators will get a chance to connect with governments, mentors, incubators and investors, who will help equip them with entrepreneurial skills.
• The initiative will convene social innovation challenges at the national and sub-national level, which will invite young people in the age group of 18-29 years and start-ups to showcase their proposed ideas and solutions to tackle some of the region’s biggest social challenges.
• It will also convene a series of youth dialogues across several cities such as New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai to promote entrepreneurship across India.
• Aspiring entrepreneurs or nascent entrepreneurs (with less than three years of experience) can submit their ideas at Lab’s website. Selected applicants will be invited for a national innovation challenge, where each winning start-up will get an opportunity to incubate and strengthen their ideas at the Atal Incubation Centres.
• The first phase of Youth Co:Lab will focus on six SDGs:
  • SDG 5 (Gender Equality)
  • SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation)
  • SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)
  • SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth)
  • SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production)
  • SDG 13 (Climate Action)
• It was co-created in 2017 by UNDP and the Citi Foundation and is operational in 25 countries across the Asia Pacific region.

• India and France have taken concrete steps to firm up their strategic partnership in the western Indian Ocean, as part of their respective Indo-Pacific strategies.
•  Leaders of India, France and Vanilla Islands – consisting of Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean – met for the first time in Reunion Islands (a French territory) for exploring economic and development partnership.
•  India, in partnership with France, is keen to focus on port development, blue economy, trade, connectivity, tourism, skill development, hospitality and healthcare in this resource-rich region. India is also eyeing gas deposits in the Mozambique Channel near Vanilla Islands.
• While India has longstanding defence partnerships with Mauritius and Seychelles, its defence ties with Comoros and Madagascar are growing as part of India’s Indo-Pacific outreach to ensure peace and stability.
• India’s mantra for the region 'SAGAR' stands for 'security and growth for all'. India could forge a strong economic partnership in the Indo-Pacific, especially around the Reunion.”

• Vanilla Islands is a grouping of six island nations in south-west Indian Ocean -Mayotte, Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and Madagascar.
• The term ‘Vanilla’ is used because these countries are known for their export of the flavouring substance Vanilla

• The Vice president of India Venkaiah Naidu, during his recent visit to Comoros, was accorded its highest civilian honour ‘The Order of the Green Crescent’.
• The Vice President is the first to receive the honour from India.
• India announced to extend a Line of Credit of over 60 million US Dollars to Comoros in the field of energy and maritime defence cooperation.

• State-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) has discovered oil and gas in its exploration blocks in Colombia and Brazil respectively.
• ONGC Videsh has recorded discoveries of oil in its onshore exploration block CPO-5, Colombia in the Llanos basin and major gas in the deep offshore exploration block BM-SEAL-4, Brazil in the Sergipe Alagoas Basin.
• ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of ONGC, has invested $28 billion in 41 projects across 20 countries and has probable reserves of 711.36 million tonnes of oil equivalent.