DAILY GK 19 NOV 2025

 DAILY GK 19 NOV 2025

1.       3RD INTERNATIONAL AYURVEDA CONFERENCE

·         Dinesh Bhatia, Ambassador of India to Brazil, inaugurated the 3rd International Ayurveda Conference, jointly organized by the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre (SVCC) and Conayur Sao Paulo (Conselho Nacional de Ayurveda), held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

·         Brazil is the first South American country to recognize Ayurveda.

·         The 2025 edition was held under the theme titled “Diversity and Inclusion in Ayurveda: Caring for Everybody and Every Being”.

 


2.       QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS SUSTAINABILITY 2026

·         Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), global higher education experts, released the 4th edition of ‘QS World University Rankings: Sustainability (2026)’. 

·         Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) in New Delhi has emerged as India’s best performing institution for the 2nd consecutive year, securing 205th position globally with an overall score of 83.1 

·         This year, no Indian Institution featured among the world’s top 200 sustainable universities.

·         Lund University (Sweden) topped the 2026 global sustainability rankings for the first time since the index began in 2023, followed by the University of Toronto (Canada) and University College London(UK) in 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively.

·         USA with 240 institutions has emerged as the most represented country on the list, followed by China (163), the UK (109), India (103) and France (76).

·         This year, a total of 103 Indian institutions (including 26 new entries) featured on the list, making it the world’s 4th most represented country in the rankings.

·         Out of 103 Indian universities featured in this year’s edition, 32 have improved their ranking, 15 retained their previous year ranking, and 30 have dropped.

·         IIT Roorkee(Uttarakhand) secured the 352nd position followed by IIT Banaras Hindu University(BHU), Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh(UP) at 672nd and IIT Hyderabad(Telangana) at 792nd

 

3.       INDIA RE-ELECTED TO CODEX EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

·         India has been unanimously re-elected to the Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CCEXEC) for the Asia Region during the 48th Session of the CodexAlimentarius Commission (CAC48), held FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy.

·         With this re-election, India’s term of representation for the Asia Region has been extended until the conclusion of CAC50 in 2027.

·         Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is an international body established jointly by FAO and World Health Organisation (WHO).

·         The body is mainly responsible for all matters related to implementation of the joint FAO/WHO food standards programme.

·         Members- 189 (including 188 member countries and The European Union)

·         Established in- 1963.

 

4.       CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY NAMES ‘PARASOCIAL’ AS 2025 WORD OF THE YEAR

·         The Cambridge Dictionary has announced ‘parasocial’ as its Word of the Year 2025, highlighting the growing global trend of one-sided emotional connections people form with celebrities, influencers, fictional characters, and Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

·         Parasocial is an adjective that describes a connection someone feels with a celebrity they do not know, a character in a book, film, or Television(TV) series, or an AI character.

·         The term, originally coined in 1956 by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl.

 

5.       TOP 100 MOST VALUABLE INDIAN BRANDS 2025

·         Kantar Group, world’s leading marketing data and analytics business, released  ‘Kantar Brandz’s Top 100 Most Valuable Indian Brands 2025’ report.

·         HDFC Bank Limited, India’s largest private sector bank, has emerged as India’s most valuable brand, registering 18% Year-on-Year (Y-o-Y) growth to USD 44.99 billion, replacing Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which slipped to 2nd position, with a total valuation of USD 44.23 billion.

·         Airtel (USD 41.1 billion) and Infosys (USD 25.54 billion) ranked at 3rd and 4th positions respectively.

·         As per the report, the combined value of India’s 100 most valuable brands reached USD 523.5 billion (accounting nearly 13% of country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

·         Zomato, Online Food company, continued to be the fastest-rising brand for the second consecutive year, jumping 10 places to 21st spot and approximately doubling its brand value to USD 6 billion.

 

6.       SAUDI ARABIA IS DESIGNATED AS MAJOR NON-NATO ALLY

·         USA President Donald Trump designated Saudi Arabia as a major non-North AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO) ally 

·         With this designation, Saudi Arabia became the 20th country to receive major non-NATO ally status.

 

7.       PSLV SET TO LAUNCH OCEANSAT SATELLITE IN 2026

·         Dr. V. Narayanan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced the launch of the Oceansat Satellite into orbit by the first commercially built Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)-PSLV N1 rocket in 2026 at the 7th India Manufacturing Show (IMS) 2025 held in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

·         In 2022, ISRO under the commercialisation initiative led by New Space India Ltd (NSIL) signed a contract with the HAL and L&T consortium for the end-to-end production of five PSLV-XL rockets.

·         Earlier, PSLV was wholly manufactured by ISRO.

·         PSLV is a four-stage launch vehicle with alternating solid and liquid propulsion and includes six extended strap-on boosters characteristics of the PSLV-XL variant, giving it higher lift capacity.

 

8.       NASA, SPACEX LAUNCHES ‘SENTINEL-6B’ SATELLITE

·         ‘Copernicus Sentinel-6B’, an earth observation satellite, jointly developed by American space agency i.e. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European partners, was successfully launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in CaliforniaUSA

·         Sentinel‑6B, together with its twin Sentinel‑6 Michael Freilich, will collect data covering about 90% of the Earth’s oceans, with the objective of measuring global sea levels, atmospheric temperature, and humidity.