Today's Event – 10th January 2022

• 1645 – Archbishop William Laud is beheaded for treason at the Tower of London. 

• 1776 – American Revolution: Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense. 

• 1791 – The Siege of Dunlap's Station begins near Cincinnati during the Northwest Indian War. 

• 1812 – The first steamboat on the Ohio River or the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, 82 days after departing from Pittsburgh

• 1861 – American Civil War: Florida becomes the third state to secede from the Union. 

• 1863 – The Metropolitan Railway, the world's oldest underground railway, opens between Paddington and Farringdon, marking the beginning of the London Underground. 

• 1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil

• 1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas

• 1920 – The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I for all combatant nations except the United States. 

• 1920 – League of Nations Covenant automatically enters into force after the Treaty of Versailles is ratified by Germany. 

• 1927 – Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany

• 1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations assembles in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Fifty-one nations are represented. 

• 1946 – The United States Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals

• 1966 – Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement between India and Pakistan signed that resolved the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

• 1972 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to the newly independent Bangladesh as president after spending over nine months in prison in Pakistan.

• 1984 – Holy See–United States relations: The United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the United States Congress's 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy.

• 1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transformation to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.

• 1990 – Time Warner is formed by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications.

National Events-

• Last week, RJD state president Jagdanand Singh suggested that Bihar CM Nitish Kumar drop BJP ministers who are opposed to the caste census demand. Singh then went a step further and offered the RJD’s support to the JD(U) if the BJP decides to pull out of the Nitish-led Bihar government over the issue.

• Tripura started inoculating frontline workers and people of 60 years of age and above with comorbidities with precaution doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Monday. As many as 2,200 booster doses were administered at around 550 centres in the state.

• IIT Bombay Professor Rangan Banerjee has been appointed as the next director of IIT Delhi, the incumbent director of the institute Prof Ramgopal Rao announced Monday.

• The Uttarakhand government, criticised for a previous move to form a shrine Board, on Sunday announced that a reconstituted Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) will be in charge of managing the two Himalayan shrines.

• India is looking towards a constructive dialogue in the upcoming 14th round of military discussions with China on Wednesday.

International Events-

• On Dec. 29, The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website that often spreads conspiracy theories, published an article falsely implying that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had withdrawn authorization of all PCR tests for detecting COVID-19. The article collected 22,000 likes, comments and shares on Facebook and Twitter.

• Dutch King Willem-Alexander swore in a new ruling coalition Monday, led for the fourth time by Mark Rutte, amid a nationwide coronavirus lockdown and policy challenges ranging from climate change and housing shortages to the future of agriculture.

• Beijing on Monday accused Washington of inciting Lithuania to “contain China” in a feud over the status of self-ruled Taiwan after US officials expressed support for the European Union-member country in the face of Chinese economic pressure.

• China has appointed a former paramilitary chief, Peng Jingtang, as the new commander of the People Liberation Army’s (PLA) garrison in Hong Kong, state broadcaster CCTV reported late on Sunday citing the PLA’s spokesman.

• A strain of Covid-19 that combines delta and omicron was found in Cyprus, according to Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology.

Job alerts-

• South India Multi-State Agriculture Co-Operative Society Limited Jobs for Office Assistants, Supervisor, Accountant, Manager and other posts. Last date 28 February 2022

•  Punjab Subordinate Service Selection Board Jobs for Steno-Typist, Stenographer. and other posts. Last date 05 February 2022

• South Eastern Coalfields Limited Jobs for Assistant Foreman and other posts. Last date 27 January 2022

• Public Works Department Tamil Nadu Jobs for Apprentice and other posts. Last date 25 January 2022

• Border Security Force Jobs for Constable and other posts. Last date  28 February 2022

Sports-

• The postponed FIH Women’s Junior World Cup scheduled to be held in Potchefstroom, South Africa will be organised from April 2 to 13, the International Hockey Federation said on Monday.

• Barcelona will register new signing Ferran Torres after defender Samuel Umtiti agreed to take a salary cut, the club said Monday. Torres was presented last week but hadn’t been added to the squad because Barcelona couldn’t make room for him without breaching the Spanish league’s strict financial fair play rules.

• Sadio Mané converted a penalty more than six minutes into injury time as Senegal escaped with a 1-0 win over Zimbabwe on Monday to open its African Cup of Nations campaign.

• Reigning men’s singles world champion Loh Kean Yew hasn’t got enough time to train after his triumph in Spain but wants to start the New Year by putting his best foot forward in the India Open badminton. The tournament is starting here on Tuesday.

• Sam Billings was on the Gold Coast and preparing to get on a plane back to Britain when he received a call. Billings, an explosive white-ball cricketer, had been in Australia playing in the Twenty20 Big Bash League with Sydney Thunder. Now he might be in line to make his test debut in the series-closing match in Hobart next week.

Technology-

• Gmail app on Android has become only the fourth app to hit 10 billion installs. The three other apps to reach the milestone of over 10 billion installs from the Google Play store are Google Play Services, YouTube, and Google Maps. The email service from Google has been really popular since its launch in April 2004. Google has also been adding a lot of features to Gmail lately. The latest one is an update to Gmail's Undo Send feature that allows users to recall emails within different time frames.

• Jio users can now set standing instructions for auto-debit for their tariff plans through UPI after a tie-up between the telecom player and NPCI.

• PayPal, the popular multinational financial technology company has reportedly indicated its interest in "exploring" the prospect of launching its very own stablecoin, which is a cryptocurrency pegged to the value of fiat or a reserve asset like gold, silver, etc. The indication arrived after developer Steve Moser discovered references to something called “PayPal Coin” within the company's iOS app, which also featured PayPal's logo in it. Stablecoins have grown in popularity for making transfers between exchanges and crypto use in day-to-day commerce, simpler.

• Take-Two Interactive, maker of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, is buying Zynga, maker of FarmVille and Words With Friends, in a cash-and-stock deal with an enterprise value of about $12.7 billion (roughly Rs. 94,030 crore).

• WhatsApp Business is testing an update that allows users to filter their searches and easily find messages that are sent by people in their contacts list and others. The advanced search filters would also help businesses look at all unread messages on the app in one go. In addition to the new business-focussed change, WhatsApp is found to be creating a group when you would create a community. This group may allow community administrators to share messages with their communities.

Economy –

• With the fresh wave of COVID-19 plunging the hospitality sector back into uncertainty, industry body HAI on Monday said it has asked the government to consider granting infrastructure status to hotels, extend moratorium on loans and rationalise taxes.

• A consortium led by South Korean electric carmaker Edison Motors Co has agreed to acquire debt-ridden SsangYong Motor Co Ltd for 305 billion won ($254.65 million),SsangYong Motor said on Monday.

• Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said startups can play a key role to socialise and democratise the availability of healthcare across the globe at a time when the world is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic.

• The Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2021-22 – Series IX by the central government has opened for subscription today, January 10, 2022, and it will be available for five days until Friday, January 14, 2022. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has fixed the issue price at Rs 4,786 per gram. Under this scheme, the RBI issues the bonds on behalf of the Government of India. The bonds are sold through banks, Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCIL),designated post offices, and recognised stock exchanges – National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) and BSE.

• The S&P BSE Sensex rose 650.98 points (1.09 per cent) to end above the 60,000-mark at 60,395.63, while the broader Nifty 50 climbed 190.60 points (1.07 per cent) to end above the 18,000-level mark at 18,003.30. Both the indices had opened over 0.5 per cent higher earlier in the day and traded on a largely positive note throughout the session.

Local –

• The East Delhi Municipal Corporation’s ‘Corona Mitra’ helpline has received around 200 calls since its launch two days ago, with people calling to ask whether they should get tested after showing symptoms, or to discuss the anxieties in families that lost loved ones to the virus.

• Mumbai on Monday reported 13,648 new Covid-19 cases and five related fatalities, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said in a health bulletin. With 59,242 samples tested, the test positivity rate was recorded at 23 per cent.

• West Bengal reported its highest single-day Covid cases at 24,287 in the last 24 hours as its positivity rate shot up to 33.89 per cent Sunday.

• Among those who tested positive Monday include 32 returnees from domestic and overseas locations. As many as 2,547 people recovered in the last 24 hours leaving 62,767 active infections. A total of 1,35,266 samples were tested in the last 24 hours; The positivity rate stood at 10.34 per cent. Chennai continued to top the districts with 6,190 fresh infections followed by Chengalpattu with 1,696 and Thiruvallur with 1,054. The rest of the cases were spread across Coimbatore (602),Kancheepuram (508),Trichy (348) and other districts.

• Karnataka on Monday reported 11,698 fresh Covid-19 cases and four deaths, taking the total number of active cases in the state to 60,148, with Bengaluru logging 9,221 cases—146 of them Omicron—and two deaths.

GK –

Environment Ministry released Guidelines on ‘Extended producer responsibility (EPR)’ for which product?

[A] Bio-medical Waste
[B] Waste Tyres
[C] Plastic Waste
[D] E- Waste

Which state is associated with ‘Nirbhaya Kadhi’ campaign?

[A] West Bengal
[B] Odisha
[C] Karnataka
[D] Gujarat

Which state launched the Student Startup and Innovation Policy (SSIP) 2.0?

[A] Telangana
[B] Gujarat
[C] Maharashtra
[D] Odisha

‘Olaf Scholz’ is the recently appointed head of which country?

[A] Australia
[B] Brazil
[C] Germany
[D] France

Which Union Ministry implements the ‘UJALA’ programme?

[A] Ministry of Power
[B] Ministry of Environment
[C] Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
[D] Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs