Today's Event – 16th December 2021

• 1497 – Vasco da Gama passes the Great Fish River at the southern tip of Africa, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal. 

• 1575 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.5Mw? strikes Valdivia, Chile.

• 1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

• 1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.

• 1761 – Seven Years' War: After a four-month siege, the Russians under Pyotr Rumyantsev take the Prussian fortress of Ko?obrzeg.

• 1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

• 1777 – Virginia becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

• 1782 – British East India Company: Muharram Rebellion: Hada and Mada Miah lead the first anti-British uprising in the subcontinent against Robert Lindsay and his contingents in Sylhet Shahi Eidgah

• 1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.

• 1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

• 1838 – Great Trek: Battle of Blood River: Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius and Sarel Cilliers defeat Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.[8]

• 1843 – The discovery of octonions by John T. Graves, who denoted them with a boldface O, was announced to his mathematician friend William Hamilton, discoverer of quaternions, in a letter on this date.

• 1850 – The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

• 1863 – American Civil War: Joseph E. Johnston replaces Braxton Bragg as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: The Union's Army of the Cumberland routs and destroys the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee, ending its effectiveness as a combat unit.

• 1880 – Outbreak of the First Boer War between the Boer South African Republic and the British Empire.

• 1882 – Wales and England contest the first Home Nations (now Six Nations) rugby union match.

• 1883 – Tonkin Campaign: French forces capture the S?n Tây citadel.

• 1903 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay first opens its doors to guests.[9]

• 1905 – In Rugby Union, The "Match of the Century" is played between Wales and New Zealand at Cardiff Arms Park. 

• 1907 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.

• 1912 – First Balkan War: The Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Elli.

• 1918 – Vincas Mickevi?ius-Kapsukas declares the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic; it is dissolved in 1919.

• 1920 – The Haiyuan earthquake of 8.5Mw?, rocks the Gansu province in China, killing an estimated 200,000.

• 1922 – President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski at the Zach?ta Gallery in Warsaw.

• 1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a 200-strong posse, following a botched bank robbery, in Clinton, Indiana.

• 1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

• 1938 – Adolf Hitler institutes the Cross of Honour of the German Mother

• 1942 – The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

• 1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.

• 1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

• 1950 – Korean War: In response to China's Second Phase Offensive, U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a limited state of emergency.

• 1960 – A United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, New York and crash, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft and six more on the ground.

• 1965 – Vietnam War: General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966.

• 1968 – Second Vatican Council: Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain

• 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: The ceasefire of the Pakistan Army brings an end to both conflicts. This is commemorated annually as Victory Day in Bangladesh, and as Vijay Diwas in India.

• 1971 – The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain's independence, which is commemorated annually as Bahrain's National Day.

• 1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

• 1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, which has an immediate, dramatic effect on the United States.

• 1985 – Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of New York's Gambino crime family.

• 1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests break out in Timi?oara, Romania, in response to an attempt by the government to evict dissident Hungarian pastor László T?kés.

• 1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

• 1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union

• 2013 – A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.

• 2014 – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attack an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 150 people, 132 of them schoolchildren

National Events- 

•  Despite protest from various Muslim groups, a government higher secondary school (GHSS) in Kozhikode adopted a gender-neutral uniform for its Class 11 students on Wednesday.

•  Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not sacking Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra, whose son is among the accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, and said carefully curated spectacles of piety and wearing religious attire will not change the “fact that you are protecting a criminal”.

•  Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday paid tributes to the armed forces personnel on the 50th anniversary of Vijay Diwas, which commemorates India’s victory over Pakistan in 1971 war. Bangladesh, then part of Pakistan, became an independent country after the war.

•  The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) newly-elected Indian-American chief economist Gita Gopinath said the threat of Omicron has been aggravated owing to the vaccine inequity around the world.

• A new study published by The Lancet Global Health explores the association between zero-dose (unvaccinated) children and the socio-economic environment in which they live. According to this study, in 2016, around 2.9 million (29 lakh) unvaccinated children in India remained concentrated among poor households and among children born to mothers with no formal education.

International Events- 

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping praised their countries’ cooperation during a 90-minute video chat Wednesday. 

•  A Canadian molecular biologist, on Wednesday, told cross-party members of Parliament (MPs) on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan region of China is now the more likely origin of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

•  For more than 1,000 years, this market city was best known for products made from wool and woven fabrics and later for its large iron statues, including the Lady Justice figure that still sits atop the dome of the Old Bailey court about 100 miles east in London.

•  Health experts held somber news conferences that raised more questions than answers. Officials imposed travel bans that very likely came too late. Virus trackers filled in their maps as the variant was reported in country after country. And the rest of us waited, with increasing unease, to learn more about the threat we were facing.

• Taiwan will deepen economic ties with Lithuania in a “cycle of goodwill” as it faces pressure from Beijing, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States said on Wednesday, after Lithuania’s diplomatic delegation hastily departed China.

Job alerts-

• IPR Jobs for Stenographer and other posts. Last date 16 - Jan - 2022

• BECIL Jobs for Medical Lab Technologist and other posts. Last date 25 - Dec - 2021

• LGBRIMH Jobs for Staff Nurse, Nursing Tutor, LDC and other posts. Last date 10 - Jan - 2022

• East Coast Railway Jobs for Nursing Superintendent, Pharmacist and other posts. Last date 31 - Dec - 2021

• Punjab PSC Jobs for Analyst and other posts. Last date 03 - Jan - 2022

Sports-

•  Australia will be without captain Pat Cummins after the pacer was identified as a close contact of a positive COVID-19 case. With the second Ashes Test beginning on Thursday, Steve Smith is back as the Australian captain.

•  Leaving the BCCI red-faced ahead of the Indian team’s big-ticket tour to South Africa, skipper Virat Kohli Wednesday openly contradicted board president Sourav Ganguly’s version of events behind the T20 International captaincy change in October, saying no one had asked him to stay back in the position once he decided to quit due to workload issues.

•  Lingering feelings of loss can play a few tricks on the mind, and in sport, with the body, if not consciously addressed. Not all statistics in sport are inconsequential – though ask PV Sindhu and she’ll check her tournament badge, read ‘World Championships’ or ‘Olympics’, smile and wave away any nagging doubts about a pre-quarterfinal opponent.

•  India’s HS Prannoy registered a straight-game win over Daren Liew of Malaysia to reach the pre-quarterfinals of the BWF World Badminton Championships on Wednesday.

• Sir Lewis Hamilton, on Wednesday, received his knighthood from the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle days after he lost out on a record eighth title after a tense last lap at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hamilton, who appeared at Windsor Castle with his mother Carmen, is the fourth Formula 1 driver to be knighted, after Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Jack Brabham, Sir Stirling Moss.

Technology-

•  Content-sharing platform ShareChat on Thursday said it had raised $266 million (roughly Rs. 2,030 crore) in fresh funding from U.S.-based Alkeon Capital and some existing investors, pushing its valuation to $3.7 billion (roughly Rs. 28,210 crore).

•  Acer on Thursday kicked off its year-end sale in India under that is claimed to offer discounts of up to Rs. 40,000 on gaming laptops and up to 67 percent off on gaming accessories. Called ‘Loot Our Store Sale', the two-day sale is exclusive to the Acer online store in India and will last until Friday, December 17. The online sale also brings Acer laptops starting at as low as Rs. 23,990. The online store by the company offers no-cost EMI options, free delivery, and brand warranty.

•  A never-heard-before recording of Whitney Houston has just been sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) for $999,999 (roughly Rs. 7.62 crore) through the music-focussed marketplace OneOf. The song was recorded when Houston was 17, but was never released. The American singer and actor went on to become one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. NFT platform OneOf announced the sale on December 15, after first revealing in November 2021 that several Whitney Houston NFTs would be sold, with artwork by artist Diana Sinclair.

• Norway's data privacy watchdog on Wednesday fined dating app Grindr NOK 65 million (roughly Rs. 55 crore) for sending sensitive personal data to hundreds of potential advertising partners without users' consent — a breach of strict European Union privacy rules. 

• Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is stationed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) this week. The 46-year-old is the first self-paying tourist to visit the ISS since 2009, and it appears his vacation is worth the money spent. The views he captured from the ISS could make anyone envious. Maezawa captured the Earth in a time-lapse video from the ISS and shared it on Twitter. He wrote, “This is exactly an entire orbit around Earth. Breathtaking.” The video shows the space station's solar panels adjusting to the Sun's rays as the Earth rotates on its axis, showing blue oceans and white clouds.

Economy – 

• Services of public sector banks (PSBs) are likely to be affected today and tomorrow as over 9 lakh employees went on a 2-day strike on Thursday against the Centre’s plan to privatise state-owned lenders. 

•  The 30-share index surged 494.12 points or 0.86 per cent to 58,282.15 in the opening trade. Similarly, the Nifty rose 122.15 points or 0.71 per cent to 17,343.55.

•  Meta Platforms Inc founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday announced the expansion of his company’s collaboration with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) , under which Meta will train 10 lakh teachers and over a crore students in virtual and augmented reality over the next three years.

•  Foreign investors pulled out Rs 3,407 crore from stock markets on Wednesday, taking the total outflows to Rs 23,148 crore in December. According to analysts, the rupee weakened as the dollar index surged after wholesale price in the US rose to record highs.

• State Bank of India (SBI) has decided to offload 6 per cent stake in its mutual fund unit SBI Funds Management Private Ltd via an initial public offer (IPO).

Local –

• Former media executive Indrani Mukerjea, who is currently facing trial for the alleged murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, has written a letter to the CBI claiming that a fellow inmate has told her that she had seen Sheena alive in Kashmir. 

•  Four new cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Delhi over the last two days, taking Delhi’s total count up to ten.

•  Four more cases of the new variant Omicron have been detected in Maharashtra, of which two are from Osmanabad and one each from Mumbai and Buldhana. This takes the total tally of Omicron cases in the state to 32, out of which 25 patients have been discharged after negative RT-PCR test.

•  Bengal registered 554 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, a health bulletin said. The state’s overall caseload has now reached 16,24,715. Bengal’s active caseload stands at 7,490, of which 6,629 are in home isolation and 152 are in safe homes.

• Karnataka recorded 317 new Covid-19 cases Wednesday, said the bulletin issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare. As many as two deaths due to the viral infection were also reported.

GK – 

Which country topped the Asian Power Index for 2021?

[A] China
[B] India
[C] USA
[D] Russia

Which city has become the world’s first government to turn completely paperless?

[A] Moscow
[B] Dubai
[C] New York
[D] Abu Dhabi

The ‘Nupi Lal Day’ is observed every year in which state/UT?

[A] Assam
[B] Manipur
[C] Arunachal Pradesh
[D] Sikkim

What is the name of the therapy involving the use of light-sensitive medicine?

[A] Photodynamic therapy
[B] Photovoltaic therapy
[C] Photogeneric therapy
[D] Photology

River Seine, which was seen in the news recently, is located in which country?

[A] Russia
[B] France
[C] Australia
[D] China