Today's Event – 16th January 2022

• 1547 – Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia, replacing the 264-year-old Grand Duchy of Moscow with the Tsardom of Russia

• 1605 – The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain.

• 1707 – The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain. 

• 1757 – Forces of the Maratha Empire defeat a 5,000-strong army of the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Narela.

• 1786 – Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson. 

• 1809 – Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.

• 1847 – John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.

• 1883 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, is enacted by Congress. 

• 1900 – The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.

• 1909 – Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole. 

• 1919 – Nebraska becomes the 36th state to approve the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. With the necessary three-quarters of the states approving the amendment, Prohibition is constitutionally mandated in the United States one year later. 

• 1920 – The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.

• 1921 – The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ä½ubochňa.

• 1942 – Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard. 

• 1945 – Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.

• 1969 – Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.

• 1979 – The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good and relocates to Egypt.

• 1991 – Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War.

• 1992 – El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, Mexico ending the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War that claimed at least 75,000 lives.

• 1995 – An avalanche hits the Icelandic village Súðavík, destroying 25 homes and burying 26 people, 14 of whom died. 

• 2001 – Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards in Kinshasa

• 2001 – US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War.

• 2002 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining members of the Taliban.

• 2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.

• 2006 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state

• 2011 – The Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) is established with the stated goal of re-organizing Syria along the lines of democratic confederalism. 

• 2016 – Thirty-three out of 126 freed hostages are injured and 23 killed in terrorist attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on a hotel and a nearby restaurant.

• 2018 – Myanmar police open fire on a group of ethnic Rakhine protesters, killing seven and wounding twelve

• 2020 – The first impeachment of Donald Trump formally moves into its trial phase in the United States Senate. 

• 2020 – The United States Senate ratifies the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement as a replacement for NAFTA

National Events-

• The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to probe Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband’s website for allegedly publishing “unlawful and misleading” fatwas.

• The father of an Army Aviation pilot who died in a crash in Jammu and Kashmir last year has written to President Ram Nath Kovind, requesting him to make it mandatory for all army pilots to undergo underwater survival training and to equip them with essential life-saving gears.

• A sexual assault case has been lodged against a senior official of the Adani-run Thiruvananthapuram International Airport here, following which the company has suspended him from service.

• The Indian Embassy on Saturday said that India’s position on its boundary with Nepal is well known, consistent and unambiguous amidst discontent within the Opposition parties here over reports claiming that the Indian government is undertaking construction activities in areas that Nepal has included in its map.

• On February 19, 2017, at a meeting in Kochi’s Durbar Hall grounds, some of Kerala cinema’s biggest names gathered to protest the abduction and sexual assault of a woman actor. Among those present that day were superstars Mammootty and Dileep, high-profile directors Kamal and Lal and many others.

International Events-

• Forecasts of snow and ice as far south as Georgia have put a big part of the Southeast on an emergency preparedness footing as shoppers scoured store shelves for storm supplies and crews raced to treat highways and roads as a major winter storm approached from the Midwest.

• Putin wants to extend Russia’s sphere of influence to Eastern Europe and secure written commitments that NATO will never again enlarge. If he is frustrated in reaching that goal, some of his aides suggested on the sidelines of the negotiations last week, then he would pursue Russia’s security interests with results that would be felt acutely in Europe and the United States.

• After the Myanmar military seized power in a Feb 1 coup, millions of people walked off their jobs in protest. Millions also began refusing to pay for electricity, an act of civil disobedience aimed at depriving the junta of a crucial source of revenue.

• The mass protests in Kazakhstan began peacefully over the New Year’s weekend, with marchers denouncing a sharp rise in fuel prices. They spread quickly from the western part of the Central Asian nation to more populous areas, eventually reaching its largest city of Almaty.

• Scientists warn that Omicron’s whirlwind advance practically ensures it won’t be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world. Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and Omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.

Sports-

• Tennis superstar Novak Djokovic flew out of Australia on Sunday after a court upheld the government’s decision to cancel his visa, capping days of drama over the country’s COVID-19 entry rules and his unvaccinated status. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge Federal Court bench dealt a final blow to Djokovic’s hopes of chasing a record 21st Grand Slam win at the Australian Open that starts on Monday.

• World championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen faces reigning world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the summit clash on Sunday. The 20-year old will be itching to set the record straight after losing the Dutch Open final to Loh last year. Overall, the duo has a 2-2 head-to-head record with Sen losing two of the last three meetings.

• “Your legacy as a captain will stand for the kind of benchmarks you have set,” veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin summarised Virat Kohli’s spectacular Test captaincy stint as other members of the Indian cricket team also hailed the integrity and the vision the talismanic leader.

• Mohamed Salah squeezed a volley under the goalkeeper to give a nervous Egypt a 1-0 win over tiny Guinea-Bissau, which was denied maybe its biggest result at the African Cup of Nations when it had a brilliant late equalizer contentiously disallowed after a VAR check.

• India battled to a hard-fought triumph over South Africa in their first match of the ICC U-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup in Guyana on Saturday.

Economy –

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday called on Indian startups to tackle challenges facing the country, urging them to move towards villages, as he announced that January 16 would be celebrated as National Startup Day to spread the culture of startups across India.

• In a bid to conserve capital, IPO bound Life Insurance Corporation (LIC),has not paid any shareholder dividend to its owner, the Government of India, in the last two years — 2019-20 and 2020-21. The total profit reported by the state-run insurer during FY21 was Rs 2,901 crore as against Rs 2,713 crore in the previous year. It paid a dividend of Rs 2,611 crore in FY19.

• Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said Saturday it has raised prices of its models by up to 4.3 per cent with immediate effect to partially offset the impact of the rise in input costs. The company has enhanced prices across its models from 0.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent owing to rinse in various input costs.

Local –

• Delhi is expected to report around 17,000 cases on Sunday, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said.

• A year since the vaccination drive against Covid-19 was launched in India, Maharashtra has administered 14.29 crore doses till January 15, contributing to 9.13 per cent of the nation’s total tally. It ranks after Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest vaccination coverage so far.

• On a day the elections to four municipal corporations in West Bengal were postponed in view of the rising Covid-19 cases, several transit points for Gangasagar Mela saw jostling crowds, some without masks and some dangling them on their chins. The authorities though, said they tried their best to enforce the curbs and protocols in place.

• The Arignar Anna Zoological Park, also known as the Vandalur zoo, has been shut after 80 employees tested positive for Covid-19.

• According to the Karnataka health and family welfare department, the state reported 32,793 cases, taking the number of total active cases to 1,69,850. A total of 4,273 people have recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours. As many as 479 Omicron infections have been reported till date.

GK –

The ‘Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM),which was recently flight-tested, was developed in which country?

[A] France
[B] USA
[C] India
[D] Israel

What is the objective of ‘Clairvoyant’, the AI-based patented system launched recently?

[A] Tackle Air Pollution
[B] Water Purification
[C] Mine Cryptocurrency
[D] Disinfection

PARAKH, which was seen in the news recently, is a portal associated with which field?

[A] Student Learning Assessment
[B] Defence Acquisition
[C] Investment Advice
[D] Customs Clearance

Gulabo, which recently passed away at the Van Vihar National Park and Zoo, Bhopal is a ………..

[A] One-horned Rhino
[B] Sloth Bear
[C] Bengal Tiger
[D] Giant Tortoise

‘Central Institute of Classical Tamil’, is located in which city?

[A] Madurai
[B] Chennai
[C] Coimbatore
[D] Tiruchirappalli