Today's Event – 20th November 2021

• 1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.

• 1739 – Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.

• 1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

• 1805 – Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.

• 1815 – The Second Treaty of Paris is signed, returning the French frontiers to their 1790 extent, imposing large indemnities, and prolonging the occupation by Allied troops for several more years.

• 1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this incident.)

• 1900 – The French actress Sarah Bernhardt receives the press at the Savoy Hotel in New York at the outset of her first visit since 1896. She talked about her impending tour with a troupe of more then 50 performers and her plans to play the title role in Hamlet

• 1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.

• 1959 – The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.

• 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

• 1968 – A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company's No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster.

• 1969 – Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971.

• 1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.

• 1974 – The first fatal crash of a Boeing 747 occurs when Lufthansa Flight 540 crashes while attempting to takeoff from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 59 out of the 157 people on board.

• 1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

• 1979 – Grand Mosque seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.

• 1980 – Lake Peigneur in Louisiana drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole.

• 1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0, the first graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft, is released.

• 1991 – An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend District of Azerbaijan.

• 1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.

• 1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.

• 1993 – Macedonia's deadliest aviation disaster occurs when Avioimpex Flight 110, a Yakovlev Yak-42 crashes near Ohrid killing all 116 people on board.

• 1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.)

• 1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

• 1998 – The first space station module component, Zarya, for the International Space Station is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

• 2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.

• 2015 – Following a hostage siege, at least 19 people are killed in Bamako, Mali.

National Events- 

•  Exhorting Army personnel to prepare for any and every eventuality along the borders, Arunachal Pradesh Governor Brig (Retd) B D Mishra on Saturday said India would not have faced “reverses” against China in 1962 if the country back then had a strong leadership, a statement issued by the Raj Bhavan here said.

•  Helplessness in the face of inevitable compulsion cannot be considered as consent, Kerala High Court has said while considering an appeal filed by a rape convict.

•  Barring the ink used to write them, what was black in the farm laws, Union minister General (Retired) V K Singh asked farmers on Saturday, lamenting the insistence of one of their sections forcing a rollback of the reform legislation.

• The Union Health Ministry has activated a service on the CoWIN portal that allows anyone to check an individual’s vaccination status with the person’s registered mobile number and name, followed by an OTP for consent. 

• Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Saturday courted controversy after he reportedly called Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan his bada bhai (elder brother) during his visit to Kartarpur Sahib.

International Events- 

•  Pakistan on Saturday said the containers seized by Indian authorities at Gujarat's Mundra Port on a Shanghai-bound cargo ship were "empty" but were earlier used for the transportation of fuel from China to Karachi for K-2 and K-3 nuclear power plants.

•  Tens of thousands of protesters, many from far-right groups, marched through Vienna on Saturday after the Austrian government announced a nationwide lockdown beginning Monday to contain the country's skyrocketing coronavirus infections.

•  A prominent doctor was kidnapped and killed in northern Afghanistan, his family said on Saturday. Mohamed Nader Alemi was abducted two months ago in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, and his kidnappers demanded a ransom for his release, his son Roheen Alemi said. The family eventually paid them $350,000, after negotiating down their initial demand of more than twice that, he said.

• Nepal will not allow nationals from a third country to travel to India by rail via the recently launched Kurtha-Jayanagar railroad after Indian officials raised a red flag, citing security concerns, a media report said here on Saturday.  

• The leader of a Philippines-based church was charged with having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and "eternal damnation" unless they catered to Apollo Carreon Quiboloy," federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Job alerts-

• IHBAS Jobs for Senior Resident and other posts. Last date 26 November 2021

• Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) Jobs for Veterinary Officer and other posts. Last date 10 December 2021

• Bharat Electronics Limited Jobs for Senior Engineer, Deputy Manager and other posts. Last date 08 December 2021

• Odisha Public Service Commission Jobs for Assistant Director and other posts. Last date 24 December 2021

• Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Jobs for Project Manager, Project Engineer and other posts. Last date 09 December 2021

Sports-

• MS Dhoni has confirmed that his last T20 game will be in Chennai, putting his Indian Premier League retirement speculations to bed. 

•  Some of the world’s most famous tennis players, distraught by the disappearance of colleague Peng Shuai, are challenging China’s Communist Party to get answers.

•  The West Bengal government relaxed for two hours the restrictions on the movement of people and vehicles due to the third T-20 international cricket match between India and New Zealand at Eden Gardens stadium on Sunday.

• The wheel seems to be coming off for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United. The pressure on the Norwegian manager reached new levels Saturday after the team’s latest Premier League setback, a dispiriting 4-1 loss to struggling Watford. 

• Former Yorkshire spinner Azeem Rafiq, who is at the centre of the racism controversy in English cricket, has been accused of sending “vulgar” messages to a teenage girl six years ago, the ‘Yorkshire Post’ reported.

Technology-

• Microsoft has started to roll out a new update for its Edge browser this week. The latest version of the browser is called Edge 96 

•  Google rolled out the Chrome 96 update to the public this week and along with that the company also released the beta update of Chrome 97. 

•  Visa expects to resolve its credit card fee dispute with Amazon.com Inc in Britain and hopes to continue its co-branded credit card partnership with the e-commerce brand

•  Digital payments platform PhonePe on Friday announced a buyback of employee stock options (ESOPs) worth Rs 135 crore.

• Google Messages is getting a new feature that enhances iMessage reaction within the app

Economy – 

• The Government is mulling changes in the Income Tax laws to bring cryptocurrencies under the tax net, with some changes that could form part of the Budget next year, a top official said. 

•  After missing two self-imposed deadlines, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd has shelved a proposed deal to sell a 20 per cent stake in its oil refinery and petrochemical business to Saudi Aramco for an asking of USD 15 billion as the Indian firm focuses on new energy business.

•  After missing two self-imposed deadlines, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd has shelved a proposed deal to sell a 20 per cent stake in its oil refinery and petrochemical business to Saudi Aramco for an asking of USD 15 billion as the Indian firm focuses on new energy business.

•  Over 80 per cent of insurance buyers still prefer a physical copy of their insurance document despite rapid digitisation, a survey report said.

• Exports of agricultural and processed food products rose by 14.7 per cent to USD 11.65 billion during the April-October period on the back of healthy growth in commodities including rice, and fresh fruits and vegetables, the commerce ministry said on Friday.

Local –

•  The Indian Youth Congress (IYC) has filed a complaint at Parliament Street police station against Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut on Saturday for allegedly making “seditious” remarks on social media. Police have received the complaint, filed by IYC national secretary Amreesh Ranjan Pandey and co-coordinator of the IYC’s legal cell Ambuj Dixit.

•  THE NCB has called allegations of fabrication of evidence baseless, countering claims made by a 20-year-old accused that drugs were planted on him to implicate him in a case.

•  Senior BJP leader Tathagata Roy, who has been lashing out at the party’s West Bengal leadership since the assembly poll debacle, on Saturday said he has decided to bid “farewell” to the state unit of the saffron camp for the time being, apparently indicating that he would stop criticism of its leaders.

•  The Tamil Nadu government Saturday released a policy specifically aimed at ensuring the well-being of children across a range of indices such as health, nutrition, and access to schooling.

• The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has served summons to the Founder CEO of a Bengaluru space start-up and the firm’s US subsidiary through diplomatic channels to facilitate the start of a trial in a money laundering case over three years after filing a chargesheet against them.

GK – 

The Annual Council of Ministers meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) was recently held in which city?

[A] New Delhi
[B] Dhaka
[C] Colombo
[D] Male

Which Union Ministry is implementing the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) scheme?

[A] Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
[B] Ministry of Rural Development
[C] Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
[D] Ministry of Panchayati Raj

Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF),which is seen in the news sometimes, is associated with which sector?

[A] Coal Mining
[B] Tele-communication
[C] Automobile
[D] Textiles

Department of Animal husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) functions under which Union Ministry?

[A] Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
[B] Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying
[C] Ministry of Food Processing Industries
[D] Ministry of Rural Development

What is the position of India in producing footwear and leather garments in the world?

[A] First
[B] Second
[C] Fourth
[D] Tenth