Today's Event – 21s January 2022

• 1789 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth by William Hill Brown, is printed in Boston.

• 1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine.

• 1854 – The RMS Tayleur sinks off Lambay Island on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Australia with great loss of life

• 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.

• 1893 – The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, is formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana.

• 1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.

• 1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.

• 1915 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit.

• 1919 – A revolutionary Irish parliament is founded and declares the independence of the Irish Republic. One of the first engagements of the Irish War of Independence takes place.

• 1925 – Albania declares itself a republic.

• 1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

• 1932 – Finland and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty.

• 1948 – The Flag of Quebec is adopted and flown for the first time over the National Assembly of Quebec. The day is marked annually as Québec Flag Day.

• 1950 – American lawyer and government official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury.

• 1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.

• 1960 – Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.

• 1960 – Avianca Flight 671 crashes at Montego Bay, Jamaica airport, killing 37 people.

• 1971 – The current Emley Moor transmitting station, the tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, begins transmitting UHF broadcasts.

• 1976 – Commercial service of Concorde begins with the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

• 1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives votes 395–28 to reprimand Newt Gingrich for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.

• 1999 – War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 4,300 kilograms (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.

• 2000 – Ecuador: After the Ecuadorian Congress is seized by indigenous organizations, Col. Lucio Gutiérrez, Carlos Solorzano and Antonio Vargas depose President Jamil Mahuad. Gutierrez is later replaced by Gen. Carlos Mendoza, who resigns and allows Vice-President Gustavo Noboa to succeed Mahuad.

• 2003 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the Mexican state of Colima, killing 29 and leaving approximately 10,000 people homeless

• 2004 – NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies in the management of its flash memory and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.

• 2005 – In Belmopan, Belize, the unrest over the government's new taxes erupts into riots.

• 2009 – Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip, officially ending a three-week war it had with Hamas. However, intermittent fire by both sides continues in the weeks to follow.

• 2011 – Anti-government demonstrations take place in Tirana, Albania. Four people lose their lives from gunshots, allegedly fired from armed police protecting the Prime Minister's office

• 2018 – Rocket Lab's Electron becomes the first rocket to reach orbit using an electric pump-fed engine and deploys three CubeSats.

National Events-

• After four Indian nationals died in what seemed to be a case of trying to enter the US illegally from Canada, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that he was shocked to hear about the incident. There was no official word from the Ministry of External Affairs about the incident.

• Attorney General K K Venugopal on Friday gave consent to a Mumbai-based activist to initiate criminal contempt-of-court proceedings against Yati Narsinghanand for his remarks about the Supreme Court and the Constitution, saying they were “a direct attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court in the minds of the general public”.

• A war of words has broken out among war veterans after the government announced that the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, former Additional Director General of The Centre for Air Power Studies, tagged the Prime Minister’s Office in a tweet:: “Sir, the eternal flame at #IndiaGate is part of India’s psyche. You, I & r generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there. While NationalWarMemorial is great, the memories of #AmarJawanJyoti are indelible. Request rescind decision.”

• Acting upon a public interest litigation, the Kerala High Court on Friday banned conduct of all events and functions in Kasaragod which have more than 50 persons attending. The high court directive is a setback for ruling CPI(M),which began its Kasaragod district conference with 200-odd delegates and scores of volunteers.

• Ahead of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his statue will be installed at India Gate to honour his contribution to the independence movement. Until the installation is completed, a hologram of Netaji will be projected at the site of the statue, the prime minister said. “I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netaji’s birth anniversary,” he tweeted.

International Events-

• As he starts his second term as UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere — but unlike US President Joe Biden he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine.

• Four Belarusian government officials have been charged in the United States with aircraft piracy for diverting a Ryanair flight last May to arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board, US prosecutors said on Thursday.

• Top American lawmakers have urged the Joe Biden administration to initiate a litigation process at the World Trade Organisation against India subsidising its farmers over half of the value of production for wheat.

• Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

• Scientists in Scotland have developed a test that uses X-ray technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect coronavirus disease (Covid-19) within minutes.

Job alerts-

• Educational Consultants India Limited Jobs for and other posts. Last date 07 February 2022

• Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission Jobs for Staff Nurse and other posts. Last date 21 February 2022

• Northern Railway Jobs for Senior Resident and other posts. Last date 04 February 2022

• DHS Coimbatore Jobs for Lab Technician, Driver and other posts. Last date 27 January 2022

• Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Jobs for Senior Section Engineer, Junior Engineer and other posts. Last date 14 February 2022

Sports-

• Jamaican cricketer Andre Russell was dismissed in an unusual manner on Friday in a Bangladesh Premier League match between Khulna Tigers and Minister Group Dhaka.

• Sixth seed Rafa Nadal dropped his first set at this year’s Australian Open but still powered through to the fourth round with a 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-1 defeat of Karen Khachanov on Friday.

• Two-time defending champions Japan brushed aside Myanmar 5-0 in their opening game at the Women’s Asian Cup in Pune on Friday while joint-favourites Australia thrashed Indonesia 18-0

• Sixteen members of the senior men’s hockey team were among the 33 COVID-19 cases detected on Friday at the Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence. The positive cases came after 128 tests were conducted at the high-profile centre, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) said.

• Defending champion Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the Australian Open after losing to Amanda Anisimova 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5) in the third round.

Technology-

• Microsoft recently announced that it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion (roughly Rs. 5,10,990 crore). The wheels have been set in motion, and the deal is expected to close in fiscal year 2023. Activision Blizzard currently has famous titles like World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch under its belt. However, one of its most notable franchises is Call of Duty. This acquisition has cast some clouds over the multi-platform nature of the Call of Duty games. Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, has mentioned in a recent tweet that they have been in talks with leaders at Sony to address these concerns.

• Snap is speeding up its global expansion in countries from Mexico to Japan through tie-ups with wireless carriers and highlighting its popular augmented reality features, the company told Reuters. The parent company of the Snapchat photo messaging app is leaning on its relative safety during a period when social media platforms such as Meta's Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok are being scrutinized worldwide over harmful content, lax privacy and cybersecurity protections, which has led to outright bans of the services in some countries.

• Sony Group will likely add new technology partners to its electric vehicle (EV) project to help it forge a mobility business to transform cars from transportation machines to entertainment spaces, a Sony executive told Reuters.

• Lithium is in hot demand due to rapidly growing production of electric vehicles that use lithium-ion batteries, but there is a global supply shortage of the metal, with western countries racing to bring on new mines to compete with China.

• Twitter Flock could be the final version of the ‘Trusted Friends' feature that the microblogging network announced as a concept in July last year. It appears to allow users to have up to 150 people in a group who all will be able to see their tweets and respond to them privately. A teardown of a recent Twitter for Android beta app has also included the code to suggest the Flock feature. Twitter may aim to offer an experience similar to Instagram's ‘Close Friends' by offering Flock on its platform. The Instagram feature allows users to share their Stories to a certain group of people instead of making them public.

Economy –

• Reliance Industries (RIL),the country’s largest corporate in terms of market capitalisation, reported a 41.58 per cent year-on-year rise in its consolidated net profit at Rs 18,549 crore for the December quarter (Q3).

• The growing popularity of digital banks proves that it intuitively caters to customers’ requirements, allowing them to transact in seconds and focus on other areas of their lives.

• Cryptocurrencies sank Friday, taking Bitcoin to the lowest level in more than five months as risk aversion again swept across global markets. The largest cryptocurrency dropped as much as 7.4% to $38,261, while second-ranked Ether slid below $3,000. Digital tokens overall have shed some $1 trillion in value since a November peak, according to CoinMarketCap data.

• The S&P BSE Sensex fell 427.44 points (0.72 per cent) to end at 59,037.18 while the broader Nifty 50 crashed 139.85 points (0.79 per cent) to settle at 17,617.15. Both the indices had opened over a per cent lower earlier in the day and had fallen around 1.5 per cent in the intraday trade.

• The Reserve Bank of India has approved the appointment of former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai as chairman of Unity Small Finance Bank. Rai, after his retirement as the CAG, headed the Banks Board Bureau, the body that advises the government on top-level appointments at public sector lenders and ways to address bad loans, as its chairman, Unity Small Finance Bank said in a statement.

Local –

• Gurgaon on Friday reported three deaths of Covid positive patients including a four-year-old girl, who was suffering from blood cancer. The district has reported 15 deaths so far this month. Over 3,509 fresh cases of Covid were reported in Gurgaon on Friday, taking the tally of active cases in the district to 25,306.

• The Bombay High Court Friday directed the Centre, Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to file affidavits within ten days in reply to the PIL filed by two city-based lawyers seeking framing and swift implementation of a vaccine-booster policy and arranging for booster dose “for every citizen on priority without any delay.”

• West Bengal’s Covid-19 tally of new cases dipped to 10,959 on Thursday and the state recorded 37 more casualties over the past 24 hours, as per a health bulletin issued by the government. Thursday’s figures took the state’s caseload and toll to 19,39,920 and 20,230 respectively.

• Tamil Nadu on Friday recorded 29,870 cases, pushing the caseload to 30,72,666. With 33 deaths, the toll reached 37,145. As many as 21,684 people got discharged, leaving 1,87,358 active infections. A total of 1,54,282 samples were tested on Friday. The positivity rate stood at 19.36 per cent.

• The Karnataka government Friday decided to lift the weekend curfew that was in force in the state to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Person in News –

• Aftab Ahmed Khan, an IPS officer from Maharashtra Police who is credited with starting the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) in the state and was part of several encounters passed away on Friday at the Kokilaben Dhirubai Ambani hospital following a brief illness. He was 81.

GK –

Which Indian has been roped in as the Ambassador for ICANN-supported Universal Acceptance Steering Group?

[A] Vijay Shekhar Sharma
[B] Sachin Bansal
[C] Bhavish Aggarwal
[D] Deepinder Goyal

Dimitar Kovacevski is the new Prime Minister of which country?

[A] Greece
[B] North Macedonia
[C] Egypt
[D] Argentina

Which Indian state has joined hands with the World Food Programme (WFP) to improve food security of farmers?

[A] Tamil Nadu
[B] Odisha
[C] Telangana
[D] Assam

Roberta Metsola is the youngest President of which multilateral institution?

[A] European Parliament
[B] UNESCO
[C] UNICEF
[D] World Bank

Which country initiated the ‘Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure’?

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