Today's Event – 23rd January 2022

• 1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.

• 1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire

• 1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.) when Bishop John Carroll, Rev. Robert Molyneux, and Rev. John Ashton purchase land for the proposed academy for the education of youth. 

• 1793 – Second Partition of Poland

• 1795 – After an extraordinary charge across the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry captured 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare occurrence of a battle between ships and cavalry.

• 1846 – Slavery in Tunisia is abolished.

• 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.

• 1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.

• 1899 – The Malolos Constitution is inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic. Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as its first president.

• 1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.

• 1912 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.

• 1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.

• 1937 – The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime.

• 1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.

• 1950 – The Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

• 1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".

• 1958 – After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela.

• 1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.

• 1961 – The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.

• 1963 – The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese Army stationed in Tite.

• 1964 – The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.

• 1967 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast are established.

• 1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty-one villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of continuous settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.

• 1968 – USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is attacked and seized by the Korean People's Navy.

• 1985 – World Airways Flight 30H overshoots the runway at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, and crashes into Boston Harbor. Two people are presumed dead.

• 1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

• 1987 – Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan sends a "letter of death" to Somali President Siad Barre, proposing the genocide of the Isaaq people

• 1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.

• 1998 – Netscape announces Mozilla, with the intention to release Communicator code as open source.

• 2001 – Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.

• 2002 – U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered.

• 2003 – A very weak signal from Pioneer 10 is detected for the last time, but no usable data can be extracted.

• 2018 – A 7.9 Mw  earthquake occurs in the Gulf of Alaska. It is tied as the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States, but there are no reports of significant damage or fatalities.

• 2018 – A double car bombing in Benghazi, Libya, kills at least 33 people and wounds "dozens" of others. The victims include both military personnel and civilians, according to local officials

• 2018 – The China–United States trade war begins when President Donald Trump places tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines. 

• 2020 – The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

National Events-

• There has been an attempt to obliterate the contribution of several great personalities of Indian history along with its culture and heritage, PM Narendra Modi said on Sunday after inaugurating a hologram statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate. He said the country was now “correcting this mistake with boldness”

• KERALA CHIEF Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Centre to drop the proposed amendments to the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954.

• As the country commemorates Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary, the Forward Bloc, which had in 1939 emerged as a faction of the Indian National Congress under his leadership, struggles for political survival, having been plagued by financial crisis, numerous splits and lack of management.

• Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, India is now finally acknowledging that the disease is in community transmission stage. Recently released bulletins of INSACOG, the consortium of national laboratories that is tracking the different variants of the virus, has mentioned that Omicron is now spreading through community transmission.

• The Indian economy has “some bright spots and a number of very dark stains” and the government should target its spending “carefully” so that there are no huge deficits, noted economist and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Sunday.

International Events-

• A stowaway was discovered in the wheel section under the front of a Cargolux freight plane that arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport from Africa on Sunday, Dutch military police said.

• A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday started three days of talks in Oslo with Western government officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

• New coronavirus cases have started to fall nationally, signaling that the omicron-fueled spike that has infected tens of millions of Americans, packed hospitals and shattered records has finally begun to relent

• Hong Kong authorities said on Sunday one hamster surrendered to authorities by pet owners had tested positive for Covid-19 and that over 2,200 hamsters had been culled as the city struggled to contain an outbreak.

• The United Nations said it was concerned about the disappearance of two Afghan women’s rights activists. Taman Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel were reportedly abducted from their homes by the Taliban on Wednesday night.

Sports-

• Former India coach Ravi Shastri believes Virat Kohli could have led the Indian Test team for another two years. Kohli decided to step down after the 1-2 series defeat in South Africa, and now won’t be captain in any format.

• India were forced to withdraw from the Asian Cup after they were unable to field a team for their Group A match against Chinese Taipei on Sunday after a Covid-19 outbreak within the squad.

• Indian Grandmaster M R Lalith Babu emerged victorious in the Marienbad Open 2022 chess tournament here. He remained unbeaten through nine rounds and accumulated 6.5 points to finish half a point ahead of Icelandic GM Hannes Stefansson, the runner-up.

• India’s Sania Mirza and her American partner Rajeev Ram advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals of the Australian Open with a straight set win over Ellen Perez and Matwe Middelkoop here on Sunday.

• Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu eased past young compatriot Malvika Bansod in straight games to win her second women’s singles title at the Syed Modi International badminton tournament in Lucknow on Sunday.

Economy –

• Proliferation of public WiFi hotspots in rural and urban areas will lead to increased employment for micro and small entrepreneurs in these regions by providing them with an additional source of income, Department of Telecommunication (DoT)  Secretary K Rajaraman said.

• The Payments Council of India (PCI) has sought rollback of zero merchant discount rate (MDR) regime for payments made through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay debit cards.

• The mandatory process for updating nominee details for subscribers of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is facing issues with users reporting glitches in the registration process on the portal. Many have reported issues ranging from the portal showing error, inability to complete the e-sign process and server issues over the last month.

• Various government departments and ministries had pending payments amounting to Rs 278.49 crore to Air India, according to RTI information from the loss-laden national carrier which is being sold off to the Tata group.

• Aided by higher interest income, ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 25 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 6,194 crore during the December quarter of FY22, from Rs 4,940 crore in the same period a year ago.

Local –

• A 32-bed Covid isolation centre for students and campus residents has been set up inside Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the national capital, following the Delhi government’s health department order on January 21.

• Four persons including two minors have been arrested after a 19-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped in the Shivaji Nagar area of suburban Govandi early on Saturday. Police said they had arrested Ramzan Ali Qureshi, 20, and Sajid Malik, 19, and sent the two minor boys, both 17 years old, to the Dongri children’s home.

• Sharpening her attack on the BJP, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said the Narendra Modi government, with the promise of installing a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate, cannot absolve itself of the injustice done to her state by rejecting its Republic Day tableau on the legendary freedom fighter.

• The number of fatalities caused due to Covid-19 in Tamil Nadu was ‘less’ as compared to other states because 65 per cent of the population has two doses of vaccination, Tamil Nadu Minister Ma Subramanian said on Saturday.

• Karnataka on Sunday reported 50,210 new Covid-19 cases, including 26,299 in Bengaluru, recording its highest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic. The state also registered 19 deaths. The positivity rate in the last 24 hours was 22.77 per cent.

GK –

Which country has organised the ‘Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation’?

[A] India
[B] Malaysia
[C] UK
[D] Sri Lanka

Which Union Ministry launched the “Koyla Darpan” portal?

[A] Ministry of Steel
[B] Ministry of Coal
[C] Ministry of Power
[D] Ministry of Rural Development

The UN General Assembly approves the resolution sponsored by which country, condemning Holocaust denial?

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

Ayesha Malik became the first-ever woman judge of the Supreme Court of which country?

[A] Israel
[B] Pakistan
[C] Afghanistan
[D] Bangladesh

Which state government launched the ‘Streetscaping and Beautification of Roads’ project on the lines of European Cities?

[A] Odisha
[B] Telangana
[C] Delhi
[D] Goa