Today's Event – 9th December 2021

• 480 – Odoacer, the first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia. He later establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.

• 536 – Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed; the Gothic garrison flees the capital.

• 730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: The Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami.

• 1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.

• 1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.

• 1835 – Texas Revolution: The Texian Army captures San Antonio.

• 1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.

• 1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.

• 1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by Congress.

• 1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

• 1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of a U.S. state.

• 1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.

• 1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.

• 1935 – Student protests occur in Beiping's Tiananmen Square, and are subsequently dispersed by government authorities.

• 1935 – Walter Liggett, an American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in a gangland murder.

• 1946 – The subsequent Nuremberg trials begin with the Doctors' Trial, prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.

• 1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.

• 1948 – The Genocide Convention is adopted.

• 1950 – Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

• 1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.

• 1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.

• 1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.

• 1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.

• 1965 – Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; with witnesses reporting something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh.

• 1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).

• 1969 – U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.

• 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.

• 1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.

• 1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (with rinderpest in 2011 being the other).

• 1987 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

• 1992 – American troops land in Somalia for Operation Restore Hope.

• 1996 – Gwen Jacob is acquitted of committing an indecent act, giving women the right to be topless in Ontario, Canada.

• 2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.

• 2008 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

• 2012 – A plane crash in Mexico kills seven people

• 2013 – At least seven are dead and 63 are injured following a train accident near Bintaro, Indonesia.

• 2016 – President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is impeached by the country's National Assembly in response to a major political scandal.

• 2016 – At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide bombers attack a market area in Madagali, Adamawa, Nigeria in the Madagali suicide bombings.

• 2017 – The Marriage Amendment Bill receives royal assent and comes into effect, making Australia the 26th country to legalize same-sex marriage.

• 2019 – A volcano on Whakaari / White Island, New Zealand, kills 22 people after it erupts

National Events- 

•  Locals showered flower petals on ambulances carrying the bodies of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 other personnel who were killed in a horrific chopper crash on Wednesday.

•  Former Punjab AAP convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur joined the Shiromani Akali Dal in the presence of party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal in Chandigarh on Thursday and will contest the upcoming polls from the Batala assembly seat.

•  The 15-month-long protest by farmers ended today as the Centre accepted their remaining demands, including a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Prices. The farmers, who have been camping at the Delhi borders, said they will go back on Saturday.

•  A day after Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others were killed in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu, the Indian Air Force said identifying all bodies was proving to be difficult because of the severity of the crash.

• The Centre had yesterday sent a written draft proposal to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha's five-member committee following a November 21 letter from the SKM to PM Modi listing six demands.

International Events- 

•  New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long.

•  Canada joined Australia, Britain and the United States in a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on Wednesday, with China calling the boycotts "political posturing" and a smear campaign.

•  Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Qatar on Wednesday as part of a Gulf tour, marking his first visit to the country after the two sides severed ties four years ago.

•  Netcare Ltd., which operates the largest private healthcare network in South Africa, is seeing milder Covid-19 cases even as omicron is driving up the number of people testing positive for the virus.

• Three top executives have resigned from Better.com -- and more are expected to follow suit -- after the CEO of the mortgage company fired 900 employees over a Zoom call. Leaked footage of the brutal call went massively viral on social media last week - prompting intense backlash against CEO Vishal Garg. 

Job alerts-

• SBI Jobs for Circle Based Officer and other posts. Last date 29th December 2021

• Tripura PSC Jobs for Assistant cum Typist and other posts. Last date 15/01/2022

• CMERI Jobs for Technical Assistant and other posts. Last date 20/12/2021

• IIAP Jobs for Junior Technical Assistant (Electronics) and other posts. Last date 03/01/2022

• National Institute of Hydrology Jobs for Research Assistant and other posts. Last date 03/01/2022

Sports-

•  Australian batsman Usman Khawaja, who was selected for the Ashes squad but is currently featuring in Australia A vs England Lions, had a tough time breaking the cultural barrier as a teenager.

•  David Warner set up the innings with a chance-filled 94 and Travis Head took over with an unbeaten century after a mini-collapse in the middle order to guide Australia to 343-7 at stumps on Day 2, a 196-run lead in the Ashes series opener.

•  The biggest fears of the Indian cricket board almost came true on Wednesday evening as two India A team coaches in South Africa tested positive for Covid-19 initially before further investigation confirmed their result as ‘false positives’.

•  Tottenham Hotspur’s home Europa Conference League game against Rennes on Thursday has been called off due to the number of coronavirus cases in the Spurs squad, the Premier League club said in a statement on Wednesday.

• Barcelona’s 17-year streak of advancing to the Champions League knockout rounds each season ended Wednesday with an exit from the group stage that failed to finish on time because of snow in Italy.

Technology-

•  Oppo Find N has been announced as the company's first foldable phone. The new smartphone is touted to be a result of Oppo's four years of R&D and six generations of prototypes. Similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series, the Oppo Find N has an inward folding design. Based on teasers, the phone also appears to have a metal finish and two different OLED displays, including a foldable one as the primary option. Oppo is also expected to offer its proprietary software experience on top to deliver a distinct user experience.

•  2021 has been a great year for smartphones, all things considered. We put out a list in the middle of this year recapping some of the best launches we've had in India, and now it's time for the final update as we close yet another year of stellar phone launches. Most of the phones in the previous list have remained, with the exception of some such as the Vivo X60 Pro, which has traded places with the Vivo X70 Pro+. We have some new additions such as the Realme GT and of course, the iPhone 13 series. The Google Pixel 6 series probably would have made this list too, had Google launched it in India.

• A Pixel 3 user last week noticed a bug that prevented them from being able to call US emergency number 911. Google has now confirmed that the issue appears to be due to the Microsoft Teams app. On the basis of an internal investigation in the matter, the Android maker said the glitch is believed to be present on a small number of devices where Microsoft Teams was installed but an account was not logged into the app. 

• Twitter's highest-profile users—those with lots of followers or particular prominence—often receive a heightened level of protection from the social network's content moderators under a secretive programme that seeks to limit their exposure to trolls and bullies. 

• Philips TAH6506BK over-ear wireless headphones with active noise cancellation (ANC) were launched in India on Thursday. The headphones have a claimed total playback time of up to 30 hours on a single charge, and up to 25 hours with the ANC turned on. The Philips TAH6506BK can be quickly charged via a USB Type-C port with a 15-minute charge giving them a total playback time of up to 2 hours. They come equipped with 32mm neodymium drivers, Bluetooth v5, and Bluetooth multipoint pairing.

Economy – 

•   The initial public offering (IPO) of Shriram Properties opened for subscription on Wednesday, December 8, 2021. The offer got 89 per cent subscribed by the end of the first day of bidding.

•  Equity benchmark Sensex ended 157 points higher on Thursday, tracking gains in index majors Reliance Industries, ITC and L&T amid a largely positive trend in global markets. The 30-share index ended 157.45 points or 0.27 per cent higher at 58,807.13. Similarly, the NSE Nifty rose 47.10 points or 0.27 per cent to 17,516.85.

•  The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has revised coal stocking norms at thermal power generation plants with an aim to prevent a repeat of the low coal stock situation at various plants in October.

•  The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday said cyber security and digital frauds are its main concerns when considering the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

• With fears over Omicron variant slowly receding, the BSE Sensex shot up by 1,016 points, or 1.76 per cent, to 58,649.68 and the NSE Nifty jumped 293 points at 17,469.75. The Sensex had gained 887 points on Tuesday. The rupee, meanwhile, fell to 75.50 against the US dollar on Wednesday

Local –

•  Announcing an end to their over-a-year-long agitation, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) decided to call off their protest at New Delhi’s borders on Thursday. Farmers will start vacating the protest sites from Saturday.

•  In two separate orders granting bail to two of the accused arrested in the Cordelia cruise case, a special court said that apart from the statements of the co-accused, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) did not produce any evidence to show that the men were peddlers or involved in illicit trafficking of drugs.

•  West Bengal’s Covid-19 tally went up to 16,20,803 on Wednesday after 574 more people tested positive.

•  Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has reaffirmed that board exams will be conducted for class 10 and 12 students in the state. He said as per norms, before the board exams, the first revision exams will be conducted in January and the second revision exams in March.

• The Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) in Karnataka has put in place all measures to start screening international passengers amid the scare of the spread of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.

GK – 

Where was the 22nd missile vessel Squadron (Killer Squadron) formally established?

[A] Mumbai
[B] Visakhapatnam
[C] Goa
[D] Cochin

Which state has approved to implement Atma Nirbhar Krishak Integrated Development Scheme

[A] Gujarat
[B] Uttar Pradesh
[C] Madhya Pradesh
[D] Maharashtra

Konyaks, who were in the news recently, are the largest tribes of which Indian state?

[A] Assam
[B] Himachal Pradesh
[C] Nagaland
[D] Madhya Pradesh

What is ‘Sandhayak’, which was recently launched by the Indian Navy?

[A] Survey vessel
[B] Missile Launch Vehicle
[C] Amphibious warfare ship
[D] Aircraft Carrier

Minsk agreements, seen sometimes in the news, are associated with which country?

[A] Israel
[B] Iran
[C] Ukraine
[D] Afghanistan