Today's Event – 21st December 2021

• AD 69 – The Roman Senate declares Vespasian emperor of Rome, the last in the Year of the Four Emperors. 

• 1124 – Pope Honorius II is consecrated, having been elected after the controversial dethroning of Pope Celestine II. 

• 1140 – After a siege of several weeks, the city of Weinsberg and its castle surrender to Conrad III of Germany.[3]

• 1237 – The city of Ryazan is sacked by the Mongol army of Batu Khan. 

• 1361 – The Battle of Linuesa is fought in the context of the Spanish Reconquista between the forces of the Emirate of Granada and the combined army of the Kingdom of Castile and of Jaén resulting in a Castilian victory.

• 1620 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

• 1826 – American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.

• 1832 – Egyptian–Ottoman War: Egyptian forces decisively defeat Ottoman troops at the Battle of Konya.

• 1844 – The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers commences business at its cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.

• 1861 – Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

• 1872 – Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth, England.

• 1879 – World premiere of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

• 1883 – The Royal Canadian Dragoons and The Royal Canadian Regiment, the first Permanent Force cavalry and infantry regiments of the Canadian Army, are formed.

• 1907 – The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in Iquique, Chile. 

• 1910 – An underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit in Over Hulton, Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.

• 1913 – Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.

• 1919 – American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia.

• 1923 – United Kingdom and Nepal formally sign an agreement of friendship, called the Nepal–Britain Treaty of 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sugauli signed in 1816.

• 1936 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 88 multi-role combat aircraft.

• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.

• 1941 – World War II: A Thai-Japanese Pact of Alliance is signed.

• 1946 – An 8.1 Mw earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Nankaidō, Japan, kills over 1,300 people and destroys over 38,000 homes.

• 1963 – "Bloody Christmas" begins in Cyprus, ultimately resulting in the displacement of 25,000–30,000 Turkish Cypriots and destruction of more than 100 villages.

• 1965 – International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is adopted.

• 1967 – Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a human-to-human heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the transplant.

• 1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

• 1970 – First flight of F-14 multi-role combat aircraft.

• 1973 – The Geneva Conference on the Arab–Israeli conflict opens.

• 1979 – Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and S.C. Mundawarara.

• 1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270. This is to date the deadliest air disaster to occur on British soil.

• 1988 – The first flight of Antonov An-225 Mriya, the largest aircraft in the world.

• 1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 56.

• 1995 – The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.

• 1999 – The Spanish Civil Guard intercepts a van loaded with 950 kg of explosives that ETA intended to use to blow up Torre Picasso in Madrid, Spain.

• 1999 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 1216 overshoots the runway at La Aurora International Airport, killing 18. 

• 2004 – Iraq War: A suicide bomber kills 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers.

• 2020 – A great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn occurs, with the two planets separated in the sky by 0.1 degrees. This is the closest conjunction between the two planets since 1623

National Events- 

•  The Kerala High Court on Tuesday said brutality in police stations will stop once there are functional CCTV cameras there, especially in the cells.

•  The Jharkhand Assembly Tuesday passed a bill to prevent mob violence and lynching in the state notorious for vigilante justice, with the proposed law providing for punishment ranging from three years in jail to life imprisonment.

•  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday during an event in Prayagraj transferred Rs 1,000 crore to bank accounts of self-help groups to benefit around 16 lakh women. He also released over Rs 20 crore to more than 1 lakh beneficiaries under the ‘Mukhya Mantri Kanya Sumangala Scheme’, a scheme that provides conditional cash transfer to a girl child at different stages of her life. In addition, he laid the foundation stone of 202 supplementary nutrition manufacturing units in 43 districts.

•  The government on Tuesday told Lok Sabha that it proposes to send the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Act, 2021 to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for further discussion. Introduced by Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani amid opposition from Congress and other parties for the haste in which it was being brought in, the Bill seeks to increase the legal age for women to marry to 21 years from 18 years.

• While political parties in Kashmir have openly opposed the Delimitation Commission’s draft paper that has proposed six new Assembly constituencies for Jammu and only one for the Valley, it has brought no jubilation in Jammu either.

International Events- 

• A British court on Tuesday ordered the ruler of Dubai to pay his ex-wife and their children close to 550 million pounds ($730 million),in one of the most expensive divorce settlements in British history. 

•  Now the United States and Britain have quietly dispatched cyberwarfare experts to Ukraine in hopes of better preparing the country to confront what they think may be the next move by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as he again menaces the former Soviet republic: Not an invasion with the 175,000 troops he is massing on the border, but cyberattacks that take down the electric grid, the banking system, and other critical components of Ukraine’s economy and government.

•  The UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab on Monday defended his boss, saying a picture of a garden gathering that included Boris Johnson was “not a party.”

• The US has designated Indian-origin diplomat Uzra Zeya as its Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues and she has been tasked with promoting “substantive dialogue” between China and the Dalai Lama or his representatives, in support of a negotiated agreement on Tibet. 

• Sri Lanka’s state oil entity and the Indian Oil Corporation’s local subsidiary have raised the prices of petrol and diesel amidst a severe foreign exchange crisis in the country even as the government said that negotiations are underway with India and Oman to work out credit lines for fuel purchases.

Job alerts-

• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited Jobs for HR Executive, Public Relations Officer and other posts. Last date 04 January 2022

• Assam Police Recruitment Jobs for Sub Inspector and other posts. Last date 21 January 2022

• South Central Railway Jobs for Sports Quota and other posts. Last date 17 January 2022

• Odisha State Cooperative Bank Limited Jobs for Assistant Manager, Baking Assistant and other posts. Last date 17 January 2022

• Saraswat Co-Operative Bank Limited Jobs for Junior Officer and other posts. Last date 31 December 2021

Sports-

• Paris St Germain will look to end the year on a high when they take on Lorient in the final game of the year but must alter their tactics with Neymar still injured and Kylian Mbappe suspended, manager Mauricio Pochettino said on Tuesday. 

•  AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the club’s latest player to be ruled out with injury, Stefano Pioli said on Tuesday, as the Rossoneri look to end a recent winless run against Empoli before the winter break.

•  Olympic tennis champion Belinda Bencic has tested positive for Covid-19 after her trip to Abu Dhabi and has “severe symptoms”, she said on Tuesday, a day after Rafa Nadal announced he had also tested positive.

•  Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Tuesday said his ministry has released a sum of Rs 6,801.30 crore under various sports development schemes in the last five years.

• Veteran India pacer Jhulan Goswami is all set to storm the world of non-fungible token (NFT) with the Dubai-based CricFlix, in association with RevSportz and Fanatic Sports, launching its first-ever cricket NFT auction on December 24.

Awards and honours-

• TBA 

Technology-

•  iQoo U5 smartphone has silently been unveiled in China. It is a part of the Vivo sub-brand's U-series of smartphones. The 5G-enabled handset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 SoC, and features a full-HD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The smartphone is the successor to the iQoo U3 handset that was launched in December last year. The news comes a few hours after the Chinese company launched the iQoo Neo 5S and iQOO Neo 5 SE in the country.

•  Oppo Find X4 series is tipped to launch next year in February or March. The information comes from a known tipster who also claims that the series will hit the market with both MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC-powered models. The Chinese tech giant is expected to launch the lineup with the vanilla Oppo Find X4 and the top-of-the-line Oppo Find X4 Pro. The upcoming smartphones will succeed the Oppo Find X3 series which was launched earlier this year in March.

•  Realme GT 2 series' launch date may be announced on Wednesday, or, it may even be launched, if the latest teaser from the company is any clue. The Chinese tech-giant has not yet confirmed when the smartphone will launch. On Monday, Realme introduced three innovative technologies it will incorporate in its soon-to-be-launch flagship smartphone. The three new technologies that Realme introduced pertain to the design, photography, and communication features of Realme GT 2 Pro. The upcoming flagship series is said to comprise the vanilla Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro

• Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a tweet exchange with Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B has stated that he believes Bitcoin will replace the US Dollar. Cardi B asked on Twitter if crypto would replace the US currency, to which Dorsey replied, “Yes, Bitcoin will.” Dorsey, who now leads digital payments and financial services company Block (formerly Square) which he founded in 2009, made the prediction in a series of exchanges on Twitter, in which he dismissed much of the hype surrounding Web3. 

• WhatsApp is working on two new visual indicators to inform users about end-to-end encryption used across different parts of the messaging app. The features were spotted on the app's Call and Status screen on the iOS version of WhatsApp. On the calling screen, users are informed that their personal calls are protected with end-to-end encryption, while on the status screen, a message indicates that a user's status is end-to-end encrypted.

Economy – 

•  The demand for credit cards that provide benefits on fuel has risen by 10 times owing to higher fuel prices in the country, a report by online loan and financial products aggregator BankBazaar has claimed. Separately it also stated that the average ticket size for personal loans dropped for the fourth consecutive year from Rs 1.92 lakh to Rs 1.86 lakh

•  The Indian rupee is set to end a tumultuous year as Asia’s worst-performing currency with foreign funds fleeing the nation’s stocks.

•  Shares of digital mapping company C.E. Info Systems (MapmyIndia) debuted on a strong note and got listed at a premium of 53 per cent from their issue price in the stock exchanges today.

•  The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 497.00 points (0.89 per cent) to settle at 56,319.01, while the broader Nifty 50 ended at 16,770.85, up 156.65 points (0.94 per cent). Earlier in the day, both the indices had opened around 1 per cent higher and extended their gains rising nearly 2 per cent.

• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday banned the derivative trade of seven agriculture commodities on the future’s platform of National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) for a year.

Environment –

•  TBA

Local –

• The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested jailed ex-promoter brothers of the Unitech realty group– Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra– in a money laundering case being investigated against them, officials said on Tuesday. 

•  THE Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s health department held a meeting on Tuesday and reactivated the jumbo Covid-19 centres in the city amid rising cases of the Omicron variant of the infection.

•  The Trinamool Congress Tuesday registered a landslide victory in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections, winning 134 of the 144 wards. The BJP, which had emerged as the main opposition party in the Assembly polls earlier this year, won three seats, while the Left Front and Congress won two each. The Independents, with three seats, ended on an equal footing with the non-TMC parties.

•  Chennai city police on Monday detained two girl students studying in Class 10 and their online friend for their alleged role in the murder of a 21-year-old youth who had been blackmailing them of releasing their intimate pictures he had taken with them. The case came to light on Sunday when farmers of Eachangadu village, in the suburbs of Chennai, spotted hair and bloodied remains of a body in a deserted farm.

• The Karnataka government on Tuesday announced restrictions on public celebrations of new year in the wake of rising cases of Omicron in the state.

Person in News – 

•  TBA

GK – 

Covovax is produced by the Serum Institute of India under the licence from which vaccine?

[A] Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine
[B] Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine
[C] Johnson & Johnson Vaccine
[D] Novovax Vaccine

Competition Commission of India (CCI) has recently fined Rs 202 crores on which company?

[A] Flipkart
[B] Amazon
[C] Reliance Industries
[D] D-Mart

Which country has published a draft agreement to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to ensure security?

[A] USA
[B] Russia
[C] UK
[D] France

Who is the author of the “Tamil Thai Vaazhthu”, declared as the State Song of Tamil Nadu?

[A] Subramania Bharathi
[B] Bharathidasan
[C] ‘Manonmaneeyam’ Sundaranar
[D] U Ve Swaminadhar

Which language Day is observed on 18 December?

[A] French
[B] Greek
[C] Arabic
[D] Urdu