Today's Event – 23rd December 2021

• 1688 – As part of the Glorious Revolution, King James II of England flees from England to Paris, France after being deposed in favor of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.

• 1783 – George Washington resigns as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.

• 1793 – The Battle of Savenay: A decisive defeat of the royalist counter-revolutionaries in War in the Vendée during the French Revolution.

• 1815 – The novel Emma by Jane Austen is first published.

• 1876 – First day of the Constantinople Conference which resulted in agreement for political reforms in the Balkans.

• 1893 – The opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck is first performed.

• 1913 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System. 

• 1919 – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 becomes law in the United Kingdom.

• 1936 – Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

• 1947 – The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.

• 1948 – Seven Japanese military and political leaders convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are executed by Allied occupation authorities at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan.

• 1954 – First successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray.

• 1955 – The first film adaptation of Väinö Linna's novel The Unknown Soldier, directed by Edvin Laine, premieres

• 1960 – Hilkka Saarinen née Pylkkänen is murdered in the so-called the "oven homicide" case in Krootila, Kokemäki, Finland. 

• 1968 – The 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo are released after eleven months of internment in North Korea.

• 1970 – The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, New York is topped out at 417 metres (1,368 ft),making it the tallest building in the world.

• 1970 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a one-party state.

• 1972 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000.

• 1972 – The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, surviving by cannibalism.

• 1978 – Alitalia Flight 4128 crashes into the Tyrrhenian Sea while on approach to Falcone Borsellino Airport in Palermo, Italy, killing 108

• 1979 – Soviet–Afghan War: Soviet Union forces occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital.

• 1984 – After experiencing an engine fire, Aeroflot Flight 3519 attempts to make an emergency landing at Krasnoyarsk International Airport but crashes, killing 110 of the 111 people on board

• 1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.

• 1990 – History of Slovenia: In a referendum, 88.5% of Slovenia's overall electorate vote for independence from Yugoslavia.

• 2002 – A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement between a drone and conventional aircraft.

• 2003 – PetroChina Chuandongbei natural gas field explosion, Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China, killing at least 234.

• 2007 – An agreement is made for the Kingdom of Nepal to be abolished and the country to become a federal republic with the Prime Minister becoming head of state.

• 2015 – A bomb explodes at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, killing one airport cleaner. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks claim responsibility for the attack four days later.

National Events- 

•  A 14-year-old boy was killed over a tiff allegedly by his friends who slit his throat, chopped off his hands and legs, stuffed the body in sacks and dumped it in a jungle in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district, police said on Thursday. The victim’s family filed a complaint on Wednesday, alleging that he went missing mysteriously the previous night, said Sub-Divisional Police Officer Pawan Kumar.

•  There are apprehensions that the latest bout of political violence in Kerala may raise communal temperature in the state, with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political wing, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI),being pitted against the BJP and the RSS.

•  Senior Congress leaders, including P Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi, have started mounting pressure on the Centre to allow booster shots, even though the government has asked states to impose strict restrictions in districts reporting a high number of Omicron cases.

•  The Madhya Pradesh government has ordered a probe after revelations one panchayat block in Vidisha district had funded nearly 6,000 weddings in two years under a welfare scheme – a “high” number by all estimates.

• Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Wednesday handed over 10 lakh doses of ‘Made in India’ vaccines to the representatives of the Myanmar Red Cross Society.

International Events- 

•  Canada will temporarily expand support programs to help people and businesses hit by the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Ottawa said on Wednesday, warning people that worse was to come as the virus spreads.

•  French schoolchildren clung nervously to their parents as they entered a vast vaccine center west of Paris on Wednesday, then walked excitedly away with a decorated “vaccination diploma,” as France kicked off mass Covid-19 inoculations for children age 5 to 11.

•  Facing pressure to prevent a humanitarian and economic catastrophe in Afghanistan, the Biden administration on Wednesday took steps to allow more aid to flow into the Taliban-led country.

•  As a surge in coronavirus cases continues to batter Britain, hospitals, clinics and ambulance services say it is winnowing their staffs, especially through the highly contagious omicron variant. The wave of infections has put severe pressure on the National Health Service, already under strain from worker shortages caused by underfunding, Brexit and the exhaustion from nearly two years of battling the pandemic.

• The United States formally exempted on Wednesday US and UN officials doing permitted business with the Taliban from US sanctions to try to maintain the flow of aid to Afghanistan as it sinks deeper into a humanitarian crisis.

Job alerts-

• Bank of India Jobs for Security Officer and other posts. Last date 07 January 2022

• Bombay High Court Jobs for Clerk and other posts. Last date 06 January 2022

• Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Science Jobs for Assistant Professor and other posts. Last date 21 January 2022

• Government Institute of Medical Sciences Jobs for Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor and other posts. Last date 22 January 2022

• National Technical Research Organization Jobs for Deputy Director, Aviator, Secretariat Assistant and other posts. Last date 18 January 2022

Sports-

•  At the ’83’ premiere in Mumbai on Wednesday evening, the members of Kapil Dev’s World Cup winning cricket team relived their past. As the legendary Sunil Gavaskar said, he was blown away. “Saw the movie for the first time at the Premiere last night and was blown away by the film. It’s simply brilliant and the way every actor has got the mannerisms, the walk, the look, the style of every player was unbelievably uncanny. Full marks to Kabir Khan and his team for their efforts,” the batting maestro told 

•  Australia coach Justin Langer on Thursday hinted that he would seek an extension of his four-year contract, expiring in June 2022, saying he “loves his job”.

•  Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard revealed on Wednesday how one of his players was so anxious about COVID-19 that he didn’t want to get out of his car.

•  The report spread like wildfire. Premier League players shared the link among their peers. Some passed it to their family members and closest confidantes. A handful were sufficiently troubled by what it seemed to suggest that they presented it to their clubs’ in-house medical teams, seeking advice.

• Mauro Icardi’s stoppage-time strike helped 10-man Paris St Germain salvage a fortunate 1-1 draw at lowly Lorient in a dismal performance by the Ligue 1 leaders on Wednesday.

Awards and honours-

• TBA 

Technology-

•  Steam Winter Sale is here and gamers can get their hands on several popular PC games, with discounts on titles including Disco Elysium - The Final Cut, F1 2021, It Takes Two, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and Titanfall 2. While these games are now at their lowest-ever prices, other titles like Half-Life: Alyx, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom Eternal, FIFA 22, Deathloop, and Cyberpunk 2077 have also got big discounts. Along with the Steam Winter Sale, Valve is also allowing gamers to vote for their favourite games for The Steam Awards. Readers might recall that voting began in November alongside the Steam Autumn Sale. The Steam Winter Sale began on Wednesday, December 22 and will run until Wednesday, January 5 at 11:30pm IST/ 10am PT.

•  Xiaomi 12 series is officially confirmed to debut in China on December 28. So far, its various specifications and features have either been officially teased or leaked. Now, more details have surfaced online, showing the display specifications of the Xiaomi 12, Xiaomi 12X, and Xiaomi 12 Pro handsets. Xiaomi has recently revealed that the Xiaomi 12 lineup will be equipped with a hole-punch selfie camera. The Chinese tech giant also announced that the base Xiaomi 12 has obtained an A+ rating from DisplayMate.

•  NASA has delayed the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which would be the successor to the Hubble. The space agency said the launch will happen a day later than the earlier stipulated time, on Christmas Day, December 25, from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, where high winds are a major factor. An Ariane 5 rocket will lift off on Saturday, carrying the next-generation space observatory. The $10-billion (roughly Rs. 75,330 crore) James Webb Space Telescope is the largest ever built and intended to help astronomers in breakthrough discoveries. It has been designed to look deeper into the universe than the Hubble and detect events from further back in time — over 13.5 billion years ago.

•  Bitcoin investors appear to have taken their foot off the pedal and book profits ahead of Christmas after a positive run over the past couple of days. A strong rally of more than 5 percent earlier this week saw Bitcoin's valuation move past the $47,500 mark (roughly Rs. 35.86 lakh) on global exchanges but failed to push past the $50,000 (roughly Rs. 37.72 lakh) mark. At the time of publishing, Bitcoin's valuation is back in the red by 0.97 percent over the past 24 hours and is priced at $51,053 (roughly Rs. 38.51 lakh) on Indian exchange CoinSwitch Kuber, while global exchanges like CoinMarketCap show a 1.71 percent dip to see Bitcoin valued at $48,523 (roughly Rs. 36.59 lakh).

• 2021 has emerged to become a milestone for meme-based coin Shiba Inu. Just ahead of the Christmas and New Year festivities, Shiba Inu has been listed as a buying, selling, and trading option on Australian exchange CoinJar. Founded in 2013, CoinJar is touted as one of Australia's longest running crypto exchanges. Six more tokens, Fetch.ai, Origin Protocol, Cartesi, Orchid, Quant Network, and Audius have been added to the platform along with SHIB, as CoinJar expands its crypto offerings for people to experiment with and explore.

Economy – 

•  The Binance Futures referral code is: 77280703. New Binance users can sign up with the code to claim the Binance Futures referral bonus and enjoy unlimited perks.

•  Shares of pharmacy retail chain MedPlus Health Services debuted on a strong note and got listed at a premium of over 30 per cent from their issue price in the stock exchanges today.

•  The 30-share index jumped 305.15 points or 0.54 per cent to 57,235.71 in the opening trade. Similarly, the Nifty advanced 88.25 points or 0.52 per cent to 17,043.70.

• With thousands of stakeholders yet to onboard the tokenisation platform and “RBI regulated entities not prepared” for the new initiative, digital payment firms and merchant bodies have petitioned the Reserve Bank of India to extend the deadline for implementation of the new credit and debit card data storage norms, or card-on-file tokenisation (CoF). The RBI mandate on tokenisation kicks in from January 1. 

• In a pre-Budget consultation meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, some economists impressed upon the government not to unduly worry about the fiscal trajectory for FY23. The customary pre-Budget meetings were held with the FM virtually between December 15 and December 22

Environment –

•  TBA

Local –

• Delhi on Wednesday reported 125 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19),which is the highest number of infections seen in a day in the last six month since June 22 when 134 cases were recorded. This is the third time in a week the number of cases has crossed the 100-mark, showing a steady increase in infections in the city. 

•  No new case of the Omicron variant of coronavirus was reported in Maharashtra on Wednesday, the health department said. Of the new 1,201 coronavirus cases in the state, Mumbai reported 490 infections — a jump of more than 160 from a day ago. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that presently Mumbai has 14 sealed buildings (where more than five residents have tested coronavirus positive in each of them),but no containment zone in slums and ‘chawls’ (old row tenements) since the past few months.

•  The BJP has seen its vote share in areas under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) nosedive since the Assembly elections earlier this year in which the party had emerged a clear second to the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the main Opposition by winning 77 seats.

•  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday inaugurated and laid the foundation of 27 projects worth Rs 2095 crore in his Varanasi parliamentary constituency. This is Modi’s second visit to his constituency in 10 days. He was here on December 13 to inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor.

• With the detection of four new Covid cases due to Omicron at an apartment at Koramangala in Bengaluru, Karnataka’s tally of the new variant of coronavirus has risen to 23. A 26-year-old traveller from the United Kingdom and three of her family members have been tested positive for Omicron.

Person in News – 

• TBA 

GK – 

Gabriel Boric, has been selected as the youngest President of which country?

[A] Chile
[B] Argentina
[C] New Zealand
[D] Israel

What is the name of the treatment which uses viruses that are harmless to humans to kill bacteria?

[A] Phage therapy
[B] Viral therapy
[C] Antibiotic therapy
[D] Microbe therapy

Which scheme provides Community Investment Fund to Self help groups (SHGs)?

[A] PM Swachch Bharat Abhiyan
[B] Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission
[C] PM Gati Shakti Yojana
[D] PM SHG Samridhdhi Abhiyan

‘Mukhya Mantri Kanya Sumangala Scheme’ is a scheme implemented by which state/UT?

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

Tseminyu, Niuland and Chumukedima are the newly created districts of which state?

[A] Assam
[B] Sikkim
[C] Nagaland
[D] Arunachal Pradesh