Today's Event – 28th December 2021

• 1659 – The Marathas defeat the Adilshahi forces in the Battle of Kolhapur.

• 1768 – King Taksin's coronation achieved through conquest as a king of Thailand and established Thonburi as a capital.

• 1795 – Construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, begins in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto).

• 1832 – John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign. He resigned after being elected Senator from South Carolina.

• 1835 – Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army.

• 1836 – South Australia and Adelaide are founded.

• 1836 – Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico with the signing of the Santa María–Calatrava Treaty.

• 1846 – Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.

• 1879 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom collapses as a train passes over it, killing 75.

• 1885 – Indian National Congress, a political party of India, is founded in Bombay Presidency, British India.

• 1895 – The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines.

• 1902 – The Syracuse Athletic Club defeat the New York Philadelphians, 5–0, in the first indoor professional football game, which was held at Madison Square Garden.

• 1908 – The 7.1 Mw  Messina earthquake shakes Southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme),killing between 75,000 and 200,000.

• 1912 – The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco.

• 1918 – Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway prison, becomes the first woman to be elected Member of Parliament (MP) to the British House of Commons.

• 1944 – Maurice Richard becomes the first player to score eight points in one game of NHL ice hockey.

• 1948 – The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Miami.

• 1956 – Chin Peng, David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman meet in Baling, Malaya to try and resolve the Malayan Emergency situation.

• 1958 – "Greatest Game Ever Played": Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game at New York's Yankee Stadium.

• 1967 – American businesswoman Muriel Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

• 1973 – The United States Endangered Species Act is signed into law by President Richard Nixon.

• 2009 – Forty-three people die in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, where Shia Muslims are observing the Day of Ashura.

• 2014 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the Karimata Strait en route from Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard.

• 2014 – Nine people die and another 19 are reported missing, when the MS Norman Atlantic catches fire in the Strait of Otranto, in the Adriatic Sea, in Italian waters.

National Events- 

•  Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday mentioned about leadership transition at his energy-to-retail conglomerate, saying he wants the process to be accelerated with seniors, including him, yielding to the younger generation.

•  WHILE the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and BJP might be a picture of bonhomie in Parliament, back home in Andhra Pradesh, the two parties continue to be at each other’s throats. At the Centre, the YSRCP has supported the NDA on various issues such as the farm laws, Article 370 and CAA, but just on Tuesday, the BJP held a massive meeting at Vijayawada to “highlight the failures” of the Y S Jagan Reddy government.

•  Taking a swipe at the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday over the seizure of Rs 150 crore from a Kanpur-based businessman recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people of Uttar Pradesh know for a fact that the “perfume of corruption has been sprinkled” all over the state

•  While the Jammu and Kashmir administration has termed the signing of real estate MoUs worth Rs 18,900 crore a “historical transformation”, political parties across the mainstream-separatist spectrum in the Kashmir Valley are viewing it as an attempt to alter the region’s demographic identity.

• Meanwhile, India’s Omicron tally went up to 653 on Tuesday, with the highest being reported from Maharashtra at 167, followed by Delhi with 165 cases, Kerala 57, Telangana 55 and Gujarat at 49. The country also recorded 6,358 new covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours. Active cases currently stand at 75,456 while the recovery rate is at 98.90 per cent. In view of the rising Covid-19 cases following the emergence of Omicron variant, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday said that restrictions under the yellow alert for Covid will be implemented in the national capital.

International Events- 

•  One Christmas Day in the 1980s, Desmond Tutu led a packed church service in Soweto, the Black Johannesburg township and fulcrum of protest against white racist rule in South Africa. An American family — mine — found standing room at the back.

•  Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday he is not opposed to a “good” nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, but voiced skepticism that such an outcome would emerge from the current negotiations.

•  Research by South African scientists suggests that Omicron could displace the Delta variant of the coronavirus because infection with the new variant boosts immunity to the older one.

• Australia recorded another record surge in COVID-19 infections on Tuesday as an outbreak of the highly infectious Omicron variant disrupted reopening of the economy, while state leaders argued over domestic border controls. The country reported 11,264 new cases of the coronavirus in the previous day, according to a Reuters calculation of state figures, once again surpassing its peak of a day earlier, as it grapples with a planned reopening while the new variant rages. 

• Around 11,500 flights have been cancelled around the world since Friday, according to an AFP report.

Job alerts-

• National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology Jobs for Consultant, Programmer, Specialist, System Analyst and other posts. Last date 09 January 2022

• Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission Jobs for Principal, Principal Grade-II/ Placement Officer and other posts. Last date 26 January 2022

• National Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Jobs for Assistant Professor and other posts. Last date 20 January 2022

• Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited Jobs for Trade Apprentice and other posts. Last date 25 January 2022

• Central Industrial Security Force Jobs for Sub Inspector and other posts. Last date 05 February 2022

Sports-

•  SC East Bengal player Antonio Perosevic was on Tuesday handed a five-match ban and fined Rs 1 lakh by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) Disciplinary Committee for his “violent conduct towards a match official” during an Indian Super League match.

•  India pacer Mohammed Siraj copied the famous celebration of Manchester United icon Cristiano Ronaldo, when he got the wicket of Rassie van der Dussen on Day 3 of the first Test against South Africa at Centurion on Tuesday.

•  Barcelona completed the signing of Ferran Torres from Manchester City on Tuesday for a reported fee of 55 million euros ($62.25 million),around double what the English champions paid for the Spain forward 16 months ago.

•  Three-time champions Patna Pirates beat Puneri Paltan 38-26 in a Pro Kabaddi League Season 8 match in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Sachin scored a Super 10 (10 points) and was ably supported by Patna’s defensive trio of Sunil (4 points),Mohammadreza Chiyaneh (3 points) and Sajin C (3 points).

• India will lock horns with Bangladesh in the semifinals of the U-19 Asia Cup after the group-deciding match involving the latter team and Sri Lanka was called off due to the Covid-19 infection of two officials here on Tuesday.

Awards and honours-

•  TBA

Technology-

• Crypto culture seems to be growing rapidly in India, with adoption increasing among young men and women. In its latest report, Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber claimed that out of its user-base of 14 million Indians, 15 percent are women. The findings come at a time when India is still deciding ways to regulate and potentially tax crypto activities and the income generated from trading. CoinSwitch Kuber's report also reveals that most of its users in India are youngsters. 

•  Google Pixel 6 users are complaining that features including auto-rotate and automatic horizontal photography are broken on their phones. As per user reports on the company's support forums and Reddit, a growing number of Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones are randomly stopping reading some sensors' data. Also, auto-rotate and automatic horizontal images are breaking at random for the users even after updating with the Android December patch. Google has recently released the December 2021 update for its Pixel phones to address some of the known bug fixes and a list of vulnerabilities.

•  Egypt has "digitally unwrapped" the mummy of famed Pharaoh Amenhotep I, revealing its secrets for the first time since it was discovered in 1881 without disturbing his funerary mask.

•  Realme 9 Pro+ and Realme C31 have reportedly been spotted on various certification websites. The Realme 9 Pro+ was spotted on the Bluetooth SIG platform, and it allegedly got Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification earlier this year. The smartphone is said to be a part of the Realme 9 series that is tipped to launch in the first quarter of 2022. Meanwhile another Realme smartphone, the Realme C31, is said to have received Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and TUV certification.

• The RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has demanded that the government should immediately withdraw permissions given to e-commerce companies Amazon and Flipkart-Walmart to operate in India as they are "blatantly contravening rules".

Economy – 

•  The time period for filing settlement applications by entities will be 60 days from the date of receipt of the show-cause notice or a supplementary notice, whichever is earlier, according to Sebi.

•  Sebi on Tuesday approved a slew of amendments to various regulations, including tightening rules for the utilisation of IPO proceeds. Changes have been cleared for regulations governing foreign portfolio investors, Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs),mutual funds, settlement proceedings, among others

•  Shares of API manufacturer Supriya Lifescience debuted on a strong note and got listed at a premium of 55 per cent from their issue price in the stock exchanges today.

•  The S&P BSE Sensex surged 477.24 points (0.83 per cent) to end at 57,897.48 while the Nifty 50 rose 147.00 points (0.86 per cent) to settle at 17,233.25.

• For the eighth consecutive session, the rupee appreciated by 3 paise on Monday to reach a near four-week high of 75 against the US dollar, on the back of a firm trend in domestic equities and rising appetite for riskier assets. However, a strong American dollar overseas and firm crude oil prices limited the domestic unit’s rise.

Environment –

• TBA 

Local –

• Delhi reported 496 fresh Covid-19 cases and one death on Tuesday. The positivity rate has now gone up to 0.89%. 

•  Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra are likely to see a sharp increase in January and February 2022, Health Minister Rajesh Tope told the Assembly on Tuesday. “The number of new Covid-19 cases recorded today was 1600. This was alarming. As on an average the state had witnessed an average of 600 to 700 cases daily,” he said.

•  STEPPING UP its efforts to check the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the West Bengal Health and Family Welfare Department on Monday directed seven private hospitals in Kolkata to ramp up their infrastructure to ensure prompt and quality treatment of international travellers who test positive for Covid-19 upon arrival in the state capital.

•  Samples of two persons returned positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Puducherry on Tuesday. The health department said that one of the patients is an 80-year-old elderly person, whereas the other is a 20-year-old woman

• Karnataka recorded 356 new cases of Covid on Tuesday of which, 269 were from Bengaluru Urban, which a day earlier had seen 172 cases.

Person in News – 

• TBA 

GK – 

“Pillar of Shame” memorial, which was seen in the news, is located in which country/region?

[A] USA
[B] Hong Kong
[C] Taiwan
[D] Russia

Which country passed the ‘Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women’?

[A] India
[B] China
[C] Russia
[D] Saudi Arabia

Which Union Ministry is associated with implementing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)?

[A] Ministry of Finance
[B] Ministry of Corporate Affairs
[C] Ministry of External Affairs
[D] Ministry of Commerce and Industry

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently extended the tokenisation rules till which date?

[A] January 1, 2022
[B] April 1, 2022
[C] June 30, 2022
[D] September 30, 2022

When is the ‘National Consumer Rights Day’ observed across India?

[A] December 20
[B] December 22
[C] December 24
[D] December 25