Today's Event – 30th November 2021

• 1707 – The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

• 1718 – King Charles XII of Sweden dies during a siege of the fortress of Fredriksten in Norway.

• 1786 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day).

• 1803 – The Balmis Expedition starts in Spain with the aim of vaccinating millions against smallpox in Spanish America and Philippines.

• 1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to an official from the French First Republic. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

• 1804 – The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial of Federalist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase.

• 1829 – First Welland Canal opens for a trial run, five years to the day from the ground breaking.

• 1872 – The first-ever international football match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.

• 1883 – The style of western calendar, Common Era is conveyed to Joseon (Early-Modern Korean kingdom).

• 1900 – A German engineer patents front-wheel drive for autos

• 1916 – Costa Rica signs the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty.

• 1934 – The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.

• 1936 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.

• 1947 – Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins, leading up to the creation of the state of Israel.

• 1953 – Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.

• 1954 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.

• 1966 – Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

• 1967 – South Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

• 1967 – The Pakistan Peoples Party is founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who becomes its first chairman.

• 1967 – Pro-Soviet communists in the Philippines establish Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataan Pilipino as its new youth wing.

• 1971 – Iran seizes the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from the Emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah.

• 1982 – Michael Jackson's sixth solo studio album, Thriller, is released worldwide, ultimately to become the best-selling record album in history.

• 1994 – MS Achille Lauro catches fire off the coast of Somalia.

• 1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm

• 1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland and speaks in favor of the "Northern Ireland peace process" to a huge rally at Belfast City Hall; he calls IRA fighters "yesterday's men".

• 1999 – Exxon and Mobil sign a US$73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating ExxonMobil, the world's largest company.

• 1999 – In Seattle, United States, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.

• 1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.

• 2000 – NASA launches STS-97, the 101st Space Shuttle mission.

• 2001 – Gary Ridgway is apprehended and charged with four murders. He was eventually convicted of a total of 49 murders.

• 2004 – Lion Air Flight 583 overshoots the runway while landing at Adisumarmo International Airport and crashes, killing 25 people

• 2005 – John Sentamu becomes the first black archbishop in the Church of England with his enthronement as the 97th Archbishop of York.

• 2012 – An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane belonging to Aéro-Service, crashes into houses near Maya-Maya Airport during a thunderstorm, killing at least 32 people.

• 2018 – A magnitude 7.1 earthquake with its epicenter only 15 miles from Anchorage, Alaska causes significant property damage but no deaths.

• 2021 – Barbados becomes a republic

National Events- 

•  The three-day Inspector General-level Border Coordination Meeting between IGs of BSF Meghalaya, Guwahati, Silchar and Tripura, and Region Commanders, Border Guard Bangladesh concluded on Monday in Shillong, with the two sides agreeing to address the concerns of each other. 

•  Terming the repeal of the farm laws in Parliament a victory of the protesters, farmer leaders on Monday called an emergency meeting on December 1 to decide the further course of action even as they reiterated their demand for a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) of crops.

•  Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),Jodhpur and the All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS),Jodhpur have developed low-cost "talking gloves" for people with speech disability. The patented device costs less than Rs  5000 and it uses principles of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to automatically generate speech that will be language-independent and facilitate communication between mute people and non-disabled people.

•  The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has seized drug consignments worth Rs  5,516 crore from boats and ships during the first 10 months of 2021, its spokesperson said on Monday. "Drugs seized since inception (2009) has been worth Rs 11,524 crore. 

• Supreme Court appointed Justice RV Raveendran led panel to probe into the Pegasus controversy has sent mails to the petitioners asking them to submit their personal devices for “technical evaluation”.

International Events- 

•  The World Health Organization on Monday is pushing for an international accord to help prevent and fight future pandemics amid the emergence of a Omicron. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said many uncertainties remain about just how transmissible and severe infection by the highly mutated Omicron might be.

•  The Pakistan Police on Monday launched an investigation against a Pakistani model and a clothing brand for hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community by conducting a bareheaded photo shoot at the revered Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur following an Indian Sikh journalist’s criticism of the pictures.

•  Australian authorities announced on Monday that they would delay plans to relax border restrictions by at least two weeks, as the country reported its fifth case of the omicron Covid-19 variant.

•  Portuguese health authorities on Monday identified 13 cases of Omicron, the new coronavirus variant spreading fast globally, among members of a top soccer club and were investigating whether it was one of the first reported cases of local transmission of the virus outside of southern Africa.

• Taking an act-now-ask-questions-later approach, countries around the world slammed their doors shut again to try to keep the new omicron variant at bay on Monday as more cases of the mutant coronavirus emerged and scientists raced to figure out just how dangerous it might be.

Job alerts-

• Madhya Pradesh High Court (MPHC) Jobs for Steno, Assistant and other posts. Last date 30th December 2021

• Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) Jobs for ASO and other posts. Last date 20th December 2021

• Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited Jobs for Apprentice and other posts. Last date 18th December 2021

• Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited Jobs for MTS and other posts. Last date 10th December 2021

• Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) Jobs for Assistant Agriculture Officer and other posts. Last date 25th December 2021

Sports-

•  Cristiano Ronaldo on Monday put out a lengthy statement on Instagram, blasting France Football editor-in-chief Pascal Ferre for claiming that the Portuguese had told him that he wished to retire with more Ballon d’Ors than the Argentine superstar Lionel Messi.

•  UNDER THE smoggy, flood-lit skies of the historic Green Park Stadium, a draw for ages, where sweat and emotion flowed in equal measure, was played out between India and New Zealand. The fortunes of the game fluctuated, as the day toggled between smog and sunshine. The tourists needed 284 runs to win the Test, which was a lost pursuit even before New Zealand’s fourth innings began, but they batted stoutly and stoically to deny India by a lone wicket in the opening Test of the series.

•  Lionel Messi won the men’s Ballon d’Or for a record seventh time and Alexia Putellas won the women’s Ballon d’Or on Tuesday.

•  Opener Abid Ali missed out on back-to-back centuries by nine runs but Pakistan comfortably chased down a 202-run target to beat Bangladesh by eight wickets on Tuesday in the first cricket test.

• Liam Livingstone single-handedly took Team Abu Dhabi to an imposing total of 125 for 4 after coming in to bat at 13 for 1 on Monday night. His superb innings was laced with three boundaries and six sixes.

Technology-

• Google announced plans to add augmented reality objects to Search at its I/O conference in 2019. Since then, the company has added several 3D elements 

•  Edtech platform Adda247 on Tuesday said it has raised around USD 20 million (about Rs 150 crore) in a funding round led by WestBridge Capital.

•  China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)called for improved cross-border security management of big data till 2025, in a five-year plan

•  Apple Store gift cards can be purchased via Amazon. The iPhone maker is offering App Store gift cards in various denominations via the e-tailer’s site.

• A Moscow court fined Alphabet Inc.'s Google 3 million roubles ($40,400) for not deleting content that it deemed illegal

Economy – 

•  The net direct tax collection grew nearly 68 per cent during April 1 to November 23 to more than `6.92 lakh crore, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Monday.

•  Benchmark indices made a positive start to the week on Monday following gains in RIL, bank and IT stocks, even as investors remained jittery over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.  Governments across the world raced to impose fresh travel restrictions as cases of the new variant emerged in multiple countries

•  The 30-share index was trading 504.75 points or 0.88 per cent higher at 57,765.33 in initial deals. Similarly, the Nifty rose 149.65 points or 0.88 per cent to 17,203.60.

•  Demand for steel from sectors like infrastructure, automobile and engineering fell by more than 5 per cent to 94.9 million tonnes during the financial year ended on March 31, 2021, Parliament was informed on Monday. Building and construction sector along with infrastructure, automobile, engineering and packaging and defence had consumed 100.2 million tonne (MT) steel during 2019-20 fiscal, Union Steel Minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh said while replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha.According to the information shared by Singh to the house, the building and construction sector consumed 41 MT steel in 2020-21 as against 43.4 MT in 2019-20.The demand in infrastructure sector also fell to 23.8 MT from 25.1 MT a year ago.

• US-based ecommerce giant Amazon has infused fresh capital to the tune of Rs 650 crore into one of its India units, Amazon Wholesale (India),according to regulatory documents.

Local –

• The Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital has been designed as a dedicated facility to treat patients testing positive for the new Covid-19 variant ‘Omicron’ in New Delhi. The government has ordered that no patient of the new variant will be denied admission on any ground. 

• Observing that senior citizens and elderly parents in Mumbai, especially from high-income society, are being subjected to harassment by their children for property, the Bombay High Court has recently refused to quash an order of the Welfare Tribunal evicting a singer and yoga instructor from her 95-year-old father’s flat in south Mumbai. 

•  THE BJP on Monday released its candidate list for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) election, scheduled on December 19. State BJP vice-president Pratap Bandyopadhyay and spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the party has given importance to women and youth, apart from selecting lawyers, doctors and teachers as candidates. The party announced names of candidates for all 144 wards under the KMC.

•  To avoid getting his feet wet in the floodwaters, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) leader Thirumavalavan was found walking on steel chairs to reach his car. However, after a video went viral on social media, people started questioning the leader for getting a “special treatment”.

• As many as 12 lakh people in Bengaluru have not taken the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine even though they are due to take it as the prescribed period between both doses has expired, according to vaccination data gathered by the state health department.

GK – 

The Death Anniversary of which leader is observed as ‘Mahaparinirvan Divas’?

[A] Dr BR Ambedkar
[B] Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
[C] Jyotirao Phule
[D] Dayananda Saraswati

Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) is a joint mission to the Moon, involves which two countries?

[A] India-Israel
[B] India-France
[C] India-Japan
[D] India-Russia

‘Shaheen-1A’ is a surface to surface ballistic missile of which country?

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

Which country launched the ‘Future Soldier’ modernisation plan recently?

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

‘Kaririavis mater’, whose fossil has been recovered now, was a 115 million-year old ……………. species.

[A] Bird
[B] Reptile
[C] Insect
[D] Plant