Today's Event – 24th January 2022

• 1679 – King Charles II of England dissolves the Cavalier Parliament.

• 1742 – Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

• 1758 – During the Seven Years' War the leading burghers of Königsberg submit to Elizabeth of Russia, thus forming Russian Prussia (until 1763).

• 1817 – Crossing of the Andes: Many soldiers of Juan Gregorio de las Heras are captured during the action of Picheuta.

• 1835 – Slaves in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, stage a revolt, which is instrumental in ending slavery there 50 years later.

• 1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.

• 1857 – The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first fully fledged university in South Asia.

• 1859 – The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (later named Romania) is formed as a personal union under the rule of Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

• 1900 – Second Boer War: Boers stop a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmith in the Battle of Spion Kop.

• 1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.

• 1918 – The Gregorian calendar is introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective February 14 (New Style).

• 1933 – The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, changing the beginning and end of terms for all elected federal offices.

• 1935 – Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company starts selling the first canned beer.[9]

• 1939 – The deadliest earthquake in Chilean history strikes Chillán, killing approximately 28,000 people.

• 1946 – The United Nations General Assembly passes its first resolution to establish the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.

• 1960 – Algerian War: Some units of European volunteers in Algiers stage an insurrection known as the "barricades week", during which they seize government buildings and clash with local police.

• 1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.

• 1966 – Air India Flight 101 crashes into Mont Blanc.

• 1968 – Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force launches Operation Coburg against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during wider fighting around Long Bình and Biên Hòa.

• 1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.

• 1977 – The Atocha massacre occurs in Madrid during the Spanish transition to democracy.

• 1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.

• 1984 – Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.

• 1986 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its closest approach to Uranus.

• 1989 – Notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, with over 30 known victims, is executed by the electric chair at the Florida State Prison.

• 1990 – Japan launches Hiten, the country's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States.

• 2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.

• 2009 – Cyclone Klaus makes landfall near Bordeaux, France, causing 26 deaths as well as extensive disruptions to public transport and power supplies.

• 2011 – At least 35 are killed and 180 injured in a bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.

• 2018 – Former doctor Larry Nassar is sentenced up to 175 years in prison after being found guilty of using his position to sexually abuse female gymnasts.

National Events-

• India recorded 3,06,064 new Covid-19 cases and 439 related deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday. While daily cases are fewer than those logged on Sunday when there were more than 3.33 lakh infections, the daily positivity rate climbed to 20.75 per cent. The weekly positivity rate also climbed from 16.87 per cent to 17.03 per cent on Monday.

• In a recent interview, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal claimed that a Dalit voter in Punjab had come to him and said he would vote for AAP. “I asked him, why not [Punjab CM] Charanjit Singh Channi who is claiming to be the messiah of Dalits. He said AAP has transformed government schools in Delhi and it is only education that can change the lives of people,” he said, making an appeal to vote for AAP if voters “want state-of-art government schools in Punjab like in Delhi.”

• Six Army contingents marching in the Republic Day parade this year will showcase the different uniforms worn and weapons carried by soldiers through the decades, Chief of Staff of Delhi Area Major General Alok Kakkar said on Sunday.

• A WEEK to go for the Budget session of Parliament to begin, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu tested Covid positive on Sunday.

• Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath Sunday attacked the Samajwadi Party on a range of issues – from free electricity to Covid management and Muslim appeasement – as he took part in several poll-related events in Ghazaiabad district.

International Events-

• President Joe Biden is considering deploying several thousand US troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.

• Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday the country had received a second consignment of weapons from the United States as part of defensive aid totalling $200 million.

• Taiwan on Sunday reported the largest incursion since October by China’s air force in its air defence zone, with the island’s defence ministry saying Taiwanese fighters scrambled to warn away 39 aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions.

• Fighting at a prison in the northern Syrian city of al-Hasaka entered a fourth day on Sunday as the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued to battle fighters from the extremist “Islamic State” (IS) group after a breakout at the facility.

• Russia will face severe economic sanctions if it installs a puppet regime in Ukraine, a senior UK minister said on Sunday after Britain accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader there. Britain made the accusation late on Saturday, also saying Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion.

Job alerts-

• NIT Raipur Jobs for Professor and other posts. Last date 18 February 2022

• Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University Jobs for Executive Officer, Manager and other posts. Last date 31 January 2022

• AIIMS Rishikesh Jobs for Senior Resident and other posts. Last date 22 February 2022

• Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission Jobs for Assistant Director and other posts. Last date 26 February 2022

• Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited Jobs for Manager, Officer and other posts. Last date 05 February 2022

Sports-

• South Africa’s Director of Cricket Graeme Smith has thanked the Indian players and BCCI for showing faith in the hosts’ ability to successfully stage matches amid the COVID-19 pandemic, saying their exemplary commitment has “set the example” for others to follow.

• Nigeria’s 100% record in the group stage meant nothing as it was knocked out 1-0 by Tunisia in the last 16 of the African Cup of Nations.

• Indian batting great and head of National Cricket Academy (NCA) VVS Laxman had words of encouragement for Uganda players after the African team suffered a whopping 326-run loss to title favourites India in the U-19 World Cup here.

• Paris St Germain continued their march towards the Ligue 1 title as Marco Verratti inspired them to a 4-0 home victory against Stade de Reims on Sunday and Lionel Messi made his first appearance of the year.

• Virat Kohli got to a brisk fifty against South Africa in the third and final ODI at Centurion on Sunday and then proceeded to whip out the ‘cradle’ celebration. Kohli dedicated his fifty to his daughter, Vamika, who was in the arms of her mother, Anushka Sharma at the Newlands and the video instantly went viral.

Technology-

• Hubble Space Telescope provides astronomers with breathtaking images of the cosmos for deeper studies. Recently, the telescope shared yet another strikingly beautiful image. This time, it captured the NGC 3318 galaxy, which lies in the constellation Vela, located about 115 million light-years away from the Earth. The image was shared by the European Space Agency (ESA) on its official Instagram handle. Stating that the spiral arms of the galaxy were lazily draped across in the image, ESA added that “Vela was originally part of a far larger constellation, known as Argo Navis after the fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology.”

• Bitcoin and Ether hit their respective new all-time highs in November 2021, but things appear to have only spiralled for the worse since then. Bitcoin and most major altcoin have been selling off as crypto investors eye the prospects of interest rates in the US marching higher, faster, and more aggressively than most had expected just a few months ago. In fact, according to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin's current market cap of $665 billion (roughly Rs. 50,56,000 crore) is down from almost $1.3 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,00,00,000 crore) in November 2021, while the wider crypto market has shed over $1 trillion (roughly 70,00,000 crore) over the same period.

• Brazilian financial services provider Dock said on Friday it will start using cryptocurrencies to process international remittances as it expands to Latin America and Europe.

• Flipkart Grand Gadget Days Sale is now live -- a day after the Flipkart Big Saving Days Sale 2022 concluded. The Grand Gadget Days Sale will run through January 26, and customers can avail up to 80 percent discounts on electronics and accessories. Electronics like digital cameras, smartwatches, truly wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds, laptops, monitors, projectors, gaming headsets, computer peripherals including mouse and keyboard, headphones, speakers, and storage devices are up for grabs on Flipkart. You can get extra off by opting for various bank offers, cashbacks, and also avail options like no cost EMIs.

• WhatsApp is reportedly working on adding a couple of new features and functionalities. One of the upcoming updates is said to bring added security to the instant messaging app, while the other is said to increase customisability for the voice call interface on the app. As per the reports, the former will add two-step verification to the desktop client in the future, while the latter will let users choose and set wallpapers as backgrounds for voice calls on WhatsApp.

Economy –

• At 12:57 pm, The S&P BSE Sensex trading 1,252.46 points (2.12 per cent) lower at 57,784.72 while the Nifty 50 fell 386.00 points (2.19 per cent) to 17,231.15. Both the indices had opened around 0.4 per cent lower earlier in the day and fell further as the trade progressed.

• THE CONFEDERATION of Indian Industry (CII) has suggested the government include an additional 1 per cent corporate social responsibility levy apart from the mandatory 2 per cent for one year in the upcoming Budget to encourage corporates to spend on providing Covid vaccine booster shots.

• HDFC Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of HDFC Ltd and acting as an investment manager, has achieved the initial close of its third fund of an estimated $1.88 billion (about Rs 13,989 crore) focussed on affordable housing, the HDFC Capital Affordable Real Estate Fund – 3 (H-CARE-3).

• Budget 2022-23 is likely to have a populist ring to it, interspersed with a string of announcements, entailing road, railways and health-care projects, focussed on a handful of poll-bound states, alongside a greater degree of flexibility to states in market borrowings and capex spending. Coming just ahead of Assembly elections in key states, the Budget is likely to mark a departure from last year’s reformist theme, instead, sticking to the implementation of previous announcements — most of which are hanging fire.

• Proliferation of public WiFi hotspots in rural and urban areas will lead to increased employment for micro and small entrepreneurs in these regions by providing them with an additional source of income, Department of Telecommunication (DoT)  Secretary K Rajaraman said.

Local –

• Delhi administered only 11,706 Covid-19 vaccine doses on Sunday, the lowest this month. The total number of doses administered in Delhi also dropped below 1,00,000 over the last five days.

• The latest round of genome sequencing carried out at the civic-run Kasturba Gandhi Hospital in Mumbai has detected the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in 88 per cent of the samples, indicating that the highly transmissible new variant has dominated over the Delta variant.

• Fresh Covid infections in West Bengal dropped to 6,980 on Sunday from 9,191 the previous day, according to a state government bulletin.

• Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan on Sunday said it has been challenging to curb the spread of Covid in four zones in Chennai despite cases coming down in other parts of the city.

• Karnataka on Sunday reported 50,210 new Covid-19 cases, including 26,299 in Bengaluru, recording its highest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic. The state also registered 19 deaths. The positivity rate in the last 24 hours was 22.77 per cent.

GK –

Which Indian state has unveiled the draft of ‘New Policy for Women 2021’?

[A] Telangana
[B] Tamil Nadu
[C] Odisha
[D] West Bengal

Novak Djokovic, who was named the ‘Best Balkan Athlete of the year’ 2021, is from which country?

[A] Bulgaria
[B] Serbia
[C] Greece
[D] Hungary

China has complained to the UN, about collision with satellites launched by which project?

[A] Starlink Internet Services project
[B] Psyche Mission
[C] Google Loon Project
[D] Oneweb Satellite Project

The GST Council has decided to defer the increase in GST Rate on which product?

[A] Textile
[B] Automobile
[C] Mobile Phones
[D] Cotton

Which state government slashed Rs 25 per litre on petrol and diesel prices for two-wheelers owned by the poor?

[A] Odisha
[B] Tamil Nadu
[C] Jharkhand
[D] Kerala