Daily Current Affairs Notes for 20 January 2023

The Indian captain's knock included two maximums, breaking MS Dhoni's long-standing record. Rohit is now India's leading six-getter in the history of ODI cricket, with a total of 125 sixes.

Overview

Indian captain Rohit Sharma shattered a long-standing record held by MS Dhoni to become India's most prolific six-hitter in the history of ODI cricket. On Wednesday (January 18), at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad, Rohit achieved this remarkable feat during the first ODI between India and New Zealand. 

Rohit won the toss and decided to bat first in the series opener, explaining that the team wanted to get into the habit of defending totals in preparation for the upcoming World Cup. The Indian squad is entering the series on a high note, having achieved a remarkable 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka.

Rohit Sharma gave India a blistering start with a knock of 34 runs in just 38 balls, but failed to convert his score into a big knock. The Indian captain's knock included two maximums, breaking MS Dhoni's long-standing record. Rohit is now India's leading six-getter in the history of ODI cricket, with a total of 125 sixes to his name.

Rohit and Dhoni are the only two Indians with more than 100 sixes in the 50-over format, with Yuvraj Singh a distant third in the list. His effort in the series opener was a testament to his prowess as a batsman, and a reminder of the legacy he is creating in the world of cricket.

Most sixes in ODI in India:

1) Rohit - 125

2) Dhoni - 123

3) Yuvraj - 71

During his innings, Rohit Sharma surpassed former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist's ODI run tally of 9619. He was eventually dismissed for 34 off 38 balls, having hit two sixes and four boundaries along the way.

Netherlands records biggest win in Hockey World Cup history: The three-time champion Netherlands defeated Chile's debutants by a score of a record-breaking 14-0.

Overview

Netherlands records biggest win in Hockey World Cup history

The three-time champion Netherlands defeated Chile’s debutants by a score of a record-breaking 14-0 to qualify as the first team to the quarterfinals of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup. The Netherlands finished at the top of Pool C with a maximum of nine points after racking up three victories in as many games.

Hockey World Cup 2023: Netherlands records biggest win in World Cup history

BBC Documentary on PM Modi Colonial Mindset, Propaganda Piece: India condemned the contentious BBC documentary series on PM Modi, referring it as 'propaganda work'.

Overview

BBC Documentary on PM Modi Colonial Mindset, Propaganda Piece

The government today strongly condemned a BBC series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots as a "propaganda piece designed to push a discredited narrative" that shouldn't be "dignified" with a response.

BBC Documentary on PM Modi: India’s Reaction

• Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the External Affairs Ministry, stated during a weekly media briefing that this documentary show, which was based on some internal UK reports, exhibits a colonial mindset.
• During the Gujarat riots of 2002, the national broadcaster of the UK, BBC, aired a two-part series criticising PM Narendra Modi’s time in office as Gujarat’s chief minister. Following backlash, some platforms pulled the documentary.

BBC Documentary on PM Modi: Reaction of British Citizens

• Leading British citizens of Indian descent criticised the series.
• According to prominent UK citizen Lord Rami Ranger, the BBC damaged over a billion Indians severely.
• The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and those pushing this narrative once more, according to the MEA spokeswoman, are reflected in the documentary.
• Even the exercise’s intent and motivation were questioned by him.

The agencies and people who are promoting this narrative once more are reflected in the documentary. We are left wondering about the exercise’s goals and motivations, and to be completely honest, we want to give these attempts some respect.

After 30 years in orbit mission, NASA-JAXA Geotail spacecraft have signed off, after the failure of the spacecraft’s remaining data recorder. Since its launch on July 24, 1992, Geotail orbited Earth.

Overview

The Geotail mission, a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), has officially come to an end after 30 years.
Among its varied accomplishments, the Geotail dataset, along with ground-based observations, shed light on the location and mechanisms of the formation of auroras.
What led to the termination of the mission was the failure of the spacecraft's only-operating data recorder.

Why does this story matter?

• Geotail, which has achieved several significant breakthroughs during its 30-year reign in space, is the first joint mission between NASA and JAXA."Geotail was originally slated for a four-year run, but the mission was extended several times due to its high-quality data return, which contributed to over a thousand scientific publications," wrote NASA in a blog post.

The Geotail mission was launched in 1992

The Geotail mission's prime goal was to probe the Earth's magnetosphere, the "protective magnetic bubble" surrounding our planet. The 1000-kg satellite took to space on July 24, 1992.
The mission provided crucial insights into the flow of energy and particles from the Sun reaching Earth, the processes occurring at the magnetosphere's boundary, and has identified oxygen, silicon, sodium, and aluminum in the lunar atmosphere.

The missions operations were terminated on November 28, 2022

Geotail had two data recorders, one of which failed in 2012 after collecting data for almost twenty years.
The second continued to work, for almost a decade longer, until it encountered a technical glitch on June 28, 2022.
Attempts were made to remotely repair the recorder but to no avail. The mission's operations were terminated on November 28, 2022, according to NASA.

"Geotail has been a very productive satellite, and it was the first joint NASA-JAXA mission," said Don Fairfield, NASA's first project scientist for the mission who retired in 2008."The mission made important contributions to our understanding of how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetic field to produce magnetic storms and auroras."Scientists will continue investigating Geotail's data in the coming years.

The Geotail mission helped determine the location of a process called magnetic reconnection, which relays material and energy from the Sun into the magnetosphere and is one of the initiators of auroras. This finding paved the way for the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) in 2015.