CURRENT AFFAIRS OF 17th AUGUST 2022

CURRENT AFFAIRS OF  17^th AUGUST 2022

1. The Indian national flag was unfurled in space at an altitude of over 30 km as the country marked its 75 years of Independence. The tricolour was sent to the edge of space on a balloon by Space Kidz India.
2. London home of Dadabhai Naoroji will get a ‘Blue Plaque’, an honour that is reserved for notable personalities who have lived and worked in London.
3. On 12 August, 2022 the Union Minister Dr. Virendra Kumar, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment (MoSJE) launched a ‘SMILE-75 Initiative’ at a Shelter Home (Rain Basera) near Nizamuddin Metro Station in New Delhi, as a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
4. 16 August, 2022 marked the death anniversary of Ramkrishna Paramhansa. He was one of the most prominent religious figures of India during the 19^th century.
5. A team of clinicians and scientists from the LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)  Hyderabad and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has developed India’s first 3D-printed artificial cornea and transplanted it into a rabbit’s eye.
6. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Simon Stiell as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat based in Bonn, Germany.
7. Razorpay Software Private Limited, India’s leading full-stack payments and banking platform for businesses, has become the first Indian company to be named in the 2022 Forbes Cloud 100 List of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world.
8. Asia’s largest Compressed Biogas (CBG) plant in the Sangrur district of Punjab has started commercial production with a total capacity of 33.23 tonne CBG per day at village Bhuttal Kalan. The unit was commissioned in April 2022.
9. Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, VK Saxena dedicated 16 Delhi Development Authority (DDA) parks in the names of the unsung/forgotten heroes of the Indian freedom struggle on the occasion of 76^th Independence Day as part of the ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’.
10. The United Kingdom has become the first country to approve Moderna’s ‘bivalent’ Covid-19 vaccine that tackles both the original virus strain from 2020 and the Omicron BA.1 variant.
11. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has unveiled the statue of Veer Durgadas Rathore on his 385th birth anniversary in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur.
12. On 16 August, 2022 Ireland all-rounder, Kevin O’Brien announced his retirement from international cricket.
13. German director Wolfgang Petersen, who made films such as Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, Troy, Air Force One and Outbreak, has passed away at the age of 81.