Today Current Affairs: 15th February 2022 for UPSC IAS exams, State PSC exams, SSC CGL, State SSC, RRB, Railways, Banking Exam & IBPS, etc
Table of Contents
Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP):
The Union government has filed a draft red herring prospectus with the stock market regulator for selling 5% of its shares in the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India.
- A Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) is a document that is prepared to introduce a new business or product to a potential investor.
- This is not a final document for an investor, but rather a way of demonstrating value and providing investors with enough information for them to decide whether they want to invest in the company or not.
- The filing of the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), with all the critical information about LIC’s business operations, is the first regulatory step towards the IPO.
- SEBI is required to vet the facts stated in the DRHP and recommend changes if required, before giving the share sale a green signal.
- The IPO is an 100% OFS [offer for sale] by the Government of India and entails no fresh issue of shares by LIC.
- The conclusion of the LIC’s share sale through an initial public offer (IPO) by March 31 is critical for the government to achieve its disinvestment target for this year, even after it was pared down from ₹1.75 lakh crore to ₹78,000 crore.
The Hippocratic Oath:
The National Medical Commission (NMC), the regulator for medical education and practices that replaced the Medical Council of India in 2020, has suggested to medical colleges that the traditional Hippocratic Oath should be replaced by a “Charak Shapath”.
- The Hippocratic Oath is attributed to Hippocrates of the island of Kos, a Greek physician of the classical period (4th-5th centuries BC, until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC).
- Basically, the Hippocratic Oath is a charter of ethical principles that physicians over the ages have sworn to uphold in the practice of their profession.
- Modern codes of medical ethics such as those formulated by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the British Medical Association (BMA) are broadly rooted in the Hippocratic Oath.
- The Corpus Hippocraticum is a collection of 70 books on medicine; however, most scholars agree that the Hippocratic Oath was probably not the work of the individual identified as the historical Hippocrates, the “father of modern medicine”.
- Like several other sages mentioned in the literature of ancient India, the historicity of Charaka is uncertain, and the compendium of medicine that carries his name is unlikely to have been the work of a single individual.
- The Charak Samhita is a medical pharmacopoeia and collection of commentaries and discussions on medical practices that is dated to the 1st-2nd centuries AD.
- Along with the compendium of Susruta (c. 4th century AD), which is about surgery, the Charak Samhita is considered the foundational text of ancient Indian medicine.
PSLV-C52 Mission:
The Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO has successfully launched the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C52 from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
- The PSLV-C52 mission has also injected three satellites into the orbits.
- PSLV C52 placed an EOS-04 radar imaging satellite weighing 1710 kgs into orbit.
- EOS-04 is designed to provide high-quality images under all weather conditions for applications such as agriculture, forestry and plantations, soil moisture and hydrology and flood mapping.
- This satellite will be positioned into a Sun synchronous polar orbit gradually.
- As a co-passenger INS-2TD technology demonstrator satellite and INSPIRE sat 1 student satellite were also placed into orbit. INS-2TD is a precursor to India-Bhutan Joint Satellite INS-2B.
- INS-2TD carries a thermal imaging camera to assess land and water surface temperature and thermal inertia at day and at night.
- INSPIRE sat-1 is a small satellite from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in association with the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado.
- This was PSLV-C52 launch vehicle’s 54th launch in the series.
World Radio Day:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has greeted all radio listeners and those who enrich this outstanding medium with their talent as well as creativity on World Radio Day.
- World Radio Day is an international day celebrated on 13 February each year.
- The Day was decided by UNESCO on 3 November 2011 during its 36th conference and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as an International Day
- The theme of the 2022 edition of World Radio Day is devoted to “Radio and Trust”.
- On the occasion of World Radio Day 2022, UNESCO calls on radio stations to celebrate the Day through three sub-themes:
- Trust in radio journalism: Produce independent and high-quality content;
- Trust and accessibility: Take care of your audience;
- Trust and viability of radio stations: Ensure competitiveness.
Modified Elephant:
American cybersecurity firm SentinelOne has released a report on ModifiedElephant—a hacking group that allegedly planted incriminating evidence on the personal devices of Indian journalists, human rights activists, human rights defenders, academics and lawyers.
- According to the report, ModifiedElephant maliciously targeted specific groups and individuals, including the activists arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018. It called the incident ‘one of the most serious cases of evidence tampering’ that the firm had ever encountered.
- According to the report, ModifiedElephant operators have been infecting their targets using spearphishing emails with malicious file attachments over the last decade, with their techniques getting more sophisticated over time.
- Spearphishing refers to the practice of sending emails to targets that look like they are coming from a trusted source to either reveal important information or install different kinds of malware on their computer systems.
Tilka Manjhi:
The Nation is remembering revolutionary freedom fighter and tribal leader Tilka Manjhi on his 272nd birth anniversary.
- He organized Adivasis into an army and led the famous Santhal Hool in 1784 against the exploitative British.
- In 1770, there was a severe famine in the Santhal region and people were dying of hunger. Tilka Manjhi looted the treasury of the Company and distributed it among the poor and needy.
- Inspired by this noble act of Tilka, many other tribals also joined the rebellion. With this began his Santhal Hool, the revolt of the Santhals. He continued to attack the British and their allies.
- From 1771 to 1784, Tilka Manjhi never surrendered. Tilka Majhi attacked Augustus Cleveland, an East India Company administrator and fatally wounded him.
- The British surrounded the Tilapore forest from which he operated but he and his men held them at bay for several weeks.
- When he was finally caught in 1784, he was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged all the way to the Collector’s residence at Bhagalpur, Bihar, India. There, his lacerated body was hung from a Banyan tree.
River Devika Project:
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said that the historic River Devika project, built at the cost of over Rs 190 crore, will be complete by June this year.
- North India’s first river rejuvenation project will offer a unique destination both for pilgrim tourists as well as recreation tourists, in addition to being a state-of-the-art cremation centre.
- This will bring Udhampur in Jammu prominently on India’s map.
- The Devika project was formally launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Jammu in early 2019.
- The project includes the construction of three sewage treatment plants of 8 MLD, 4 MLD and 1.6 MLD capacity, sewerage network of 129.27 km, development of two cremation ghats, protection fencing and landscaping, small hydropower plants and three solar power plants.
- On completion of the project, the rivers will see reduction in pollution and improvement in water quality.
- The country’s first Highway Village being constructed by NHAI is coming up on fast track on Udhampur National Highway and the Centrally funded Medical College will start its classes next year through NEET selection.
