Current affairs 16 January 2023

PM Modi flagged off Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam Vande Bharat Express.

• PM Modi flagged off the Vande Bharat Express train that connects Secunderabad (Telangana) with Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) on 15th January 2023.
• As per the Railway officials, it will cover a distance of around 700 km in 8 hours and 30 minutes.
• It is the eighth Vande Bharat Express to be introduced by Indian Railways.
• The first Vande Bharat train was launched in 2019, between New Delhi and Varanasi.
• It will enhance the ease of living, and benefit the economy.

Rajasthan becomes first State to implement blindness control policy.

• Rajasthan has become the first State in India to implement a blindness control policy to ensure the right to sight.
• This drive aims to reduce the rate of blindness and bring light into the lives of people suffering from visual impairment.
• The prevalence rate of blindness was 1.1% in 2020, aimed to bring it down to 0.3% through the policy.
• The State government would mandatorily run keratoplasty centres for cornea transplants and eye banks in medical colleges.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched Geospatial Hackathon.

• Dr. Jitendra Singh (Union Minister for Science and Technology) has launched Geospatial Hackathon to promote Innovation and Start-Ups in India’s Geospatial ecosystem.
• This hackathon also aims to promote partnerships among the public and private geospatial.
• It was jointly launched by the Survey of India, the Ministry of Science and Technology, IIIT Hyderabad, and Microsoft India.
• There will be two sets of challenges - (1) Research Challenge and (2) Start-Up Challenge.

GeM celebrates the success of "Womaniya on Government eMarketplace".

• The Government eMarketplace (GeM) has organized an event to celebrate the success of Womaniya on GeM in New Delhi.
• This event was organized in partnership with the Self-Employed Women’s Association, Bharat.
• Presently, over 1,44,000 Udyam-verified women Micro, Small Enterprises are registered on GeM, known as Womaniya.
• This initiative was launched in 2019 to encourage women entrepreneurs' participation and SHG from the informal sector on GeM.

EU inaugurated first mainland satellite launch port.

• European officials and Carl XVI Gustaf (Swedish King) have inaugurated the first mainland orbital launch complex of the European Union at Esrange Space Centre near the city of Kiruna, Sweden.
• Aim: To bolster the capacity to launch small satellites into space with a new launchpad in Arctic Sweden.
• The new facility should complement the EU’s current launching capabilities in French Guiana.
• European Commission President: Ursula Von der Leyen.