Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2019

Notes:
Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu inaugurated National Institutes of Design (NID) at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Jorhat in Assam through video conference from New Delhi on 22nd February 2019. Both institutes are autonomous institutions under Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The establishment of new NIDs will help produce highly skilled manpower in design which, in turn, will create job opportunities, both direct and indirect, by providing sustainable design interventions for crafts, handloom, rural technology, small, medium and large-scale enterprises and outreach programs for capacity, capability and institution building. The National Design Policy 2007 had recommended setting up design institutes on the lines of NID Ahmedabad in other parts of India to promote design programs. Four new NIDs have been set up in Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati), Assam (Jorhat), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal) and Haryana (Kurukshetra) with a total outlay of Rs. 434 crore.

Notes:
The Union cabinet has recently approved a proposal for setting up the Centre for Disability Sports at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh to benefit para-sports in the country. The centre will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 170.99 crore over a period of five years & will be registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. The centre will have a Governing Body comprising a maximum of 12 members, some of them experts from “National Level Sports Federations apart from experts in para games”. The Section 30 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, requires the government to take measures to ensure “effective participation of Persons with Disabilities in sports activities which includes the provision of infrastructural facilities for sports activities for them”. The upcoming centre was proposed in the budget of 2014-15. At present, no specialized sports training facilities for Divyangjan are available in the Country. Hence, this void is proposed to be filled up by setting up sports infrastructure so that persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) can undergo rigorous and specialized training in this Centre.

Notes:
The 7th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Intersessional Ministerial Meeting (7th RCEP ISSL MM) will be held in Siem Reap, Cambodia on 2nd March 2019. The aim of the 16-member RCEP is to cover issues related to goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights. From India, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu will attend the meeting. The RCEP is a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between 16 countries namely 10 countries of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners (also known as AFP’s or ASEAN FTA Partners) namely Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand.

Notes:
India’s Shashank Shekhar has won the 10 kilometre race of Nepal’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Open Marathon and Run for Fun held in Kathmandu. Shekhar of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Contingent at Embassy of India in Kathmandu secured first position. RD Murgan also from CISF got third place. A total nine CISF personnel participated in 10 KM race category. The remaining seven personnel also successfully completed run and received Certificate of Achievement. COAS Open Marathon and Run for Fun is an annual event organised by the Nepal Army.

Notes:
West Indies opener Chris Gayle has become the first-ever player to smash 500 sixes in international cricket. He achieved this feat in the ongoing 5-match One Day International (ODI) series against England at National Cricket Stadium in Grenada, West Indies on 27 February. However, Gayle’s fireworks weren’t enough to help his team cross the line as West Indies were bowled out for 389. They fell 29 runs short of England’s 418/6, scored courtesy Jos Buttler’s 150 and Eoin Morgan’s 103 as well as half-centuries by Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales. Earlier in the ongoing series, he had toppled Shahid Afridi to record the most number of sixes by any batsman in international cricket. Gayle, who will retire from ODIs after the 2019 Cricket World Cup, now has 506 sixes in international cricket (98 in Tests, 305 in ODIs and 103 in T20Is). He also breached 10,000-run mark in ODIs and become only the 2nd from West Indies after Brian Lara (10,405 runs) to achieve the milestone.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently constituted an 8-member task force headed by its former deputy governor Usha Thorat to examine issues related to offshore rupee markets and recommend policy measures to ensure the stability of the external value of the domestic currency. The task force will assess the causes behind the development of the offshore rupee market and study the effects of the offshore markets on the rupee exchange rate and market liquidity in the domestic market. It would also recommend measures to address concerns, if any, arising out of offshore rupee trading besides proposing measures to generate incentives for non-residents to access the domestic market. The panel would submit its report by the end of June 2019.

Notes:
On the occasion of National Science Day (NSD-2019), the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister, Prakash Javadekar launched Rs 250 Crore scheme ‘STARS’ to fund 500 science projects. The selection of these projects would be done on the basis of competitions.The project will be coordinated by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Interested candidates will have to submit applications to take part in the competition. The applications will release on the first week of April 2019. The acronym of STARS stands for “Scheme for Translational and Advanced Research”. Beside this, the HRD Ministry in collaboration with the National Skill Ministry and Labour and employment Ministry collaboratively launched SHREYAS – Scheme for Higher Education Youth for Apprenticeship and Skills to empower non-technical courses.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently addressed the Construction Technology India 2019 conference on ‘Global Housing Technology Challenge’, in New Delhi. Here, PM Modi declared the 2019-2020 as the Year of construction technology in a bid to increase the use of modern technology in the construction sector. The purpose of the 2-day conference was to identify innovative and globally established technologies that can be used in the Indian context. In the event, developers, academia, technology providers, researchers etc. participated. Those technologies which are identified during the conference will be invited to design and build lighthouse projects of around one thousand housing units each in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.

Notes:
On March 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan (PM-SYM) Yojana at Vastral in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The national pension scheme for workers and labourers of unorganised sector was announced in the interim Budget 2019. It will provide monthly pension of Rs. 3000 to the employees of unorganised sector after 60 years of age. The scheme will benefit 10 crore workers in unorganised sector.

Notes:
On 4th March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which will function on the “One Nation One Card” model across the country. The NCMC is the India’s first indigenously developed payment platform for transport that can be used to make payments across public transport anywhere in the country, including Metro, bus and suburban railways, for toll and parking, and for retail like any credit or debit card. The stored value on card supports offline transaction across all travel needs with minimal financial risk to involved stakeholders. The service area feature of this card supports operator specific applications e.g. monthly passes, season tickets etc. The card will address the challenges associated with the cash payment e.g. cash handling, revenue leakages, cash reconciliation etc. Beside this, PM Modi also launched an Automatic Fare-Collection system (AFC) called ‘SWEEKAR’, and a gate and card-reader system called ‘SWAGAT’ . The three together will enable the use of the national mobility card across the country without a conflict with existing Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines. The cards can be issued by all public and private banks the same way credit, debit, and prepaid cards are issued.