Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
The 35th edition of the Food and Hospitality fair AAHAR recently commenced in New Delhi. The five-day fair is being organized by India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) in association with the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Development Authority (APEDA), Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries and some top industry consortiums.
Over 750 participants from India and abroad will participate in the fair and display a wide range of food products, equipment and hospitality related products.

Notes:
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of the current Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey as the new Finance Secretary of India.
Ajay Bhushan Pandey replaces current Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar, who got superannuated last month. The senior-most bureaucrat among all secretaries in the Finance Ministry is usually designated as the finance secretary. Debasish Panda was recently appointed as the Secretary, Department of financial services.

Notes:
‘A New era for girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress’ is a report recently unveiled by UNICEF, Plan International and United Nations Women.
The report reveals that though the rate of drop-outs for girls in schools has decreased from 20% to 13.5% from 2008 to 2018, a greater empowerment has not taken place. It also states that many girls still face an unequal violent environment and one in every 20 girls in the age group of 15-20 has experienced rape, both within and outside marriage.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath inaugurated the 10-day Rangotsav festival at Barsana in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. He also participated in the inaugural event of the festival called Laddoo Holi.
Mathura is known for the colourful Holi celebration and will host various forms of the Holi festival at different venues by cultural events.

Notes:
Former Executive of CISCO, Bipasha Chakrabarti has been recently appointed as the new communications head of Facebook India.
Under her new role as the Communications Director at Facebook India, Bipasha would lead the corporate communications and public relations in India. She will handle the communications sector for both Facebook and Instagram in the country.

Notes:
The Indian Railways is conducting a ten-day long campaign from March 1 to 10 to celebrate the International Women’s Day (March 8).
The theme of the campaign is ‘Each for Equal’, representing the gender equality. The Indian Railways is also focussing on #SheInspiresUs, which highlights the inspiring stories of women achievers. Under this campaign, the steps taken to provide exclusive facilities to women passengers and to empower the women employees working in Indian Railways.

Notes:
The capital of Tripura, Agartala and Ghojadanga of West Bengal, which are located along the Indo-Bangladesh border, have been recently designated by the government as authorised land immigration check posts to enter or exit India, with valid travel documents.
As per the recent Home Ministry notification, Senior immigration officers have also been appointed for Agartala and Ghojadanga under the Bureau of Immigration. The designation is made under the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950.

Notes:
The state of Kerala is set to launch a huge digital literacy campaign called ‘I am also digital’ which aims at making the benefits of the state reach the common citizens.
This campaign is initiated by the Kerala Literacy Mission and the Kerala State IT Mission under the Department of Information Technology. The drive would be mainly launched as a people-participatory model to educate the society about digital technology. The project will be pilot-launched in Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation.

Notes:
The Indian Ocean Commission, IOC (COI in French) is an inter-governmental organisation comprised of five African Indian Ocean nations: Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion (an overseas region of France), and Seychelles.
Recently, India joined the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) as the fifth observer. As it is an important regional institution in the Western Indian Ocean, this is a strategic step in India’s maritime governance.

Notes:
India men’s and women’s hockey captains Manpreet Singh and Rani Rampal were awarded the top honours- Dhruv Batra Award for Player of the Year (Men and Women respectively) at the Hockey India 3rd Annual Awards ceremony held at New Delhi.
Recently Manpreet became the first Indian player to win FIH Men’s Player of the Year and Rani Rampal became the first Indian athlete to win the prestigious World Games Athlete of the Year 2019.