Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
The Department of Social Justice of the state of Kerala has unveiled a unique initiative to open ‘safe homes’ to provide safe accommodation to inter-caste and inter-religious couples in all districts.
The objective of the scheme is to ensure security for them while the scheme is implemented with the support of voluntary organisations. The Department is already providing a financial assistance to such couple for self-employment.

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 government has recently constituted a 12-membered high-level panel recently set up to prepare an investigation manual for Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).
As per the recent order issued by the Corporate affairs ministry, Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas would chair the panel. The committee will devise a comprehensive manual for performing effective investigations and probes against white-collar crimes.

Notes:
Global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has revised downward its growth projections for India to 5.3% for 2020 from its earlier projection earlier this month-5.4%.
The latest revision is part of the rating agency’s latest ‘Global Macro Outlook’ report. As per the agency, an extensive crash due to the COVID-19 outbreak will reduce growth to 5% during the same calendar year. The OECD last week lowered India’s growth forecast for 2020-21 to 5.1%

Notes:
Veteran Indian boxer Satish Kumar recently became the first super heavyweight (+91kg) Indian boxer to qualify for the Olympic Games.
Satish Kumar is a bronze-medallist in 2014 Asian Games, silver medallist in 2018 Commonwealth Games and a two-time bronze-winner at the Asian Championships -2015 and 2019. Other Indian boxers Amit Panghal and Manish Kaushik also qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in 52kg and 63kg respectively.

Notes:
The Largest lender of India, State Bank of India (SBI) recently announced that the penalty charges for non-maintenance of average monthly balance (AMB) for all its savings bank accounts are to be waived.
At present, the customers shall have to maintain average monthly balance of ₹3000, ₹2000 and ₹1000 in metro, semi urban and rural areas respectively. The Bank levies a penalty of ₹5 to ₹15 plus taxes when average monthly balance is not maintained. Now the penalty has been waived for all its 44.51 Crore savings bank account holders. The bank also lowered interest rate on all SB accounts to 3%.

Notes:
World Economic Forum (WEF) released its new list of 115 Young Global Leaders. As per the report, these young global leaders from 52 countries under the age of forty are working in their respective fields to change the world and are called ‘change-makers’.
Five Indians are named in the coveted list including Byju Classes’ founder Byju Raveendran, Zomato’s co-founder Gaurav Gupta, Tara Singh Vachani (CEO of Antara Senior Living), Vinati Mutreja (Managing Director and CEO, Vinati Organics Limited), and Swapan Mehra (CEO, IORA Ecological Solutions).

Notes:
The incumbent Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Police S S Deswal has been given the additional charge of the DG Border Security Force (BSF).
This appointment has been approved after the DG BSF Vivek Johri was posted to his parent cadre Madhya Pradesh. S S Deswal is a 1984-batch IPS officer of the Haryana cadre. He is set to hold the additional charge till the appointment and joining of the successor or until further order, as per the Ministry of Home affairs notification.

Notes:
ICDS-Common Application Software (CAS) is developed under the POSHAN Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition). It is a flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
Recently it was seen in news as the Women and Child Development Ministry announced that Anganwadi Workers are provided with Smart phone through States, for ICDS-Common Application Software developed under POSHAN Abhiyaan, for efficient service delivery and monitoring.

Notes:
The 1952 javelin champion of Helsinki Olympics, Dana Zatopkova recently passed away at the age of 97. She belonged to and represented Czech Republic.
Her husband Emil Zatopek is also a four-time Olympic running champion. Zatopkova also won the Olympic silver in Rome in 1960. In 1958, the champion set the world record of 55.73 metres at the age of 35. She also became the European champion in 1954 and 1958.