Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
Ankita Raina, was seen in news as she delivered an outstanding game in the ongoing Federation Cup Tennis tournament, which led India to progress to the World play-offs.
The Indian team created history by progressing to the play-offs for the first time ever, as it has been in the regional group since 2016. In the ongoing Federation Cup Tennis, India registered three consecutive wins in a row, after their first loss to China. Sania Mirza represented India in the doubles.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik recently announced that Odisha will be the first state to have an exclusive department for Self Help Group (SHGs) called “Mission Shakti”.
In addition to this exclusive department, the state government has also introduced an independent Nutrition Budget focusing on the nutritional enhancement of all mothers and children of the state, recently.

Notes:
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently released its annual “Trends in international arms transfers 2019” report.
As per the report, India retained its rank as the world’s second largest arms importer during 2015-19. The five largest arms importers during the five-year period were Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Australia and China, which was 36% of all arms imports together. Russia remaining the largest supplier of arms.

Notes:
The Federation Council, the Upper House of the Russian parliament approved the presidential bill on amending the national Constitution, after the Lower house passed it.
The bill changes the powers of the parliament and allows President Vladimir Putin to run for the presidency again in 2024, which may extend his rule to two more terms. The bill will be considered after two-thirds of the regional parliaments back it and after the all-Russia vote. The bill also seeks to give additional powers to the President to fire judges in the country’s higher courts and to reject laws passed by Parliament.

Notes:
World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. The last time the WHO declared a pandemic was for the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009.
Pandemic is the term when epidemics are growing in multiple countries and continents at the same time, whereas an endemic describes the outbreak that has grown out of control yet is limited to just one country or location.

Notes:
The Department of Posts has introduced a free digital parcel locker service for the first time in India in Kolkata in the New Town and Nabadiganta IT Post Offices.
Under the service, customers collect their consignment from specified post offices at their convenience. People who cannot receive the parcel during the working hours can collect the parcel within seven days by using the OTP number sent to them through an SMS.

Notes:
Major Technological Company Facebook launched its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative called ‘Pragati’ in India.
The initiative which aims to boost women entrepreneurship in India, is powered by N/Core (The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation). The project will incubate and accelerate early-stage women-led non-profit units that work on women entrepreneurship. The initiative will award four financial grants of up to ₹50 lakh for each non-profit organisation.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced that it will provide USD 200 to companies which manufacture and distribute medicines and other things required to combat the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
The financial assistance will be made available through ADB’s Supply Chain Finance Program and provided to selected companies. This support is to provide additional working capital to such manufacturing companies for their requirements to address the virus outbreak.

Notes:
The Necurs is a botnet and is one of the largest networks in the spam-mail threat system. It has infected more than nine million computers worldwide. Botnet means a computer network which is infected with malware, through which cyber criminals gain access to computers.
It was seen in news recently as Microsoft and its partners across 35 countries took legal and technical steps to disrupt Necurs botnet.

Notes:
The Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi has emerged as the Asia-Pacific’s best airport in the ‘Over 40 million passengers per annum category’ in the Airport Service Quality Programme (ASQ) 2019 rankings.
The rankings are released by the Airports Council International. The Indira Gandhi International Airport, which is undergoing a major expansion, handled around 69 million passengers last year.