Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
Veteran Indian cueist Pankaj Advani clinched the National 6-Red Snooker Championship with a 7-3 win over Ishpreet Singh. It is the 34th national title overall for Advani.
The National 6-Red Snooker Championship was held at Ahmedabad, Gujarat. In the summit clash, Pankaj trailed 1-3 in the beginning but defeated the young cueist Ishpreet Singh of Maharashtra to claim his 34th title.

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 Rajya Sabha passed ‘The Mineral Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020’, which proposes amendments to the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act 1957 and The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015.
The Lok Sabha had passed this Bill last week and it will come into force after the President’s assent. It seeks to allow companies which do not possess any prior coal mining experience in India to participate in coal auctions. It also seeks to remove the ‘specified end-use criterion’ of the companies.

Notes:
The US Congress approved a resolution to restrain the US President Donald Trump from attacking Iran. The House of Representatives joined the Senate in support of the resolution.
As per the resolution, no military action shall be taken against Iran without an explicit vote from the Congress. Earlier, a rocket fired on a military base north of Baghdad killed an American soldier, a British soldier and a US contractor. In January 2020, Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s military general, Qassem Soleimani, at the Baghdad airport of Iraq.

Notes:
India has appealed against the closure of Ambedkar House memorial to the United Kingdom government. Recently the UK accepted the proposal and announced that the memorial in in north London will remain open to visitors.
Earlier, the memorial faced closure due to a breach of planning norms for residential area. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar lived in 1921-22 when he was studying at London School of Economics in Camden. The home was bought by the Maharashtra government and it was renovated into a memorial.

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.

Notes:
Chameli Devi Jain Award is an annual award which has been presented since 1981 for outstanding performers in the field of Journalism. Chameli Devi Jain was a legendary freedom fighter and community reformer.
This year, the award for outstanding woman journalist was presented jointly to the Journalist of ‘The Wire’- Arfa Khanum Sherwani and a freelance journalist named Rohini Mohan. Arfa was chosen for her reporting from Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh while Rohini was awarded for her investigative coverage on the NRC exercise in Assam.

Notes:
A passenger ferry service called ‘Ropax’ was launched between Mumbai and Mandwa of Maharashtra by the Union Minister of State for Shipping Mansukh Mandaviya.
The vessel which can carry as many as 200 cars and 1,000 passengers was built in Greece. The Ropax jetty and terminal at Mandwa has been built by Maharashtra Maritime Board while the jetty facilities at Mumbai were set up by Mumbai Port Trust.

Notes:
After the state government of Haryana requested to rename its village in Kurukshetra district, the centre has given approval for renaming.
The decision has been taken by the Union Home Ministry after getting formal approval and a No objection certificate from a few central organisations including Ministry of Railways, Department of Posts and Survey of India.

Notes:
E-commerce firm Flipkart recently partnered with Aegon Life Insurance, to sell wide-ranging insurance solutions.
It aims to provide solutions for customers who are looking for instant digital policies with a sum assured of up to Rs 10 lakh. This agreement is aimed at making life insurance available to customers in a convenient and transparent manner.