Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
Indian mountaineer Bhawna Dehariya has successfully scaled Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain peak of Australia.
The mountaineer had scaled Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro last year and has successfully climbed the 2,228-metres Mount Kosciuszko now. Bhawna Dehariya hails from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Notes:
Mumbai headquartered IDFC FIRST Bank recently announced that it has appointed veteran Bollywood celebrity Amitabh Bachchan as its first ever brand ambassador.
The IDFC bank was originally founded in 2015. It was founded as a new entity after the merger of IDFC Bank and Capital First in December 2018. At present, the bank has 424 bank branches with 104 asset branches and 272 ATMs.

Notes:
American legendary golfer Tiger Woods will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2021.
Woods was among the 10 finalists named as candidates for 2021. Florida-based World Golf hall of fame announced that Tiger Woods, who is the winner of 15 major titles, will be inducted in the hall of fame in the male competitor category. He has secured 93 international victories and won his 15th major title last year after 11 years.

Notes:
Nita Ambani, the owner of Mumbai Indians cricket team franchise, has been named in the iSportconnect’s list of 10 most influential women in sports for 2020.
iSportconnect is a Sports business network, which released the list. The other women who feature in the list were Tennis superstars Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, ace gymnast Simone Biles and famous footballer Megan Rapinoe among others.

Notes:
Microsoft Bing team has launched a web portal for tracking COVID-19 infections worldwide. The interactive website has been developed to provide up-to-date infection statistics for each country.
It also features an interactive map for number of cases for specific location and related articles from publishers. The portal hosts the data from reliable sources like the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Notes:
The competition authority of France recently slapped a record 1.1 billion euro (equivalent to $1.2 billion) fine on US tech major Apple.
The fine was imposed for the firm’s anti-competitive behaviour towards its independent retail distributors. The country’s authority announced that it found Apple prevented independent retailers in France from competing on price and allegedly used its economic power on them.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the validity of authorization issued to IT service management company Vakrangee, to setup, own and operate the White Label ATMs (WLA) in India.
The validity of authorization has been extended till 31 March 2021. RBI has assigned a target of minimum 1,000 ATMS to be deployed by Vakrangee for three years starting from 2020, with the stipulated ratio in Metro & Urban, Semi-Urban and Rural regions.

Notes:
Facebook-owned WhatsApp has recently announced the global launch of “WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub” in partnership with the World Health Organization, United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Development Program.
It has also contributed $1m to the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), to enhance the fact-checking network to curb fake news and rumours around coronavirus.

Notes:
The United Nations introduced Language Days in 2010, to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity of various languages.
The United Nations celebrates six Language Days each year, dedicated to the six official languages of the UN, namely Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Among them, the ‘French Language Day’ is celebrated on March 20, which marks the creation of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF).

Notes:
In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly announced the decade commencing 1 January 2015 and ending on 31 December 2024 as the International Decade for People of African Descent. The theme of the international decade is “People of African descent: recognition, justice and development”
Every year, March 21st is celebrated as ‘International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’ across the world.