Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
Renowned poet and Malayalam scholar Puthussery Ramachandran recently passed away at the age of 91. He played an instrumental role in making Malayalam getting recognised as a classical language by the union government in 2013.
Ramachandran has won several prestigious awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award, the Ezhuthachchan Puraskaaram in 2015, Kerala Sahitya Akademi award among others. He was also associated with the Communist movement of Kerala.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of Russia recently announced that the country will create a $4 billion (300-billion rouble) anti-crisis fund with an aim of protecting its economy from the coronavirus attack.
He also announced that Russia may miss its growth targets this year and international markets have been crashed by the impact of the virus. Huge drop in the price of Russia’s main export, Oil has made its economy dip and made its currency rouble being pegged at four-year lows against the dollar. The country is set to unveil new support measures would include tax breaks for tourism companies and airlines.

Notes:
The former Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi has been nominated to Rajya Sabha by the President Ram Nath Kovind, as per the notification of the Union Home Ministry
The nomination is done to fill the vacancy arising due to retirement of one of the members. The maximum strength of Rajya Sabha is 250 members out of which 12 are nominated by the President of India. Gogoi was the 46th Chief Justice in India and was known for his several landmark judgments.

Notes:
The Central bank of the United States-the Federal Reserve has recently cut its benchmark interest rate to almost zero.
The Fed Reserve also announced that it would buy $700 billion in bonds to ease the economic activities. The bank also said that it shall maintain this target range until the economy is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goal.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras has recently launched a re-skilling programme for women called ‘Career Back 2 Women’.
The programme aims at offering 150 hours of training to re-skill women who have taken a break from their career. The certification course comprises of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cyber security data science and big data. This programme is done through the Institute’s Digital Skills Academy.

Notes:
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also known as Bangabandhu was the Founder President of independent nation of Bangladesh. He led the movement against the Pakistani rulers in the then East Pakistan, which led to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.
His birth centenary was celebrated on March 17, this year in Bangladesh and across the world. The year-long celebration has been named as ‘Mujib Barsho’.

Notes:
Veteran Bollywood actor and filmmaker Imtiaz Khan recently passed away in Mumbai at the age of 77. He was famous for acting in several movies including YaadonKiBaaraat, Dharmatma and Dayavan.
He is the husband of Krutika Desai, who is a popular film and television actress. He was also the brother of late actor Amjad Khan and son of the actor Jayant.

Notes:
Former Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari launched the book authored by Bhalchandra Mungekar, which was titled as “My Encounters in Parliament”.
The event was attended by NCP chief Sharad Pawar, CPI general secretary D Raja and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. Bhalchandra Mungekar is an Indian economist, Social worker and a former Rajya Sabha member. He is an ardent Ambekarite and an expert in agricultural economics. He has served in several important organisations including the Planning Commission.

Notes:
A bill that seeks to convert three existing regulatory bodies under the Civil Aviation Ministry into statutory bodies was passed by Lok Sabha. The Aircraft (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was passed by a voice vote and the bill seeks to amend Aircraft Act, 1934.
The regulatory institutions, which are mentioned in the bill are DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), BCAS (Bureau of Civil Aviation Security) and AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau).

Notes:
The World Happiness Report is published by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This year, the report has ranked Finland as the happiest country for the third time in a row.
People in 156 countries were asked to evaluate their own levels of happiness while measures like GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption were also considered to arrive at a score. This year, the rankings are based on data collected in 2017-2019. India is ranked 144 in the list of 156 countries.