Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
The Government has notified the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Rules, 2020 which enables implementation of recent amendments to the Act. Under the new rules, punishment for child abuse has been made more stringent.
The rules state that any person who has received any pornographic material involving a child or any information regarding such material being stored, distributed or is likely to be distributed in any manner shall report the contents to the Special Juvenile Police Unit (SJPU) or Police or the cybercrime portal.

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:
The Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, Baseer Ahmed Khan, a 2000-batch IAS officer, has been appointed as the fourth advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu. An order regarding the appointment was issued by Deputy Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The other three advisors are former CRPF DG Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar, who was appointed as the advisor on January this year, IPS officer Farooq Khan and IAS officer K K Sharma.

Notes:
Kerala has launched an initiative to use robots for creating awareness on COVID-19 among the public. Two robots have been built by a start-up in Kerala called Asimov Robotics, under the Kerala Start-up Mission, an initiative by the state government to promote start-up firms.
One wears a mask and distributes hand sanitisers, napkins, and masks to people while the other robot responds to queries. They are deployed in Kochi on a pilot basis.

Notes:
Europe’s largest bank and multinational investment bank HSBC recently announced that it appointed Noel Quinn as Chief Executive officer.
Noel Quinn joined the HSBC bank in 1987 and took interim charge of HSBC last August after the sudden exit of the previous CEO John Flint. There have been several speculations regarding the appointment, which ended now as an insider has been appointed.

Notes:
The Kerala state government announced a ₹20,000 crore economic package to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
This package includes funds to clear dues which the government owes individuals and institutions, providing consumer loans, disbursing welfare pension of two months in advance and a health package. The Chief Minister also announced free ration for all of this month, where everyone in the state will be given free food grain up to 10kg through ration shops.

Notes:
Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) approved the procurement of 83 Tejas fighter aircrafts, which are manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
The Light Combat Aircraft Tejas is indigenously designed by Aircraft Development Agency (ADA) under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). This order of 83 air-crafts is in addition to the previous order of 43 air-crafts approved earlier.

Notes:
The Defence Ministry has recently signed an 880-crore contract with Israel Weapons Industries (IWI) for procurement of 16,479 light machine guns (LMGs).
According to the contract which was signed with the Israel-based arms industry company, it would provide Negev 7.62 x 51 mm light machine guns to the Indian armed forces. This type of LMG is a combat proven weapon and used by several countries around the globe at present.

Notes:
America-based Private space agency owned by Elon Musk, SpaceX will send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in May.
This was announced by NASA, which also revealed that the first crewed launch from the United States to the ISS platform since 2011 is to be sent through SpaceX. The space company will launch a Falcon 9 rocket to transport NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the station.

Notes:
On the World Water Day, which falls on March 22, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that between 3.5 and 4.4 billion people in the world will live with limited access to water.
He also announced that out of the people with limited access, more than 1 billion of them would be in major cities. He revealed that the world’s water resources are under threat and 2.2 billion people and 4.2 billion people lack safe drinking water and sanitation facilities respectively.