Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
The famous annual Chaitra Jatra festival is celebrated in the state of Odisha. The festival which was scheduled to be held on March 17 at the Tara Tarini hill shrine of the state was cancelled as a precautionary measure against COVID-19 outbreak.
According to the state officials, more than 1.5 lakh visitors usually arrive for the festival and some out of them reach the hill-top to offer prayers, as a part of the festival.

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:
Karan Bajwa has been recently appointed as the Managing Director of Google Cloud in India. Prior to this appointment, he was serving as the Head of IBM’s India operations. He has also worked in Microsoft for nine years before that.
In this new role, Karan Bajwa will be responsible for monitoring all revenue and market operations for Google Cloud’s solution portfolio.

Notes:
Centre for Media Studies (CMS) in partnership with World Health Organization (WHO) is implementing a media fellowship programme on road safety, called WHO Road Safety Media Fellowship.
Recently it was offered to 12 journalists based in Delhi and Karnataka from print, broadcast and online media of Hindi, English and Kannada languages. The fellowship is aimed at improving the capacities of journalists in coverage of news related to road safety.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is conducting Open Market Operations (OMO) in the form of purchase of Rs 10,000 crore worth government securities.
This important step of the central bank has been announced at the backdrop of the increased risks of COVID-19 pandemic. The operation would increase the liquidity in the Indian economy and would help the financial market segments which are affected by the economic risks.

Notes:
Legendary India footballer P.K. Banerjee recently passed away at the age of 83. He was a member of the 1962 Asian Games gold-medal winning India football team.
The veteran football player scored 65 international goals in a total of 84 appearances for the national team. Banerjee represented India in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and led India in the 1960 Rome Olympics. The international governing body of Football game, FIFA awarded him the Centennial Order of Merit in 2004.

Notes:
Every year March 20 is observed as World Sparrow Day to raise awareness about sparrows around the world. It highlights the huge decrease in population of the bird as the house sparrow is on the verge of extinction.
The initiative was started by the India-based Nature Forever Society (NFS), founded by the conservationist Mohammed Dilawar. The first World Sparrow Day was celebrated in 2010 across the globe.

Notes:
In order to curb the spread of misinformation and fake news on coronavirus and to reduce the panic among the citizens regarding the COVID-19, the Government of India has launched an official chatbot on the social media platform WhatsApp.
This Chatbot is named ‘MyGov Corona Helpdesk’ and is available to all WhatsApp users. Any user can save the number announced (9013151515) and start using the chatbot.

Notes:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh unveiled an updated manual DPP-2020 (Defence Procurement Procedure-2020).
For the last 18 years, this DPP is the procurement manual that has been used for governing the purchase of weapons and equipment from the defence capital budget. The 2020 draft version aims to promote more indigenous content in defence equipment which are manufactured in India. It also introduced ‘leasing’ as another category to make defence equipment affordable.

Notes:
World Down Syndrome Day is celebrated on March 21 every year, across the world. The United Nations General Assembly declared the day in the year 2011.
Down syndrome occurs when a person has an extra partial or whole copy of chromosome 21. The day is celebrated to raise public awareness of Down syndrome. On World Down Syndrome Day 2020, the forum-Down Syndrome International focuses on the theme “We Decide”.