Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
ICDS-Common Application Software (CAS) is developed under the POSHAN Abhiyaan (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition). It is a flagship programme to improve nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
Recently it was seen in news as the Women and Child Development Ministry announced that Anganwadi Workers are provided with Smart phone through States, for ICDS-Common Application Software developed under POSHAN Abhiyaan, for efficient service delivery and monitoring.

Notes:
The Cabinet has recently approved building 780-km Green National Highway project at a cost of Rs 7,660 crore. It includes upgradation of various National Highways in four states – Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
The aim of the ‘Green Highways (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification & Maintenance) Policy’ is to promote greening of Highway corridors with participation of the community. 1% of the total project cost of all highway projects will be kept aside for highway plantation and its maintenance.

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:
World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated every year on March 15 across the world to spread awareness about the rights and needs of a consumer. Several awareness programmes are held across the world on this day.
This year, the theme of the World Consumer Rights Day, according to the Consumers International organisation is – “Sustainable Consumer”. In India, 24th December is observed as National Consumer Day every year.

Notes:
The Gollapudi Srinivas National Award 2019 is to be presented jointly to two debutant film-makers for the first time since 23 years of its inception.
Aditya Dhar for the Hindi film ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ and Madhu C. Narayanan for the Malayalam movie ‘Kumbalangi Nights’ are selected as the winners. Both the filmmakers will be awarded at a ceremony in Chennai. The award was established in 1998 after Gollapudi Srinivas, a young director, who passed away tragically.

Notes:
The city of Kishangarh in Ajmer district of Rajasthan is called the ‘Marble city of India’. Recently the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) today flagged off the first-ever thrice-weekly flight from Indore to Kishangarh, under the RCS-UDAN scheme.
Star Air has been awarded the Indore-Kishangarh route during the UDAN 3 bidding process. With this route, the Civil Aviation Ministry has operationalised 268 routes under the UDAN scheme.

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 first Indian-origin Finance Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak unveiled a 330-Billion Pound Rescue Package, which aims to help the businesses of the country to survive the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The £330 billion of loan guarantees will help them meet their day to day needs during the lock-down. He also extended a business rates holiday and cash grant to all businesses in the retail and hospitality sector for 12 months.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his public address, announced the setting up of a COVID-19 economic response task force.
The task force is to be headed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, to measure the economic impact of the pandemic and take appropriate steps. The Finance Minister is set to meet the Ministers of animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries, civil aviation, tourism and MSME, for getting feedback and assessing the economic impact of COVID-19.

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.