Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2020

Notes:
The birth anniversary of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, was recently observed on March 23. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to the leader.
Ram Manohar Lohia was born on 23 March 1910 and was one of the founders of the Congress Socialist Party. He was also the editor of the Congress Socialist journal. He had also as the secretary of the Foreign Department of the All India Congress Committee (A.I.C.C)

Notes:
The SAARC Disaster Management Centre has recently launched a website for information related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
The website shows the number of coronavirus cases in the SAARC member states with live updates on the count of active cases. This initiative was earlier proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the recent video conference with the leaders SAARC member nations.

Notes:
Debut novelist Ruchika Tomar has been selected as the winner of the 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel ‘A Prayer for Travelers’.
PEN America was founded in 1922, in New York City. The prize is backed by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. The PEN/Hemingway Award includes a $25,000 prize, which is proposed to allow significant time and resources to pursue a subsequent work of fiction.

Notes:
Invest India is India’s national Investment Promotion & Facilitation Agency, which comes under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
It was seen in news recently as Invest India has launched the ‘Invest India Business Immunity Platform’. This platform is hosted on the Invest India website and it provides real-time updates on the latest initiatives of the government of India to tackle Covid-19.

Notes:
The Technical Advisory Committee of the National Supercomputing Mission (MSM-TAC) has approved the installation of a Supercomputing facility with 650 TFLOPS, at IIT Guwahati, Assam.
The installation of the supercomputing system has been started under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). It is co-ordinated by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The mission is being implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

Notes:
The United Nations has recently launched a USD 2 billion global humanitarian response plan to fund the poorest countries and help them fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
This global response plan is to be coordinated by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The plan will also integrate the existing appeals from the World Health Organisation and other UN partners. This fund is expected to provide laboratory supplies for testing to NGOs and medical equipment to protect health care workers.

Notes:
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is observed on March 25 every year, across the world. The day honours those who suffered and died due to brutal slavery system. It also aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice.
The International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members is also observed on March 25. It marks the anniversary of the abduction of a former journalist named Alec Collett, who worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Notes:
The CRISIL rating agency recently announced its estimate on growth rate of India for 2020-21 as 3.5 per cent. The agency had earlier projected the growth rate of India to be 5.2 per cent for the next financial year.
The recent pandemic outbreak in India and the resulting 21-day consequent lockdown are the main reasons for the agency to slash the growth rate. It also announced that the dip in growth will be concentrated in the first half of the next fiscal whereas the second half would see a mild recovery.

Notes:
Renowned artist and architect Satish Gujral recently passed away at the age of 94. He was much admired for his versatile art works in genres including painting, architecture, sculpture and graphic arts.
The artist was also the recipient of the second-highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan in 1999. He was the brother of former Prime Minister IK Gujral. His famous works include the Belgium Embassy in New Delhi and the alphabet mural on the wall of the Delhi High Court. ‘Days of Glory’ and ‘Mourning en masse’ are some among his most popular paintings.

Notes:
National Book Trust of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has launched a campaign called ‘StayHomeIndiaWithBooks’, to encourage people to stay home amid the Covid 19 pandemic.
As a part of this initiative, NBT is making its select and best-selling books available for free Download. More than 100 books are made available in PDF format and can be downloaded from the website of NBT.