Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2021

Notes:
The Government of India has recently appointed Dr G P Samanta as the new Chief Statistician of India (CSI).
Presently, he is the advisor in the RBI’s Department of Statistics and Information Management. Samanta would be replacing Dr Kshatrapati Shivaji who has been holding the additional charge of CSI since September 2020.

Notes:
The Union Commerce and Industry Ministry is in the process of developing a portal for hand-holding domestic investors.
Named as ‘Atmanirbhar Niveshak Mitra’, it provides information dissemination and facilitation of domestic investors. It is in the testing phase and will be launched by May 1, 2021. The Ministry is also working on webpage to be available in regional languages and a related mobile application.

Notes:
The Government of India has launched a mobile app named “Mera Ration” with an aim to facilitate the ‘One Nation-One Ration Card’ system in the country.
The app has been developed by NIC and is aimed to help especially those ration card holders who move to new areas for livelihoods.

Notes:
The captain of Indian women cricket team and Veteran batter Mithali Raj reached a new fete in her career by scoring 10,000 runs across all formats.
With this achievement, she becomes the first Indian woman to reach the 10000-run milestone. Also, she is the second one to reach this mark after England’s Charlotte Edwards.

Notes:
Recently, a resolution has been adopted by the European Union’s Parliament that declares the 27-member bloc as “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone”. The resolution was passed with a majority vote of 492 favoring the motion and 141 against the motion.
Most of the countries in the EU except a few like Poland recognizes same sex union and have made legal provisions for same sex marriage.

Notes:
For the year 2021, India has assumed the chairmanship of BRICS. Recently, BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) held its first meeting under India’s chairmanship from March 9 to 11.
The theme of this year’s BRICS is “BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation, and Consensus”.

Notes:
India’s retail inflation rose to a three-month high of 5.03 per cent in February, as against 4.06 per cent in the previous month.
The surge in retail inflation is attributed to the sharp rise in petrol and diesel prices. Food inflation also rose marginally to 3.87 per cent from 3.11 per cent over this period. Though CPI-based fuel and light inflation declined, petrol and diesel saw surge in inflation rate.

Notes:
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has urged the government of Somalia to conduct general elections in the country without any delay. The UNSC has also stressed upon the threat to Somalia from al-Shabab and armed opposition groups.
A resolution in this regard has been passed and adopted unanimously by the UNSC.

Notes:
Recently, a scientist from Hong Kong has developed a technology of Retinal eye scanning that can detect autism at very early stages of life.
The technology makes use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to scan retinas of children thus enabling early detection and treatment of autism.

Notes:
India Fencing champion Bhavani Devi has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics to be held this year. She became the first Indian fencer to be qualified for the Olympics. She has been selected by Adjusted Official Ranking (AOR) Method.
The Tokyo Olympics that were to happen in 2020 have been postponed to July 2021 owing to COVID pandemic.