Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2021

Notes:
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has recently passed away at the age of 61. He was Tanzania’s first president to die while in office.
He has been the most prominent coronavirus sceptics since the pandemic emerged. John Magufuli was re-elected for a second term in 2020, winning 84% of the vote in the country’s elections.

Notes:
The Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was approved by the Rajya Sabha recently. It seeks to increase foreign direct investment limit in the insurance sector to 74 per cent from the current 49 per cent.
As per the bill, majority of those in board of directors and key management persons would be resident Indians, with at least 50 per cent of directors being independent directors.

Notes:
The European Union has recently joined India’s Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) initiative.
The initiative was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 at the UN Climate Change Summit. It aims to promote resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks.

Notes:
The United Nations Development Program-UNDP has launched ‘Sahi Disha’ campaign to promote women’s livelihoods and entrepreneurship in rural India.
The initiative is a five-year collaboration between UNDP and the IKEA Foundation. It has already supported one million women to access job and livelihood opportunities across five states including Delhi NCR and Maharashtra.

Notes:
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has recently inaugurated three space incubation technology centres in NIT – Nagpur, Bhopal and Rourkela.
This is aimed to encourage and give a platform for space entrepreneurs in India. ISRO has already opened three such centres at NIT Agartala, Trichy and Jalandhar.

Notes:
The US Navy announced that it is set to hold a major naval exercise along with Belgium, France and Japan in the Mideast.
The ‘Group Arabian Sea Warfare Exercise’ will include ships from the four countries to conduct drills in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. This exercise has been planned amid tensions over the nuclear programme of Iran in the region.

Notes:
Kamalpreet Kaur, the 25-year-old Discus thrower of India has made it into the Tokyo Olympic squad. During the qualifying events, she set a national record of 65.06m, improving her own record by four meters.
Another veteran Seema Punia finished second in the event with 62.64m.

Notes:
For the first time, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has recently demonstrated free-space quantum communication over a distance of 300 m.
It demonstrated live videoconferencing using quantum-key-encrypted signals. . The free-space Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) was demonstrated at Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad.

Notes:
Recently, the market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Bureau of India) has relaxed the norms relating to valuation of Basel III AT-1 bonds.
The deemed residual maturity of Basel III AT-1 bonds will be 10 years until March 31, 2022. SEBI has increased it to 20 years from April 1, 2022 to September 2022. From April 2023, the residual maturity will become 100 years from the date of issuance of the bond.

Notes:
A resolution was led in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by the European Union highlighting the ongoing human rights concerns in Myanmar. This has been co-sponsored by the United States of America.
The USA urged Myanmar’s military to restore the democratically elected government and to release the leaders detained in the country.