Current Affairs Quiz - March 2022

Notes:
40-year-old Serdar Berdymukhamedov has won the Presidential Election of Turkmenistan. He is the son of the country’s leader.
Berdymukhamedov secured 72.97 percent of votes in the recently held election and succeeded his father Gurbanguly, as per the Central Election Commission. Turkmenistan is a gas-rich country in Central Asia.

Notes:
The new Common University Education Test (CUET), to be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), is compulsory for all the Central Universities.
The exam will be a computer-based, multiple-choice test.  The University Grants Commission (UGC) also asks all state, deemed-to-be, and private universities to use the test scores for admissions to undergraduate programmes across the country.

Notes:
Asia’s largest tulip garden, with over one million tulips, has been opened to the public in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar.
The Tulip Garden has been cultivated over months for the upcoming Tulip Festival. The Tulip Festival in Srinagar annually attracts tourists from all over the world at the beginning of spring.

Notes:
The Polar Science and Cryosphere Research (PACER) scheme is implemented through National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
It comprises of the Antarctic program, Indian Arctic program, Southern Ocean program and Cryosphere and Climate program. The scheme is organising 41st Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica. PACER scheme has recently been approved for continuation during 2021-2026.

Notes:
The Fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP-4) was held recently at Bali, Indonesia.
It had been decided that 10 types of products contain mercury that can be phased out, while the use of four types of products with mercury should be reviewed at COP-5 in Geneva, Switzerland. ‘Bali Declaration’ was unveiled to prevent illegal mercury trade.

Notes:
A Marine Mammals Research (MMR) team of the Department of Environment and Forest in Lakshadweep has reported the first-ever live sighting of rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) in Indian waters.
During their diversity and distribution monitoring surveys, the marine mammal research team witnessed the species at Cheriyapani and later at Kavaratti.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has decided to extend the PMGKAY till September 2022.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), 5 kg of food grains (wheat, rice, coarse grain) is provided to each beneficiary each month free of cost. Phase-V of the scheme was to end in March 2022.

Notes:
The Punjab Government made a resolution to install three statues in the Assembly Building of Capitol Complex, Chandigarh. It was opposed by Heritage Experts of the city
The Edict of Chandigarh is a rule book prescribed by Le Corbusier, the planner of Chandigarh. Other than statues, the Edict also specifies a complete ban on noise and commercial structures at the Sukhna Lake.

Notes:
US President Joe Biden proposed USD 1.8 billion to support free and open, and secure Indo-Pacific Region and the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
He also proposed USD 400 million for the Chinese Malign Influence Fund. The funds were announced as part of USD 773 billion annual Defence Budget, which prioritizes China as the Department’s pacing challenge.

Notes:
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. Has launched the world’s longest commercial passenger flight by distance.
It has planned to reroute its New York-Hong Kong service to avoid Russian airspace, and that would be the longest flight. The distance of 16,618 kilometers is covered at 17 hours would surpass Singapore Airlines’ New York service, which takes about 17-and-a-half hours to cover 15,349 km.