Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2023

Notes:
India – US Commercial Dialogue and CEO Forum was held in New Delhi. During the meeting, the Minister and the Secretary acknowledged that the bilateral goods and services trade has almost doubled since 2014.
India and US also agree to launch Strategic Trade Dialogue, which will be led by Foreign Secretary of India and Under Secretary, Bureau of Industry and Security in US Department of Commerce.

Notes:
Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Anurag Singh Thakur inaugurated the Khelo India Dus Ka Dum Tournament in New Delhi.
Nearly 15 thousand women athletes will participate in the contest in more than 50 cities of the country. The game features 10 sports. The objective of this tournament is to provide a platform to the women athletes who were unable to participate in national or state-level competitions.

Notes:
The Mahakali River is a transboundary river that originates in the Himalayas in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, India.
It flows along Nepal’s western border with India and it is also known as the Kali River or the Sharda River. Uttarakhand Chief Minister recently inaugurated an 11 km long stretch of the Mahakali River for rafting. It will help promote adventure sports and tourism in the region. The state government is currently planning to conduct a national rafting competition in the Mahakali River.

Notes:
The researchers from Monash University in Australia extracted the enzyme called Huc from a common soil bacterium, Mycobacterium smegmatis.
This enzyme can convert atmospheric hydrogen into energy. This opens new possibility for new renewable and sustainable energy sources. It was able to retain its power to generate energy even when frozen or heated to 80 degrees Celsius.

Notes:
The 146th Assembly of the IPU was held in Manama, Bahrain in March 2023. India’s Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla arrived in Bahrain’s capital Manama, leading an Indian Parliamentary delegation, to attend the Assembly.
The Indian delegation will participate in the Asia Pacific Group meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Notes:
Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, unveiled the pilot trial of MD15 buses and Prototype launch of M100 (100% Methanol).
MD15 stands for diesel with 15 percent methanol buses. The project was carried out in partnership with BMTC, NITI Aayog, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Ashok Leyland.

Notes:
Pyre, the English translation of writer Perumal Murugan’s Tamil novel Pookkuzhi, has figured in the longlist for the International Booker Prize 2023.
The translator is Aniruddhan Vasudevan, who also translated Perumal Murugan’s Maathorubhagan into English as One Part Woman. This is the first Tamil novel that has found a place in the International Booker longlist.

Notes:
Australia has unveiled plans to buy up to five U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, then build a new model with U.S. and British technology under an ambitious plan.
The announcement came at an event at California naval base where U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Albanese called it the biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in all its history.

Notes:
A recently released government survey has called into question the Central government’s claim in 2019 that all Indian villages are open defecation-free (ODF).
The three older surveys which disputed the ODF status were the National Statistical Office (NSO) survey from October 2018, the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) of 2019-20, and the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) 2019-21. Over 21% of rural households do not have access to any type of toilet

Notes:
The report titled “Global Bottled Water Industry: A Review of Impacts and Trends” was released recently ahead of the United Nations 2023 Water Conference.
The Conference is to be hosted in New York, USA. The report revealed that the bottled water industry is masking the existing issue of the lack of reliable drinking water for all.