Current Affairs Quiz - March 2026

Notes:
The Amondawa tribe lives deep inside the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. Researchers found that they live without clocks, calendars, or counting numerical age. Their language has no words for time, week, month, or year. They describe events in sequence but do not treat time as an abstract concept. They do not track birthdays or calculate age in numbers. Life stages are marked through identity and name changes. As a person grows, they receive new names at different stages. Their society is organised around natural cycles and social identity, not numerical time.

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A recent study warns that climate change may restrict the habitat of the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon to a few isolated pockets in the Western Ghats by the end of the century. It is an endemic pigeon species of the Western Ghats in India. It is large, dark in colour, with a distinctive checkerboard pattern on its nape. It lives in high-elevation wet evergreen, moist evergreen, semi-evergreen forests and shola forests. It is mainly found in the Nilgiris and Anamalai Hills, with isolated populations in Biligirirangan Hills, Nandi Hills and northern Maharashtra.

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Recently, the President of India undertook a sortie in the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) Prachand at Air Force Station Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. It is an indigenously developed Light Combat Helicopter made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. It is the only attack helicopter in the world capable of landing and taking off at 5,000 metres (16,400 feet). It has advanced stealth features, armoured protection and night attack capability. It has crash-resistant landing gear for better survivability. It reduces radar and Infrared (IR) signature and has a countermeasure dispensing system against enemy missiles.

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On 02 March 2026, Raksha Rajya Mantri Shri Sanjay Seth flagged-in INSV Kaundinya at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai after her maiden overseas voyage to Muscat, Oman. INSV means Indian Naval Sailing Vessel. The voyage revived India’s ancient maritime knowledge and inspires youth towards adventure and innovation. The 20-metre stitched wooden vessel sailed the Arabian Sea without modern reinforcements. Inducted in May 2025, named after legendary mariner Kaundinya, symbolising India’s seafaring heritage.

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In March 2026, two new moniligastrid earthworm species named Moniligaster girishi and Drawida reynoldsi were discovered in Silent Valley National Park in the Western Ghats and published in Zootaxa. Moniligaster girishi was found in tropical wet evergreen forest near Chembotti and has a unique undivided spermathecal atrial gland and distinct prostatic capsule. It is named after P Girish Kumar of Zoological Survey of India. Drawida reynoldsi was collected from montane grasslands between Sispara and Anginda and has a sausage like prostatic capsule and large spermathecal atrium. It is named after Canadian expert John Warren Reynolds.

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The Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad organised a National Conference on Ancient Indian Text, Science and Technology to explore the scientific knowledge embedded in ancient Indian literature and its relevance for modern research and innovation. The conference brought together scholars, scientists, historians, researchers and academicians from diverse disciplines to discuss India’s scientific heritage and its contemporary applications. The main objective of the conference was to create an interdisciplinary platform where experts from Sanskrit studies, philosophy and history could collaborate with engineering and applied science researchers to reinterpret ancient scientific ideas.

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A pair of rare dusky eagle owls was sighted in the Phato tourism zone of Terai West forest division, near Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand, after 15 years. The dusky eagle owl belongs to the family Strigidae. It is large, greyish-brown with prominent ear tufts, greyish-white underparts with dark streaks, and dark brown wings with whitish streaks. It is found in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and China. It inhabits thick riverside forests and old-growth trees.

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India and China have the highest absolute metabolic disease burdens in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 1990–2023, with forecasts up to 2030. The peer-reviewed study in Metabolism analyzed disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and mortality for Type 2 diabetes mellitus, high systolic blood pressure (BP), high body mass index (BMI), high LDL cholesterol, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). In 2023, India recorded approx 21 million DALYs and 5.8 lakh deaths from Type 2 diabetes, and 3.8 crore DALYs with 15.7 lakh deaths from high systolic BP.

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Under Swachh Bharat Mission–Urban 2.0, Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation deployed the AI-powered G-SPIDER robot for safe, human-free canal cleaning in high-risk areas. The robot was commissioned at the Amayizhanchan Canal near Thampanoor Railway Station, a stretch with restricted vertical clearance, continuous water flow, and unsafe human entry points. G-SPIDER is developed by Genrobotic Innovations, based on Cable-Driven Parallel Robotics (CDPR) architecture with AI-enabled vision and sensor intelligence. It autonomously detects, assesses, and removes mixed and hazardous waste using a five-degrees-of-freedom robotic mechanism with a biomimetic claw-type grabber.

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Delhi hosted the National Conference of Women Thinkers on the theme ‘Bharati – Nari Se Narayani’. The conference highlighted that national progress is reflected in women’s advancement, education, and empowerment. It emphasized that women are both carriers of tradition and agents of societal change, and their empowerment is a collective societal responsibility. Initiatives have been launched to make women economically, socially, and professionally self-reliant, including schemes like ‘Lakhpati Bitiya Yojana’ and ‘Saheli Pink Smart Card’. Women’s power is recognized as an emerging force of national strength.