Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2018

Notes:
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has recently released the Andhra Pradesh Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Report 2017. According to the report, the State secured an Index value of 0.0825 (value ranges from 0 to 1; 0 being the best and 1 being the worst). It is equivalent to 51st rank globally. India, with an Index value of 0.1911 is at the 66th position. Within the state, East Godavari is the top district with a value of 0.0468 and Vizianagaram is at the bottom of the table with a value of 0.1271. The study was conducted by the Vision Management Unit (VMU) of the Planning Department in collaboration with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of the University of Oxford, UK. By conducting MPI study, the Andhra Pradesh has become the first Indian state to conduct a household survey exclusively to estimate the MPI at the State and district levels.

Notes:
Indian para-athlete Deepa Malik has won a gold medal in the F-53/54 category javelin event at the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Dubai on March 15, 2018. With this, she has secured the No. 1 rank in Asia in F53 Javelin category. With the win, Deepa has also qualified for the 2018 Asian Para Games, which is scheduled to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia from October 8-16. With that she qualified for the 2018 Asian Para Games, which is scheduled to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia from October 8-16. Beside this, Malik is the first Indian woman to win a medal in Paralympic Games and won a Silver medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in the shot put. She has been honoured with the Arjuna award in 2012 and has also been conferred the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2017 for her achievements.

Notes:
NITI Aayog has recently released roadmaps for ‘Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education (SATH-E)’ project to introduce system-wide governance transformation in school education. These roadmaps, which operate between 2018 to 2020, lay out detailed interventions which will taken by the 3 participating states – Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha – aiming to become ‘Role Model States’ in school education. To increase learning outcomes in schools across the country, NITI Aayog’s project SATH-E is promoting vocational education, skill development, teacher training and introducing technology in classrooms. Besides, the project will promote data-driven analysis to strengthen academic monitoring across schools in the country. These roadmaps present the customised, action-oriented programmes, outlining interventions at the individual, district and State level. The roadmaps were jointly prepared by NITI Aayog, the three States and the knowledge partners of the SATH Initiatives, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Piramal Foundation For Education Leadership (PFEL).

Notes:
Dr. Rajiv Kumar, the Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog, has inaugurated the first-ever India-Japan Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction in New Delhi on March 19, 2018. The 2-day workshop is being jointly organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Government of Japan. The workshop marks the beginning of the formal implementation of the initiatives agreed under the Memorandum of Cooperation signed between the two countries on Disaster Risk Reduction in September 2017. It will identify possible areas of cooperation of India with Japan in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction.

Notes:
The World Sparrow Day (WSD) is observed every year on March 20 to highlight the declining population of the bird due to modern infrastructure, pollution by microwave towers and pesticides and lesser green spaces. It is an international initiative by the Nature Forever Society of India in collaboration with the Eco-Sys Action Foundation (France) and numerous other national and international organisations across the world.

Notes:
The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) has signed MOU with Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) to provide livelihood opportunities and augment income of the forest based communities. Through this collaboration, TIFAC will help ICFRE to refine and up-scale the technologies developed, take technologies to the end users including farmers, State Forest Departments, forest based industries and forest dependent communities in a more effective manner. The MoU will be valid for a period of 5 years. The headquarters of ICFRE is located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has approved the setting up of a Plastic Park in Deoghar District, Jharkhand on March 20, 2018. The project would be set up at a cost of Rs. 120 crores in an area of 150 acres and a range of polymer products including woven sacks, moulded furniture, water tanks, bottles, pipes mosquito nets, etc would be manufactured. It has great potential for attracting investment for setting up an ecosystem for plastic industry and generates employment opportunities for the local populace.

Notes:
The National Cultural Audiovisual Archives (NCAA) project of the Ministry of Culture has become the world’s first Trusted Digital Repository as per ISO 16363:2012 standard, which is granted by Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. (PTAB), United Kingdom (UK). The NCAA is implemented by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). The primary objective of the NCAA is to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India available in audiovisual form through a process of digitization and making it accessible to the people. By March 2018, a corpus of 30,000 hours of unpublished, non-commercial audio & video recordings will be made online at http://ncaa.gov.in/repository, out of which approximately 15,000 hours are already hosted online along with contextual metadata, representing the cultural diversity of India in the broadest sense.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) had constituted an 8-member task force under CBDT member Arvind Modi in November 2017 to review the Income-tax Act of 1961 and to draft a new Direct Tax Law in consonance with the economic needs of the country. Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has invited suggestions and feedback from stakeholders and general public in the format provided on the departmental website. It stated that the format can be downloaded from the website and suggestions may be sent through e-mail at [email protected], latest by 2nd of next month. The task force will also study the direct tax system in other countries and also keep in mind international best practices. The committee will submit its report in May 2018.

Notes:
The World Tuberculosis Day (WTD) is observed every year on March 24 to help spread awareness about the disease, communicate prevention measures as well as to commemorate efforts undertaken against the disease. The 2018 theme is “Wanted: Leaders for a TB-Free World”, which highlights the importance of engaging people from all across the world to put efforts to eliminate TB. Although TB is a serious disease, it is curable. It can occur in almost every part of the body — the most commonly affected areas being lungs, lymph nodes, intestine, bone and brain. Early diagnosis is crucial for the treatment of TB.