Weekly CA Quiz: March 2021 3rd week

 The Centre has reconstituted an advisory committee to chalk out a plan for studying the mythical Sarasvati river for the next two years, after the earlier panel’s term ended in 2019.
The committee would continue to be chaired by the Culture Minister – Prahlad Singh Patel.

After the grand success of the Strawberry Festival in Jhansi and the Jaggery Festival in Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state government is organising a three-day ‘Kalanamak Rice Festival’ in Siddharthnagar district.

Youth Affairs & Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that the government is working to set up a Winter Sports Institute in Gulmarg, Kashmir.

Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to implement the image-based Cheque Truncation System (CTS) in all branches by September 30 this year. The move is aimed at faster settlement of cheques resulting in better customer service.

India’s foreign-exchange reserves surpassed Russia’s to become the world’s fourth largest, as the South Asian nation’s central bank continues to hoard dollars to cushion the economy against any sudden outflows.

JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), a commercial real estate and investment management company, released the Human Performance Indicator (HPI), a new formula that gives a comprehensive view of how different aspects of the workplace function. The report found that India is leading with 81 percent of high performers practicing flexible working, including flexible hours and work-from-home, in comparison to other APAC countries.

Tamil Nadu’s C.A. Bhavani Devi has become the first ever Indian fencer to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

This year, the theme of the International Day of Mathematics is “Mathematics for a Better World”.

 The 63rd edition of the annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021. Album Of The Year:“Folklore” by Taylor Swift.

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi has a memoir, titled ‘My Life in Full,’ will hit the stands on September 28 and will be published by Hachette India.

International Boxing Association (AIBA) announced that Asian Boxing Championships 2021 will be hosted by New Delhi, India from May 21-31.

The 22-year-old Dhanalakshmi of Tamil Nadu took the gold in 100m by clocking 11.39 seconds ahead of Dutee (11.58) of Odisha to become the fastest woman of the championships on the second day of competitions at the NIS Campus.
Gurindervir Singh of Punjab won the men’s 100m final.
Veteran M R Poovamma, representing Karnataka, took the gold in women’s 400m, winning the final race in 53.57 seconds.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched the ‘UPI-Help’ feature on BHIM app as a part of Digi-Help stack by NPCI in order to address issues and resolve complaints of users while conducting UPI transactions.

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has launched Bachat Plus, a non-linked, participating, individual life assurance savings plan. The minimum basic sum assured is ₹1 lakh with no upper limit.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved IPO application requests via Paytm UPI handle. This will help enable fast and seamless applications for the IPO, Paytm Payments Bank Ltd said.

Twenty-two of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India, with Delhi being ranked as the most polluted capital city globally, a new report said. The report is prepared by the Swiss organization, IQAir, in the form of the ‘World Air Quality Report, 2020’, which has released globally. It said that despite the improvement, Delhi ranked as the 10th most polluted city and the top polluted capital city in the world.
Delhi is followed by Bangladesh’s Dhaka, Mongolia’s Ulaanbaatar, Afghanistan’s Kabul, and Qatar’s Doha.
As per the report, the top most polluted city is Xinjiang in China followed by nine Indian cities. Ghaziabad is the second most polluted city in the world followed by Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow and Bhiwari.

Centre has deployed a three-member high-level central team to review Medical Care and Public Health arrangements for Kumbh Mela at Haridwar in Uttarakhand. The team is being led by Dr SK Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The cabinet has approved a detailed proposal for setting up the developmental finance institution (DFI) that was announced in the budget last month, clearing the decks for a dedicated government-owned infrastructure financier.
The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) will be set up with a corpus of ₹20,000 crore and an initial grant of ₹5,000 crore from the government.

India captain Virat Kohli became the first batsman to make 3000 runs in men’s T20I cricket.

The U.S. Consulate honoured Tamil Nadu-based anti-caste activist and human rights defender Gowsalya Shankar with the International Woman of Courage (IWOC) Award in the city.

El Salvador has become the first country in central America and the third in all Americas to get the malaria-free certificate from the World Health Organization (WHO) in recent years.

Samsung India has inaugurated a Samsung Innovation Lab at Delhi Technological University (DTU) under the Samsung Innovation Campus initiative, strengthening its commitment towards the Government’s Skill India initiative as part of its new vision #PoweringDigitalIndia.

Former Bangladesh PM and eminent lawyer Moudud Ahmed passed away while undergoing treatment at a Singapore hospital.He was 81.

India and the Philippines were the most vulnerable to a repeat of the taper tantrum of 2013 as reflation trades were lifting US bond yields, according to global rating agency S&P.

The government has constituted an experts advisory committee which will be responsible for the overall execution and monitoring of the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme. The committee would be chaired by H K Mittal from the Department of Science and Technology.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has passed away at a hospital in Dar es Salaam. He was 61.

Italy has signed the International Solar Alliance under the amended ISA Framework Agreement. The amendments to the Framework Agreement of the ISA entered into force, opening its Membership to all Member States of the UN.

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan has been appointed as the Chairman of the international body Stop TB Partnership Board. He was appointed in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the movement to eradicate Tuberculosis from India by 2025.

Dr Ajay Mathur has assumed office as the Director-General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) with effect from March 15, 2021.

Roiled by the pandemic, home prices in India fell 3.6 per cent in December quarter 2020, pushing down its global ranking to the lowest 56th as compared to 43rd in the year-ago period, while Turkey continued to lead the tally, says a report.

South Africa has been ranked as the world’s most dangerous country to drive in while India came in at fourth place, according to a research study undertaken by international driver education company Zutobi. Among the list of 56 countries in the study, Thailand came in second position and the US took up third spot.
The safest roads in the world can be found in Norway, with its Scandinavian neighbour Sweden having the third safest roads while Japan took second place, according to the study.

State-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary ‘PNB Cards & Services Ltd;’ to manage its credit card business. The authorised capital of the company is Rs 25 crore and the paid-up capital is Rs 15 crore.

Reliance Securities (RSEC) has been recognised as India’s top 10 most promising share trading platforms of 2020.

Legendary cricketer Kapil Dev was inducted as one of the board members of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI).

Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam is among the 20 writers to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2020. Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection When God is a Traveller in English. Apart from Subramaniam, the others who won the award in poetry include Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), Anamika (Hindi), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Rupchand Hansda (Santali), and Nikhileswar (Telugu).
While writer-director Venita Coelho has been named as the recipient for the Bal Sahitya Puraskar 2020 for her book Dead as a Dodo, English author Yashica Dutt received the Yuva Puraskar for her memoir Coming Out As Dalit among other recipients of the respective awards.

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, known for transforming and revitalizing neglected buildings across France, have been named winners of Pritzker Architecture Prize equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

Lou Ottens, the Dutch engineer who is credited with the invention of the audio cassette tape, has passed away. He was 94.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari said that he is hopeful that the construction work on Rs 8,662-crore Dwarka Expressway will be completed before 15 August 2022.
The 29-km expressway, which connects Dwarka in Delhi to Gurugram, is being constructed under the Bharatmala Project.

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and Amazon Web Services announced new initiatives to strengthen the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in India.

India has been ranked 139 out of 149 countries in the list of UN World Happiness Report 2021 released which is topped by Finland. In 2019, India was ranked 140th. 138th — Sierra Leone. 139th – Burundi.
People in war-torn Afghanistan are the most unhappy with their lives, followed by Zimbabwe (148), Rwanda (147), Botswana (146) and Lesotho (145).

International Air Transport Association (IATA) has appointed Standard Chartered Bank as one of its IATA EasyPay service providers in India enabling greater payment flexibility to travel agents.

India’s economy, estimated to contract by 6.9 percent in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, is forecast to record a “stronger recovery” in 2021 and grow by 5 percent, according to a UN report.
The report, ‘Out of the frying pan Into the fire?’ as an update to the Trade and Development Report 2020 by UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said the global economy is set to grow by 4.7 percent this year.

After contracting by 7.1 per cent in 2020, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to grow 12 per cent in 2021 as near-term prospects have turned more favourable, Moody’s Analytics said.

The International Day of Happiness is observed every year all over the world on March 20 to highlight the importance of happiness in the diurnal lives of people.
The theme of International Day of Happiness for this year is “Happiness For All, Forever” which implies the significance of happiness for people all over the world.

Samia Suluhu Hassan made history when she was sworn in as Tanzania’s first female president after the death of her controversial predecessor, John Magufuli, who denied that COVID-19 is a problem in the East African country.

Haryana defeated Jharkhand 4-3 in a shootout to clinch the 11th Hockey India sub-junior women National Championship 2021 title after the final ended 0-0.

World Oral Health Day is observed annually on 20 March, and launches a year-long campaign dedicated to raising global awareness of the issues around oral health.
The theme for the next three years, 2021-2023 for World Oral Health Day is “Be Proud Of Your Mouth”.

World Sparrow Day is a day designated to raise awareness of the house sparrow and then other common birds to urban environments, and of threats to their populations, observed on 20 March.
The theme of World Sparrow Day 2021 is “I LOVE Sparrows”.

Yashaswini Deswal bagged the first gold medal for India in the Women’s 10 Meter Air Pistol final of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting range, Delhi.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will set up a Space Technology Incubation Center (S-TIC) at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NIT Rourkela) to carry out research and product development in space technology field.
ISRO will provide an annual grant-in-aid of ₹2 crore for a period of up to two years to NIT Rourkela as seed money for setting up the S-TIC.

The UNDP has launched ‘Sahi Disha’ campaign to celebrate women’s livelihoods and entrepreneurship in rural India. The Disha initiative, a five-year collaboration between UNDP and the IKEA Foundation, enabled one million women through skilling and counselling services to access job and livelihood opportunities across five states — Delhi NCR, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana.

In order to boost rural innovation and entrepreneurship in the agri-businesses, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) launched Rural Business Incubation Centre (RBIC) in Gujarat. The seventh in the country and first for Gujarat, the RBIC is set up at Sardar Krushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, in Banaskantha district.
The centre is being set up with a total project outlay of ₹10.31 crore of which, the NABARD grant assistance is ₹7.81 crore over five years, during which it looks to support 140 new start-ups, of which 125 will be graduated and 102 new products/technologies commercialised.
Besides, Gujarat, the RBICs are also functional in States of Tamil Nadu, Haryana, West Bengal, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh.

The Jharkhand government announced the launch of SAAMAR (Strategic Action for Alleviation of Malnutrition and Anemia Reduction) campaign to tackle malnutrition in the state.

Over 200 students from Indira Gandhi Delhi Technological University for Women will mentor 1,000 girl students of Delhi government schools in grades 9 to 12 under the AAP dispensation’s “Education Mentoring Programme” launched.

Indian para-athlete Singhraj won gold medal in the 2021 Para Shooting World Cup at Al Ain in the UAE. He defeated Uzbekistan’s Server Ibragimov to get the top honour in the P1 – Men’s 10m Air Pistol SH1 final.

Former Ireland skipper Gary Wilson announced his retirement from professional cricket.

Wicketkeeper-batsman and veteran Aditya Tare scored an unbeaten 118 while skipper Prithvi Shaw slammed 73 as Mumbai beat Uttar Pradesh by wickets in the final to clinch the Vijay Hazare Trophy title at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative to make India Atmnirbhar, India has developed its first indigenously developed App Store called “Mobile Seva Appstore”.
Unveiling the app government has indirectly targeted the big tech companies Google and Facebook.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March to remind people about the negative consequences of racial discrimination. This year theme is “Youth standing up against racism”.

Every year, March 21 is celebrated as the International Day of Forests. The day is aimed at raising public awareness about the values, significance, and contributions of the forests to balance the life cycle on the earth. The theme of the International Day of Forests for 2021 is “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being.”

World Water Day is observed annually across the globe on March 22 with the purpose of highlighting the importance of water and raising awareness about the water crisis that the world faces. The theme of World Water Day 2021 is “Valuing Water”.

On the occasion of World Water Day on March 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ campaign in a bid to conserve water through a participatory approach.
The water conservation campaign — launched under the theme: ‘Catch the Rain, where it falls, when it falls’ — will be implemented in all districts, rural as well as urban areas, of the country during the period March 22, 2021 to November 30, 2021 (the pre-monsoon and monsoon period).

Roiled by the pandemic, home prices in India fell 3.6 per cent in December quarter 2020, pushing down its global ranking to the lowest 56th as compared to 43rd in the year-ago period, while Turkey continued to lead the tally, says a report.

LT Foods Limited has become the first Company globally to be certified with highest level of verification – L3, by UN-backed Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) ecolabel.

World Meteorological Day is observed every year on March 23 to highlight the importance of the role that people and their behaviour play in protecting Earth’s atmosphere. The theme of World Meteorological Day 2021 is “The Ocean, Our Climate and Weather.”

The Gandhi Peace Prize for the year 2020 is being conferred on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the culture ministry said.
The prestigious prize for the year 2019 is being conferred on late Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman in recognition of his vision to strengthen relations with India, and his efforts to promote peace and non-violence in the Gulf region

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has set up a five-member committee, headed by former RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath, for evaluating applications for universal banks and small finance banks.

India’s Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan won the gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event at the The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup being held in Delhi.