Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2021

Notes:
The 67th National Film Awards were announced to honour the films from the year of 2019. The event was organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Director Priyadarshan’s Malayalam war epic Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea, starred by Mohanlal, won the Best Feature Film. The best actor award was given to Manoj Bajapayee for Bhonsle, Dhanush for Tamil film Asuran.

Notes:
The Union Defence Ministry has inked a deal with Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd worth Rs.1,056 crore. The deal is for procurement of 1,300 light combat vehicles to be used by the Indian Army.
The induction of these vehicles manufactured by Mahindra Defence is planned to be completed in 4 years.

Notes:
India and the U.S. have recently agreed to re-establish the U.S.- India Homeland Security Dialogue, as per the announcement of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Dialogue aims to discuss important issues such as cybersecurity and emerging technology. It also aims to address violent extremism. The first Homeland Security Dialogue between the two countries was held in 2011.

Notes:
American credit rating agency Fitch releases the report titled ‘Global Economic Outlook GEO’. In its recent edition, it has revised India’s GDP growth estimate to 12.8% for next fiscal.
Earlier, the ratings agency had estimated a growth rate of 11%. The reasons stated are a stronger carryover effect, a looser fiscal stance, and better virus containment. Fitch also expects GDP growth to ease to 5.8% in Fiscal Year 2023.

Notes:
Mahatma Gandhi visited Odisha for the first time in the year 1921 (100 years ago) and had addressed a massive gathering of people as a part of his non-cooperation movement.
To commemorate this event, a commemorative postage stamp on ‘100 years of first visit of Mahatma Gandhi to Odisha’ has been released recently.

Notes:
As per a recent report from SBI’s research team authored by the bank’s chief economic adviser, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, the duration of second wave might last up to 100 days counted from 15 February.
Though India is currently seeing a spike in daily coronavirus cases, the report said that that we are in better place this time to control the pandemic with vaccines being administered. The report also revealed that increasing the speed of vaccination is the only way to fight COVID-19.

Notes:
Russia’s lower house of parliament the State Duma has recently approved a bill, to enable its incumbent President Vladimir Putin to run for two more terms starting from 2024.
The draft law on elections was approved following the constitutional amendments adopted in a nationwide referendum in July 2020. The bill grants Putin the possibility of holding the office for two more terms until 2036.

Notes:
La Perouse is a French Naval Exercise, in which Indian Navy will be a part of the exercise. The exercise is set to be held in Bay of Bengal.
Along with France and India, the navies of QUAD nations (i.e) Australia, Japan and the United States of America would also take part in the exercise.

Notes:
The promoters of DHFL – Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan have been charged and arrested by CBI for fraud and money laundering charges associated with Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
As per CBI, the housing finance company had opened fake and fictious home loan accounts worth Rs.14,000 crore to avail interest subsidies under PMAY amounting Rs.1880 crore.

Notes:
The torch relay for the Tokyo Summer Olympic games 2021 has commenced from Japan. This relay is set to make its way across Japan for a duration of 121 days and would culminate the start of games in July this year.
The journey will take the torch to 859 municipalities in all 47 Japanese prefectures.