Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2017

Notes:
Recently, Purva Barve from India has won the Under-19 Women’s Singles Li Ning-Israel Open badminton tournament 2017 by defeating Lela Minadze of Russia by 21-6, 21-4 at the Sports Hall, Rishon LeZion in Israel. Apart from this, Varun Kapur from India has also won theUnder-15 Boys Singles tournament by defeating Toby Dillingham of England in the final by 21-10, 21-2.

Notes:
Sitaram Swain, the Odisha-based installation artist, has been chosen for the 6th edition of the Glenfiddich’s Emerging Artist of the Year 2017. Swain will represent India at the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence (AiR) programme where he will spend 3 months at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Scotland with seven artists from around the world. He will be also awarded Rs 10 lakh, which includes an international allowance of Rs 1,20,000 per month and a work allowance of Rs 500,000.

Notes:
Srinath Narayanan from Chennai will soon become the India’s 46th Grandmaster after he defeated Spanish GM David Anton Guijarro at the 2017 Sharjah Masters chess tournament. He became India’s youngest FIDE-rated player in 2002 when he was just 8 and also finished as joint winner in the Under-12 World Championship in 2005 in France. Srinath became an International Master at the age of 14 and crossed the 2500 Elo rating in 2016. He had already secured five GM norms.

Notes:
Montenegro is set to become the 29th member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after US Senate ratify its entry into NATO. Though, ratification from Spain and the Netherlands is still pending ahead of a NATO summit in May 2017. The move was strongly opposed by Russia because it considers Montenegro and other western Balkan states part of its sphere of interest. Thus, Russia opposes the Western military alliance’s expansion in the Balkans. It must be noted that Montenegro was the former ally of Russia. Under NATO’s principle of collective defense, an attack against one ally is considered an attack against them all.

Notes:
Anil Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance Group, has been inducted into the international advisory board of global think-tank “Atlantic Council”. The Atlantic Council is a foreign policy think-tank headquartered in Washington, DC. The purpose of the Atlantic Council is to shape policy choices and strategies and provide an essential forum for navigating the dramatic, economic and political changes that define the 21st century.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has signed first loan agreement with New Development Bank (NDB) US$350 million for development and up-gradation of major district roads project in Madhya Pradesh. The objective of the Project is upgradation of major district roads in the state of Madhya Pradesh to improve connectivity of the interior areas of the state with the national and state highway networks. The project implementation is 5 years.

Notes:
The popular tribal festival of nature worshipping – ‘Sarhul’ has started in all over Jharkhand with enthusiasm. The festival marks the beginning of New Year by worshiping trees. This annual festival is celebrated during the spring season when trees and other elements of nature are worshiped. Sarhul literally means ‘Worship of Sal’. The festival is dedicated to Dharti mata — Mother Earth. Tribals believe that they can use new crop mainly paddy, leaves of the trees, flowers and fruits of the season only after this festival is celebrated.

Notes:
The Kaundinya Wild Life Sanctuary (KWLS) is a wildlife sanctuary and an elephant reserve loacted in Andhra Pradesh. It is the only sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh with a population of Asian elephants, which migrated after 200 years from neighbouring regions. The sanctuary is covered by southern tropical dry deciduous and thorn forests. Some of the important flora consists of Albizia amara, Acacia, Lagerstroemia, Ficus, bamboo, and a species which is a regeneration of Santalum album.

Notes:
The 3rd G-20 Framework Working Group (FWG) meeting was held in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh from March 28-29, 2017. The focus of the meeting was to deliberate on the inclusive growth agenda of the G20 and formulation of a framework for country specific inclusive growth policies. The meeting was co-hosted by the Union Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Notes:
Indian Navy has recently launched Integrated Automatic Aviation Meteorological System (IAAMS) at Rajali Air Station in Tamil Nadu. The aim of IAAMS is to modernize the meteorological infrastructure of the nine Naval Air Stations (NAS). IAAMS undertakes automatic and continuous recording of relevant weather parameters that are vital for accurate weather forecasting. It has a special alarm feature that alerts the duty staff during abnormal change of weather parameters that may affect safe flying operations. The system can also provide automatic dissemination of routine weather reports as per standards followed by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to other air stations and Air Traffic Controller (ATC) towers without human intervention.