Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - March, 2018

Notes:
President Ram Nath Kovind has recently released coins in denominations of Rs 10 and Rs 1,000 commemorating Nabakalebara festival of 2015 during the centenary celebration of Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in Puri, Odisha on March 18, 2018. The Nabakalebara festival is an ancient ritual that is observed in most of the Jaganath temples in Odisha. In this fest, the idols of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra and Sudarshan are replaced by new idols. The occasion occurs every 8th, 12th, or 19th year of the previous Nabakalebara.

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:
Sunil Sharma (49), the senior journalist, has passed away in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh on March 19, 2018. Presently, he was working as the bureau chief of Hindi daily ‘Divya Himachal’.

Notes:
The Salal Hydroelectric Power Station (SHPS) is a run-of-the-river power project on the Chenab River in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Notes:
Canadian mathematician Robert P. Langlands has won the prestigious Abel Prize 2018 for his visionary programme connecting representation theory to number theory. The 81-year-old mathematician would receive the award from Norway’s King Harald V at an award ceremony in Oslo on May 22, 2018. The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and is worth 6 million Norwegian krone (about £550,000). It is considered by many to be a maths equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which has no prize for mathematics. The prize is named after the 19th century Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel and is awarded annually since 2003.

Notes:
The first-ever National Conference on Drug Law Enforcement has inaugurated by Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, in New Delhi on March 23, 2018. The 2-day conference is being organized by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Ministry of Home Affairs. The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh will be the Chief Guest at the closing session. More than 50 State and Central law enforcement agencies involved in combating drug trafficking have confirmed their participation in this Conference. The conference working sessions are focused on various topics such as ‘Wider context of drug trafficking in India’, ‘Financial Investigations’ and ‘Foreign & Cyber Investigations’. During these sessions various agencies would give presentations while UN and other foreign law enforcement agencies would share their experiences.

Notes:
Karan Thapar, the veteran journalist and television presenter, has been honoured with the 2017 G.K. Reddy Memorial National Award for journalism for his contribution in the field of journalism. The award was presented to Thapar by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh  at the Teen Murti Bhawan in New Delhi on March 22, 2018. The award carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh, a gold medal and a special trophy.

Notes:
Pankaj Advani has defended his Asian Billiards Championships title. In the summit clash at Yangon in Myanmar, Advani defeated his practice partner B Bhaskar 6-1 on March 24, 2018. With this win, Advani remains the reigning Indian, Asian and world champion in billiards for 2017-18. This is Advani’s 11th gold medal at the Asian level of cue sports. His continental billiards title tally has gone up to 7, in addition to the back-to-back Asian Games gold medals in 2006 and 2010, one 6-red snooker title and a snooker team gold. Meanwhile, in Snooker, India’s Amee Kamani won the Asian Women’s title by blanking her Thai opponent Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan 3-0.

Notes:
Chandigarh has become the North India’s first city to install digital automatic speed gun cameras for traffic management. The high-tech speed cameras are equipped with night vision technology and will record the speed of oncoming traffic, helping Chandigarh Police to issue challans to anyone driving above the city speed limits. Not only this, the advanced cameras are installed with digital display to beware motorists of overspeeding. If the speed is above the permissible limit, the digital display will warn the driver with a white light. If, and when, a motorist breaks the law, a Challan will be sent to the driver along with the image of overspeeding.

Notes:
The 5th India Maize Summit 2018 was held at FICCI in New Delhi to harness the potential of maize and technological innovations. The purpose of the summit is to promote producer aggregation and linkages that are required.