Daily Current Affairs Today MCQ : 17 March 2023 Quiz

IDFC Mutual Fund has rebranded itself as Bandhan Mutual Fund. The change in name will be effective from March 13.

All the schemes of the fund house will be renamed to replace the word "IDFC" with the word "Bandhan".

Key Points -

The Securities and Exchange Board of India had cleared the Bandhan-linked consortium’s proposed acquisition of IDFC Mutual Fund in December 2022.

Earlier in 2022, a consortium of Bandhan Financial Holdings GIC, and Chrys Capital signed an agreement to buy IDFC AMC and IDFC AMC Trustee Company from parent IDFC for Rs 4,500 crore.

The company, which was earlier a part of the IDFC group, was acquired by a Bandhan Financial Holdings-led consortium in April 2022. The deal was approved by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in November 2022.

Operation Bold Kurukshetra, a bilateral armour training exercise, was held from March 6–13, 2023, in Jodhpur Military Station in India.

It was the 13th iteration, and the Singapore Army and Indian Army both took part.

Participants in the exercise, which was held by the Indian Army, included members of the 42nd Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment, as well as an Indian Army Armoured Brigade.

Key Points -

Exercise Bold Kurukshetra is carried out in accordance with the bilateral agreement between the Indian Army and the Singaporean Army for joint army training and exercises.

This exercise, which was first carried out in 2005, highlights the long-standing bilateral defence connection between the two nations and strengthens coordination between the two forces.

Regular interactions between the two defence establishments also take the form of high-level visits, policy discussions, courses, and other professional exchanges.

Every year on March 14, the International Day of Mathematics, also known as Pi Day, is observed to honour the mathematical constant Pi, which expresses the proportion of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

The value for Pi is 3.14.

At its 205th meeting, the Executive Council of UNESCO declared March 14 to be the International Day of Mathematics.

Theme -

According to the celebration’s official website, the theme for Pi Day 2023 is “Mathematics for Everyone,” which was suggested by Marco Zarco Rotairo of Trece Martires City National High School in the Philippines.

History -

In 1988, American physicist Larry Shaw recognised the day by planning a major party at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The initial celebration was carving a pie into the shape of pi and reciting the number pi to all possible decimal places.

Mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse is credited for determining Pi’s value for the first time. When Leonhard Euler used the sign of Pi in 1737, the scientific community eventually embraced it.

Pi Day will be recognised as International Mathematics Day in 2019 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its 40th General Conference.

With a focus on India’s civilizational connections with the SCO states, the two-day international conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on "Shared Buddhist Heritage" was launched at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

This historic gathering brings together Central Asian, East Asian, South Asian and Arab nations to discuss "Shared Buddhist Heritage" and is the first of its kind.

It takes place under India’s leadership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) (from September 17, 2022, to September 23, 2023) for a year.

Key Points -

The Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the World Buddhist Confederation are organising the two-day event (IBC-as a grantee body of the Ministry of Culture).

The purpose of the conference is to reestablish cross-cultural linkages and look for similarities among Central Asian Buddhist art, art movements, archaeological locations, and antiquity in various SCO nation-state museum collections.

Atal Innovation Mission has launched ATL Sarthi.

As of date, AIM has funded 10,000 schools to establish Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs).

Initiatives of ATL Sarthi -

1 - through regular process improvements like a self-reporting dashboard known as ’MyATL Dashboard’ and

2 - Compliance SOPs for schools to ensure financial and non-financial compliance,

3 - on-ground enablement of ATLs in collaboration with relevant local authorities through a Cluster-based Approach and

4 - providing ownership to schools to analyze their performance through Performance-Enablement (PE) Matrix.

The ATL Cluster aims at providing a self-sustainable model for enablement and monitoring wherein the ATLs and local authorities work in tandem with each other on-ground to form clusters of 20-30 ATLs in a particular region.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the recipients of the ICC Player of the Month awards for February 2023.

The winners of the ICC Player of the Month awards for February 2023 have been revealed by the International Cricket Council (ICC), with Ashleigh Gardner of Australia being awarded the ICC Women’s Player of the Month and Harry Brook of England recovering the ICC Men’s Player of the Month titles.

Brook wins his second award as the ICC Men’s Player of the Month after once again showcasing his burgeoning reputation in international cricket.

In order to win his second ICC Men’s Player of the Month title, Brook defeated fellow nominees Ravindra Jadeja and Gudakesh Motie.

India’s retail inflation for February slows down to 6.44 percent as against 6.52 percent in January 2023, according to data published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

While the CPI in January stood at 6.52 percent, the same for December 2022 was at 5.72 percent.

Rise in food prices, which account for nearly half of the CPI basket, moderated last month to 5.95% from 6% in January.

In November, it was 5.88 percent and 5.59 percent in October 2022.

Food price inflation came in at 5.9 percent, compared to 6 percent in January. The January inflation was largely cereals-driven.

The data also revealed that inflation in rural areas was higher at 6.72 per cent during the month compared to 6.10 per cent in urban centres.

The Government of India and the World Bank have signed an agreement for the development of Green National Highway Corridors in 4 states, with loan assistance of $500 million.

An aggregate length of 781 km will be constructed in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The objective of the green highway corridor is to demonstrate safe and green highways keeping in view climate resilience and use of green technologies by incorporating the provisions of conservation of natural resources using cement treated sub base/reclaimed asphalt pavement.

In order to promote eco-friendly means of transportation and decarbonize the transport sector, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified mass emission standards to introduce alternate fuels.

World Bank -

President: David Malpass

Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States

Founded: July 1944, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States

Founders: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White

Parent organization: World Bank Group

Subsidiary: Low-Income Countries Under Stress

India is still the world’s largest importer of military equipment, despite an 11% decline in arms purchases between 2013–17 and 2018–22, according to a study by the Sipri 2023.

This year’s defence budget included about Rs 1 lakh crore for domestic purchases, compared to Rs 84,598 crore, Rs 70,221 crore, and Rs 51,000 crore in the three years prior.

According to data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) that tracks weapons imports over a five-year period, India had the biggest percentage of the world’s arms imports in the past five years at 11% followed by Saudi Arabia (9.6%) Qatar (6.4%) Australia (4.7%) and China (4.7%).

In the past five years, the US exported 40% of all military goods worldwide, followed by Russia (16%) France (11%) China (5.2%) and Germany (4.2%) according to new Sipri data.

From 2013–17 and 2018–22, American armament exports increased 14% while those of Russia decreased 31%.

India imported 37% fewer goods from Russia.

According to Sipri, Ukraine was the 14th largest importer of major weaponry in 2018–2022 and the third largest in 2022.

Asia’s biggest International Food and Hospitality Fair begins in Delhi: Aahar 2023 was put together with the help of the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries.

Key Points -

The greatest four-day culinary event in India is called Aahar 2023, where wholesalers, caterers, hoteliers and restaurant owners gather to source the best food, hospitality, and equipment as well as to assess industry trends.

At the fair’s major event, Culinary Art India, WACS-certified jury members from India and overseas will also assess the skill of more than 500 cooks.

The other chefs will have the chance to showcase their skills and abilities while famous chefs cook up some of their best dishes.

Plated appetisers, Petit Fours, real regional food from India, and live cooking demonstrations on March 14; a three-course set dinner menu, live cooking demonstrations by students.