Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

Dear Champions, as you all know that a lot of competitive exams have been notified consequently. Candidates have to prepare themselves according to the level of competition and expectation of the Recruitment board. Regarding that one of the most important topic is Daily Current Affairs March 18&19. Current Affairs in the form of contemporary events of national & international play a crucial role in almost every competitive exams like Banking, Insurance, SSC, UPSC, TNPSC, Railway etc.

Current affairs are the most dynamic yet scoring among all sections and need to be prepared from the right source. Here, we cafunsta team, providing  Daily GK Updates, Current Affairs Questions, and Monthly  current affairs pdf.

TO PURCHASE OUR BANKING AWARENESS (2021 Edition) – CLICK HERE

March 18&19| Daily Current Affairs 2023

Important Days – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

1. What is the significance of March 18 in India?
A) International Women’s Day
B) World Health Day
C) Ordnance Factory Day
D) National Science Day
E) World Environment Day
Answer: E) Ordnance Factory Day

• Ordnance Factory Day is observed on March 18, annually in India.
• Indian Ordnance Factories operated under the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).
• The Government of India, decided in 2021 to transfer control of the 41 production units collectively known as Ordnance Factories to 7 Government-owned companies, under the Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence (DDP).
• The transfer took place on October 1, 2021, which made the old Ordnance Factory Board defunct.

Global Recycling Day:

• Global Recycling Day is observed every year on March 18 with an aim to spread awareness about the rapid pace at which our natural resources are depleting and the need for recycling to slow it down.
• The Global Recycling Day 2023 will be celebrated around the theme “Creative Innovation”
• Global Recycling Day was first announced in 2015 after the president of the Bureau of International Recycling, Ranjit S. Baxi, brought it to the attention of the World Recycling Convention that same year.
• The first celebration of Global Recycling Day took place on March 18, 2018, and the date was chosen as it coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Bureau of International Recycling.

---

Sports – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

2. Which former footballer recently announced his retirement from the sport?
A) Lionel Messi
B) Cristiano Ronaldo
C) Neymar Jr.
D) Lucas Leiva
E) Sergio Ramos
Answer: D) Lucas Leiva

• Former Liverpool and Lazio midfielder Lucas Leiva announced his retirement from football due to a heart condition, bringing the curtains down on his 17-year professional career.
• The 36-year-old played nearly 600 games in his club career, the majority in Europe having signed for Liverpool in 2007, before moving to Italy’s Serie A in 2017, where he played five seasons with Lazio.

---

3. Who won the Hockey India Balbir Singh Award for Player of The Year 2022 in the men’s and women’s category respectively?
A) Midfielder Hardik Singh and goalkeeper Savita Punia
B) Forward Mandeep Singh and defender Gurjit Kaur
C) Midfielder VivekSagar Prasad and goalkeeper RajaniEtimarpu
D) Forward Lalremsiami and goalkeeper PR Sreejesh
E) Midfielder Sumit and defender Deep Grace Ekka
Answer: A) Midfielder Hardik Singh and goalkeeper Savita Punia

• Midfielder Hardik Singh and goalkeeper Savita Punia on Friday won the Hockey India Balbir Singh Award for Player of The Year 2022 in men’s and women’s category respectively.
• The Hockey India 5th Annual Awards 2022 took place here which saw the National Federation celebrate India’s best hockey stars, officials and former greats of the sport.
  The awards ceremony started with the felicitation of awardees from 2021 and 2022, according to an official release.
• For 2021, Indian Men’s Hockey Team Legend Amit Singh Bakshi, who was part of the Indian team that won the Gold Medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, received the prestigious Hockey India Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2021.
• Harmanpreet Singh and Savita won the Hockey India Balbir Singh Sr. Award for Player of The Year 2021 awards in the Men’s and Women’s categories, respectively

---

Banking and Finance – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

4. Which organization will donate ₹24 crore to Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru for constructing a multi-speciality hospital (Orthopaedics Wing)?
A) Reserve Bank of India
B) Indian Space Research Organisation
C) State Bank of India
D) Indian Oil Corporation Limited
E) Tata Group
Answer: C) State Bank of India

• State Bank of India will donate ₹24 crore to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru for constructing a multi-speciality hospital (Orthopaedics Wing), as a part of its corporate social responsibility activity.
• The hospital will be named Bagchi-Parthasarathy Hospital and is planned at the IISc postgraduate Medical School to cater to the clinical training and research of the MD-PhD students in the academic program.
• The hospital aims to provide facilities for diagnostics, treatment and research. It will have 832-ward beds split into general and special beds (single and shared occupancy), 16 major Operation Theatres (OTs) for super specialty surgeries and four minor OTs.
• Advanced radiology and imaging services such as CT, MRI, PET-CT, Mammography, USG and Doppler, and X-ray would be available.
• The project is expected to be completed by 2025

---

5. How much monetary penalty has the RBI imposed on Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC) and IGH Holdings Private Limited respectively?
A) ₹10 lakh and ₹22.5 lakh
B) ₹2.5 lakh and ₹6.25 lakh
C) ₹5 lakh and ₹11.25 lakh
D) ₹7.5 lakh and ₹15 lakh
E) ₹1 lakh and ₹2.25 lakh
Answer: C) ₹5 lakh and ₹11.25 lakh

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a monetary penalty on Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC) and IGH Holdings Private Limited for non-compliance with certain rules.
• The RBI has imposed a monetary penalty of ₹5 lakh on Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC) and ₹11.25 lakh on IGH Holdings Private Limited respectively.
• The central bank imposed penalty on HDFC for non-compliance with certain provisions of the Housing Finance Companies (NHB) Directions, 2010 issued by the National Housing Bank (NHB).
• An inspection of the company conducted showed that the company failed to transfer matured deposits of certain depositors to designated bank accounts of such depositors during the period 2019-20, the RBI said.
• RBI has also imposed penalty of ₹11.25 lakh on IGH Holdings Private Limited, Mumbai for non-compliance. The inspection of the company revealed that the company failed to comply with the statutory requirement of transferring 20 per cent of the net profit as disclosed in its profit and loss account for the financial year 2020-21 to the Reserve Fund.

---

6. What is the name of Bank of Maharashtra’s private cloud platform that has gone live?
A) MAHABANK Cloud
B) MAHABANK Connect
C) MAHABANK Access
D) MAHABANK NAKSHATRA
E) MAHABANK Edge
Answer: D) MAHABANK NAKSHATRA

• Bank of Maharashtra (BoM), a premiere public sector bank in the country, has embarked its footprint in the adoption of Private Cloud Infrastructure by launching “MAHABANK NAKSHATRA” – Bank’s own Private Cloud Platform.
• This facilitates High-Performance Cloud Capabilities for Digital Infrastructure and hosting applications of the Bank.
• NAKSHATRA – BoM’s own Private Cloud & Virtualization Technology, is built to host double than the existing applications. It provides super flexibility, scalability, enhanced security and modern infrastructure for hosting of its digital applications.
• Nakshatra is sized for 2X Computation & 3X storage with all Flash vSAN Storage with NSX-T with higher speed and is augmented to cater bank’s digital journey workload for next 3 years.

---

Appointments – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

7. Who has taken over as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)?
A) Shri MukeshAmbani
B) Shri Gautam Adani
C) Shri G. Krishnakumar
D) Smt. Chanda Kochhar
E) Shri Ratan Tata
Answer: C) Shri G. Krishnakumar

• Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a ‘Maharatna’ and a Fortune Global 500 Company, announced that Shri G. Krishnakumar has taken over as the Chairman and Managing Director of the company.
• An Electrical Engineer from NIT (erstwhile Regional Engineering College), Tiruchirapalli and a Masters in Financial Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, he is an Industry veteran with diverse leadership experience across business and functional domains in his 36 year journey at BPCL.

---

8. Who was elected as Nepal’s Vice President?
A) Sher Bahadur Deuba
B) Pushpa Kamal Dahal
C) Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli
D) Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav
E) Bidhya Devi Bhandari
Answer: D) Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav

• Ramsahaya Prasad Yadav, a senior leader from the Madhes region, was elected as Nepal’s Vice President, in a further boost to the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’.
• Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress was elected as the new president of Nepal on March 9.
• The tenure of the Vice-President is five years.
• Yadav, a Madhesi leader, will replace incumbent Nanda Bahadur Pun after he completes his tenure.

---

Awards – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

9. Which Tamil writer will be awarded the SaraswatiSamman 2022 for her 2019 memoir Surya Vamsam?
A) Amish Tripathi
B) S. L. Bhyrappa
C) Arundhati Roy
D) Sivasankari
E) Ruskin Bond
Answer: D) Sivasankari

• Tamil writer Sivasankari will be awarded the SaraswatiSamman 2022 for her 2019 memoir Surya Vamsam, the KK Birla Foundation announced
• The SaraswatiSamman is one of the three literary awards instituted by the foundation in 1991.
• It is the highest recognition in the field of Indian literature in the country and carries a cash prize of ₹15 lakh, a plaque and a citation.
• The SaraswatiSamman is given every year for an outstanding literary work written in any Indian language by an Indian citizen in the last 10 years preceding the specified Samman year. The recipient is chosen by the ChayanParishad under the chairmanship of former Supreme Court judge Arjan Kumar Sikri that comprises outstanding scholars and writers of the country.
• Besides the SaraswatiSamman, the Bihari Puraskar and the Vyas Samman are other literary awards instituted by the foundation

---

10. Which places have been featured in TIME Magazine’s ‘World’s Greatest Places of 2023’ list?
A) Mayurbhanj district and Ladakh
B) Goa and Kerala
C) New York and London
D) Paris and Rome
E) Tokyo and Shanghai
Answer: A) Mayurbhanj district and Ladakh

• Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and the Union Territory of Ladakh have found a place in TIME Magazine’s ’50 extraordinary destinations to explore’ as it unveiled its list of the ‘World’s Greatest Places of 2023’. It noted that while the travel industry is back in full swing in 2023, there are some notable shifts in how and where we travel.
• To compile this list of the World’s Greatest Places, the magazine solicited nominations of places from its international network of correspondents and contributors, “with an eye toward those offering new and exciting experiences”.
• The list includes 50 “far-flung and familiar spots” — from Giza and Saqqara in Egypt to the gastronomy hot spot of Dijon, France

---

National Affairs – Daily Current Affairs March 18&19

11. Who inaugurated the Global Millets (Shree Anna) Conference at Subramaniam Hall, NASC Complex, IARI Campus, PUSA New Delhi?
A) Shri Ram NathKovind
B) Shri Rajnath Singh
C) Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman
D) Shri Narendra Modi
E) Shri Amit Shah
Answer: D) Shri Narendra Modi

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the Global Millets (Shree Anna) Conference at Subramaniam Hall, NASC Complex, IARI Campus, PUSA New Delhi.
• The two-day global conference will have sessions on all important issues related to millets (Shree Anna) like promotion and awareness of millets among producers, consumers and other stakeholders; millets’ value chain development; health and nutritional aspects of millets; market linkages; research and development etc.
• The Prime Minister also inaugurated and visited the Exhibition cum Buyer Seller Meet Pavilion. He also unveiled a Commemorative Stamp and Commemorative Coin.
• This was followed by the Prime Minister digitally launching a compendium of Indian Millet (Shri Anna) startups and a book of millet (Shri Anna) standards.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that PM MITRA mega textile parks would be set up in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Investments to the tune of about Rs 1,536 crore have been made so far in the textiles industry under the Production-Linked Incentive, said the Ministry of Textiles

---

12. What is the electronics manufacturing capability target set by the Indian government for 2025-26?
A) ₹12 lakh crore
B) ₹18 lakh crore
C) ₹20 lakh crore
D) ₹22 lakh crore
E) ₹24 lakh crore
Answer: E) ₹24 lakh crore

• Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government is aiming to increase electronics manufacturing capability to ₹24 lakh crore by 2025-26. He said the initiative would create 10 lakh jobs
• He said that there are more than 90,000 startups, including 110 unicorns, in which young Indians are playing a big part.
• Recently, the Centre approved another tranche of production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme worth ₹765 crore for large-scale electronics manufacturing, including Apple iPhone chip maker Wistron.

---

13. Which company has launched an E-Waste Management Initiative to further strengthen sustainable development goals?
A) Hindustan Unilever Limited
B) Tata Consultancy Services
C) Infosys
D) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)
E) Reliance Industries Limited
Answer: D) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)

• Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a ‘Maharatna’ and a Fortune Global 500 Company, announced the launch of a special initiative ”Sound Management of waste Disposal (SMWD)”, as a part of their sustainability efforts towards the reduction and recycling of e-waste.
• BPCL is working towards achieving Zero waste to landfill certification at all operating refineries and marketing locations by 2025.

---

14. Who inaugurated the Jharniyojan Portal, created by the Department of Labour Planning, Training and Skill development in Jharkhand?
A) Shri Narendra Modi
B) Smt. Mamata Banerjee
C) Shri Nitish Kumar
D) Shri Hemant Soren
E) Shri Uddhav Thackeray
Answer: D) Shri Hemant Soren

• Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren inaugurated the Jharniyojan Portal, created by the Department of Labour Planning, Training and Skill development, in the CM’s chamber at the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly.
• Through the http://jharniyojan.jharkhand.gov.in portal, the government will try to provide a platform to employers and candidates looking for employment.
• Employers can share information about their business and manpower related to it on the portal and candidates will be able to register themselves and find employment suiting their profile

---

15. Which company has received an international order for the world’s first zero-emission feeder container vessel?
A) Reliance Industries Limited
B) Tata Steel Limited
C) Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL)
D) Larsen & Toubro Limited
E) Hindustan Unilever Limited
Answer: C) Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL)

• Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has received an international order for the world’s first zero-emission feeder container vessel.
• The vessel will be powered using Hydrogen Fuel Cells ultimately, with Green Hydrogen.
• The order has been received from M/s. Samskip Group, a global logistics solution provider for the Design and Construction of Two Zero Emission Feeder Container Vessels with an option for two more vessels.
• This is an ambitious project under the Norwegian Government’s green funding programme aimed at emission-free transport solutions by adopting sustainable path-breaking future technologies. The total project cost is about Rs 550 crores

---

16. Which company has partnered with logistics aggregator Shiprocket to enhance its last-mile delivery services for various e-commerce products?
A) Amazon India
B) Flipkart
C) India Post
D) Reliance Retail
E) Myntra
Answer: C) India Post

• State-owned India Post has partnered with logistics aggregator Shiprocket to enhance its last-mile delivery services for various e-commerce products.
• Under the collaboration, India Post has ensured IT integration with IT systems of Shiprocket. This integration has been done through various application programming interface (API) for tariff, booking, label generation, pickup and track & trace systems.

---

17. Which organization has been approved for listing on stock exchanges through initial public offer by the government?
A) Indian Railways
B) Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)
C) Indian Oil Corporation
D) Indian Space Research Organization
E) Indian Air Force
Answer: B) Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved for listing of IREDA – a CPSE under Ministry of New & Renewable Energy on stock exchanges through an initial public offer (IPO) by part sale of government’s stake in it and to raise funds for IREDA through issue of fresh equity shares
• The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) will drive the listing process
• IREDA is a CPSE incorporated in 1987 and is engaged in financing of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in India.
• It is registered as a Non-banking Financial Company (NBFC) with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

---

18. Who chaired the Meeting of Heads of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Tourism Administrations held in ‘Kashi’ (Varanasi)?
A) Narendra Modi
B) S. Jaishankar
C) Amit Shah
D) G. Kishan Reddy
E) Rajnath Singh
Answer: D) G. Kishan Reddy

• Shri G. Kishan Reddy, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region, Government of India chaired the Meeting of Heads of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Tourism Administrations held in ‘Kashi’ (Varanasi).
• The SCO Tourism Ministers finalised and approved the Joint Action Plan prepared for implementing the Agreement between the Governments of the SCO Member States on the Development of Cooperation in Tourism. The approved Joint Action Plan has the following prioritised components –

• • Promotion of the SCO tourism brand.
  • Promotion of the cultural heritage of the SCO Member States in tourism.
  • Sharing and Exchange of information and digital technologies in tourism.
  • Promotion of mutual cooperation in medical and health tourism.
  • Improving the quality of services.
• A Joint Statement by the Head of the Tourism Administrations of the SCO member countries was also issued post the meeting. The Meeting of Heads of SCO Tourism Administrations was preceded by two Expert Working Group (EWG) meetings held under the Chairmanship of India. The 1st EWG meeting was held online on 31.01.2023 whereas the 2nd meeting of the EWG was held in physical mode on 14th -15th March 2023 in ‘Kashi’ (Varanasi).
• ‘Kashi’ has been declared as the First Tourism & Cultural Capital of SCO.
• The next meeting of the SCO Heads of Tourism Administrations will be held in Kazakhstan in 2024.

---

---

Over All Review

DOWNLOAD TODAY’S CURRENT AFFAIRS PDF – CLICK HERE

You Must Also Read Daily Current Affairs March 17