Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (March 10, 2021) for CSS, PMS

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March 10, 2021: National / International Current Affairs

1. SBP to be made autonomous in line with IMF terms

• In order to meet IMF conditions for revival of its stalled programme, the federal cabinet on March 9, 2021 cleared for introduction in parliament three crucial bills, including the one allowing unprecedented autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan to target inflation, rather than economic growth.
• `We will take these bills to fast-track legislation, said Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh at a news conference after a meeting of the cabinet, adding that relationship with the International Monetary Fund, which had been under a `pause` for about a year, had formally started

2. US hands over smart metering system to NTDC

• The United States Mission to Pakistan on March 9, 2021 handed over an innovative new metering system to the government to help network and market operators better manage the national power grid.
• The Secure Metering System (SMS), developed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), improves Pakistan`s National Transmission and Dispatch Company`s (NTDC) ability to forecast power requirements across the country

3. US blocks delivery of Turkish gunships to Pakistan

• The United States has prevented Turkey from supplying 30 locally-made attack helicopters to Pakistan.
• According to Bloomberg News, Turkey`s presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters on Monday that `the US has blocked Turkey`s helicopter sale to Pakistan, which will likely lead to Islamabad buying it from China.
• The ATAK T-129 is a twin-engine, tandem seat, multi-role, all-weather attack helicopter based on the Agusta A129 Mangusta platform and is equipped with American engines

4. Russia invites Pakistan to meeting on Afghan peace

• Pakistan has been invited by Russia to a meeting of `extended troika` on Afghan peace being held on March 18 in Moscow.
• Russian newswire TASS quoted Russia`s presidential envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov as having said that the United States, China, Pakistan, the Afghan government and the Taliban have been invited to attend the coming expanded trilateral consultations on peaceful settlement in Afghanistan. `It is not even a conference, it is consultations of the expanded trio: Russia, the US, China and Pakistan

5. Vaccination for senior citizens to begin today

• The government will start vaccinating people aged 60 and above against Covid-19 on March 10, 2021 (today).
• `Pak Covid-19 vaccination, next phase-starting10March, inshallah.
• Beginning with the senior most citizens, who will receive SMS with instructions on their cell phones,` the SAPM tweeted

6. KP govt, Chinese company sign agreement for 300MW Balakot Hydro Power Project

• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government March 9, 2021 signed contract agreement with a Chinese company for construction of 300MW Balakot Hydro Power Project.
• The 300-megawatt project, the biggest-ever power project of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, would be constructed with an estimated cost of Rs 85 billion in a period of six years with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank.
• A ceremony to this effect was held here with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan as chief guest. The authorities concerned of Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization and Chinese Construction Company signed the contract agreement to start practical work on the project

7. Britain signs deal with Nigeria to return looted funds

• Britain and Nigeria on March 9, 2021 signed a deal to return £4.2 million ($5.82 million) recovered from a former governor of oil-rich Delta state, who served a jail term in London for fraud.
• “This is the first time that money recovered from criminals will be returned to Nigeria (from Britain) since an agreement was signed in 2016 to recover and return the proceeds of bribery or corruption in a responsible and transparent way,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement to AFP in Lagos.
• It said the money stolen by James Ibori, governor of southern oil-rich Delta state between 1999 and 2007, was retrieved by British law enforcement agencies.

8. EU Parliament strips Catalan separatists of immunity

• The European Parliament on March 9, 2021 lifted the immunity of former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and two allies wanted by Spain following Catalonia’s attempt to gain independence in 2017. The MEPs, who have been in self-imposed exile, now risk being sent back to Spain to face trial and potentially imprisonment over the organisation of a banned separatist referendum in 2017.
• The trio — Puigdemont and former Catalan health and education ministers Clara Ponsati and Toni Comin — immediately blamed the move on “political persecution” by Spain, which wants to try them for sedition

9. Russia and China plan joint lunar space station

• Russia and China agreed March 9, 2021 to build a lunar space station, as Moscow seeks to modernise its extraterrestrial might and catch up with the United States in the space race Russia, which sent the first man into space during the Soviet Union, has been lagging behind Washington and Beijing in the exploration of the Moon and Mars.
• Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said in a statement that a memorandum was signed by its head Dmitry Rogozin and Zhang Kejian of China’s National Space Administration (CNSA).
• It said the lunar station will be designed as a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the Moon”. It would be available for use by other interested countries and international partners, the statement said, without details about the completion date

10. Space hurricane observed for first time

• The first observations of a space hurricane have been revealed in Earth’s upper atmosphere, confirming their existence and shedding new light on the relationship between planets and space.
• The unprecedented observations, made by satellites in August 2014, were only uncovered during retrospective analysis by scientists at the University of Reading, as part of a team led by Shandong University in China, that confirmed the hurricane and offered clues about its formation

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