Daily Top-10 Current Affairs MCQs / News (March 20, 2021) for CSS, PMS

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March 20, 2021: National / International Current Affairs

1. Talks on Indus waters in Delhi next week

• An eight-member delegation of Pakistan`s Commission on Indus Waters will leave for New Delhi on March 22, 2021 for a two-day meeting of the Permanent Commission on Indus Waters to discuss with their Indian counterparts Pakistan`s objections to the design of Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai hydroelectric plants/projects and other issues.
• The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
• The last meeting took place in August 2018 in Lahore

2. Air Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar takes charge as PAF Chief

• Air Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Babar Sidhu on March 19, 2021 took over the command of Pakistan Air Force as the 23rd Chief of the Air Staff, in a graceful Change of Command ceremony held here at Air Headquarters.
• During the ceremony, a smartly turned out contingent of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) presented the Guard of Honour to the outgoing Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan, said a PAF press release. Later on, the outgoing Air Chief decorated Air Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Baber Sidhu with the ranks of Air Chief Marshal and handed him over the “Command Sword”

3. Pakistan took $7.208 billion loans from external sources in eight months

• Pakistan has taken $7.208 billion loans from external sources in eight months (July to February) of the current fiscal year that helped to improve foreign exchange reserves and exchange rate stability.
• The government of Pakistan has borrowed $7.208 billion as external inflows from multiple financing sources during July-February of fiscal year 2020-21. The amount of borrowing is 59 percent of annual budget estimates of $12,233 million for the entire fiscal year 2020-21. The government has borrowed more in ongoing financial year as compared to the same period of the last year. In the corresponding period of fiscal year 2019-20, the external inflows were $6.282 billion which were also around 51 percent of the annual budgeted amount of $12.958 billion

4. Afghan president replaces security ministers in surprise shake-up

• Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dismissed two leading ministers charged with the country’s faltering security March 19, 2021, in a surprise announcement a day after a major conference in Russia called for a reduction in fighting. In a statement from the president’s national security council, the palace announced army chief of staff General Mohammad Yasin Zia would double as defence minister, replacing Asadullah Khalid, who is believed to be suffering from serious health issues.
• Former Kandahar and Nangarhar governor Hayatullah Hayat, meanwhile, will take over the interior ministry from Masoud Andarabi, with the palace citing the need to improve “the security situation” in the country

5. US, China spar in first face-to-face meeting under Biden

• Top US and Chinese officials offered sharply different views of each other and the world as the two sides met face-to-face for the first time since President Joe Biden took office.
• In unusually pointed public remarks for a staid diplomatic meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi took aim at each other`s policies on Thursday at the start of two days of talks in Alaska.

6. Tanzania swears in first woman president

• Tanzania`s first female president Samia Suluhu Hassan on March 19, 2021 called for unity after she was sworn in following the sudden death of her predecessor, John Magufuli, from an illness shrouded in mystery.
• Hassan, 61, a soft-spoken ruling party stalwart from the island of Zanzibar, will finish Magufuli`s second five-year term, set to run until 2025.
• Wearing a bright red headscarf, Hassan, who is Muslim, was sworn in at a ceremony in Dares Salaam, where neither she nor the majority of attendees wore a mask, in the Covid-sceptic nation

7. Finland world`s happiest country despite pandemic, says UN report

• Covid-19 has done little to alter the ranking of the world`s happiest countries, with Finland at the top for a fourth year running, an annual UN-sponsored report said on March 19, 2021.
• The researchers behind the World Happiness Report, now in its ninth year, used Gallup data asking people in 149 countries to rate their own happiness, also taking into account measures such as GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption to give each nation a happiness score, which is an average of the past three years.

8. Saudi Arabia, Egypt embark on long road to ending Arab rift with Qatar

• Saudi Arabia and Egypt have begun tackling thorny issues with Qatar to rebuild ties, easing an inter-Arab feud seen by the United States as benefiting only mutual enemy Iran, but two Gulf states have been slow to follow suit as promised, diplomats say.
• Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Saudi Arabia severed relations with Qatar in mid-2017 over accusations that Doha supports terrorism a broad allusion to Islamist movements, a charge that it denies

9. NASA carries out test of giant Moon rocket

• NASA successfully carried out a key static test of its troubled Space Launch System rocket on March 18, 2021, a win for the agency as it prepares to return to the Moon.
• The second `hot fire` test saw all four of the rocket`s RS-25 engines fire simultaneously at 4:40 pm Eastern time (2040 GMT) for the full duration of eight minutes, producing a maximum of 1.6 million pounds of thrust (7.1 million newtons).`The applause says a lot about how the team feels,` Bill Wrobel, an official in charge of the test, said during a livestream after the control room began clapping

10. New bacteria discovered on space station

• In order to withstand the rigors of space on deep-space missions, food grown outside of Earth needs a little extra help from bacteria.
• Now, a recent discovery aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has researchers may help create the ‘fuel’ to help plants withstand such stressful situations.
• Publishing their findings to Frontiers in Microbiology, researchers working with NASA described the discovery and isolation of 4 strains of bacteria belonging to the family Methylo bacteria ceae from different locations aboard the ISS across two consecutive flights.

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