Today Current Affairs for Competitive
Exams - Current Affairs 2021 Online
Samsung, Mastercard ink an MoU
 Samsung Electronics and Mastercard signed
an MoU on 6 March 2021
to launch payment cards with built-in
fingerprint sensors.
 This system will eliminate the need for
users to enter PIN while making payments
using their payment cards.
 With this move, the two companies aim to
provide faster and more secure payment
experiences while reducing physical contact
with the payments terminal.
Kieron Pollard: 3rd to hit 6 sixes in an over
 West Indies captain Kieron Pollard has
become just the third batsman in
international cricket to hit 6 sixes in an
over.
 Kieron Pollard hit 6 sixes in over against Sri
Lanka's Akila Dananjaya in Antigua T20I on
4 March 2021.
 Pollard is only 2nd batsman after Yuvraj
Singh to achieve the feat in T20Is.
SBI MF Launches First Overseas Fund
 The State Bank of India (SBI) Mutual Funds
launched its first overseas offering on 1
March 2021.
 It is an open-ended fund investing in a
mutual fund scheme that invests in US
markets, which are domiciled overseas.
 The scheme invests 95-100 percent of its
net assets generally in Amundi Funds, US
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Pioneer Fund, which invest predominantly
in the US markets.
The Hindu: Champion Publisher of the Year 2020
 The Hindu Group won two golds and two
silvers at WAN IFRA’s South Asian Digital
Media Awards, culminating in being named
‘Champion Publisher of the Year 2020'.
 Sportstar’s website of The Hindu
Group won a gold in ‘Best in Lifestyle,
Sports, Entertainment Website or Mobile
Services’.
 The Hindu’s website (thehindu.com) won
silver in ‘Best Paid Content Strategy’.
Tripura government launches 'Jagrut Tripura'
 The Tripura government has come up with a
digital platform 'Jagrut Tripura' to help
people get benefits from various schemes
of the Centre and the state government.
 At least 102 schemes of various
departments of both the governments are
available on the platform.
 The project was developed by EasyGov, a
Jio Group company, and it will be available
to all the residents of Tripura.
Axis Securities launches 'YIELD' platform
 Axis Securities announced the launch of
'YIELD' platform on 3 March 2021.
 YIELD is an online platform to buy & sell
bonds as well as debentures in the
secondary market.
  It is the first-of-its-kind initiative that allows
retail investors direct access to the debt
instruments.
 YIELD is the answer to the investors seeking
new alternative investment avenues for
safe & relatively higher returns.
Odisha to set up new department to boost SHGs
 Odisha government has set up a new
department, namely the Dept of Mission
Shakti for self-help groups (SHGs) in the
state.
 A proposal to this effect has received the
nod in the state cabinet on 6 March'21.
 The new department will work towards
strengthening the 'SHG' initiatives already
taken by departments & agencies by
bringing them all under one platform to
ensure greater focus & synergy.
J&K to host 1st White Water Rafting Festival
 The first-ever White Water Rafting Festival
was organized by Bhaderwah Development
Authority and JK Adventure Group in the
river Chenab at Premnagar Shibnote on 5
March 2021.
 The event was organized to promote
adventure tourism in the Union Territory
of J&K.
 Over 1500 people from across the
district attended the festival on day 1.
 The two-day festival culminated on 6 March
2021.
Bangladesh’s first transgender newsreader
 A private news channel has appointed
Bangladesh’s first transgender news
presenter.
 'Tashnuva Anan Shishir' will start presenting
news for Boishakhi TV from the
International Women’s Day on March 8,
2021.
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 The TV channel has appointed another
transgender 'Nusrat Mau' as one of the
main characters for the regular
drama section of the TV channel's
entertainment wing.
GI Mahotsav inaugurated in Mussoorie
 Arjun Munda, Union Minister for Tribal
Affairs inaugurated the Tribes India GI
Mahotsav at Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Academy of Administration Mussoorie on 5
Mar'21.
 It is an exhibition of GI tagged products and
more than 40 GI registered proprietors and
GI authorised users and tribal artisans are
participating.
 He also inaugurated the 130th Tribes India
Showroom and Café of Tribes India.
Scientists develop a high-resolution platform
 Scientists from the Raman Research
Institute have developed a platform to
detect the effect of prolonged alcohol
exposure on red blood cells through high-
resolution measurements of their size.
 The high-resolution platform that shows the
reduction in size of RBCs on alcohol
exposure can be tuned for a point-of-care
screening of multiple conditions that
alter count of RBCs in the blood.
76th Annual Conference of API held
 Union Minister of State Development of
North Eastern Region (DoNER) Dr Jitendra
Singh addressed the 76th Annual
Conference of Association of Physicians of
India (API) on 6 March 2021.
 The theme of 2021's API conference is
“Engaging Minds : Empowering Medicine”.
 The conference is being held virtually for
2021 in the wake of the pandemic.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurates ‘Desikan Bhawan’
 Union Minister of Health and Family
Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the
new research building ‘Desikan Bhawan' on
6 March 2021 at ICMR-NJIL and OMD, Agra.
 The building is dedicated to research
facilities like animal experimentation,
COVID-19 diagnosis, whole-genome
sequencing, etc.
 The capacity of COVID-19 Diagnostic
Laboratory is around 1200 samples per day.
Dr Harsh Vardhan addresses at Techbharat 2021
 Union Minister for Health and Family
Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan addressed the
inaugural session of TechBharat 2021 on 6
March 2021.
 The 2nd edition of the conclave was
organized by Laghu Udyog Bharati and IMS
Foundation.
 The motive of the conclave was to
bring together stakeholders from the
HealthTech and Edutech sector on a virtual
platform.
A national seminar organized in Jabalpur
 To commemorate the 125th birth
anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose, the Indira Gandhi National Center for
Arts (IGNCA) under the Ministry of
Culture, organized a day-long National
seminar at Jabalpur, MP.
 It was held on 5 March 2021 on the subject
"Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose: Rashtravaad
Aur Yuva Sarokaar".
 Tourism Minister Prahlad Singh Patel
presided over the function.
NPCI ties up with SBI Payments
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 National Payments Corporation of India
(NPCI) has tied-up with SBI Payments to
launch ‘RuPay SoftPoS’ for millions of Indian
merchants.
 Through the move, NCPI is aiming to
provide innovative solution to transform
NFC-enabled smartphones into merchant
Point of Sale (PoS) terminals for the
retailers.
 By using this, the merchant would be able
to accept contactless payments of up to Rs
5,000.
Kotak Mahindra Bank signs MoU with Indian Army
 Kotak Mahindra Bank will handle the salary
account of the Indian Army personnel.
 The bank has signed an MoU with the
Indian Army for the salary account.
 The MoU enables Kotak to offer its salary
account proposition, combined with
exclusive benefits for the Indian Army, to all
army personnel – both active and retired.
Uttarakhand CM launches a scheme
 Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh
Rawat on 6 March 2021 launched 'Gharoki
Paachan, Chelik Naam' (daughter's name is
a home's identity) programme and
development schemes worth Rs 42 crore in
Nainital.
 This scheme has been launched in Nainital
and will be extended to the entire
Uttarakhand in the coming weeks.
India’s first World Skill Centre inaugurated
 Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik inaugurated
India’s first World Skill Centre (WSC) at
Mancheswar Industrial Area of
Bhubaneswar on 5 March 2021.
 The World Skill Centre, an 18 storey
building is aimed to make Odisha the global
 capital of trained manpower and is
dedicated to different skills and trades.
 The project has been developed in
partnership with ITEES Singapore and Asian
Development Bank.
UP CM inaugurates 27 power substations
 UP CM Yogi Adityanath on 6 March
2021 inaugurated 27 power substations
developed at a cost of Rs 1,920 cr by
UP Power Transmission Corporation Limited
(UPPTCL).
 He informed that electricity is being
provided to farmers of the state and it has
helped reduce the cost of farming and
improve productivity.
 Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and UP
Power Minister Shrikant Sharma were also
present.
Kotak: Ashok Gulati as additional Director
 Kotak Mahindra Bank has appointed
agricultural economist Ashok Gulati as an
additional independent Director on its
board.
 The term of Gulati, who has also been
appointed by the Supreme Court to a four-
member panel, is for five years starting
from 6 March 2021.
 He is currently the Infosys Chair Professor
for Agriculture at the Indian Council for
Research on International Economic
Relations.
69th Senior National Volleyball Championship
 The 69th Senior National
Volleyball Championship 2020-21 was
inaugurated at the Biju Patnaik Indoor
Stadium, KIIT Deemed to be University on
March 5, 2021.
 For the first time in the history of Indian
volleyball, Odisha as a state hosted the
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senior national championship for the
second time.
 Also for the first time, all the matches
would be played in Indoor courts with live
streaming.
Naureen Hassan: 1st VP, COO of New York Fed
 Indian-American Naureen Hassan has been
named as the first Vice President and Chief
Operating Officer (COO) of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York.
 She has been appointed by the board of
directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, effective from 15 March 2021.
 She was, most recently, the Chief Digital
Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth
Management (MSWM).
40 scholars recommended for award of ISRF 2021
 Forty scholars from six countries have been
recommended for the award of India
Science and Research Fellowship 2021.
 The government had launched India Science
and Research Fellowship Programme for
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives,
Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand
researchers.
 It has been implemented since 2015.
 No award was given in 2020 due to the
pandemic.
Delhi to have its own school education board
 Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has
announced that like other states, the
national capital will also have its own school
education board.
 In the academic session 2021-22, around
20-25 schools will be included in the
education board.
 This means that the CBSE affiliation of the
schools will be scrapped after which the
 schools will be affiliated to the Delhi board
of school education.
World’s first space hotel to open in 2027
 Space construction company Orbital
Assembly Corporation has unveiled new
details about its ambitious project of
building a hotel above Earth’s atmosphere.
 The company is planning to start building
the hotel, Voyager Station, in the low Earth
orbit in 2025, to be operational as early as
2027.
 With over 11,600 square metres of
habitable space, the commercial station will
have many features.
Wildfire ravages Similipal
 A wildfire raging for over 10 days has
destroyed nearly a third of the Similipal
biosphere reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj
district.
 The Similipal National Park and Tiger
Reserve is spread out over 2750 sq km and
is known for its tiger and elephant
population.
 The govt declared Simlipal as a biosphere
reserve in 1994 and UNESCO added it to its
list of biosphere reserves in 2009.
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IndiGrid InvIT to acquire a project
 India Grid Trust, an infrastructure
investment trust has inked an agreement to
acquire a power transmission project in the
northeast for ₹4,625 cr from Sterlite Power.
 The investment manager of IndiGrid,
sponsored by Sterlite Power Grid Ventures
Ltd, is majority-owned by KKR.
 The 830 circuit-km long NER-II Transmission
Ltd project is spread across Assam,
Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.
Space hurricane detected over North Pole
 For the first time, scientists have discovered
a "space hurricane" that swirled over the
North Pole, in Earth's upper atmosphere,
for eight hours.
 These hurricanes, which "rained" electrons,
are known to occur in Earth's lower
atmosphere.
 The space hurricane was detected on
August 20, 2014.
 The findings were published in Nature
Communications in February 2021.