CURRENT AFFAIRS OF 26th MARCH, 2023

CURRENT AFFAIRS OF 26^th MARCH, 2023

1. Egypt has joined the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), weeks after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi visited India as a chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations.
2. Makers Hive and Vilay Sports have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), which was witnessed by Dr Deepa Malik, the current President of PCI, para-athlete Shri Devendra Jhajharia, and others. The MoU was signed as a mark of significant collaboration between the three organizations.
3. Larsen & Toubro (L&T), an Indian multinational that specializes in EPC projects, hi-tech manufacturing, and services, has signed a binding agreement with McPhy Energy, a leading electrolyzer technology and manufacturing company based in France.
4. RINL Visakhapatnam received the national level safety awards ‘Ispat Suraksha Puraskar’ during annual award function held at SSO Ranchi on 22 March, 2023 organised by JCSSI.
5. Maha Metro Nagpur was honoured with the prestigious Asia Book of Records certification for three different categories.
6. Indian pair Narmada Nithin Raju and Rudrankksh Patil won bronze medal as they beat China mix team by 16-8 in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team bronze medal match in ISSF World Cup shooting championship in Bhopal on 23 March, 2023.
7. An Inter-Ministerial delegation from India led by Department of Commerce participated in the second Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) negotiating round in Bali, Indonesia from 13-19 March, 2023.
8. The Government of Tamil Nadu has decided to declare Thanthai Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary as the 18^th wildlife sanctuary in the state.
9. Lakshya Singh slipped six places to move out of the world top 20 in the latest men’s singles rankings issued by BWF on 21 March, 2023.
10. Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, inaugurated the ‘Mission Lifestyle for Environment’ (LiFE) in the state, which is a global mass movement led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
11. In the latest preview of Bing and Edge, Microsoft has added a new functionality called ‘Bing Image Creator’, which enables users to generate an image based on their written description by utilizing an enhanced version of Open AI’s DALL-E model.
12. India and Tanzania have received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to utilize their respective national currencies in bilateral trade settlements.  
13. Indian short story writer, novelist, poet, and essayist, Vinod Kumar Shukla, one of the greatest contemporary writers in the Hindi language won the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award conferred by PEN America for achievement in Indian Literature.
14. Ashneer Grover, co-founder of BharatPe, has launched a new cricket-focused fantasy sports app named CrickPe ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament.
15. Anurag Behar, the CEO of Azim Premji Foundation and founding Vice-Chancellor of Azim Premji University, has authored a new travel book titled ‘A Matter of the Heart: Education in India’.
16. On 24 March 2023, Pradeep Sarkar, a Bollywood director and writer well-known for making films like ‘Parineeta’ (2005) and ‘Mardaani’ (2014) passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra at the age of 67.