The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States of America in association with Microsoft Azure’s Healthcare Bot service introduced has introduced a bot called “Clara” to help people make decisions about what to do if they have potential symptoms of COVID-19, “Clara” is a “coronavirus self-checker”.

The Election Commission of India has deferred the Rajya Sabha elections amid rising risk of rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic. Elections to 18 seats of Rajya Sabha were scheduled to be held on 26 March 2020.

The RBI cut repo rate by 75 basis points cut, bringing it down to 4.4 per cent.
The repo rate has thus fallen to the lowest ever.
Before this, it had hit the lowest point of 4.74% in April 2009 in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
It also cut the cash reserve ratio or CRR by 100 basis points to 3 per cent with effect from March 28, 2020.

Indian Bank launched five special emergency loans for large corporates, medium enterprises, MSMEs, salaried and pensioners as a support to its customers affected through economic slump and lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.SHG-COVID – SAHAYA LOAN: This loan is for Self Help Groups (SHGs) under which each member can avail a soft loan of Rs. 5000 i.e., Rs. 1 lakh per SHG. Loan tenor- 36 months with 6 months moratorium.

The G20 nations agreed to collectively inject $5 trillion into the world economy. The move by the countries is to counteract the social, economic and financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The video conference summit was held on 26 March.

World Theatre Day is celebrated on 27 March. It was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute.

The Odisha Government has launched the “Mo Jeeban(My Life)” Programme to fight the Coronavirus pandemic and advised people to stay indoors to follow social distancing. The Chief Minister had asked people to take oaths and send him videos of it and also put up stickers on their house gates to show their determination.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) has announced that it is to organize India’s first Global Hyperloop Pod Competition. The competition is open to all students globally. The final round will take place on the IIT-Madras campus in the month of July 2020. The main objective of the Global Hyperloop Pod Competition is to raise awareness about the Hyperloop mode of transportation in India.

DRDO is now working with the private sector to mass produce ventilators, provide high grade protective material for use by researchers and healthcare professionals.
It will provide vital enzymes that are needed to make test kits for the virus.
To start with, they have made the sanitiser formulation that is a simple thing but very vital and in high demand.

Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC) with support from Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation is developing a 1st of its kind “Form Based Codes” for the development of railway land.

A man from China’s Yunnan province died from Hantavirus while on a bus to the Shandong province recently.
The hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents.
Symptoms may include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, chills and abdominal problems.
The virus was named as Hantaan virus, after the name of the river Hantan

Haryana government is planning to take help of mothers of children to encourage their children towards sports. Seven departments including sports, women and child development are working to give a new direction to this social innovation.

Now-a-days Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is taking important measures to ensure standard operations to maintain liquidity flow in the disrupted conditions caused by Covid-19 (Coronavirus). As a part of these measures, RBI has advanced its first of the two Rs 25,000 crore variable rate repo auctions to March 26, 2020 from March 30. It will provide flexibility to the banking system in year-end liquidity management. It should be noted that RBI was going to maketwo such auctions of Rs25,000 crore each on March 30 and March 31 to address the additional demand for liquidity. There is no change in the auction scheduled for March 31, 2020.

Former India footballer Abdul Latif passed away. He was a key member of the trophy-winning team at the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games.

The 8th edition of the India International Film Tourism Conclave conferred IIFTC Tourism Impact Award for 2020 to Zoya Akhter for her notable contributions to World Tourism through her movies. Movies directed by Zoya Akhter like ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ released in 2011, shot in Spain and the comedy-drama ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ released in 2015, shot in Turkey, promoted tourism of these countries.

The Government of India is to launch CoWin-20 to curb the community spread of coronavirus. CoWin-20 is a new smartphone app that aims to track individuals by their smartphone locations. The app will be made soon and will be available widely across India.

On March 26, 2020, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman launched Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana. The scheme is an economic help package for people in the country to fight against COVID-19 and its effects. Around 1.7 lakh crore has been allocated under the package. Under the scheme, around 80 crore people are to get 5 kg of free rice and wheat for the next three months.

The Union Cabinet approved a memorandum of understanding signed between India and Germany for technological cooperation in the railway sector.

The government in a release stated that the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister NarendraModi was apprised  aMoU signed between the Ministry of Railways with DB Engineering and Consulting GMBH of Germany for technological cooperation in railways.

Sunil Chhetri has been picked by FIFA along with 28 past and present stars for world governing body’s awareness campaign to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
FIFA and the World Health Organization (WHO) have teamed up to combat the coronavirus by launching a new awareness campaign.
The 28 players include some of the best known players like Lionel Messi and World Cup winners like Philip Lahm.

Sameer Aggarwal has been elevated as the CEO of Walmart India, succeeding Krish Iyer who is set to retire on March 31.

Senior Journalist ChanderSuta Dogra launched her 2nd book- “Missing in Action: The Prisoners Who Never Came Back” relies on de-classified records of the Ministry of External Affairs & other sources. It is published by Harpercollins.

India’s cleanest city, Indore in Madhya Pradesh, is using drones to sanitize city areas to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The Municipal Corporation of Indore has hired two drones for sprinkling chemicals like sodium hypochlorite and bio-clean. It is a first-of-its-kind attempt in India by which crowded areas are being sanitized using drones.

Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) Scientists have developed a biofortified durum wheat variety MACS 4028. The new wheat variety shows high protein content. The wheat has a better nutritional quality of zinc 40.3 ppm, and iron content of 40.3ppm and 46.1ppm respectively, good milling quality and overall acceptability.

The National Book Trust of HRD Ministry has launched #StayIn and #StayHome to encourage people to read books while at home. It provides select and best-selling titles for FREE Download as part of its initiative of #StayHomeIndiaWithBooks! The move comes in the wake of Preventive Measures of the Government of India to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Public sector Canara Bank has launched a new loan scheme ― Canara Credit Support ― with immediate effect to support its customers to tide over the liquidity/ cash flow mismatches in the wake of disruption in business operations due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

US Marines and UAE Emirati forces conducted the biennial exercise, named Native Fury at Abu Dhabi. The biennial exercise, called Native Fury, shows the close ties between American forces and the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula home to Abu Dhabi.

Underlining that health services should be the only priority of state governments at this time, Prime Minister NarendraModi stated the Centre has made a provision of Rs 15,000 crore to strengthen the country’s health infrastructure to tackle coronavirus.

In a major development, the United States (US) Navy and Army has successfully tested its common hypersonic glide body (C-HGB), a first unarmed prototype of a hypersonic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The test was carried out at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii and was monitored by the Missile Defence Agency (MDA) of the US Department of Defence i.e. The Pentagon.

BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan was sworn in as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on 23 March for a fourth term. The oath office was administered by the Governor of Madhya Pradesh Lalji Tandon. He was nominated by the outgoing leader of opposition Gopal Bhargava and supported by former minister Narottam Mishra, Meena Singh of the State

Jana Small Finance Bank, along with the National Payment Corporation of India, has launched a UPI QR-based loan installment payment facility for its customers. The move comes at a time when banks are advising their customers to operate maximum banking services from the safe confines of their home