current affairs 10 March 2022

Russia surpasses Iran to become world’s most sanctioned country.

Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, due to its invasion on Ukraine, according to a New York-based sanctions watchlist site Castellum.AI.
Russia faced 2,778 new sanctions since February 22, 2022, led by the US and European nations, bringing the total sanctions to 5,530.
The country already had 2,754 sanctions in place before February 22.
Before this, Iran was the most sanctioned country, facing 3,616 sanctions against it over the last decade.

For the second consecutive year, India has been termed as partly free country in terms of democracy and free society, according to the annual report titled Freedom in the World 2022 – The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule by Freedom House, a US-based NGO that assesses political rights and civil liberties.
The report is published every year since 1973 to assess political rights and civil liberties of a country through a series of surveys and analyses.
India scored 66 out of 100 in 2022. The country had scored 67 in 2021.
India was a free country till 2020 when its score was 71.
In 2022, 85 countries were termed as free, 56 as partly free and 69 as not free.

The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind conferred the Nari Shakti Puraskar for the year 2020 and 2021, on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 08, 2022 at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
Overall 29 women were conferred the award for the years 2020 and 2021 in recognition of their outstanding and exceptional work towards empowerment of women, especially the vulnerable and marginalised.
There were total 28 awards which included 14 awards each for the Year 2020 and 2021.

Reserve Bank of India has launched two initiatives related to digital payments on March 08, 2022.
One is UPI123pay- which provides UPI payment facility on feature phones and the second is DigiSaathi which is a 24×7 Helpline for Digital Payments.
UPI123pay presently offers four mediums/options to the users of feature phones to make UPI payments.
Users can access DigiSaathi via any of the following mode:

The Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Textiles are organising a programme called Jharokha-Compendium of Indian handicraft/ handloom, art and culture to celebrate the traditional Indian handicrafts, handlooms, and art & culture.
Jharokha is a PAN India progarmme which will be held at 16 locations in 13 states and UTs, as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
To begin with, the first event under this celebration has been organized in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh at Rani Kamlapati Railway Station, on March 08, 2022, which also marks International Women’s Day.