Current Affairs : March 14, 2017 -Commonwealth Day was observed on 2nd Monday of March every year

          A strong earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. According to National Centre for Seismology, a unit of Ministry of Earth Sciences, the quake, whose epicentre was in the Nicobar Islands region, occurred at 8:21 am at a depth of 10 km.

          Finance minister Arun Jaitley was given the additional charge of the defence ministry after Manohar Parrikar resigned to take on the new role of Goa chief minister.

Assam government planned to increase the number of Rhino population to 3000 before 2020. Kaziranga national park has the highest number of one horned Rhinos. State Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma also states a fresh census on this.

          Airtel Payments Bank, offered by telecom major Bharti Airtel, announced that more than one lakh savings accounts were opened in 100 villages across the state of Tamil Nadu. Through the initiative, these villages in the southern state would have access to banking services along with the option of making digital payments said by MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank, Shashi Arora.

          Hyundai has signed a deal worth nearly three billion Euros ($3.2 billion) to invest in a major Iranian oil project in the second phase of the Kangan oil production and refinery project in southwest Iran. The agreement marks one of the biggest investments since a nuclear accord with world powers lifted global sanctions on Iran.

          Intel Corp agreed to buy Israeli autonomous vehicle technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion in a deal that could thrust the U.S. chipmaker into direct competition with rivals Nvidia Corp and Qualcomm Inc to develop driverless systems for global automakers.

          Reliance Commercial Finance, a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, announced the appointment of Devang Mody as chief executive officer. Prior to this, Mody served as president of consumer business at Bajaj Finance.

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.

Second Monday of March is Commonwealth Day. The 52 countries of the Commonwealth celebrate Commonwealth Day. The year 2017 marks 40 years since Commonwealth Day became a global celebration marked on the same day every year.

Filmmaker Diphan, who became popular through action-based movies such as Puthiya Mugham and Gangs of Vadakkumnathan, died. He was 47. Diphan was admitted to a private hospital here two weeks ago with kidney related ailments.

          Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a popular author, filmmaker and speaker who brightened lives with her wide-eyed and generous spirit died at the age 51. Rosenthal had been diagnosed in 2015 with ovarian cancer.