(AMASR) Act of 1958

• Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR) Act, 1958 provides for the preservation of ancient, historical monuments, archaeological sites and remains of national importance.
  
• Revival of worship is not allowed wherever it is not practised at the time of protection of a monument.
• The Act ensures that the character of the monument gets frozen when it becomes a protected monument under ASI. There is an option of 60 days during which an objection can be filed.

What is the Case related to the Qutub Minar complex?

• The Delhi court was hearing a plea filed against an order of a magisterial court, which had dismissed a suit filed by advocate Hari Shankar Jain in relation to Jain deity Tirthankar Lord Rishabh Dev.
• He had claimed that 27 temples were partly demolished by Qutubdin Aibak, a general in the army of Mohammad Gauri, and the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque was raised inside the complex by reusing the material of the temples.
• ASI submitted that there is no provision under the AMASR Act under which worship could be started at any protected monument, clarifying that there was a typo in its submission, where it had mistakenly referred to the Qutub Minar as a “living” monument since 1914.

Other Recent Controversies over the AMASR Act

• Concerns over the AMASR Act getting violated were also raised when recently J&K Lt governor Manoj Sinha performed a puja at the ruins of the eighth-century Martand Sun Temple in Anantnag.
• Such concerns are also being raised in the context of disputes such as Gyanvapi, Mathura Eidgah making it to the courts. Both are not protected by ASI.

“FAME-2” scheme

– Government is actively working to support E-mobility in the form of several incentives, GST exemption, and FAME-2 scheme.
– The government of India rolled out National Mission on Electric Mobility, 2013 with the objective of developing electric mobility in mission mode.
– As a follow up, FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles in India) Scheme was launched in 2015 for providing incentives to promote demand creation, establishment of EV ecosystem and infrastructure and development of technology through R&D.
– Second phase of this scheme (FAME 2), envisages to give a boost to EV industry with several interventions on the demand and supply side, including R&D efforts.
– Second phase aims to generate demand by way of supporting 7000 e-Buses, 5 lakh e-3 Wheelers, 55000 e-4 Wheeler Passenger Cars (including Strong Hybrid) and 10 lakh e-2 Wheelers.  However, depending upon off-take of different category of xEVs, these numbers may vary as the provision has been made for inter as well as intra segment wise fungibility.
– Only advanced battery and registered vehicles will be incentivized under the scheme.

i RASTE

– Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered solutions may soon make roads in India a safer place to drive.
– A unique AI approach that uses the predictive power of AI to identify risks related to road safety, is being implemented in Nagpur City with an objective of resulting in a significant reduction of accidents.
– The project ‘Intelligent Solutions for Road Safety through Technology and Engineering’ (iRASTE) at Nagpur will identify potential accident-causing scenarios while driving a vehicle and alert drivers about the same with the help of the Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS).
– The project will also identify ‘greyspots’, i.e., by data analysis and mobility analysis by continuously monitoring dynamic risks on the entire road network.        – Greyspots are locations on roads, which left unaddressed could become blackspots (locations with fatal accidents).
– The system also conducts continuous monitoring of roads and designs engineering fixes to correct existing road blackspots for preventive maintenance and improved road infrastructure.
– The iRASTE project is under by the I-Hub Foundation, IIIT Hyderabad, a Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) set up in the technology vertical- Data Banks & Data Services supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) along with INAI (Applied AI Research Institute).
– The Hub is working to coordinate, integrate, and amplify basic and applied research in broad data-driven technologies as well as its dissemination and translation across the country.
– One of the primary aims is to prepare a critical resource for the future use by researchers, startups, and industry, mainly in the areas of smart mobility, healthcare along with smart buildings.    – What makes the iRASTE project even more unique is that AI and technology is being applied to create practical solutions, as a blueprint,  for  Indian conditions.
– While the initial rollout of iRASTE is in Nagpur, the eventual goal is to replicate the solution in other cities too.

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