(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.

ILO Monitor 2022

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

9th Edition of ILO Monitor 2022 in News

• Recently, the 9th Edition of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Monitor Report was released.
• 9th Edition of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Monitor says that the “world of work” is being buffeted by multiple crises.

Key Findings of ILO Monitor 2022

• Reduced number of Work: The ILO report says that after significant gains during the last quarter of 2021, the number of hours worked globally dropped in the first quarter of 2022, to 3.8% below the employment situation before the pandemic.
• Job loss: About 11.2 crore jobs might have lost between pre pandemic and first quarter of 2022, according to the ILO Monitor report.
• Other reasons for Unemployment: The fresh lockdowns in China, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and the global rise in the prices of food and fuel are cited as the main reasons for the ILO Monitor 2022 findings.

PM-EAC Calls for Unified Labour Law

ILO Monitor 2022 on Gender Gap in Employment

• The gender gap in India’s employment scenario is mentioned in the report on the “world of work”.
• The report said both India and lower-middle-income countries excluding India experienced a deterioration of the gender gap in work hours in the second quarter of 2020.
  • However, because the initial level of hours worked by women in India was very low, the reduction in hours worked by women in India has only a weak influence on the aggregate for lower-middle-income countries.
  • In contrast, the reduction in hours worked by men in India has a large impact on the aggregates.
• Exacerbating the existing gap: the pandemic seems to have exacerbated the already substantial gender imbalances in employment participation in the country
  • In India, for every 100 women at work prior to the pandemic, 12.3 women would have lost their job as an average through the entire period considered by the report.
  • In contrast, for every 100 men, the equivalent figure would have been 7.5.

ILO Monitor 2022- Major threats to Unemployment

• Financial turbulence, potential debt distress and global supply chain disruption points at a growing risk of a further deterioration in hours worked in 2022, as well as a broader impact on global labour markets in the months to come.
• Inequality: A “great and growing divergence between richer and poorer economies” continues to characterise the recove
  • While high-income countries experienced a recovery in hours worked, low- and lower-middle-income economies suffered setbacks in the first quarter of the year.

World Economic Forum (WEF) | India to Participate in WEF 2022

adda247.com/…/world-economic-forum-wef-india-to-participate-in-wef-2022

BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting

• GS Paper 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting in News

• Recently, Minister of State for Culture and External Affairs participated in the 7thBRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting on 24 May, 2022.

7th BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting

• About: 7thBRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting is being hosted by the People’s Republic of China through video conference with participation from all BRICS Member Nations.
• Theme: 7thBRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting theme is “Establishing a Cultural Partnership Featuring Inclusiveness and Mutual Learning among BRICS”.
• Focus Areas: The areas of focus of the7th BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting discussion were-
  • Promoting the development and cooperation on cultural digitalization,
  • Strengthening cooperation on cultural heritage protection and
  • Advancing the building of cultural exchange platforms of BRICS countries.
• Key Outcomes:
  • The Ministers adopted the BRICS Action Plan 2022-2026 to further strengthen the cultural cooperation and implement the BRICS Cultural Cooperation Agreement signed in 2015.
  • Action Plan for the Implementation of the Agreement between the Governments of the BRICS States on Cooperation in the field of Culture (2022-2026) was agreed and signed by the Ministers of Culture of all BRICS Nations.

13th BRICS Summit 2021

About BRICS Grouping

• About: BRICS is an acronym for the grouping of the world’s leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
• Background: In 2001, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill authored a paper called “Building Better Global Economic BRICs”, pointing out that future GDP growth in the world would come from China, India, Russia, and Brazil.
  • Though the paper did not recommend any formal grouping, it said that BRIC economies combined would outstrip the western dominated world order before 2039.
• BRICS Formation: In 2006, leaders of the BRIC countries met on the margins of a G-8 (now called G-7) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, and BRIC was formalized that year.
  • Shortly afterward, in September 2006, the group was formalized as BRIC during the 1st BRIC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which met on the sidelines of the General Debate of the UN Assembly in New York City.
  • First formal summit: took place in 2009 in the Russian Federation and focused on issues such as reform of the global financial architecture.
  • South Africa was invited to join BRIC in December 2010, after which the group adopted the acronym BRICS.
  • South Africa subsequently attended the Third BRICS Summit in Sanya, China, in 2011.
• BRICS Headquarters: BRICS doesn’t have any headquarter rather all the countries of BRICS have offices dedicated to BRICS in their own nation.
• BRICS Structure: BRICS does not exist in the form of organization, but it is an annual summit between the supreme leaders of five nations.
• BRICS Presidency: The Chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.
  • India had the BRICS Presidency from January 2021.
  • Currently, China has the BRICS Presidency.

8th BRICS Environment Ministers Meeting

adda247.com/…/8th-brics-environment-ministers-meeting

Digital India BHASHINI Platform

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Digital India BHASHINI Platform in News

• Recently, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) held Brainstorming with Researchers & Start-ups to shape strategy for Digital India BHASHINI – India’s AI led language translation platform.

Digital India BHASHINI Platform

• About: Bhashini is a digital platform that acts as an orchestrator to unify and align a large diverse network across government, industry, academia, research groups and start-ups to bring all their contributions into an open repository.
• Mandate: Bhashini aims to build a National Public Digital Platform for languages to develop services and products for citizens by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
• Connecting India: Whereas BharatNet & 5G shall catalyze the ‘connecting all Indians’ to Internet goal, initiatives like Bhashini shall ensure that the citizens consume the internet and Digital Government service in their own languages.
  • Enabling access to knowledge resources, and digital empowerment of the citizens is of high priority to achieve the goals of Digital India.
• Implementing Ministry: Digital India BHASHINI Platform is being implemented by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity).

Significance of Mission Digital India BHASHINI

• Catalysing Entrepreneurship: A Bhashini Platform will make Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) resources available to MSMEs, Start-ups and Individual Innovators in the public domain.
  • Multi-linguality presents a major opportunity to start-ups for developing innovative solutions and products that can cater to all Indian citizens irrespective of the language they know.
• Breaking the Language Barrier: Digital India BHASHINI mission aims to empower Indian citizens by connecting them to the Digital Initiatives of the country in their own language thereby leading to digital inclusion.
• Promoting Digital Government: The Bhashini platform is interoperable and will catalyze the entire Digital Ecosystem. It is a giant step to realize the goal of Digital Government.
• Creating Ecosystem for Products in Local Languages: Mission Digital India Bhashini will create and nurture an ecosystem involving Central/State government agencies and start-ups, working together to develop and deploy innovative products and services in Indian languages.
• Increased Digital Content in Indian Languages: Mission Digital India Bhashini also aims to increase the content in Indian languages on the Internet substantially in the domains of public interest, particularly, governance-and-policy, science & technology, etc.
  • This will encourage citizens to use the Internet in their own language.

Azadi Ka Digital Mahotsav- Digital Payment Utsav

adda247.com/…/azadi-ka-digital-mahotsav-digital-payment-utsav

DBT in Government Schemes

Introduction

– Direct Benefits Transfer programme aims to bring transparency through transfer of subsidies directly to the beneficiaries through their bank accounts.
– At present, 313 Central sector (CS) and Centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) from 53 Ministries have been on boarded on the DBT Bharat Portal.

About DBT

– Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) is Government’s major reform initiative to re- engineer the existing delivery processes, ensuring better and timely delivery of benefits using Information & Communication Technology (ICT) by transferring benefits into the bank/postal accounts, preferably Aadhaar seeded, of accurately targeted beneficiaries, as well as in-kind transfers from Government to individual beneficiaries.
– Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was started on 1st January, 2013 with the aim of reforming Government delivery system in welfare schemes for simpler and faster flow of information/funds and reduction of fraud.

Objectives of DBT

– Curbing pilferage and duplication.
– Accurate targeting of the beneficiary.
– Reduced delay in payments.
– Electronic transfer of benefits, minimizing levels involved in benefit flow.

Major Central schemes seeded with DBT:

PM Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)

– The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM- KISAN) Scheme is a Central Sector Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme, under which, financial assistance of Rs.6000/- per annum is provided to all landholding farmer families across the country, subject to certain exclusion criteria relating to higher income strata, to enable them to take care of expenses related to agriculture and allied activities as well as domestic needs.
– The amount is transferred in three four-monthly instalments of Rs. 2000/- each, directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiary farmers identified by the State/UT Governments.
– Payment is done on the basis of Aadhaar seeded data of beneficiaries.
– The Scheme was formally launched on 24 February, 2019 by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at a grand function at Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Mahatma Gandhi NREGS)

– MGNREGS is a demand driven wage employment programme which provides for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
– In order to streamline the system of fund flow and to ensure timely payment of wages, electronic Fund Management System (eFMS) was implemented in 2016.
– Through this, payment of wages is being credited directly to the bank/post office accounts of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS beneficiaries by the Central Government through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojna

– Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) Scheme enables beneficiaries to receive the scheme benefits through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in furtherance of the objectives of encouraging improved health seeking behavior among Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers.
– The Maternity Benefit Programme has been implemented in all the districts of the country in accordance with the provision of the National Food Security Act, 2013.

PMAY-G

– The PMAY-G aims at providing 2.95 crore houses to the eligible rural population in the country so as to achieve the objective of “Housing for All”.

Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG

– “Pratyaksh Hanstantrit Labh” – PAHAL Scheme was initially rolled out in 291 districts in the country starting from 1 June, 2013 in six phases.
– The government had comprehensively reviewed the scheme and after examining the difficulties faced by the consumer substantively modified the scheme prior to launch.
– The modified scheme had been re-launched in 54 districts on 15.11.2014

Sharing is caring!