• The Anang Tal Lake in South Delhi has been declared a monument of national importance through a gazette notification by the Ministry of Culture.
• The Anang Tal lake in South Delhi, believed to have been built a thousand years ago, has been declared a monument of national importance through a gazette notification by the Ministry of Culture.
• According to former National Monuments Authority chairman Tarun Vijay that the national monument stature for Anang Tal is like the re-coronation of Anang Pal Singh Tomar in Delhi.
• As per the National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities: Anang Tal is situated “to the north of Jog Maya temple and approximately 500 metres to the northwest of Qutub Complex”, and dates back to 1,060 AD.
• Tradition ascribes this tank to a Tomar King, Anangpal II, the builder of Lal Kot. It is said to have been a place of a general resort but now it is dried up and used for cultivation.

About                  

National Monuments Authority (NMA)

• Established under the Ministry of Culture in accordance with the requirements of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains AMASR (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2010.
• The NMA has been delegated specific tasks for the conservation and preservation of monuments and sites, including control of the banned and restricted areas surrounding centrally designated monuments.

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) 

• It is a premier organisation under the Ministry of Culture, for the archaeological research and protection of the cultural heritage of the nation.
• It regulates all archaeological activities in the country as per the provisions of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
• It also regulates the Antiquities and Art Treasure Act, 1972.

• Annual installation of new wind power projects in India will peak by 2024 and likely decline thereafter, according to a report released by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and MEC+, a consulting firm that specialises in renewable energy.

About:

• As part of its transition away from fossil fuels, India has committed to sourcing half its electricity in 2030 from non-fossil fuel sources and installing 60 gigawatt (GW, or 1000 MW) of wind power by 2022.
• So far, only 40 GW of wind power capacity has been established.
• Wind industry installations have been slowing down in India since 2017. Only 1.45 GW of wind projects were installed in 2021 with many delayed due to the second wave of COVID-19 and supply chain-related disruptions.
• To compensate, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) granted a blanket timeline extension for seven-and-a-half months after the scheduled commissioning date (SCD) for projects with power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed before June 2021, which pushed the SCD of 0.7 GW projects to 2022.

• The third India-Mauritius Joint Committee Meeting on Small and Medium Enterprise Cooperation was held in New The Indian side was led by Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Narayan Rane.
• In the meeting, both sides reviewed the present engagement between India and Mauritius in the field of MSMEs.
• They held discussion on potential areas of cooperation in various areas including exchange of best practices and experiences in development of MSME sector and holding of physical and virtual exhibitions.
• During the Mauritius delegation’s visit, two Memoranda of Understanding on cooperation have also been signed.

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the proposal for amendment of policy of exemption for Wheat Flour from export ban.
• The approval will now allow to put a restriction on the export of Wheat Flour which will ensure a curb on rising prices of wheat flour and ensure food security of the most vulnerable sections of the society.
• Russia and Ukraine are the major exporters of wheat accounting for around 1/4th of the global wheat trade.
• The conflict between them led to the global wheat supply chain disruptions increasing demand of Indian wheat.
• As a result, the price of wheat in domestic market showed an increase. In order to ensure food security of 1.4 billion people of the country, decision was taken to put a prohibition on export of wheat in May this year.
• However, due to prohibition on export of wheat, the demand for wheat flour has increased in foreign markets.
• Its exports from India have registered a growth of 200 percent during April to July this year compared to the corresponding period last year. The increased demand for wheat flour in international market led to significant price rise of wheat flour in the domestic market.

• A protest was held against the management of the Dhaulasidh Power Project of Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVNL) for ignoring interests of local residents.
• The local Residents are complaining that, the management was preferring outsiders and ignoring locals while providing jobs. There were even anomalies during the process of land acquisition for the project.

About Dhaulasidh Power Project:

• It is a 66 MW power project.
• It is on Beas River.
• Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVNL) is Executing Agency.
• The project would generate over 500 jobs and provide irrigation facility to over 200 villages of Nadaun subdivision.

• Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said that the Central Government would provide about Rs 1,600 crore through the World Bank for the Himachal Pradesh Power Sector Development Programme (HPPSDP). With the state equity, the total programme cost would be around Rs 2,000 crore.
• The World Bank funding under the programme is expected to be available by early next year. Both the World Bank and the Department of MPP and Power are working expeditiously towards the finalisation of the programme.
• The duration of the programme will be five years from 2023 to 2028.
• The Chief Minister said that this programme aimed to undertaking holistic power sector reforms to allow improvement in renewable energy integration.
• The key result areas through which this is being targeted are improvement in the utilisation of the state’s power sector resources in renewable, improvement in reliability of the state’s grid at transmission and distribution levels and strengthening institutional capacities of various state’s power utilities/agencies.
• CM said the programme also aimed at installing new capacities in solar generation of about 200 MW, through the HPPCL and HIMURJA.
• It is important for the state to meet its power requirements to allow optimal trading.
• Hence, the programme shall also focus on strengthening the power network within the state; at transmission level (by HPPTCL) and at the distribution level (by HPSEBL) in 13 towns.

• North India emerged as the most-polluted region in the country in summers this year with Delhi-NCR being the hotspot, according to a new analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
• The green think-tank said the average PM2.5 concentration in north India in summers stood at 71 microgram per cubic metre.
• It was 69 microgram per cubic metre in east India, 54 microgram per cubic metre in west India, and 46 microgram per cubic metre in central India, it said.
• Northeast India (35 microgram per cubic metre) and South India (31 microgram per cubic metre) were cleaner compared to other regions, it said.
• In north India, Delhi-NCR was found to be the most-polluted sub-region, with Bhiwadi reporting the highest average PM2.5 concentration of 134 microgram per cubic metre.
• Manesar reported average PM2.5 concentration of 119 microgram per cubic metre, Ghaziabad (101 microgram per cubic metre), Delhi (97 microgram per cubic metre), Gurugram (94 microgram per cubic metre) and Noida (80 microgram per cubic metre), it said.
• 5 summer average of Delhi-NCR region is almost three times the average of the cities in southern India.
• The CSE used granular real-time data from the Central Pollution Control Board’s portal—Central Control Room for Air Quality Management for the analysis.
• The data is captured from 356 official stations under the Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System (CAAQMS) spread across 174 cities in 26 states and Union territories.

• Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying has invited applications for National Gopal Ratna Awards – 2022 online through the National Award portal.
• The awards will be conferred on the occasion of National Milk Day, 26th November.
• The Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM) was launched in December 2014 for the first time in the country, with a view to conserve and develops indigenous bovine breeds in a scientific manner.

National Gopal Ratna Award during 2022 to be given in the following categories:

• Best Dairy farmer rearing indigenous cattle/buffalo breeds (list of registered breeds annexed).
• Best Artificial Insemination Technician (AIT).
• Best Dairy Cooperative Society/ Milk producer Company/ Dairy Farmer Producer Organisation.

The National Gopal Ratna Award consists of a Certificate of merit, a memento, and amount in each category as under:

• 5,00,000/-(Rupee five lakh only) -1st rank
• 3,00,000/- (Rupee three lakh only) -2nd rank and
• 2,00,000/- (Rupee two lakh only) -3rd rank

• Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur launched ‘Azadi Quest’, a series of online educational mobile games developed in collaboration with Zynga India
• Azadi Quest is a set of online games designed for players of all ages for interactive learning with fun gameplay.
• The Initiative is inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to ‘Engage, Entertain and Educate’ the people through toys and games. On the occasion, Publications Division and Zynga India have signed an MoU to mark year-long partnership to commemorate ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ through series of mobile games.
• Zynga is a global leader in interactive entertainment and it is headquartered in California
• Mr Thakur said, gaming sector has grown by 28 per cent in 2021. He said, the number of online gamers has increased to 40 crores last year and expected to touch 45 crores by 2023.
• The first game in the series is Azadi Quest: Match 3 Puzzle, a simple and easy-to-play casual game presenting the players with the colorful journey of India’s independence from 1857 to 1947.
• As players progress through the gameplay, spread across 495 levels they can collect 75 trivia cards, each showcasing key moments in history. While Azadi Quest- Heroes of Bharat is about the heroes of India’s independence.
• Launched in English and Hindi, for android and iOS devices in India, the games will be available globally in September 2022.

• India’s first situational awareness observatory to monitor space activity is going to be set up in Uttarakhand by
• Digantara (which means space in Sanskrit) is a Bengaluru-based firm.

About Observatory 

• The space situational awareness (SSA) observatory will assist in tracking any activity in space including that of space debris and military satellites hovering over the region.
• It aims to track objects as small as 10 cm in size orbiting the earth.
• Significance: It will fill the crucial gap in SSA observations in the region as there is a lack of such facilities between Australia and southern Africa“.
  • The observatory will help to monitor events occurring in deep space, especially in the geostationary, medium-Earth, and high-Earth orbits.
  • The observatory will give India indigenous capabilities to monitor space activity over the subcontinent providing a strategic advantage.
• Global Scenario: At present, the United States is a dominant player in monitoring space debris. It has observatories in multiple locations with commercial companies providing additional inputs from across the world.