• The retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65 and of High Court judges is 62.
• Those provisions of the Constitution which are related to the federal structure of the polity can be amended by a special majority of the Parliament and also with the consent of half of the state legislatures by a simple majority.
• The following provisions can be amended in this way:

1. Election of the President and its manner.
2. Extent of the executive power of the Union and the states.
3. Supreme Court and high courts.
4. Distribution of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
5. Any of the lists in the Seventh Schedule.
6. Representation of states in Parliament.
7. Power of Parliament to amend the Constitution and its procedure (Article 368

• Clause 6 reads: “Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.” . 
• However Clause 6 of the Assam Accord has not been fully implemented even almost  35 years after the Accord was signed.
• So the Cabinet  recently approved the setting up of a High Level Committee to suggest constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards as envisaged in Clause 6 of the Assam Accord. 

The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an annual publication by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe.

• A national forest reference (emission) level (FRL) is one of the elements to be developed by developing country Parties implementing REDD+ activities.
• As a first step towards accessing the potential fund flows under REDD+, countries are required to set a baseline level of greenhouse emissions being emitted due to deforestation or prevented from escaping into the atmosphere by conserving and growing forests. This is referred to as the Forest Reference Level or FRL.
• Recently, UNFCCC has raised doubts over India’s claim of increase in forest cover, citing lack of transparency in India’s FRL report.

• Change–4 is a Chinese space probe landed on the dark side of the Moon.
• Since the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, the same side always faces Earth.
• The other face, most of which cannot be seen from Earth, is called the far side or “dark side” of the Moon, not because it is dark, but because most of it is uncharted.
• This is the first-ever soft landing on the dark side of the Moon.
• With this mission, China has now joined the U.S. and the former USSR as the only countries to have made a “soft landing” on the moon.

• The World Development Report (WDR) is an annual report published since 1978 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) or World Bank.
• The recently released World Development Report (WDR) 2019: the Changing Nature of Work, studies how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today.

• Kadaknath or Kali Masi (flowl with black flash) is a unique breed of chicken that is completely black in colour.
• It is completely black with black legs, beak, tongue, comb and wattles.
• Apart from its meat, its bones and most organs are also black in colour.
• The chicken, traditionally reared by Jhabua’s adivasi communities of Madhya Pradesh, was granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the government registry last year.

• The Chinese probe Change-4 which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the Moon’s South Pole in the Von Karman Crater.

• According to IMD glossary, western disturbance is a weather disturbances noticed as cyclonic circulation/trough in the mid and lower tropospheric levels or as a low pressure area on the surface, which occur in middle latitude westerlies.
• It originates over the Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea and Black Sea and move eastwards across north India.
• The western cyclonic disturbances which enter the Indian subcontinent from the west and the northwest during the winter months are brought into India by the westerly jet stream.
• An increase in the prevailing night temperature generally indicates an advance in the arrival of these cyclones disturbances.

• In October 2018, at Astana, Kazakhstan, world leaders declared their commitment to ‘Primary Health Care’.
• This declaration reaffirms the historic 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata.
• Alma-Ata Declaration was the first declaration which identified Primary Health Care as a key to the attainment of the goal of Health for All.
• The Astana Declaration aims to meet all people’s health needs across the life course.
• This would be through comprehensive preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative services and palliative care.