Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP)

• The LCIPP was established in 2015 by the Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the UNFCCC.
• The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) is an open and inclusive space and brings together people and their knowledge systems to build a climate resilient world for all.
• In accordance with the Paris Agreement climate change is a common concern of humankind.
• When taking action to address climate change, the respective obligations on, inter alia, the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities should be respected, promoted and considered.
• The COP has recognized the need to strengthen knowledge, technologies, practices and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples related to addressing and responding to climate change.
• In this context, the LCIPP was established, for the exchange of experiences and sharing of best practices on mitigation and adaptation in a holistic and integrated manner.
• The platform has been established to strengthen the knowledge, technologies, practices, and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples related to addressing and responding to climate change.

Isolated Proton Auroras (IPAs)

• They occur when the sun belches out a barrage of fast-moving particles, which zip through space, crash into Earth's magnetosphere and surf into the lower levels of the atmosphere on magnetic field lines.
  • Magnetosphere is the region around Earth dominated by the planet's magnetic field.
• They appear at sub-auroral latitudes, generated by energetic protons precipitating from the magnetosphere through interaction with electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves.
• In the mesosphere, these extra-terrestrial particles charge up local gas molecules, creating potentially hazardous compounds called nitrogen oxides and hydrogen oxides.
  • Mesosphere is a high later of the atmosphere that extends from 50 to 85kms over Earth.
• These aurora generated oxides can eat away at ozone, a pale blue gas that occurs naturally in Earth's atmosphere.
• A single IPA in 2015 caused 400kms wide hole in the upper ozone layer.
• The hole only appeared in Earth’s mesosphere and did not extend to the much more important ozone layer in the stratosphere, which protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
• However, the ozone depletion in the mesosphere could alter climate patterns in the lower layers of the atmosphere and the even the Earth’s surface.
• Unlike the auroras that cause the famous northern lights and their southern counterparts, isolated proton auroras are far smaller and fainter, appearing as isolated spots of green light rather than great bands of colour looping through the sky.
• These fainter auroras also occur at lower latitudes than the northern and southern lights, which appear above the North and South Poles.
• Polar auroras do not cause ozone depletion.

Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA)

• The US government will build this programme with the Bezos Earth Fund and Rockefeller Foundation and has urged other public and private sector players to join in.
• It aims to finance the decommissioning of coal and accelerate clean energy deployment in developing countries.
• The aim is to operate it till 2030 and then possibly extend to 2035.
• The concept of the ETA focuses on scaling up and de-risking private investment in accelerating the clean energy transition in developing countries.

US’ Currency Monitoring List

• The list closely monitors the currency practices and policies of some of the US’ major trade partners.
• The economies that meet the following criteria in the 2015 Act are placed on the list.
• Under this legislation, the Treasury Department has to assess the macroeconomic and exchange rate policies of the US’ trading partners for three specific criteria:
  • A significant bilateral trade surplus with the United States is a goods and services trade surplus that is at least $15 billion
  • A material current account surplus is one that is at least 3% of GDP, or a surplus for which Treasury estimates there is a material current account “gap” using Treasury’s Global Exchange Rate Assessment Framework (GERAF).
  • Persistent, one-sided intervention occurs when net purchases of foreign currency are conducted repeatedly, in at least 8 out of 12 months, and these net purchases total at least 2% of an economy’s GDP over a 12-month period.
• When on the US' Currency Monitoring List, a country is considered a currency manipulator.
• Along with India, Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam have also been removed from the list.
• Countries currently in the list – China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.

Ninth Schedule of the Constitution

• It contains a list of central and state laws which cannot be challenged in courts.
• Currently, 284 such laws are shielded from judicial review.
• Most of the laws protected under the Schedule concern agriculture/land issues.
• The Schedule became a part of the Constitution in 1951, when the document was amended for the first time.
• It was created by the new Article 31B, which along with 31A was brought in by the government to protect laws related to agrarian reform and for abolishing the Zamindari system.
• The First Amendment added 13 laws to the Schedule. Subsequent amendments in 1955, 1964, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1984, 1990, 1994, and 1999 have taken the number of protected laws to 284.
• While the Ninth Schedule provides the law with a safe harbour from judicial review, the protection is not blanket.
• When the Tamil Nadu law was challenged in 2007 (I R Coelho v State of Tamil Nadu), the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous nine-judge verdict that while laws placed under Ninth Schedule.
• It stated that laws cannot be challenged on the grounds of violation of fundamental rights, but they can be challenged on the ground of violating the basic structure of the Constitution.
• The court clarified that the laws cannot escape the basic structure test if inserted into the Ninth Schedule after 1973.
• It was in 1973 that the basic structure test evolved in the Kesavananda Bharati case as the ultimate test to examine the constitutional validity of laws.