Relevance IN - Prelims ( about RISAT-2BR1) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the filed of space)
What's the NEWS

• RISAT-2BR1 will boost India's space-based surveillance as well assist in agriculture, forestry and disaster management.
• With RISAT-2BR1, PSLV is also carrying nine other commercial foreign satellites from countries such as the US, Italy, Japan and Israel
• In a big boost to India's space-based surveillance, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched Radar Imaging Satellite RISAT-2BR1
• This was PSLV's fiftieth mission. With RISAT-2BR1, PSLV is also carrying nine other commercial foreign satellites from countries such as the US, Italy, Japan and Israel under a commercial contract with New Space India Limited (NSIL).
• Last month ISRO launched CARTOSAT 3 satellite on November 27which was a third-generation satellite having high-resolution imaging capability.
• CARTOSAT 3 carried along 13 other commercial nano-satellites from the US into Sun Synchronous orbit.

• RISAT2-BR1 is the second satellite in the RISAT-2B series and is expected to be followed by two more satellites.
• ISRO will be launching the remaining two satellites in the series in the coming days to complete the quartet of the so-called ‘spy satellites'.
• The satellite, with a mission life of five years, follows the successful launch of RISAT-2B in May 2019.
• RISAT2-BR1 would be used in various fields such as forestry, agriculture and disaster management support.
• The current domestic remote sensing satellite is not equipped to capture images of the earth during cloud cover and hence, India had to rely on the images provided by Canadian satellites to obtain information regarding the same.

• Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth Amendment) Bill, 2019, which continues the reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes for another 10 years, upto January 25, 2030.

• The Bill was passed with 352 members in favour and none against. The reservation for SCs, STs and Anglo-Indians given for the past 70 years in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies was due to end on January 25, 2020.
• The reservation for Anglo-Indians in the form of "nomination" is set to expire on January 25 next year as the Bill does not extend the facility to the community. The Minister in his reply said doors are not shut and the matter would be considered.

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about COP 25 and about CCPI) + Mains ( GS III Environment conservation)
What's the NEWS

• India, for the first time, ranks among the top 10 in this year's Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) presented at the COP25 climate summit
• These rankings are given on the basis of 14 standards, which are divided into four categories.
• However, no country could meet 100% of all standards, so the first three places in this list are vacant.
• The list has been started from the fourth position, where Sweden is on the top of the list.

Know! more about it

• The current levels of per capita emissions and energy use in India, ranked 9^th in the "high category", are still comparatively low and, along with ambitious 2030 targets, result in high ratings for the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use categories
• However, despite an overall high rating for its Climate Policy performance, experts point out that the Indian government has yet to develop a roadmap for the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies that would consequently reduce the country's high dependence on coal.
• The authors of the report noted that while the country receives an overall medium rating in the renewable energy category, India's 2030 renewable energy target is rated very high for its well-below 2 degrees Celsius compatibility.
• The CCPI reflects opposing trends in global climate action: Australia, Saudi Arabia and especially the US give cause for "great concern" with their low to very low performance in emissions and renewable energy development as well as climate policy.
• While some EU countries such as Sweden (4^th) and Denmark (5^th), one of the best climbers, achieve overall high or very high ratings, the performance of EU countries varies largely.
• China, the largest global emitter slightly improves its ranking in the index to 30^th place ("medium").
• While only two G20 countries, the UK (7^th) and India (9^th), are ranked in the "high" category, eight G20 countries are remaining in the worst category of the index ("very low").
• Australia (56^th out of 61), Saudi Arabia and above all the US perform particularly poor - the US is the worst performer for the first time.

Know! about CCPI

• CCPI is an international observation instrument of climate protection performance by countries. CCPI aims to increase transparency in global climate politics and enables the comparability of climate protection efforts. Four categories of ranking are - Renewable Energy, Climate Policy, Energy Use, and GHG Emissions.

Know! about COP 25

• The 25^th UN Climate Change Conference will be taking place in Madrid, Spain, and will convene from 2-13 December 2019.
• It will feature the 25^th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the United Nations Framework Convention to Combat Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 51^st meetings of the UNFCCC subsidiary bodies
• The previous UN climate conference, COP24 in Katowice Poland, focused on completing work on the Paris Agreement Work Programme, a set of decisions meant to operationalize the treaty.
• Parties adopted a Climate Package, which includes decisions on nearly all of the issues mandated as part of the Paris Work Programme.
• COP25 in Santiago was mandated by the UNFCCC to resolve the outstanding issues in the Climate Package, including:
• provisions under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which would allow countries to meet, in part, domestic mitigation goals through market mechanisms such as carbon markets;
• public registries for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement;
• communications of adaptation efforts under the Paris Agreement

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