Current Affair 1:

Petersburg Climate Dialogue

 

Current one is 14th Petersburg Climate Dialogue.

Our union minister participated and he said:

“Petersberg Climate Dialogue concluded in Berlin with delegates having worked towards laying the groundwork for joint decisions at COP28. He said that there was a broader consensus over the need for stronger mitigation and adaptation efforts and for expansion of renewables”.

About Dialogue:

The Petersberg Climate Dialogue was launched in 2010 by former German Chancellor Merkel and brings together selected states on an annual basis to prepare the ground for successful negotiations at the COP climate change conferences.

The first Petersberg Climate Dialogue took place on the Petersberg in Bonn, hence its name. Since then, it has been held in Berlin.

The co-host is always the country that will next take over the chair of the Climate Change Conference. The next Climate Change Conference COP28 will take place in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 12 December 2023.

Objective of Dialogue:

“To strengthen trust both in multilateral climate negotiations and between countries. The aim is to facilitate the negotiations leading up to COP28.

Although many countries share the goal of reducing emissions and expanding renewable energies around the globe, these are not easy negotiations. The countries around the table include severely affected island states such as the Marshall Islands as well as the largest emitters of CO2 such as the United States, China and India”.

Current Affair 2:

Leopards in India

 

On International Leopard Day 2023, we will some basics. All information below will be from the latest report: Status of Leopards, Co-predators and Megaherbivores-2018.

Leopards are extremely versatile and occur in almost every kind of habitat, from the rainforests of the tropics to deserts and temperate regions. The Indian subspecies, Panthera pardus fusca, is found in all habitats of India, absent only in the arid Thar desert and Sundarban mangroves. In the Himalayas they are sometimes sympatric with snow leopards (Panthera uncia) and have been recorded as high as 5,200 m.

If you see Leopard presence in India, it is not at one place.

Often parts and products of leopards are illegally traded as tiger parts and the impact of poaching on leopards is significant. Therefore, the leopard is also listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 in India providing it with the highest level of protection.

This will be enough for Leopard.

Current Affair 3:

Google announced ‘Passkeys’.

 

News:

Passkeys are a safer and easier replacement for passwords. With passkeys, users can sign in to apps and websites with a biometric sensor (such as a fingerprint or facial recognition), PIN, or pattern, freeing them from having to remember and manage passwords.

Advantages:

1. A passkey can replace a password and a second factor in a single step.
2. The user experience can be as simple as auto filling a password form.
3. Passkeys provide robust protection against phishing attacks, unlike SMS or an app based one-time passwords.
4. Since passkeys are standardized, a single implementation enables a passwordless experience across different browsers and operating systems.

What are passkeys?

A passkey is a digital credential, tied to a user account and a website or application.

Passkeys allow users to authenticate without having to enter a username, password, or provide any additional authentication factor. This technology aims to replace legacy authentication mechanisms such as passwords.

When a user wants to sign in to a service that uses passkeys, their browser or operating system will help them select and use the right passkey. The experience is similar to how saved passwords work today. To make sure only the rightful owner can use a passkey, the system will ask them to unlock their device. This may be performed with a biometric sensor (such as a fingerprint or facial recognition), PIN, or pattern.

And also,

Users aren't restricted to using the passkeys only on the device where they're stored—passkeys stored on phones can be used when logging into a laptop, even if the passkey isn't synchronized to the laptop, as long as the phone is near the laptop and the user approves the sign-in on the phone.

Privacy:

Passkey managers protect passkeys from unauthorized access and use. For example, the Google Password Manager encrypts passkey secrets end-to-end. Only the user can access and use them, and even though they're backed up to Google's servers, Google can't use them to impersonate users.

Current Affair 4:

ESMA to withdraw the recognition decisions of six Indian CCPs

 

ESMA KYA H?

ESMA is the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor. ESMA’s mission is to enhance investor protection, promote orderly financial markets and safeguard financial stability.

Now understand the news:

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) announces that six central counterparties (CCPs) established in India will have their recognition decisions withdrawn in accordance with the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).

EU’s European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)— which is tasked with safeguarding the stability of the EU’s financial system derecognised six Indian third country central counterparties (TC-CCPs). They are:

Why de-listing?

The de-listing decision came after the RBI refused to allow foreign entities to audit and inspect CCIL. As per current RBI norms, certain eligible entities may open basic sub-ledger accounts with the central bank on behalf of their constituents for dealing in government securities.

The derecognition comes because of the lack of “cooperation arrangements” between ESMA and RBI, SEBI and IFSCA; it has nothing to do with the six firms.

What de-listing means?

This means, if an investor from a member-nation of the EU wants to buy a futures contract in India, for instance, they will not be able to do so because the six clearing corporations that ensure the buy-sell match in India is now derecognised. It shuts down the free flow of capital from EU investors to India.

If we see current situation now:

By derecognising the TC-CCPs, it is not merely over-the-counter derivatives trading that will be impacted; the entire equities and bond markets will be closed to EU investors. While this may reduce the money flow between the two geographies, it will not shake the Indian market.

On the equities side, for instance, of the US $625 billion worth of assets under custody of foreign portfolio investments (FPI), there are just two EU member countries—Ireland and Netherlands—in the top 10 for October 2022; their combined share adds up to less than 7 percent of the total size.

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