Explanation:

What is IGX?
The IGX is a digital trading platform that will allow buyers and sellers of natural gas to trade both in the spot market and in the forward market for imported natural gas.
It will allow trading across three hubs —Dahej and Hazira in Gujarat, and Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.
Imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) will be regassified and sold to buyers through the exchange, removing the requirement for buyers and sellers to find each other.
The exchange also allows much shorter contracts – for delivery on the next day, and up to a month – while ordinarily contracts for natural gas supply are as long as six months to a year.
This will mean that buyers do not have to contact multiple dealers to ensure they find a fair price.
Will domestically produced natural gas also be bought and sold on the exchange?
The price of domestically produced natural gas is decided by the government. It will not be sold on the gas exchange.
However, following appeals by domestic producers that the prices set by the government are not viable given the cost of exploration and production in India.
A new gas policy will include reforms in domestic gas pricing and will move towards more market-oriented pricing.
Will this make India more import-dependent?
Domestic production of gas has been falling over the past two fiscals as current sources of natural gas have become less productive.
Domestically produced natural gas currently accounts for less than half the country’s natural gas consumption; imported LNG accounts for the other half.
LNG imports are set to become a larger proportion of domestic gas consumption as India moves to increase the proportion of natural gas in the energy basket from 6.2% in 2018 to 15% by 2030.

Explanation:

About Talamaddale:

Tala-Maddale is an ancient form of performance dialogue or debate performance popular in the Karavali and Malnad regions of Karnataka and Kerala.
The plot and content of the conversation is drawn from popular mythology but the performance mainly consists of an impromptu debate between characters involving sarcasm, puns, philosophy positions and humour.
The main plot is sung from the same oral texts used for the Yakshgana form of dance- drama.
Performers claim that this was a more intellectual rendition of the dance during the monsoon season.

Comparison with Yakshagana:

It is a derived form of Yakshagana—a classical dance or musical form of art from the same region. The main plot is sung from the same oral texts used for the Yakshgana.
Unlike the Yakshagana performance, in ‘talamaddale,’ the artists sit across in a place without any costumes and engage in testing their oratory skills based on the episode chosen.
If music is common for both Yakshagana performance and ‘talamaddale’, the latter has only spoken word without any dance or costumes. Hence it is an art form minus dance, costumes and stage conventions.

About Yakshagana

Yakshagana is a traditional theatre form of Karnataka.
It emerged in the Vijayanagara Empire and was performed by Jakkula Varu
It is a temple art form that depicts mythological stories and Puranas.
It is performed with massive headgears, elaborate facial make-up and vibrant costumes and ornaments.
Usually recited in Kannada, it is also performed in Malayalam as well as Tulu (the dialect of south Karnataka).
It is performed with percussion instruments like chenda, maddalam, jagatta or chengila (cymbals) and chakratala or elathalam (small cymbals).
The most popular episodes are from the Mahabharata i.e. Draupadi swayamvar, Subhadra vivah, Abhimanyu vadh, Karna-Arjun yuddh and from Ramayana i.e. Rajyabhishek, Lav-Kush yuddh, Baali-Sugreeva yuddh and Panchavati.
Gombeyatta puppet theatre closely follows Yakshagana.

Key findings of the report:

The nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—together possessed 13,400 nuclear weapons at the start of 2020, a decrease from the 13 865 nuclear weapons at the beginning of 2019.
Despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019, all nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals.
With 6,375 and 5,800 warheads, Russia and the United States together possess more than 90% of global nuclear weapons.
China and Pakistan possess more nuclear weapons than India. It pegs the number of nuclear warheads in the Chinese arsenal at 320, while the nuclear forces of Pakistan and India are estimated to have 160 and 150 weapons, respectively. In 2019, India had 130-140 warheads.
China is developing a nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft.

Explanation:

What is Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)?
A Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) is a greenhouse gas concentration (not emissions) trajectory adopted by the IPCC.
It is defined as a radiative force in watt per square metre due to the rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere.
Four pathways were used for climate modelling and research for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014.
The pathways describe different climate futures, all of which are considered possible depending on the volume of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted in the years to come.
The RCPs – originally RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5 – are labelled after a possible range of radiative forcing values in the year 2100 (2.6, 4.5, 6, and 8.5 W/m2, respectively).
Since AR5 the original pathways are being considered together with Shared Socioeconomic Pathways: as are new RCPs such as RCP1.9, RCP3.4 and RCP7

Explanation: The concept of rule of law is a very dynamic concept, capable of interpretations to enable the successful working of a democracy. It is the restriction on the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws.
Features of the Modern Meaning of Rule of Law
1. Certainty of the law
2. Supremacy of the law
3. Equality before the law
4. Right to personal freedom
5. Laws must not take retrospective effect
6. Independent judiciary
7. Protection of human rights