WHO says 47 lakh excess Covid deaths in India

• These are the highest, by far, for any country and make up nearly a third of the 15 million such deaths estimated by the agency globally.
• India officially estimated only 4.8 lakh cumulative deaths linked to COVID-19 as of December 2021, which implies that the WHO estimate is nearly 10 times the government count. As of May, India’s official COVID-19 death toll is 5.2 lakh.
• Minutes after the WHO released its estimate, India reiterated its “objection to the methodology” used.
• Excess deaths are calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years.
• Excess mortality includes deaths associated with COVID-19 directly or indirectly (due to the pandemic’s impact on health systems).

Over 1 lakh trees to be felled for proposed coal mining in Odisha

• Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), a joint venture company of the Government of India and Telangana, has proposed to mine coal at the Naini mine in Chhendipada tahasli of the district.
• The total requirement of land for the project is 912.799 hectares, of which 643.095 hectares is reserve forestland and 140.18 hectares is village forestland. The remaining is non-forestland.
• The SCCL is waiting for environment and forest clearance before diverting 783.275 hectares of forestland for the coal field, which is in the south-eastern corner of the lower Gondwana basin within the Mahanadi Valley.
• 1,05,092 trees would have to be felled in the Chhendipda reserve forest, 1,087 in a revenue forest and 327 in non-forestland.

UN agency in talks with India on wheat procurement amid Ukraine war

• India’s wheat production stood at 109.59 million tonnes in the 2020-21 crop year (July-June).
• The World Food Programme launched the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises recently in which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the war in Ukraine is “supercharging” a three-dimensional crisis – food, energy and finance — with devastating impacts on the world’s most vulnerable people, countries and economies.
• The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations and the world''s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security.
• The WFP was formally established in 1963 by the FAO and the United Nations General Assembly.

PM Modi, Macron agree to further expand strategic bilateral ties

• The two leaders agreed on a blueprint to work together in making the India-France strategic partnership a force for global good.
• Modi arrived here on the final leg of his three-nation European tour.
• Both sides also agreed to work jointly to increase the mobility of students, graduates, professionals and skilled workers while strengthening their efforts to combat irregular migration.
• They also talked about food security issues and the FARM initiative, in which India will play a key role.
• President Macron’s renewed mandate and the conversations between Prime Minister Modi and the French President allow the two countries to build on existing strengths and success of India-France strategic partnership.

Punjab Govt offers Rs 1,500/acre aid for direct seeding of rice

• With DSR, paddy seeds are sown directly with machine.
• With DSR technique, which is called ‘tar-wattar DSR’ (good soil moisture), farmers must sow paddy only after pre-sowing (rauni) irrigation and not in dry fields. Further, the field should be laser levelled.
• DSR technique can help save 15% to 20% water.
• DSR offers avenues for ground water recharge as it prevent the development of hard crust just beneath the plough layer due to puddled transplanting and it matures 7-10 days earlier than puddle transplanted crop, therefore giving more time for management of paddy straw.
• DSR can solve labour shortage problem because as like the traditional method it does not require a paddy nursery and transplantion of 30 days old paddy nursery into the main puddled field.
• Suitability of soil is the most important factor as farmers must not sow it in the light textured soil as this technique is suitable for medium to heavy textured soils including sandy loam, loam, clay loam, and silt loam which accounts for around 80% area of the state.
• It should not be cultivated in sandy and loamy sand as these soils suffer from severe iron deficiency, and there is higher weed problem in it.
• Also, avoid direct seeding of rice in fields which are under crops others than rice (like cotton, maize, sugarcane) in previous years as DSR in these soils is likely to suffer more from iron deficiency and weed problems.

Shigella caused food poisoning in girl who died after eating shawarma

• The presence of the bacteria was confirmed in the blood and faeces of people undergoing treatment after they consumed chicken shawarma from an eatery at Cheruvathur in Kasaragod.
• Shigella is a bacterium that belongs to the enterobacter family — a group of bacteria that reside in the intestine, not all of which cause disease in humans. It mainly affects the intestine and results in diarrhoea, sometimes bloody, stomach pain, and fever.
• Shigellosis is not a very common infection. It is a food- and water-borne infection, and can happen when someone consumes contaminated food — like in the case from Kerala — unwashed fruit or vegetables.
• The disease is easily spread by direct or indirect contact with the excrement of the patient. You can get the infection if you swim or take a bath in contaminated water.
• There are four types of Shigella bacteria that affect humans — Shigella sonnei, Shigella flexneri, Shigella boydii, and Shigella dysenteriae. The fourth type causes the most severe disease because of the toxin it produces.

Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurates three floating Border Outposts on Indo-Bangladesh Border

• Kochi Shipyard has built them. The cost of one BOP is Rs. 38 crore and it weighs around 53,000 metric tonnes.
• These floating BOPs are equipped with modern facilities and safety equipment, the front section of these BOPs are bullet proof, as well as arrangements have been made for plenty of food supplies and these BOPs can float with a DG set without refueling for a month.
• A BOP is accompanied by 6 small boats and it has adequate arrangements to prevent both infiltration and smuggling.

Centre earmarks ₹363 crore for film restoration project under National Film Heritage Mission

• The restoration project now awarded is set to commence in full swing at National Film Archive of India (NFAI). The Minister was in Pune to attend the review meeting of the organization.
• Under National Film Heritage Mission, approximately 2,200 films will undergo restoration.
• The titles have been shortlisted by language wise committees consisting of filmmakers, documentary filmmakers, film historians, producers etc.
• Eminent film personalities such as Aparna Sen, Shriram Raghavan, Anjali Menon and Vetrimaaran were part of the committees.
• The process involves frame-to-frame digital and semi-automated manual picture and sound restoration from the best surviving source material.
• The source negative/print will be scanned at 4K to .dpx files, which will be then digitally restored.
• The damages including scratches, dirt and abrasions in every frame of the picture negative will be cleaned during the restoration process.