India’s Purnima Devi Barman is one of UNEP’s ‘Champions of the Earth’ for 2022

India’s Purnima Devi Barman is one of UNEP ‘Champions of the Earth’ for 2022

• India’s Purnima Devi Barman, an Assam-based wildlife biologist, is one of the five ‘Champions of the Earth’ for this year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced. 
• The annual awards are the highest environmental honour that the UNEP confers on individuals and organisations whose actions have a “transformative impact” on the environment. She has been honoured in the Entrepreneurial Vision category.
• Barman won the award this year in the ‘Entrepreneurial Vision’ category, for her trail-blazing work in protecting the greater adjutant stork, called ‘hargila’ in Assamese. Hargilas are five-foot-tall birds that dwell in wetlands in some parts of southeast Asia including India and Cambodia.
• There are only 1,200-odd hargilas remaining in the world, as per a 2016 IUCN Red List update which lists the bird as ‘Endangered’. In India, hargilas are found in Assam and Bihar. Assam is home to the largest population – around 1,000 individuals – of these birds, according to Barman.

Cuttack Baliyatra Enters Guinness World Records

• Cuttack Baliyatra has made it into the Guinness World Record after achieving the feat of making 22,000 paper boats in 35 minutes. During the Baliyatra festival, more than 2,100 students from 22 schools made paper boats and created a world record at an event organized at Barabati Stadium by the district administration and Cuttack Municipal Corporation.
• The world record was attempted to attain global recognition for Cuttack’s Baliyatra, the largest open-air trade fair in the state.
• The headquarters of the Guinness World Records in London was contacted for an attempt to make 10,000 paper boats in just 15 minutes.
• The record book authorities had issued the protocol for organizing the event and the administration roped in around 3,000 students who have also imparted training on making paper boats.

Russia Replaces China to Become the Biggest Supplier of Fertilizers to India

• Russia has become India’s biggest fertilizer supplier for the first time. Russian exporters reportedly grabbed a 21% share of the Indian fertilizer market in the first half of the 2022-23 fiscal year, overtaking China, previously India’s largest supplier.
• Russian exports reportedly surged 371%, to a record 2.15 million tons from April to October. In monetary terms, India’s imports over this period increased by 765%, to $1.6 billion. 
• Russia’s share of Indian fertilizer imports was hovering around 6% during the last fiscal year, while China’s stood at 24%. In the first half of 2022-23, China’s exports to India halved to 1.78 million tons amid growing Russian supplies.