NewsBytes

UNESCO announced the withdrawal of Nicaragua from the UN cultural and educational body because of the awarding of a UNESCO prize celebrating press freedom to a Nicaraguan newspaper, La Prensa. UNESCO's director-general, Audrey Azoulay, announced that she had received a letter from the Nicaraguan government announcing its withdrawal because of the attribution of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. "I regret this decision, which will deprive the people of Nicaragua of the benefits of cooperation, particularly in the fields of education and culture. UNESCO is fully within its mandate when it defends freedom of expression and press freedom around the world,” Azoulay said in a statement. Nicaragua was one of 194 member states in UNESCO. The body's members set up the press freedom prize in 1997, and the 2025 award was attributed to La Prensa on the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta launched a digital platform that aims to eliminate handwritten documentation and reduce paperwork related to medico-legal cases and post-mortem reports. The Medical Legal Examination and Post Mortem Reporting (MedLEaPR) platform is developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and it will enable electronic submission of medico-legal case (MLC) and post-mortem reports (PMRs), a statement said. The platform offers several key features: a centralised database, strict user access control, secure data storage, and a comprehensive audit trail. Officials said it will not only safeguard sensitive information but also facilitate seamless coordination among hospitals, police departments, forensic labs and judicial institutions.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will host his Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani for wide-ranging talks against the backdrop of rising tensions between India and Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack and China's persistent muscle-flexing in the South China Sea. The defence ministry said the Indian and the Japanese sides will exchange "views and ideas" on the current regional and international security situation and discuss ways to further deepen the bilateral defence cooperation. It is expected that the situation that emerged following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people will figure in the talks. The two sides are also expected to deliberate on ways to boost India-Japan defence industrial cooperation.

Researchers at the AIIMS-Delhi have developed a powerful new method to diagnose Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia, or PCD, a rare and often misdiagnosed genetic disorder affecting the respiratory system. The innovative technique, built around transmission electron microscopy, or TEM, stands to revolutionise the way ciliary disorders are detected and understood. The breakthrough, led by Dr Subhash Chandra Yadav, Electron Microscope Facility, Department of Anatomy, and Professor Kana Ram Jat, Department of Paediatrics, was published recently in the journal Microscopy and Microanalysis (University of Oxford).  The method was used on 200 patients with suspected ciliary disorders, and confirmed diagnoses in 135 cases.