The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 15  registered a case under Official Secrets Act against a freelance journalist, Vivek Raghuvanshi.

According to information, he has been accused of sharing classified information of DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organisation) and the Indian Army with Pakistan and other foreign countries.

The CBI is currently conducting raids at 12 locations, including Delhi NCR and Jaipur in this connection. As of now, the CBI has not made any official statements on the matter.

Denying the allegations of a de facto ban in Tamil Nadu with regards to the movie ‘The Kerala Story’ and terming them as baseless, Tamil Nadu Government has told the SC that the movie was released in 19 multiplexes in Tamil Nadu on 05.05.2023 and there is no order banning the screening of the film.

It has also been stated in the affidavit that the state had taken all necessary steps to safeguard the freedom of speech and expression. The affidavit has been filed in the plea filed by makers of ‘The Kerala Story,’ Sunshine Pictures Private Limited and Vipul Amrutlal Shah, which, apart from challenging the Mamata Banerjee government’s decision to ban the screening of the film, had also sought for the protection of screening the film in Tamil Nadu, alleging that the movie is facing a shadow ban. The Supreme Court had sought responses from TN government.

 With the improvement in the ground situation, the rail network in the militancy-hit Kashmir is being expanded up to the Line of Control (LoC) with the Northern Railway considering connecting the border town of Uri in north Kashmir with the train route. The train to Uri will not only benefit locals and businessmen, but also help in transportation of troops, equipment and supplies to forward areas of the LoC.

The Northern Railways has floated a tender for engineering survey work of the line/roadway using modern techniques like Aerial Survey (Aerial Photogrammetric survey or Aerial LIDAR) and DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System). The Final Location Survey (FLS) for a 50-km line between Baramulla to Uri has to be completed within three months after the tenders are awarded.

Chief Area Manager of the Kashmir Railways Saqib Yousuf said that the survey is being conducted for the extension of rail link to Uri. He said after the survey is completed, depending on the feasibility

it will be decided up to which area of Uri the rail link will be extended. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during his visit to Jammu and Kashmir in March this year had announced that the rail network in Kashmir would be expanded up to the LoC.

The extension of rail link up to border area of Uri would improve the connectivity of the local population. Their journey to Baramulla, Srinagar and up to Banihal in Srinagar-Jammu national highway would be eased.It would also help trade and business as the border areas, including Uri, have been thrown open for the tourists by the authorities after the improvement of the ground situation. The train link would help in mobility of the troops deployed at the LoC in Uri and other areas of north Kashmir.

People will be now able to block and track their lost or stolen mobile phones across India via the Sanchar Saathi portal launched by the Department of Telecom on May 16 .

Union telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that through Sanchar Saathi Portal, people will be able to block, track and check the genuineness of a used device before buying them.

He said that Prime Minister has a clear vision that a lot of attention needs to be paid to user safety and the facilities under Sanchar Saathi portal are aligned to his vision.

When asked about measures that the government is taking to check fraud through calls on WhatsApp, the minister said that Meta owned app has agreed to deactivate services linked to any mobile phone number engaged in fraudulent activities.

He said that 36 lakh mobile connections have been disconnected for fraud and simultaneously their WhatsApp account has been blocked.

Edna Adan Ismail, a nurse-midwife, hospital founder, and health care advocate who for decades has combated female circumcision and strived to improve women’s health care in East Africa, was named on May 16 as winner of the 2023 Templeton Prize, one of the world’s largest annual individual awards.

Among her achievements: the founding of a hospital and university which have significantly reduced maternal mortality in Somaliland.

The Templeton Prize, valued at nearly $1.4 million, was established in 1973 by philanthropist Sir John Templeton.

Ismail is  the first African woman to win the prize.

Ismail, 85, said she would donate some of her prize money to the US-based Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital, for use in purchasing new equipment, hiring educators, and “training the next generation of health care workers that East Africa so desperately needs.”

Ismail was born in 1937 in Hargeisa, the capital of what was then British Somaliland. Her father was a doctor; due to his influence, she was covertly tutored alongside her brothers until she was 15. A scholarship exam, normally reserved for boys, qualified her to study in Britain, where she received an education in nursing and midwifery.

She returned to her homeland as its first medically trained nurse-midwife. According to the prize announcement, she was the first woman to drive a car in her country and the first appointed to a position of political authority as director of the Ministry of Health.

She later joined the World Health Organization, serving as regional technical officer for maternal and child health from 1987-91 and WHO representative to Djibouti from 1991-97.

She left her international career to return home with a dream of building a hospital. After newly re-formed Somaliland declared its independence in 1991 — though it remains unrecognized by foreign powers — its government offered her a tract of land previously used as a garbage dump.

Previous winners of the Templeton Prize include Mother Teresa of Kolkata in 1973, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in 2013, and conservationist Jane Goodall in 2021. The 2022 prize went to physicist Frank Wilczek.

Taiwan's parliament passed an amendment on May 16  allowing gay couples to jointly adopt children, a move hailed by activists as "another big step forward" for marriage equality

Taiwan is at the vanguard of Asia's burgeoning LGBTQ rights movement, becoming the first place in the region to legalise marriage equality in 2019.

But same-sex couples still faced restrictions, such as being unable to jointly adopt children. While individuals in Taiwan were allowed to adopt regardless of sexual orientation, those in same-sex marriages could not both be legal parents unless the child was one partner's biological offspring.

On May 16  -- the eve of the fourth anniversary of Taiwan's marriage equality law -- parliament passed the amendment removing those restrictions, with lawmaker Fan Yun hailing the cross-party support for the bill.

The United States wants India to condemn persistent religious violence, one month before a state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The State Department released an annual report on religious freedom which listed attacks against religious minorities including Muslims and Christians in India.

The State Department report, based on direct research as well as accounts by media and advocacy groups, pointed to concerns about home demolitions against Muslims and public flogging by police of Muslims accused of injuring Hindus in the state of Gujarat.

New Delhi has long hit back at American criticism on religious freedom, particularly by the autonomous US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which earlier this month once again recommended that the State Department put India on a blacklist over its record.

Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor failed to appear before French prosecutors on May 16  to be questioned on corruption charges.

A European judicial team from France, Germany and Luxembourg is conducting a corruption probe into an array of financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and alleged laundering of $330 million, implicating the Lebanese governor, Riad Salameh.

Salameh, 72, who has held his post for almost 30 years, has repeatedly denied all allegations against him. He has insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties, and investments.

The three European governments in March 2022 froze over $130 million in assets linked to the probe. During a visit to Lebanon in March, the European delegation questioned Salameh about the Lebanese central bank’s assets and investments outside the country, a Paris apartment — which the governor owns— and his brother Raja Salameh’s brokerage firm Forry Associates Ltd.