Uttar Pradesh government has launched the cashless health scheme for teachers as well as non-teaching staff in the state. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath launched the ‘Chief Minister’s Teachers’ Cashless Medical Scheme’ from Varanasi, which will offer medical coverage of up to 5 lakh rupees to more than 15 lakh teaching staff.

Under the scheme, teachers across the state and their families will gain access to cashless medical facilities worth up to 5 lakh rupees. About 15 lakh teachers and non-teaching staff associated with basic and secondary education will benefit from the scheme. Beyond regular teachers, the scheme will also benefit Shiksha Mitras (para-teachers), instructors, cooks, and eligible staff of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.

An MoU was also signed with the State Bank of India to provide social security cover to the teachers and their families. Speaking at the event, the Chief Minister said that the government has fulfilled its promises to safeguard the health and social security of teachers. The comprehensive social security and insurance programme for UP basic education department employees is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country.

The Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) flagship rural digital transformation initiative, Samriddh Gram: Integrated Phygital Service Delivery Model Enabled by BharatNet, has won the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2026 under Action Line C6 – Enabling Environment.

The award was presented during the WSIS Forum 2026 in Geneva, recognising India’s model of using digital public infrastructure and telecom connectivity to deliver integrated services in rural areas.

Instituted under the World Summit on the Information Society process led by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the WSIS Prizes honour projects that use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to advance sustainable development.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon, an emergency medicine physician and US Space Force colonel of Indian origin, is set to embark on his first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14.

Menon, 49, will lift off aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The mission is expected to last about eight months.

Born in Minneapolis to Indian and Ukrainian immigrant parents, Menon has built a career spanning medicine, the military and human spaceflight. During his service with the US Air Force, he was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He also worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association, providing medical care to climbers on Mount Everest.

A rare Himalayan flowering plant, Cyananthus hookeri, has been recorded in Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang district after 158 years, marking its first confirmed sighting in India since it was last documented in Sikkim in 1867.

The discovery was made by scientists from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) during a field survey near Chuna Valley, close to Mago village, at an altitude of around 3,600 metres.

The finding has been published in the international conservation journal Oryx and is being seen as an important step for India's botanical research and biodiversity conservation.

Scientists have discovered that sperm whales living in the eastern Mediterranean Sea appear to have developed a distinct vocal dialect from those inhabiting the western part of the basin, offering fresh evidence that animal communication can evolve in ways similar to human language.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are based on nearly two decades of acoustic recordings collected across the Mediterranean.

Researchers analysed 5,291 "codas", rhythmic sequences of clicks that sperm whales use to communicate socially. For years, scientists believed all Mediterranean sperm whales belonged to a single cultural group identified by a characteristic "3+1" coda, consisting of three clicks followed by a pause and a fourth click. However, the latest analysis found that whales in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly near Greece's Hellenic Trench, produce a noticeably faster version of the same call than whales around Spain's Balearic Islands.

In a profound testament to the civilizational resonance anchoring modern diplomacy, Australia is set to repatriate three culturally significant ancient antiquities to India. Culture Ministry said, these artefacts include a ceremonial bronze trident of Goddess Bhadrakali, a majestic granite idol of Nandi, and a basalt sculpture depicting the six-headed Karttikeya. All of these items date back to the 11th & 12th centuries and were originally sourced from historic temples in Tamil Nadu. The official announcement of this repatriation coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia, further emphasising the strong cultural alignment between the two nations.  

Asserting that hydrogen is the future of the transportation industry, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said the government is conducting trials on 10 routes across the country on its use as fuel.

The trials are underway on Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra, Bhubaneshwar-Konark-Puri, Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat, Sahibabad-Faridabad-Delhi, Pune-Mumbai, Jamshedpur-Kalinga Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi, Kochi-Edappally, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam-Bayyavaram routes, the minister said.

The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways was addressing a gathering at Prawaas 5.0 and Bharat Prawaas Awards event here.

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Jagat Prakash Nadda, will lay the foundation stone of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Centre for High Altitude Medicine and Public Health Research at Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti on July 11, marking a major milestone in healthcare and scientific research for the Himalayan region.

Being established by the ICMR under the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the centre will be India’s first dedicated institution for high-altitude medicine and public health research. It will upgrade the existing ICMR field station at Keylong into a multidisciplinary hub for research, innovation and capacity building, catering to the healthcare needs of Himalayan and other climate-sensitive regions.

The centre will address health challenges associated with extreme weather, difficult terrain, low oxygen levels and climate variability. Research will focus on high-altitude physiology, acclimatisation, mountain medicine, climate-sensitive and emerging diseases, infectious and non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health, nutrition, mental health, environmental and occupational health and disaster medicine. It will also promote digital health technologies, telemedicine, drone-enabled healthcare logistics and real-time public health surveillance to improve healthcare delivery in remote areas.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday launched the July 2026 round of three key household surveys - the Urban Consumer Confidence Survey (UCCS), the Rural Consumer Confidence Survey (RCCS), and the Inflation Expectations Survey of Households (IESH) - to gather public feedback on economic conditions, inflation and employment, with the findings set to provide inputs for monetary policy.

According to separate RBI press releases, the central bank has launched the latest round of its regular household surveys to assess consumer sentiment and inflation expectations across the country.

The RBI said the Urban Consumer Confidence Survey "seeks qualitative responses from households, regarding their sentiments on general economic situation, employment scenario, price level, households' income and spending." The survey is conducted across 19 cities, and "the results of this survey provide useful inputs for monetary policy."

A second Great Indian Bustard chick born in Gujarat's Kutch district through the 'jumpstart' conservation technique has crossed the critical 40-day survival stage, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Thursday, describing it as a major boost to efforts to revive the critically endangered bird species.

The jumpstart technique is a conservation strategy where an infertile egg in a wild Great Indian Bustard's nest is replaced with a fertile, captive-bred egg.

This allows the wild mother to naturally incubate, hatch, and raise the chick, drastically improving the critically endangered species' chances of survival in its native habitat.