• Recently Tamil Nadu State Food Safety and Drug Administration has told temples to obtain the Blissful Hygiene Offering to God (BHOG) quality certificate f0r the temple prasadam.
• FSSAI initiated Project BHOG (Blissful Hygienic Offering to God) for Food Safety in Places of Worship.
• It is to encourage all Places of Worship (PoW) to adopt and maintain food safety and hygiene in the preparation of Prasad. 
• All the PoW that distribute Prasad, including vendors that sell Prasad in the vicinity of the PoW, are henceforth required to obtain FSSAI license/ registration.
• They also need to follow the sanitary and hygiene practices as per Food Safety and Standards regulations.
• All places of worship, including temples, mosques and gurudwaras, are covered by the project.

• The Kartarpur Corridor can’t be limited to Sikhs, as Punjab Chief Minister urged Pakistan to waive the requirement of a passport “to all citizens of secular India” and not just to Sikhs.
• Any person who believes in Guru Nanak and follows his teachings in life, irrespective of belonging to any religion is a Nanak Naam Lewa or a Nanakpanthi.
• During his four Udaasis (travels), Guru Nanak had spread the message of oneness and people from different faiths had become his followers.
• Nanak simply cannot be limited to just one religion (Sikhism) because the core value of his philosophy is,

1. “Sabhna jiya ka ik daata” (There is only one giver of life, one God) and
2. “Na koi Hindu, na Musalman” (There is no Hindu, no Muslim).

• The syncretic faith of the ‘Nanakpanthi’ communities continues to be practiced in the Indus belt.
• They do not have a defining line drawn between cultures and faiths.

People might identify them as Hindus or Sikhs, but Guru Nanak is the essential fabric of their existence.

• Sadiya-Dhubri stretch of the river Brahmaputra (891 Km) is declared as NationalWaterway 2.
• Allahabad-Haldia stretch of the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river (1620 Km) is declared as NationalWaterway 1.

• The Indian Army, which began inducting the indigenously upgraded Dhanush artillery guns, will have the first regiment in place by March 2020.
• It is an indigenously developed artillery gun and upgraded version of the Swedish Bofors gun procured by India.
• It is compatible with all North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 155mm ammunition systems.
• It is also referred to as Desi Bofors developed by Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and manufactured by Jabalpur-based Gun Carriage Factory (GCF).

• Lingdum Monastery is a Buddhist pilgrimage center following the Zurmang Kagyu sect of the ancient school of Tibetan Buddhism.
• It is under the spiritual direction of H. E. Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche, who is the 12th successive successor of the Kagyu sect. 
• President Ram Nath Kovind recently visited Lingdum monastery in Ranka, Sikkim.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently said her country will spend 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) on green urban mobility projects conceived under the new German-Indian partnership.
• This will be over a five-year period.
• The funds will be used to finance several environment friendly projects such as the introduction of electric buses to replace the ones running on diesel for public transport in urban centres.
• She also said, both the countries will earmark 200 million Euros to reform bus sector in Tamil Nadu.

• NEO Surveillance Mission is a planned space-based telescope to search for near-Earth asteroids under development by NASA.
• The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will lead development of the mission under NASA’s planetary defence program.
• NEO Surveillance Mission is based on the NEOCam mission that was a finalist in the previous competition for Discovery-class planetary science missions. 
• Launch is planned no earlier than 2025.

• The first-ever India-Uzbekistan joint military exercise - Dustlik-2019 will begin at Chirchiq Training Area near Tashkent.
• The exercise will focused on counter-terrorism.
• The exercise will enable sharing of best practices and experiences between the Armed Forces of the two countries and will lead to greater operational effectiveness.

• Union Home Minister will inaugurate the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Joint Exercise on Urban Earthquake Search and Rescue -SCOJtEx-2019 in New Delhi.
• National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is hosting the event.
• The aim of the exercise is to rehearse the disaster response mechanism, share knowledge, experience and technology for mutual coordination. 
• This stimulation exercise will also provide an opportunity to enhance the coordination and co-operation involving multi-agency operations in an earthquake scenario.
• The main focus of Joint Exercise on Urban will be to test the region’s preparedness and resilience towards effective activation of Inter-governmental interaction for immediate response.
• All the eight-member countries of SCO namely China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will participate in this exercise.

• Recently China approves first new Alzheimer’s Drug ‘Oligomannate (GV-971)’  in 17 Years.
• Oligomannate, which uses extract from marine brown algae as raw material, received a green light to treat mild-to-moderate level AD.
• Tau is a protein found in the brain, but under certain conditions, it will clump together into tangles that injure nearby tissue and may lead to cognitive decline.
• Tau occurs in tangled formations in the brain of Alzheimer patients, disrupts the ability of neurons to communicate with one another in the brain.