# India-Nepal ties

• Prime minister Narendra Modi on Monday referred to the common cultural heritage of India and Nepal.
• PM Modi also said that the people of Nepal were equally happy that a temple for Lord Ram was under construction in Ayodhya.
• PM Modi Praised Nepal for preserving its ancient culture and civilisation.
• PM Modi along with PM Deuba performed the Shilanayas to launch the construction of the India international centre for Buddhist culture and heritage in the Lumbini Monastic zone.

# Gyanvapi survey

• A local court in Varanasi on Monday ordered that a portion of the disputed Gyanvapi mosque premises be sealed after lawyers representing the hindu women petitioners claimed that a shivling was found in the ablution water tank of the mosque.
• The caretakers of the mosque, however said that it is not shivling but part of a “stone fountain” in the ablution tank.
• The supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday the plea of the management of the mosque against the survey which is already completed.

# NATO

• Sweden on Monday officially announced it will apply for NATO membership as a deterrent against Russian aggression.
• This decision will reverse the policy of two centuries of military non alignment.
• Sweden and Finland have both expressed a desire to act in lockstep on NATO membership.

# SCO terror meet

• Counter terror officials of Pakistan, Russsia, China and four central Asian countries met in Delhi on Monday at the start of the Shanghai cooperation organization’s regional anti terror structure talks.
• This is the first such event in India since the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s transgressions at the line of actual control.