# Srinagar drone ban

• The Jammu & Kashmir administration on sunday banned the sale, use and possession of unmanned aerial vehicles in Srinagar.

• Two explosives-laden drones had crashed into the airbase, and there were other suspicious sightings of UAVs, trigerring a security alert.

• The order directed those possessing drone cameras or other similar kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles to deposit them at the local police stations.

# Taliban capturing Afghanistan

• The Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum overnight with the capture of several districts in Badakhshan province.

• The insurgents also captured a key district in their former bastion of Kandahar after fierce fighting.

• The fall of Panjwal district in the southern province of Kandahar, the birth place of the Taliban, comes just two days after the US and NATO forces vacated their main Bagram airbase near kabul.

# Assam population control

• The BJP-led government in Assam, eyeing a two child policy in the long run, has decided to constitute eight sub groups toward stabilising the state’s population.

• The decision was taken after a meeting between Chief minister Himanta bishwa sharma and indigenous Assamese muslim leaders on sunday.

# Second wave analysis

• The ongoing second wave of covid-19 had a lower mean age of patients, higher percentage of hospitalisation despite fewer comorbidities.

• This has been said in a new government study based on clinical profile of hospitalised covid-19 patients in first and second wave of the pandemic.

• The study, recently published in the Indian journal of medical research, was jointly conducted by Indian council of medical research (ICMR) and AIIMS and national centre for disease control (NCDC) using data collected under the national clinical registry for covid-19 (NCRC).

# Literacy, numeracy mission

• The centre’s new mission to ensure that every class-3 child has foundational literacy and numeracy within five years will be rolled out on monday.

• Although the national education policy had included a 2025 deadline to achieve the goal, the centre has pushed back the target date to 2026-27 due to covid-19 pandemic.