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1. All vehicles entering Assam from Mizoram will be checked for 'illicit drugs', the Assam government says in a notification, days after six men of the Assam Police were killed in an unprecedented clash between the two police forces. The statement follows earlier advisory where the Assam government advised its people not to travel to Mizoram as any threat to their personal safety cannot be accepted. 2. Medical and dental courses in the country will now have a 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 10 per cent for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) under the All India Quota Scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces. 3. The R-factor, which indicates the speed at which COVID-19 infection is spreading in the country, is climbing steadily with Kerala and the Northeastern states occupying top spots and fuelling worries about the pandemic rearing its head again. The roller-coaster Covid figure in Kerala, many say, is the harbinger of the third wave of the virus in the country, expected to arrive by the next week. Of the 4.03 lakh active cases in the country, 1.5 lakh are from Kerala alone accounting for more than 37 per cent of the cases, say government sources. 4. Further relaxing the curbs put in place during the second wave of the Covid pandemic, the West Bengal government gives a go-ahead to cinema halls to open up from Saturday. For now, the cinema halls can host guests up to 50 per cent capacity.