·       Afghanistan will host their three-match ODI series against Netherlands in Doha, Qatar in January next year, the country's cricket board (ACB) said.

·       The three-match ODI series will begin on January 21st, with the second and third game set to be played on January 23rd and 25th respectively. All three games will be staged at Asian Town Cricket Stadium, Doha, Qatar.

·       Afghanistan grabbed 30 points after whitewashing Ireland 3-0 in the first series in January under the ODI Super League, which counts towards qualification for the 2023 World Cup. The series against Netherlands will be the second assignment followed by the third in Zimbabwe between January and February.

·       Afghanistan is scheduled to host Australia & Pakistan and will then travel to India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in their away three series at the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League till 2023. The ICC Cricket World Cup Super League is a 13-team tournament that will take place across two years and will determine which teams qualify to the CWC 2023.

·       India, who are the hosts in ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, and the other top seven teams from the super league, will qualify automatically for the World Cup.

·       An Army helicopter carrying senior defence officers including Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat crashed near Coonoor in the nearby hilly Nilgiris district on  Dec 8.

·       Fourteen people were on board. They included Gen Rawat's wife Madhulika Rawat, Brig LS Lidder, Lt Col Harjinder Singh, Naik Gursewak Singh, Naik Jitendra Kumar, Lance Naik Vivek Kumar, Lance Naik B Sai Teja and Havaldar Satpal .

·       The prime minister-led Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was briefed about a military helicopter crash that led to the death of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and other defence personnel near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu.

·       Besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the meeting was attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

·       National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister PK Misra and Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba also attended the meeting, in which the CCS members were briefed about the tragic incident.

·             A day after the successful test-firing of the Vertical Launch Short Range Surface-to-Air Missile (VL-SRSAM), India on  Dec 8 flight tested the air version of supersonic cruise missile BrahMos from a fighter aircraft off the Odisha coast.

·       The Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos was test-fired from a Sukhoi 30 MK-I aircraft at about 10.30 am paving the way for its serial production.

·       The 8.4 metre BrahMos missile, fastest in the world, has a flight range of 450 km (enhanced from 290 km following India's entry in Missile Technology Control Regime) and carries a conventional warhead up to 300 kg. With high-precision and  devastating power it can cruise at the supersonic speed of Mach 2.8.

BrahMos is a Joint Venture between India (DRDO) and Russia (NPOM) for the development, production and marketing of the supersonic cruise missile. It is a potent offensive missile weapon system already inducted into the tri-services (Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force) of the Indian Armed Forces.

·       Resuming pending tests of its key missile systems, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Dec 7 successfully flight-tested Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile (VL-SRSAM) from a defence test facility off Odisha coast.

·       The indigenously developed missile was test-fired from a static vertical launcher positioned at the Integrated Test Range (ITR). Launched from a canister, the missile, which is yet to get a formal name, intercepted an electronic target at a very low altitude.

·       At least 96 civilians have been killed in Kashmir post the abrogation of Article 370 while 366 terrorists have been neutralised by security forces, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Dec 8  .

·       In a written reply, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai also said that "no Kashmiri Pandit/Hindu has been displaced from the valley" post the repeal of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

·       Replying to another question, Rai said a total of 96 civilians, 81 security forces personnel, and 366 personnel were killed in Kashmir since the repeal of Article 370 till this November.

·       Facebook's parent company Meta  has  said that  it has expanded its ban on postings linked to Myanmar's military to include all pages, groups, and accounts representing advertising from such businesses in February.

·       The February action, which also banned military and military-controlled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram, followed the army's seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

·       The new action came just a day after a high-profile lawsuit was filed in California against Facebook parent Meta Platforms seeking over $150 billion for the company's alleged failure to stop hateful posts that incited violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority by Myanmar's military and its supporters, which crested in 2017.

·       The army, known in Myanmar as the Tatmadaw, was notorious for a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine, which drove more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.

·       Olaf Scholz  has taken  office on Dec 8  as Germany's ninth post-World War II chancellor, succeeding Angela Merkel after her heralded 16-year tenure.

·       Scholz's government takes office with high hopes of modernising the European Union's most populous nation and combating climate change, but faces the immediate challenge of handling Germany's toughest phase yet of the coronavirus pandemic.

·       The 63-year-old, Germany's vice chancellor and finance minister since 2018, brings a wealth of experience and discipline to an untried coalition of his centre-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats.