Police authorities around the country are on full alert as the country prepares to hold the annual people’s congress. Entertainment and hobby aircraft including planes, helicopters, gliders, drones and hot-air balloons have been grounded until March 16, Beijing’s Legal Evening News cited police as saying. Individuals and organisations owning such machines must register with civil aviation, sports and public security authorities, the newspaper said. While commercial airlines will be unaffected, companies will not be able to use aircraft for advertising purposes, and the taking of aerial photos has also been banned during the congress. More: Almost nude man protests against NPC’s ‘naked dictatorship’ The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress will start tomorrow and Saturday, respectively. In a national teleconference on Monday, Guo Shengkun, the minister of public security, called on police authorities to tighten controls throughout the congress period. Guo inspected two security checkpoints in suburban Beijing’s Fangshan district and Zhuozhou in neighbouring Hebei province on Monday, telling police officers to ensure all people, vehicles and items entering Beijing were “clean”, according to the ministry’s website. In Guangzhou, more than 2,000km from Beijing, 1,300 police officers from the city’s emergency and counterterrorism units have been deployed. They have been working around the clock since yesterday. The Yangcheng Commando Unit, the city’s special force for counterterrorism and riot control, was on standby, Yangcheng Evening News reported. Last March, 13 people, including an auxiliary police officer, were injured in an attack at Guangzhou Railway Station. Police shot dead one knife attacker and arrested another at the scene. Thousands of out-of-town delegates descend on the capital city every March for the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, to vote for the approval of new laws and decide the political and economic agenda for the year ahead. This year, a group of armed police reportedly moved three bunk beds to their rooms in the five-star Beijing Capital Hotel to protect delegates staying at the hotel, news portal thepaper.cn said.