Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday directed officials to ensure safe evacuation of all Indian citizens from Afghanistan and to provide refuge to Sikhs and Hindus wanting to come to India from there, as he chaired a crucial high-level meeting in the backdrop of the Taliban takeover of the war-torn country, sources said.
Indian evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest. The government is not charging the rescued citizens for the evacuation flights.
There are an estimated 250,000 Indian students in the US, a significantly large numbers of whom are stranded due to the sudden closer of the universities and asked to vacate their hostels and follow stay-at-home order issued by the authorities to contain the spread of the pandemic in the country.
The team reached Dubai on Saturday after being held up for over two hours in the flight, of which close to one hour was mid air
'Jail was very crowded, we were 56 people crammed together. All 56 of us had to use only one toilet'
The passengers included 10 foreigners, according to the state-run Nepal Television.
A 50-year-old fisherman from Gujarat, who was apprehended by Pakistani authorities a year ago on high seas, died in a jail in that country due to unknown reasons, an official said on Monday.
The central government has told the high court that under 'Operation Ganga', in addition to commercial aircrafts, Indian Air Force flights have also been pressed into operation to evacuate the Indians who have crossed into Romania, Poland, Hungary and other neighbouring countries of Ukraine.
Eighteen Indian sailors stuck in China will return to India on February 14, union minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Wednesday.
In a message to the Indians in Ukraine, Partha Satpathy said the situation is 'highly tense and very uncertain' and it is causing a lot of anxiety.
'We are trying to trace them.' 'We feel their phone batteries must have died because they are travelling by road.'
'The situation is very bad there. People are stranded'
After being caught in the perfect storm and conquering near death at sea four years ago, Abhilash Tomy has made seafaring history by coming second in the world's most difficult ocean race. As he sailed to the finish line to welcoming cheers, holding the Indian flag, his remarkable story tells us the amazing things human beings can do.
India does not have any immediate plan to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine and its focus has been on ensuring their safety rather than on anything "larger", the ministry of external affairs said on Thursday.
Amid the prevailing situation in Ukraine due to the rising tensions with Russia, India has advised its citizens to temporarily leave Ukraine.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship arrived in Yokohama, near Tokyo, on February 3 with 3,711 passengers and crew on board, 621 people were found to be infected with the deadly coronavirus after it was diagnosed in a man who disembarked last month in Hong Kong.
Separately, China is also processing requests of thousands of Indian students studying in Chinese universities who have conveyed their interest to re-join their colleges and universities.
Besides him, Brajendra Navnit who served in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has been appointed as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Geneva, Switzerland. Topno is a 1996 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Gujarat cadre.
He said the government is committed to rectify any shortcoming found in the weapon system after enquiry into the incident.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours.
The Delhi high court has struck down a central government office memorandum requiring the judges of the Supreme Court and high courts to obtain political clearance for private visits abroad, saying that such a condition is "uncalled for" in view of the high offices the judges hold.
Three evacuation flights from Romania's capital Bucharest and Hungary's capital Budapest came to India on Tuesday with 616 Indian nationals who were stranded in Ukraine due to the Russian military offensive, officials said.
'When I stepped on Indian soil, I lay down on the ground and kissed my homeland.'
Indian nationals who have reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road will be taken to Bucharest by officials of the Indian government so that they can be evacuated in the two Air India flights, they added.
The government is making efforts to evacuate Indian nationals from Ukraine through its land border crossings with its neighbouring countries and they would then be brought back home, official sources said on Friday.
While the Gujarat government has not specified the exact number of students from the state still stuck in Ukraine, Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani gave an assurance on Thursday that the Centre as well as the Indian Embassy in Ukraine were doing everything possible to ensure the safe return of the students.
Meanwhile, passengers began leaving the ship on Wednesday after the end of a two-week quarantine period that failed to stop the spread of the virus among passengers and crew.
'I was not scared because I knew I had not done anything wrong. And I was walking for a good cause.'
A joint team of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh police has arrested an accomplice of pro-Khalistan terrorists in Lucknow, police said on Tuesday.
Viswanathan Anand was in Germany to play in the Bundesliga chess and before he could return, the travel restrictions came calling in wake of the pandemic.
Wani is a part of the six-member Indian delegation at the Winter Olympics where Jammu and Kashmir skier Arif Khan is the only athlete from the country to have qualified this time.
"Few shots from 30,000 feet! Mid air refuelling of #RafaleJets on their way to #India," the Indian Embassy in France tweeted
In a video address, Putin on Thursday said, "The fact that we are fighting neo-Nazis is proved by how the hostilities are going, nationalist neo-Nazi's units are using foreign mercenaries from the Middle East. Also, they use civilians as human shields, hiding behind their backs and we have facts, pictures of how they deploy heavy weapons in residential areas."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his forces are doing everything to evacuate the stranded Indian citizens, mostly students, from the war-torn eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, according to his office.
The Russian defence ministry on Wednesday said its armed forces are ready to take all necessary measures for the safe evacuation of Indian citizens from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
All expats in Kuwait must respect Kuwait laws and not take part in any type of demonstrations, said the instructions.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, meanwhile, said the sixth flight under India's evacuation mission 'Operation Ganga' left for Delhi from Budapest with 240 Indian nationals.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said India has also approached the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva and requested it to be cognizant of the security interests of the Indian citizens and escort them out, wherever possible, when it starts its operation in Ukraine.
The people cited above said the Indians were taken away for questioning and it is not unusual under the current circumstances.
