PTI photographer Atul Yadav recounts his meeting with Rampukar Pandit on a Delhi roadside and the powerful image that captured the tragedy of migrants across India.
The powerful image of the distraught man, struggling to reach home in Begusarai, almost 1,200 km away during the nationwide lockdown, was widely shared across all media, becoming a defining image of the trauma of lakhs of migrant labourers stranded away from home.
Rampukar Pandit, whose mournful face became emblematic of the tragedy faced by poor migrants currently, is currently in hospital, but all he wishes is to return home.
Rampukar's wife Bimal Devi had walked about 3-4 km towards the hospital on Monday when their young distant nephew, on his way to buy ration on a bicycle, saw her and instead of going to a shop offered her a ride to the hospital, Rampukar said.
"The travel time from AIIMS to Hauzkhas is just few minutes on the usual day but today it took over an hour to cover the distance," Sarita, a business executive with a private firm said.
Moderate to heavy rains lashed several parts of Delhi on Wednesday throwing the morning traffic out of gear.
'They treat us like garbage. We are not humans for them'
Maharashtra has the most number of coronavirus cases with 23,401 cases.
Proposals have been received for preparing the project report for the 600-km Delhi-Katra Expressway
While inaugurating the projects, Modi said highways construction has reached 27-km a day from mere 12-km a day during the Congress regime.
Since no effective treatments or vaccine for COVID-19 is available, reducing virus transmission via measures like isolating suspected infected individuals, school closures, and lockdowns are crucial, according to the researchers, including Rajiv Chowdhury from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
It took a lockdown for us in India to even recognise that the plight of migrants needs to be addressed. They were faceless and unrecognised. They were unappreciated and even hounded. They were poorly paid and exploited, notes Ramesh Menon.
Delhi Government's ambitious odd-even scheme garnered mixed response from the commuters with some of them lauding it and a few dubbing it "impractical".
'Flypasts, bands, helicopters dropping flowers over hospitals treating coronavirus patients are cute ideas for an Akshay Kumar film.' 'But when lakhs of workers at the lowest rung of the employment ladder would still be walking back home, this is the true 2020 equivalent of 'let them eat cake,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Delhi's chief minister claims success, but his ambitious odd even scheme's real test could be on Monday.
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