The employers, many of whom had virtually abandoned the migrant labourers, are sending them train and even flight tickets to fetch them back as factories whir back to life, construction activities pick up and the sowing season sets in.
The Union home ministry and the labour ministry have asked state governments to coordinate with the chief labour commissioner's (CLC's) office to give a comprehensive data of all the migrant workers by April 11.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has allocated portfolios of newly created departments among ministers, keeping Civil Aviation with himself, an official notification said.
Leaders of the Delhi units of trade unions, including All India Trade Union Congress and Indian National Trade Union Congress, on Tueday charged the government with being indifferent towards the problems of Indian migrant workers and demanded a migration policy for them.
Taking selfies from the stands and sitting on the grassy pitch, thousands of migrant workers gathered in a Doha stadium to watch the opening match of the first World Cup in the Middle East.
Appearing impatient to return to their native places, migrant workers pelted stones at police in Surat district of Gujarat on Monday, leaving nearly a dozen personnel injured, one of them an IPS officer, and also held protests elsewhere during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, officials said.
The migrant workers were walking along the rail tracks apparently to escape the attention of police. A video clip from the scene of the tragedy shows the bodies of migrant workers lying on the tracks and nearby with their meagre personal belongings scattered around.
In Sandelerbil village alone in the Hingalgunj block in the Sundarbans, around 36 families from the Scheduled Caste community migrated from Tamil Nadu in March, where they had been working in a gas oven factory. A majority awaits dues promised but not paid. The story is no different in the villages of Manipur, Atapur, and Amtoli under the Sandeshkhali block in the Sundarbans.
The Election Commission is set to introduce artificial intelligence-based verification systems during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in West Bengal to prevent the inclusion of fake or deceased voters, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Forced to stay indoors for the last few days in view of the prevailing situation and the curfew, the workers and their families, including children, said they have been surviving on crumbs.
The Bihar government plans to provide insurance cover to migrant workers from the state, who are scattered all across the country to earn livelihood.
Saudi Arabia has scrapped its decades-old Kafala system, freeing 13 million migrant workers, including 2.6 million Indians, from restrictive employer control and exit visa rules.
Older Russians recall Mithun Chakraborty and the song Jimmy Jimmy Aaja from the movie Disco Dancer.
There was no confirmation yet on whether the migrant had tested positive for coronavirus.
Police said they received information that migrant labourers in the Jouria area of Yamunanagar had come out in large numbers violating social distancing and lockdown norms. When police reached there, a few migrants started throwing stones at them. Many factories where the migrants worked are located in the area near which the workers have been putting up during the lockdown.
'The day tilkut gets the GI tag, it will be a big hit for its health benefits during the cold season in the USA, Canada and Europe.'
The migrants were ferried to their villages in sanitised buses arranged by the Jharkhand government to take them home after preliminary medical screening at the station, officials said.
When missiles fly in this region, they are never just aimed at military targets.
'When you compare Bihar's poverty from its earlier times, then there is a huge difference. Things have improved a lot. And migration has played an important role in reducing poverty.'
In her third letter to Kumar since the SIR began, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of political bias, insensitivity, and high-handedness during the exercise.
Young Mumbai batsman Sarfaraz Khan, who had a dream domestic season last year, is playing good Samaritan during the ongoing nationwide lockdown. Sarfaraz, his younger brother Mushir and his father-cum-coach Naushad have been distributing food packets to migrant workers, in their native village in Uttar Pradesh, who are travelling back to their respective homes.
Around 128.6 million people were employed in the unincorporated sector during July-September of FY26, showed the latest quarterly bulletin of unincorporated sector enterprises released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Tuesday. This is slightly higher than the 128.57 million in the previous quarter.
From appointment letters becoming mandatory to gig workers receiving social security to enhanced rights for women and contract labour, the changes reflect India's attempt to balance ease of doing business with stronger worker welfare.
'I am jobless and don't have savings to sustain. Better I go home and do farming. If I am lucky, I will survive'
New data reveals a significant drop in UK net migration, with Indian students and workers topping the list of those leaving the country.
After covering several kilometres on foot along with their families, the labourers, who reached Charbagh bus station in Lucknow on Saturday and Sunday, said there was no point staying in Delhi as they have exhausted their funds and it would be better for them to return to their homes.
Will Mamata's bhasha andolan campaign sway Bengal's bhadralok before the 2026 election in the TMC's favour?
'It is because we treat them as our own people, and there is no difference between owners and workers here.'
This divergence is likely to intensify political dynamics both within the party and across the state, particularly as the opposition Mahagathbandhan -- comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress, and Left parties -- has been aggressively protesting the SIR and demanding its immediate scrapping.
PM Modi, BJP president J P Nadda, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal have all expressed grief over the incident.
"An Indian citizen has the right of movement in the entire country. There is no mention of territorial rights anywhere in our Constitution," he said.
Saudi Arabia relies more heavily on migrant labour than any other large country.
The second phase of the Systematic Integration of Rolls (SIR) in West Bengal is causing distress among elderly, disabled, and vulnerable voters, leading to political accusations ahead of the assembly polls.
The corona-fuelled lockdown having shattered their dreams, they are now walking, cycling and hitchhiking hundreds of miles under an unforgiving sun blazing down at over 40 degrees to reach their homes in an impoverished Bihar, where an uncertain future awaits them.
With a surge in coronavirus cases in Delhi and its neighbouring cities, migrant workers and daily wagers fear another round of lockdown could push them into a severe financial crisis from which they might never recover.
All along, we were told SIR was an essential exercise carried out as part of the Election Commission's regular duties. But now that the ideological mentor of the ruling party has declared that SIR is a means of detecting infiltrators, one understands the unseemly haste with which it is being carried out, notes Jyoti Punwani.
The Supreme Court has questioned the central government about the possibility of constructing a border wall to prevent illegal immigration, drawing parallels with the US border policy. The court also addressed concerns about the detention and deportation of Bengali-speaking migrant workers.
'MGNREGA was about a guaranteed right to work.' 'The new law does not guarantee employment at all.' 'It removes everything that made MGNREGA a legal guarantee.'
The Rajya Sabha currently has 19 government Bills pending, with the oldest dating back to 1992. These bills cover a range of issues including population control, rent control, seed quality, migrant workers, and tribal autonomy.
Their dreams of returning home finally taking wing after two months of lockdown, 10 migrant workers are flying to Bihar thanks to their employer, a Delhi farmer, who bought their plane tickets. Their flight to the Bihar capital Patna is at 6 am on Thursday and the men, who planned to go home in April, can't believe they are going to their villages in Samastipur -- not walking or cycling thousands of kilometres, or scrambling for a seat on a bus or train, but on a plane.
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