The death toll for the worst ever migrant disaster in the Mediterranean could be as high as 950 said reports even as Italy's coastguard coordinated the search for survivors and bodies.
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
The Assam government has taken the initiative to pay workers their wages electronically and has asked banks to open branches adjacent to tea gardens and install ATMs in estates.
'This is a critical story that Modi seems to grasp far better -- almost instinctively -- in comparison with most of his predecessors as prime ministers,' notes M K Bhadrakumar.
Termed 'Unlock 1', the Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
Chief executives in the real estate, consumer products, automobiles, construction, and textile sectors said they were all expecting workers to re-join in the next 45-60 days, which would help them ramp-up production from July.
Born in India, Radhakrishnan, 41, went to school in Singapore before moving to New Zealand to further her education.
When the lockdown was lifted last year, Rasikbhai Kotadiya, who runs a powerloom unit in the Kim-Pipodara industrial area on the outskirts of Surat, was left with only four workers out of the 48 that he used to employ to run his 128 looms. Though the economy had been unlocked, his textile unit, and that of thousands of others, struggled to resume operations. By the last week of May, nearly 700,000 of Surat's 1.2-1.5 million migrant workers, left high and dry with no pay during the lockdown, had returned home. In Laskana, another textile weaving hub in Surat, the powerlooms were all but silent, with only 2,000 of the total 55,000 looms churning out grey cloth at a snail's pace.
Bedlam erupted in the House for a few minutes and continued till all BJP members staged a walkout in protest.
'I have dedicated the video to the kindest people of this great nation.'
A noted Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata this year will depict the agitation over the farm laws in the country, besides the killing of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh.
'Listen to the government's advice. Self-isolation for a few weeks may give you many more years.'
Preliminary investigations have revealed that a signal was given to Coromandel Express to enter the main line but it was taken off and the train entered the loop line, where it crashed into a goods train parked there.
She couldn't get a seat on the bus and neither could her son Sahab Lal, who worked as a construction labourer, and the rest of the family, all waiting to return to their village in Bhadohi. The disappointment was almost too much to handle for the elderly woman, perhaps in her 70s, who had come to Gurgaon a few months ago from the village and is now desperate to leave.
'There was already a cash crunch and this (lockdown) has created more trouble.'
Two German broadcasters have reportedly alleged that they were detained and imprisoned by Qatari Police while they tried to investigate the plight of migrant labourers working in the preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
'To our Moroccan friends: Congratulations on this beautiful journey. You are making football history.'
Several countries like the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Singapore have already banned travellers from India as well as other South Asian countries.
Another 8 pm prime ministerial speech. Will this one too lead to a scramble and chaos like his previous 8 pm telecasts?
So far 4,596 Shramik trains have operated since May 1.
'Usually, urban wage rates are 50 per cent higher than rural wage rates. But, this could be narrowing very rapidly now,' points out Mahesh Vyas, CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
'What's the first thing you're going to do when the world is normal again?'
India's economy is projected to slow to 6.5 per cent in the fiscal year starting April but will remain the fastest growing major economy in the world as it fared better in dealing with the extraordinary set of challenges the globe has faced, the Economic Survey 2022-23 said on Tuesday. India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6.5 per cent in 2023-24 compares with an estimated 7 per cent expansion in current fiscal year (April 2022 to March 2023) and 8.7 per cent in the previous year. Like the rest of the world, India too faced an extraordinary set of challenges in tightening financial conditions and supply chain disruptions from a prolonged war in Europe but "withstood them better than most economies", the annual document detailing the state of the economy said.
Dev Uthani Ekadashi will be observed on November 23, when voting for the 200-member Rajasthan assembly will also be held.
'Aggressively stepping up vaccinations will constitute the most enduring stimulus of all in the coming quarters,' observes Sajjid Z Chinoy, Chief India Economist at J P Morgan.
Their 17-day arduous journey, during which they claimed to covered a distance of over 700 kms, finally ended on Thursday after they reached Lanjhi in Balaghat district,
A worker has died in a "work-related fatality" at the site of a 2022 World Cup stadium in Qatar, the country's World Cup organizing body said late on Saturday.
Youth unemployment (ages 15 to 29) is higher than the national average of 12.4 per cent in Telangana (14.2 per cent) and Rajasthan (13 per cent), followed by Chhattisgarh (6.7 per cent) and MP (6 per cent).
Dutch fans right to boycott World Cup-Van Gaal
Nepal's Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Monday inaugurated the country's second international airport built by China that will help connect Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha and a major tourist and pilgrimage destination, to Buddhist circuits in South Asia as well as to the rest of the world.
This will be the fifth meeting of the prime minister with the chief ministers since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The four-and-a-half-year-old son of Bihari migrants based in Delhi died at the railway station in Muzaffarpur on arrival by a 'Shramik Special' train, while his father desperately hunted for some milk he believed will save his child.
Bureaucratic insensitivity gave way to compassion with the state administration, police and passersby joining forces to help the stream of Indians fleeing Delhi.
'It will take a long time for people's memory to be misled by a prime minister who is so arrogant and who refuses to acknowledge his own faults.'
'India has been cleaved into two by a government that has shown amazing consistency in cleaving.' 'One India is gasping for life, and the other is doing yoga and clapping from balconies and WhatsApp groups,' observes Debashish Chatterjee.
Nothing is going to dramatically open up on May 3. There will be too many ifs and buts and terms and conditions and guidelines in leading one's life in various zones, reveals Sheela Bhatt.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances