Two Al-Badr terrorists, responsible for the recent attacks on migrant labourers in Kashmir, were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Pulwama district, the police said on Thursday.
The gravity of the situation hit Tajinder Singh Dhillon hard when he happened to tune in to a news channel one evening a week ago.
'By his words, actions, and body language during their joint press appearance wanted to convey his personal respect and, more broadly, his desire to work closely with India.'
All the real and imagined achievements of the Modi government's first year in power during its second term in power has been dwarfed by the worst human crisis India has seen in 70 years.
With more than 21 lakh migrant workers returning to the state as per official data, the Nitish Kumar government faces an enormous challenge in providing jobs for them.
Police officials said over 5,000 people gathered at Anand Vihar including at ISBT as well as the railway station and the numbers were rising.
The Congress leader, dressed in black pants and a white kurta, was seen sitting on the footpath and asking migrant labourers near the Sukhdev Vihar flyover about their ordeal.
A controversy erupted on Monday after several opposition parties demanded that migrant workers should not be charged for the train tickets. While the Congress offered to pay for them, the Bharatiya Janata Party said the railways was already providing subsidised tickets bearing 85 percent of the travel costs.
A 48-page report by Amnesty, Reality Check 2021, said that practices such as withholding salaries and charging workers to change jobs was still rife, despite labour reforms in 2014, as the country prepares to host the soccer tournament next year.
'Why has this turned out to be one of the greatest humanitarian crisis that has caught the Centre and the states in a bind with no answers to this unexpected tsunami?' asks Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
The seven battleground states in this election cycle were Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.
The United States hired a chartered flight to deport Indian nationals who were staying in the country illegally, the Department of Homeland Security has said, noting that this has been done in cooperation with the Indian government.
The documentary captures the pain and helplessness the migrant labourers and their families are feeling, as they long to return to their villages after losing their means of livelihood in cities due to the lockdown over the novel coronavirus pandemic.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under fire from the Opposition and refugee activists for classifying an increase in the number of refugees landing on the country's shores seeking asylum as an "invasion" by migrants on the border.
However, scores of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu were unable to vote on Monday due to their names missing from the electoral rolls.
'A government whose policies are focused around making the life of ordinary citizens, specially the most deprived sections, richer; a government that prioritises education, health and transport, that doesn't treat its citizens as subjects who must come to it for everything, is rare in our country.' 'When such a government is thrown out, one is left stunned,' notes Jyoti Punwani.
Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha assured the newly elected legislative assembly on Monday that the Omar Abdullah government will make all efforts for the restoration of full statehood and constitutional guarantees available to the state.
For states like West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, where migration is high, the return of workers could be as much an opportunity as a liability. All states have launched portals to register migrant workers; additional fields like nature of employment and remuneration in the past 2-3 years are being added to help in skill mapping.
'Ensure they board special trains to reach their native places'
The portal, which has been tentatively named by the labour and employment ministry as the National Portal for COVID-19 Affected Unorganised Migrant Workers, will gather the details of all the unorganised sector workers who are stranded in relief camps, residential or industrial clusters.
'There are 8-12 members living in the same accommodation. While in pre-lockdown days, since most were out on work, social tension among them was less because of limited interaction. But now, no food and livelihood, along with having to live in cramped conditions, is taking a toll on their mental health.'
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader also said that the troubles of the hapless workers grew manifold, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, as their employers did not implement the provisions of the existing Inter State Migrant Labour Act, 1979.
India men dropped their first point, but carried enough steam to beat Hungary to maintain a clean slate in the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad.
According to the report, the magnitude of internal migration is about two-and-a-half times that of international migration.
A meeting convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday afternoon will see the leaders of around 20 opposition parties come together on a common platform through video-conferencing.
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.
Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi scored his fourth victory on the trot and gave India an early lead in the match against Serbia in the fourth round of the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad.
The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.
'For them life is very difficult since there has been no universalisation of PDS.' 'And let's understand that there are people who need ration instead of cooked meals.'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the worst Covid-19 affected state of Maharashtra to be more vigilant and make concerted efforts in identifying and sending the migrant workers still stranded there to their native places. The top court, which directed all states and Union territories to transport all stranded workers by train, bus or other modes within 15 days, said there were "huge lapses" by the Maharashtra authorities in dealing with the issue and asked the government there to announce a suitable place for their registration.
Launching the scheme, Modi said during the nationwide lockdown, the talent from cities returned to villages and it will now give a boost to development of rural areas. The 'Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan' will be implemented on a mission mode in 125 days in 116 districts of six states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha -- that received the maximum numbers of migrant workers back.
Though authorities and NGOs have made arrangements for their food, most of them want to go back to their native places to escape the hardship brought by the sweeping curbs.
"The mortal remains of the 16 migrant labourers, who died after they were run over by a freight train near Aurangabad yesterday, were sent to Madhya Pradesh on a special train -- carrying migrant labourers to the state -- on Friday night," said an official.
Labour ministry guidelines say workers returning to cities must get housing, health insurance, facemasks. The Centre has also asked states to issue guidelines to employers to take care of the needs of migrant workers.
'The government there at one point did not even permit migrant labourers to return...we do not want to say anything against anyone but the situation there was not handled properly'
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the government's decision to transport migrant workers, stranded during the lockdown, to their villages.
To capture the information regarding movement of migrants and facilitate the smooth movement of stranded persons across the states, National Disaster Management Authority has developed an online dashboard namely, National Migrant Information System, on the existing NDMA-GIS portal
Gandhi noted that lakhs of migrants continue to walk hundreds of kilometres to reach back their homes without food, water, medicines and cash. She also accused the central government and the Railways of completely ignoring the demands made by the Congress for ensuring the safe and free travel of migrant workers and labourers to their homes.
Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee has said the current situation in Bangladesh is unlikely to trigger a fresh round of exodus of minority Hindus into India. He believes that migration is primarily driven by social networks and economic opportunities rather than persecution. Banerjee, known for his work in poverty alleviation, further emphasized that India's overt preference for Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in the past has been a significant factor in their migration, rather than attacks on the community.
The group, comprising on 147 women and 20 men, were airlifted by an Air Asia chartered flight from Kochi to the Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar.
