The Government of India has decided to launch a massive rural public works scheme, 'Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan', to "empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens". Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch this scheme on June 20 through video conference in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
The obsession for migrating to the US is visible mostly in Majha and Doaba regions of Punjab, he further said.
What despots and dictators, jammers and competitors, had not managed to do in 83 years -- what the Soviet Union had failed to counter during the Cold War; what China had failed to crush during the Tiananmen Square uprising -- a US President had succeeded with his own hand, notes Krishna Prasad.
A day after opposition parties, including the Congress launched a scathing attack against the Union government and the railways for charging money from migrants for the travel, sources in the railways said the national transporter is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service for the special trains, and it has run 67 such trains carrying around 67,000 stranded migrants since May 1--- incurring an expenditure of over Rs 50 crore.
The Congress chief said citizens are making tremendous efforts for a better tomorrow, "therefore we must make all efforts to ensure that the purpose of the lockdown is not defeated by making the most vulnerable bear its cost."
According to the food ministry, about 142 lakh migrants will benefit in Uttar Pradesh and in Bihar (86.45 lakh), Maharasthra (70 lakh), West Bengal (60.1 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (54.64 lakh), Rajasthan (44.66 lakh), Karnataka (40.19 lakh), Gujarat (38.25 lakh), Tamil Nadu (35.73 lakh), Jharkhand (26.37 lakh), Andhra Pradesh (26.82 lakh) and Assam (25.15 lakh).
Rohit, a young man from Punjab, India, was deported from the United States after a perilous journey that cost him his life savings and left his family in financial ruin. He had been promised legal entry to the U.S. by a travel agent in Amritsar, but his hopes were dashed when he was apprehended for illegally crossing the border. The ordeal highlights the risks associated with illegal migration and the exploitation faced by vulnerable individuals seeking a better life.
Noting there have been instances of "excess" by police and paramilitary personnel against the migrant workers, the court also asked authorities to consider "withdrawal" of criminal cases against some of them for violating social distancing norms.
While 287 trains have already reached their destinations, 79 trains are in transit, officials said. Out of these 287 trains, 127 terminated in Uttar Pradesh, 87 in Bihar, 24 in Madhya Pradesh, 20 in Odisha, 16 in Jharkhand, four in Rajasthan, three in Maharashtra, two each in Telangana and West Bengal, and one each in Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, the officials said.
The move came even as deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, while speaking in the state assembly earlier in the day, sought to go by the version of the Tamil Nadu DGP who has rubbished reports of attacks on Hindi-speaking people in that state.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, facing flak for his remark that there are no illegal migrants in the state, on Wednesday claimed that he was misquoted as he had only mentioned that as per voters list, there are no illegal migrants post 1971.
India has expressed concern to the US authorities over the treatment of deportees on a flight that landed on February 5, particularly with respect to the use of shackles, especially on women. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has also registered its concerns regarding the need to accommodate the religious sensitivities and food preferences of the deportees. The US side has confirmed that no women or children were restrained on the deportation flights that landed in India on 15th and 16th February, 2025.
'The BJP lacks a credible mass leader who matches Mamata Banerjee's popularity.' 'Given the division of votes among Opposition parties, the West Bengal government's dole-giving strategy, and the consolidation of the poor, significant sections of scheduled caste groups and Muslim minorities behind the ruling party, it will be difficult to dislodge the Trinamool from power.'
The seven battleground states in this election cycle were Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.
Thackeray said he was in constant touch with the Centre over the issue of running more trains to ferry migrant labourers, stranded due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, to their native places.
With lakhs of these workers stranded on highways and inter-state bus terminus, the government stepped in and asked states and union territories to immediately set up relief camps for migrant workers and others who are returning to their home states or trying to do so during the nationwide lockdown period.
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.
Aaditya Thackeray on Wednesday sought to distance himself from the strident "anti-migrant" stance that the Shiv Sena, founded by his late grandfather Bal Thackeray, has often been accused of.
Far from his native Uzbekistan, labour migrant Rustam Mustafakulov has found a second home in the World Cup host city of St Petersburg
'HEADLINE HUNTING. A NUMBER -20 LAKH CRORES. NO DETAILS'
'When compared to many of America's treaty allies in Asia, Modi 3.0 is on a much stronger footing.'
Union officials said with increasing possibility of further extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, several auto and taxi drivers are going to their native places in their black and yellow coloured auto rickshaws and taxis.
Families of illegal immigrants from Punjab who were deported from the US are facing a crushing debt they took to facilitate their travel to America. They allege that travel agents used unfair means to facilitate the youths' travel without their knowledge and are seeking strict action against them. The families are burdened by the debt they took on hoping for a better future and are appealing to the government for help.
A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao refused to entertain an application seeking a direction to the Centre to ask all district magistrates to identify stranded migrant workers and provide shelter, food to them before ensuring their free transportation to native places in view of the recent incident at Aurangabad in which 16 workers were mowed down by a goods train.
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.
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.
Thousands of migrants were stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was enforced on March 25, many even attempting to walk home.
India men dropped their first point, but carried enough steam to beat Hungary to maintain a clean slate in the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad.
Several opposition members, including from the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, also pointed out that the government took almost two months to impose the lockdown after the first case came to light in January, and claimed the delay had proved costly.
Qatar, host nation of the 2022 World Cup, is still doing little to improve conditions for migrant workers despite promising reform last year, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
Cautioning that there will be social and psychological consequences for the rest of the country too, Guha said the migrant tragedy could have been averted or at least minimised if Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given them a week's notice to return home before the lockdown kicked in.
The migrants demanded that the district administration should arrange for their return to their hometowns in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and other states.
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.
'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.'
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.
'I saw several people on roads who could not even afford to have one meal and were struggling to survive. I and some of my friends then thought of doing something to help the daily wagers and needy people'
A migrant worker from Bihar was shot dead by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora district, the latest in a series of targeted killings, officials said on Friday.
As the world awaits the end of the global pandemic, rural Bengal might be witnessing a recession unfolding in bits and pieces. With factories and tea gardens closing down, agricultural income falling and storm Aila ravaging a large part of deltaic West Bengal in 2010, migration gradually became a norm.
Hundreds of migrants, who continue to arrive in Europe as they flee the scenes of chaos and brutality of the Islamic State in the Middle East, have created sharp divisions among European Union member states which are increasingly finding it tough to control the massive influx.
