Banerjee said on Thursday that her government made arrangements for 105 more trains to bring back people stuck in different parts of the country amid claims by opposition parties that the state was not eager to ferry home stranded labourers and pilgrims.
For those who are unaware of the migrant crisis the EU is facing and wondering just what the fuss is all about, here's an explanation of what's going on.
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.
'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.'
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.
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.
India men dropped their first point, but carried enough steam to beat Hungary to maintain a clean slate in the ongoing 45th Chess Olympiad.
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.
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).
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'HEADLINE HUNTING. A NUMBER -20 LAKH CRORES. NO DETAILS'
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.
Far from his native Uzbekistan, labour migrant Rustam Mustafakulov has found a second home in the World Cup host city of St Petersburg
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 number of Indian students in Kyrgyzstan is estimated to be around 15,000.
The migrants demanded that the district administration should arrange for their return to their hometowns in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and other states.
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.
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.
'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'
Last Wednesday, protestors demanding demolition of a portion of a mosque in Sanjauli area of Shimla had a scuffle with the police and 10 people were injured.
The same testing technique would also be used for monitoring in green zones districts which have reported no cases till now or in the last 21 days, the Union health ministry said while issuing 'Guidelines for RT-PCR based pooled sampling for migrants/returnees from abroad/green zones'.
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.
Six months after the lockdown was imposed, two dozen migrant workers were interviewed across five villages of Prayagraj. As the economy opens up, most of them are either hunting for a job or desperately waiting for a phone call from their previous employers. But the bruises of the lockdown are still fresh in their minds. Somesh Jha reports.
'I like it when my daughter talks in English fluently. She is smarter in maths too than her village friends'
Showing total disregard for the US constitution, Trump has said that this could be the last election to be held in the country. A Trump presidency could lead to mass deportation of undocumented migrants and harsh family separation, warns Aseem Chhabra.
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.
'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.
