'A 38-year-old man who had walked 200 km from the national capital to reach home died on the Delhi-Agra highway on Saturday morning. Ranveer Singh’s destination, his family in a remote village in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, was still 100 km away. Ranveer Singh’s body has been sent for an autopsy. It will be released to his family after the formality is complete. The two men, who were accompanying Ranveer Singh, told the police that Ranveer Singh complained of chest pain sometime before he collapsed a short distance...'
'...Ever since businesses took harsh steps due to Covid-19, migrants, constituting a large chunk of the country’s unorganised sector, expressed their frustration through a mass exodus from several cities without caring about the prescribed social distancing norms. With luggage on their shoulders, toddlers in arms and other family members by the side, thousands of them decided to leave the cities they had known as their own, catching the administration unawares...'
'Four migrant workers were killed and three others were injured when they were hit by a tempo near Virar in the wee hours of Saturday. The group wanted to cross over the Maharashtra-Gujarat boundary but were refused entry. Initial reports said that they wanted to go to their home state of Rajasthan...'
'On March 24, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a complete nationwide lockdown for 21 days—one of the strongest national measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The decision marked a sharp turn. Just a week ago, the world’s second-most populous country was being seen as a mysterious anomaly that had remained relatively unscathed from the deadly pandemic. But then the math caught up. As the lockdown began, the number of confirmed cases in the country was beginning to grow exponentially, rising to 933 by March 28.
'At the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal and its immediate surrounding areas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, the mass evacuation of thousands of daily-wage labourers and migrant workers is underway. Over the last five days, the national lockdown imposed to tackle COVID-19 has left a multitude of blue collar workers stranded, with nowhere to go. At the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal and its immediate surrounding areas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, the mass evacuation of thousands of daily-wage labourers and migrant workers is underway.
'Eight persons, including an 18-month-old boy who were part of a group of migrant labourers returning home in Karnataka’s Raichur district, died in a road accident on the outskirts of Hyderabad late Friday night. In view of the nationwide lockdown, 31 migrant laborers employed by a construction firm in Suryapet district of Telangana were traveling in a Bolero Max open truck when their vehicle was hit by a truck loaded with mangoes from the rear. The incident occurred at around 10.30 pm at Pedda Golconda on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) towards Hyderabad...'
'In four days and 200 km of walking, Pravin Kumar, 46, was stopped at every checkpoint. Police checked whether he and 11 others with him had their Aadhaar cards and then waved them on, with an instruction to maintain “social distancing”. So, for their only proper meal in 65 hours, offered by a voluntary organisation, the 12 sat one metre apart in Dehradun on Thursday afternoon. Kumar, employed like the others at the Char Dham Road Project’s Hanuman Chatti site in Uttarkashi, says he knows the value of hygiene in the time of coronavirus.
'Maharashtra Police on Thursday found over 300 migrant workers crammed inside two container trucks which were ostensibly carrying essential commodities from Telangana to Rajasthan. The shocked officials found that the workers, who hailed from Rajasthan, had chosen this surreptitious and dangerous mode of travel as they wanted to return home. Reports of desperate migrant workers heading home amid lockdown on account of coronavirus pandemic are emerging from many parts of the country...'
'The Gujarat government on Friday decided that no migrant workers will be allowed to travel back to their natives during the lockdown period. The officials said that district administrations have been instructed to provide food and accommodation to such workers during the lockdown and stop their movement. Earlier this week, thousands of daily wage earners started going back to their native homes on foot in neighbouring Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat after the lockdown was announced.
'...Left without work after the lockdown was imposed nationwide to contain COVID-19, 30,000 tribal labourers from Jhabua have returned from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Another 30,000 from the district are left stranded in these States. With transport suspended, shops shuttered and food supply halted, some families hired pick-up trucks, while others hailed jeeps. But scores lumbered their way back to western Madhya Pradesh, carrying luggage, water cans and infants...'
