'It is a lonely Ramzan for 48-year-old Abdul Bari in Delhi. While his wife and four children tested positive for COVID-19 and are receiving treatment in hospitals in Delhi, he wished he would be able to spend time with his two kids, 13-year-old Zahra and 12-year-old Arshad Jamal, who tested negative at the Dwarka quaratine centre. "Both tested negative in their first test on 4 April and then the second one on 14 April. The 14 days of quarantine ended two weeks ago, it is over a month today. I do not even know who I can call and ask about them.
'For two days, Sathya*, a single mother and her adolescent daughters drank only water. They were starving inside their slum tenement in Perumbakkam on the outskirts of Chennai until a neighbour shared rice which she had received from an NGO. Their free ration from the government had run out three weeks into the lockdown. “I was ashamed to ask for help with food and I couldn’t borrow money from anyone since no one has work here anymore,” says Sathya who is a housekeeper in a multinational corporation nearby.
'The Delhi Police’s special cell on Thursday booked Delhi Minorities Commission chairman Zafarul Islam Khan under sedition charges, two days after he allegedly made “provocative” remarks in his social media posts. Joint commissioner of police (special cell) Neeraj Thakur said that a first information report (FIR) has been registered against Khan under Indian Penal Code sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony)...'
'The National Investigation Agency on Thursday arrested a former village head from Shopian in South Kashmir in connection with a case registered in January, after suspended Jammu and Kashmir Police Deputy Superintendent Davinder Singh was caught with Hizbul Mujahideen militants, The Tribune reported. Tariq Ahmad Mir had unsuccessfully contested the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket, according to The Times of India. Mir was involved in providing logistical support to the militants and was in touch with Singh...'
'A domestic worker has been working in a South Delhi household for the past 15 years but her employer has bothered neither attended her telephone call nor called her back to check about her well-being since the COVID-19 lockdown that started on March 25. Like her, many domestic workers across the country are just abandoned by their employers in the hour of crisis, asking them not to come to their houses for work, denied full payment for March and not even bothering to pay them in April...'
'Sheetal Pawar, who lives in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore, was in Mumbai’s Bhandup area to attend her sister’s wedding when the nationwide lockdown was announced in March. Pawar, a multidrug resistant tuberculosis patient, had sufficient medicines, but getting someone to administer a daily Amikacin injection, became impossible.
'...15-year-old Babita is from Jhansi. She came to Phalodi for work, but this unprecedented lockdown has her hustling for the most basic of needs. She got her periods five days ago, and is using ash smeared on pieces of cloth she’s tearing from the three sets of clothes she had. She said, “Bahar sote hain, baarish hoti hai tab bhi, kapde dhoke vahi pehen rahi hun.” (We sleep outside even when it rains, I wash the clothes when the blood leaks, so I can wear the same clothes again.)...
'In the late evening on 21st April 2020, Arnab Goswami, the Editor-in-chief of Republic TV, in purported exercise of his right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, made certain comments against former Congress President, Sonia Gandhi. He stated that Mrs. Gandhi is "happy" and will be sending a "report to Italy" in order to gain "praises" as she has gotten "saints" killed in a State which is governed partly by the political party she belongs to.
'Amidst the nationwide lockdown to contain the COVID-19, Kashmiris stranded in Jaipur, Rajasthan, were allegedly beaten up and harassed by the police when they were out “to buy basic essentials”. Speaking to The Kashmir Walla, Altaf Dar, a resident of Bandipora, north Kashmir, who has been working as a caterer in Hassanpora, Jaipur, claims that he was beaten up by the police when he had gone out in search of ration in the evening of 29 April. Dar, 23, added that his group of twenty-five people was short of money and had run out of essentials.
'More than one-third of the world’s population is under lockdown. The recent UN Women’s Report titled ‘Covid-19 and ending violence against women and girls’ has reported that since the outbreak of Covid-19, violence against women, and particularly domestic violence, has increased in several countries as security, health and financial worries create tensions and strain accentuated by the cramped and confined living conditions of a lockdown. Billions of people are now sheltering at home from the global impact of Covid-19...'
