'More than 10,000 Muslim migrant workers from Bihar and West Bengal residing at Painters’ Colony in Jaipur’s Nahri ka Naka area, who have only been given dry ration packets since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 25, took to the streets on Sunday asking to be sent back home. They claimed that only around 400 packets, each containing a total of seven kilograms of flour, pulses, rice and salt, was distributed among 10,000 people last month. This, too, only came after volunteers of the CPI(ML), CPM and CPI in the area intervened.
'The chemical factory that leaked gas into a coastal Indian city on Thursday morning, killing at least 12 people and putting hundreds in hospital, was operating illegally until at least the middle of 2019, documents show. In an affidavit [pdf] filed by LG Polymers in May 2019, as part of its application to expand the plastic plant’s operations, the South Korean multinational admitted it was operating its polystyrene plant without the mandatory environmental clearance from the Indian government...'
'Sixteen migrant labourers, who were trying to return to their home State Madhya Pradesh on foot, were killed on Friday when a goods train ran over them between Jalna and Aurangabad districts, nearly 260 km from here. One was seriously injured, while three escaped. According to the Aurangabad police authorities and railway officials at the Nanded division of the South Central Railway (SCR), 14 were killed on the spot, while two died of their injuries on way to hospital. The incident occurred under the jurisdiction of the Karmad police station in Aurangabad...'
'It is time to retire the trite stories about clear skies and clean rivers because of the economic lockdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. As environment ministers and state governments make it easier for businesses to restart, the toxic gas leak at LG Polymers’ polystyrene plant in Vizag — killing 11 people and exposing 1,100 to the styrene gas — has reminded the world of the folly of viewing environmental due diligence as an impediment to economic activity.
'Hours after Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa met leading property developers of the state, the government has decided to cancel all trains that were to ferry migrant workers to their home town from Wednesday, 6 May. The state government has written to Indian Railways cancelling all trains scheduled from Wednesday. This decision comes even as several migrant workers are struggling to find a train to return home. The Quint has accessed a letter written by N Manjunath Prasad, nodal officer for inter-state travel from the state, claiming that no more trains are required.
'From Aadhaar details to get on Shramik trains, to filthy quarantine centres and police beatings; the journey home is stripping workers of rights and dignity... After being stranded since March—walking back home on foot, peddling their bicycles, hiding in trucks—migrant workers have finally been given a dignified option to travel back home. On 1 May, International Labour Day, the Indian Railways started running “Shramik Special” trains to move them to their home states.
'A 40-year-old Jharkhand man heading home, mostly on foot from Nagpur, collapsed near Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh on Sunday and died a few hours later in a local hospital on Monday morning. “The deceased Ravi Munda (40) was a labourer from Saraikela in Jharkhand, who was working in some private company in Nagpur. His body has been handed over to his brother and cremation will be done in Bilaspur on Wednesday with the help of police,” said IG Bilaspur zone, Dipanshu Kabra...'
'Even as reopening of some factories, shops and companies becomes possible with partial lifting of the lockdown, contractual workers and labourers in Delhi, who spent over a month without job, pay and in many cases food, say they would rather head home than rejoin work. Complaining about how the lockdown period had turned them into “beggars”, many labourers The Indian Express spoke to said they are waiting for trains to start leaving from Delhi.
'The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has sought a report from the chief secretary of Tamil Nadu on a petition from People’s Watch, an NGO, which stated that 1,600 guest workers are starving without food in a Sipcot industrial estate in Kancheepuram district. According to the petition by the Madurai-based NGO, one of their members personally verified information that 1,600 workers engaged in different manufacturing units in the industrial estate have been suffering for about a month now without work...'
'It’s the season for politics over train tickets, even as migrant workers across the country are confused, and struggling to reach home. The BJP on Monday claimed that the Indian Railways has subsidised 85% of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers. It’s only the remaining 15% that the state governments have to pay, they said. This development comes after Sonia Gandhi, interim-Congress president, earlier in the day said that state units of the Congress party will take care of the train fares which migrants are being forced to pay in many parts of the country.
