'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.
'Union home minister Amit Shah’s offer to grant permission to politicians to visit Jammu and Kashmir has opened him to Opposition ridicule and charges of misrepresentation... The Opposition deployed sarcasm and cited specific instances to challenge Shah after he said at the Times Now conclave on Thursday that “they (Rahul Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury) never went to Kashmir after they were stopped once. They can go now.
'After receiving temporary bans from four airlines for heckling television news anchor Arnab Goswami on a IndiGo flight, stand-up comic Kunal Kamra Wednesday said it was “not shocking” that the airlines took action against him for exercising his “right to speech”. On Tuesday, Kamra shared a video which showed him accosting Goswami onboard an IndiGo flight. Hours later, IndiGo and Air India suspended him for his “unacceptable behaviour” based on Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s advisory.
'A Delhi court granted bail to Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekar Azad Wednesday in a case related to anti-CAA protests at Delhi’s Daryaganj. While hearing Azad’s bail plea today, Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau imposed certain conditions on his bail and said the Bhim Army chief should not be in Delhi for the next four weeks. The judge expressed concern about security in Delhi given elections are around the corner. “Azad has to mark his presence with SHO in Saharanpur every Saturday for the next 4 weeks.
'The government of Jammu and Kashmir, which is under the direct control of the Union government, has put over 450 people – including journalists, lawyers, businessmen and politicians – on a ‘no-fly list’, preventing them from travelling abroad, the Economic Times has reported. The move, which comes in the wake of the Centre’s decision to rescind J&K’s autonomy, is aimed at ensuring Kashmiri voices do not influence international public opinion.
'Prevented from visiting Kashmir last week, a delegation of activists lashed out at the government for seeking to project a false narrative of “normalcy” in the valley. “If everything is normal, then what is the need for maintaining a clampdown in the valley for two months?” questioned Sandeep Pandey, Ramon Magsaysay Award winner and head of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, a network of grassroots organisations in India, who was a part of the delegation.
'On August 31, Kashmiri journalist and author Gowhar Geelani was stopped by immigration authorities at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport as he was heading to Germany. Geelani, who works as an editor at German media organisation Deutsche Welle, was to attend a training programme in Bonn. Geelani said that the immigration official did not give him any reasons for stopping him but they kept repeating one line: “Aapko pata hai dikkat hai Kashmir mein” – You know there is a problem in Kashmir.
'...According to the 2017 International Migration Report, India tops the world in the number of migrants sent abroad with 16.59 million while Mexico stands second with 13 million. The number of Indian migrants living outside the country has more than doubled over the past 25 years, growing about twice as fast as the world’s total migrant population. India also receives more remittances from its own legal and illegal immigrants than any other country in the world, amounting to roughly 3% of the country’s gross domestic product.
