Migrant worker names welding shop after Sonu Sood  |  Photo Credit: Twitter

Sonu Sood has been hailed on social media as the best 'supporting' actor for his exemplary work of proving relief to hundreds of migrants amid the coronavirus crisis.

The 46-year-old has proved his benevolence through practical solutions time and again. His work has made him the 'Go-to' man at a time when migrants in many parts of the country were finding it difficult to reach home.

The actor has provided food and necessities for the needy and also arranged special buses and flights to send stranded migrants home.

His campaign for the needy started when he replied to a tweet from a worker who shared his plight and asked the actor if he could send him home. Since then, his social media accounts have been flooded with requests.

Now, his good work is being honoured by those he helped.

Prashant Kumar Pradhan is a 32-year-old plumber from Odisha. He was one of the 168 who was airlifted from Kerala during the nationwide lockdown with the help of Sonu Sood.

Now, the plumber has expressed his gratitude towards the actor with a hearty gesture. Hedecided to name his new welding shop after the actor. It's called 'Sonu Sood Welding Shop'.

"I was working as a plumber in a company near Kochi airport. I was earning around Rs 700 per day. After the lockdown, I lost my job and money and started drying up," Prashant told The Times of India.

He added that he tried returning home via Shramik Special train but failed. At that time, even district officials and local leaders couldn't offer much help.

Just when he thought he wouldn't be able to return home, help came from Sonu Sood.

"Sonu Sood appeared as an angel in our lives. He arranged for a special flight to take us home," said Prashant.

Soon after reaching home, Prashant started looking for a job to meet the expenses of his family. Recently, he opened a welding shop at Hatina, which is 140 km from Bhubaneswar. He used Soods name and picture in his workshop but did so by first taking the actors permission.

Responding to the gesture, Sood wished Prashant luck for his new endeavor and said he will visit the shop whenever he comes to Odisha.

More here:

Migrant worker airlifted by Sonu Sood from Kerala names welding workshop after the actor - Times Now

Pradyut Bordoloi and Gaurav Gogoi, members of Parliament from Assam, failed to catch the last flight from Delhi to Guwahati on March 24. Until the previous day, both the Congress MPs were present in the Lok Sabha for the budget session. And neither of them had an inkling that a nationwide lockdown was in the offing, something that came at a four-hour notice.

Fast forward two months later to May 25. As domestic flights resumed operations, both the MPs rushed to their constituencies Nagaon and Kaliabor, respectively. But Covid-19 protocols, as devised by the government of Assam, mandated that they take swab tests and go from the airport to a hotel for institutional quarantine.

When we were all stuck in Delhi during peak lockdown, the chief minister of Assam (Sarbananda Sonowal) sent a chartered flight to bring back the BJP MPs. They all landed in Guwahati and reached their respective constituencies by road. None of them was quarantined. Covid rules are applicable only to the opposition, Bordoloi tells ET Magazine over the phone.

Opposition-only Covid rules, as alleged by Bordoloi, could be an exaggeration, but the pandemic has indeed opened a window of opportunity for the ruling party to consolidate its base even as opposition parties are struggling due to rampant Covid restrictions.

Political rallies and mass protests often considered a lifeline for the Opposition are now forbidden or impossible as the virus has forced everyone to either stay indoors or maintain social distancing in public places. In Kerala, the high court on Wednesday banned political protests in public places until July 31. Even as India has been unlocking in a phased manner, localised lockdowns, weekend stay-at-home orders and night curfews have disrupted the opposition parties political planning.

In contrast, government agencies have been operating from Day 1 of the lockdown. Though the inept handling of the migrant crisis dented the popularity of the ruling BJP at the Centre, the damage can be offset by its concerted pro-poor drive: the distribution of 24 crore food packets, monthly free ration to 80 crore individuals from the Centres coffers as well as a transfer of Rs. 500 a month to every woman who has a Jan Dhan account. Other parties can have advantages in states where they rule. In Kerala, the ruling Left Democratic Front, for instance, has showcased its administrative prowess in containing the pandemic. But even in states the numbers are skewed in favour of the BJP which, with its allies, rule 16 of them. The Congress rules only three and is a partner in the Maharashtra government.

Since March, the Congress has lost Madhya Pradesh after Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to the BJP with 22 loyal MLAs, and now in Rajasthan, the party is practically split after Sachin Pilot revolted and was subsequently sacked as deputy CM and state party president. The only reversal the BJP faced was in Manipur where a coalition government led by N Biren Singh was reduced to a minority one last month. But prompt politicking four recalcitrant MLAs of its ally NPP were brought to Delhi to have a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah resolved the crisis.

The big question now is how will the ruling and opposition parties campaign once the Election Commission announces the polling dates for by-elections in 24 assembly segments in Madhya Pradesh and for the critical assembly election in Bihar, the nomination process for which will likely begin in September.

So far, South Korea has been a role model in conducting a large election during the pandemic. The campaign was largely conducted digitally. In the April 15 elections in the East Asian nation, voters had to mandatorily wear masks, maintain social distancing, and those having a body temperature of over 99.5 degree Fahrenheit were taken to separate booths for voting.

The result? The Left-leaning ruling party, Democratic Party, with a smaller ally, clinched a landslide victory with the biggest majority since 1987, the year the nation transitioned into a democracy.

Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, OP Rawat, says India can follow only a modified form of South Korean model to conduct elections. A digitalonly campaign wont work in India, he says. India needs to ensure a level-playing field for the ruling and opposition parties.

"According to an estimate, about 55 crore out of 90 crore voters in India still don't have mobile connectivity. Let's not go by the number of connections. In digital-only election campaigns, the majority of Indian voters will find it difficult to make an informed choice," he says, adding that the government should buy time slots in private television channels and FM radio stations and allot those to political parties on the basis of their performance in the last elections, so as to make the Covidtime election process fair.

Now, over to Bihar in autumn.

Read more:

Pandemic-time politicking: BJP consolidates base even as Opposition loses its sting - Economic Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened Indias hunger and malnutrition woes, more so for the millions of informal workers, on their way back home or struggling to meet two ends in their urban and rural homes. Their embedded informality over labour, land and housing tenure has uprooted and shaken them with loss of income, occupation and habitat, multiplying their already entrenched nutrition vulnerability.

Given the already acknowledged multidimensionality of the nutritional problem and its significant connection to immunity, further oversight or negligence, implicates a heavy toll on these de-facto nation builders, either through COVID-19 infestation, poised now for community spread or en-route the lockdown hunger and its chronic accompaniment, the hidden hunger, often used to denote micronutrient malnutrition.

India ranks low at 102 in the 2019 Global Hunger Index, below its neighbours, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with documented poorer malnutrition level among the rural poor, agriculture labourers and migrant workers, pregnant and lactating mothers and children.

Without urgent, timely and integrated nourishment through supplemental nutrition, special care and institutional rehabilitation, the infestation of this cohort will be rampant while their malnutrition will translate to a heavy toll on the future GDP. With the relevant loss to GDP, estimated between 4% to 8%, it may undo the impetus intended via post-COVID revival and reform packages.

The COVID-19 associated lockdown has suddenly made visible the poverty and vulnerability of the millions of migrant workers. Their informality is not limited to their urban workplaces; back in their rural homes, where they are headed now, they are also informal labourers and farmers.

The lockdown made visible the poverty and vulnerability of migrant workers in India. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Indrajit Das

These landless agriculture labourers, tenants and small farmers are the rural food producers, city-makers, urban manufacturers and service providers, who feed the nation, take care of the citizens in their homes and nurture its health and nutrition. Together constituting more than half of Indias population, this group, however, remains ultra-vulnerable to hunger and hidden hunger, thanks to their informal and insecure tenure. They are the hardest hit with their women and children during the pandemic.

The declaration of extra allocation of cereal and pulses for the next three months to about 810 million people under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana with ration cards reflects the appreciation of this hunger by the government. With studies indicating exclusion and inclusion errors as well as leakage in Public Distribution System (PDS) and estimating a low share of PDS grains reaching the intended, most of these vulnerable groups, however, run the risk of being excluded.

Also read: With No Clarity on Number of Migrant Workers, Food Grain Distribution in a Mess

To overcome the ration card limitation, the government has now announced two months of free food to an additional 80 million migrant workers, without a card. Though temporary and not well-balanced, it should at least improve the outreach of pandemic-response food ration better than the 86%, that is reported by a recent survey. Adequate caution and leakage-plugging, however, is called for, with the participation of local governance institutions and civil society members.

The exclusion challenge, unfortunately, also plague the acclaimed Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, PM KISAN. The finance minister announced 91.3 million farmers to have received the instalment related to COVID-19.

An ongoing survey by Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, shows the outreach to just 24%. Considering the number of farmers as per Agriculture Census, 2015-16, the PM KISAN net still excludes 4 out of every 10 farmers. Also not included are the 144 million agriculture labourers (Census, 2011) and about 25 million tenants (NITI Aayog, 2016) in the absence of land records, an eligibility criteria of the scheme.

The nature, outreach and performance of the food and cash transfer schemes and the persistent hunger and malnutrition of the vulnerable, call for a more holistic nutritional response. And the expanding COVID-crisis hitting harder on these informal workers, demands these measures to be expeditious and inclusive.

Also read: How Have the Centres Food Distribution Schemes Performed So Far?

The target population is converged in rural India, where the unfinished land reform agenda and changed farming imperatives and agrarian relations have increased informal tenancy along with fallowing of land. With about 25 million hectares fallow land available and efficiency of small farms well documented in terms of higher production and net income, formalisation of tenancy focusing on small farmers can be a big first leap forward.

This lockdown hunger is not the only worry. Post-COVID, access to safe and nutritious foods would be a question mark if adequate policy measures are not taken in ensuring satisfactory production, aggregation and marketing while also making the food available to the vulnerable population.

Land leasing reforms to promote smallholder farming

Evidence suggests that small farms, remain the most adaptive, demonstrating higher efficiency in terms of income and production than larger farms. However, the highly pervasive and increasing tenancy has weakened Indian agriculture, reducing total production, by depriving tenants access to credit and other entitlements.

Implementation of the Model Land leasing Act, 2016, developed by the NITI Aayog, can offer the security of tenure to existing rural tenants as well as to the returnee migrants willing to farm. This would potentially trigger productive utilisation of land and labour and augment farm and food production, by enhancing access to formal credit and farm-entitlements.

Gram Panchayats can be empowered to lead village-wise listing of potential tenants and enumeration fallow lands, as demonstrated in Kudumbashree in Kerala and AP. Legitimately, they can also facilitate the convergence of MGNREGS for land development and create opportunities of women groups around farm value chain through livelihoods missions, augmenting rural income and local availability of farm-inputs and processed nutritious food.

Strengthening small-farm diversification and local food value chains

Small family farms, globally and in India are known to absorb more labour while intensifying and diversifying production system in small areas. They can easily shoot up production of pulses, millets, tubers, vegetables, fruits, and livestock-products viz. egg, milk and meat. Availability of this food, rich in micronutrients locally is critical to boosting the nutritional status of women and children already suffering hidden hunger due to constrained production and the supply chain disruption of such foods during COVID-19.

Post-COVID agriculture package announced by the government can be made nutrition enabled, with such steps while also promoting local production and value chain development around nutritious foods, thereby generating more formal employments and income locally for farmers, women and their collectives: self-help groups and Farmer Producer Organisations.

Supporting non-timber forest produce collection, value addition and marketing through livelihood missions and ongoing forestry projects, by the tribal women collectives, is critical to increasing cash flow among the vulnerable tribal communities. Allowing forest-foraging visits by women can increase collection and consumption nutritious forest foods at free of cost, through sustainable biodiversity utilisation and conservation.

Also read: Prometheus Unbound: India Must Look to the Farmer for Way Forward

With a nutrition-orientation, micro, small and medium enterprises can boost up productions along local nutrition value chains in rural India and thereby improve access to safe and nutritious diets, while also creating local avenues for employment.

Leveraging ongoing pandemic management for a malnutrition-free India

Along with increasing production and availability, enhanced nutritious food absorption esp. by the women and children is critical to address hunger and malnutrition. In this direction, POSHAN Abhiyaan, with its mandate for reducing stunting, under-nutrition, low birth weight and anaemia by 2022, can help in addressing malnutrition management while also assisting in pandemic infection management.

Grassroots public health, nutrition and agriculture functionaries can be deployed with essential health supplies, behaviour change communication materials, home visit planners, advisories on nutritious food production, processing and consumptions with messages epidemics. Peoples movement, already envisaged in the Abhiyan, can be reoriented to focus on infant and young child and pregnant and lactating women feeding through a campaign engaging women volunteers. Engaged on wages, these women can also help in nutrition sensitisation and monitoring of informal-worker families at local quarantine centres and their rural homes.

Managing food waste and food loss

Approximately one-third of the food produced is lost or wasted in the value chain. During the ongoing crisis, such food loss or wastage across the value chain must be minimised.

The lockdown has drastically affected the marketing of the food produced by the smallholder farmers. Central and state governments can introduce local procurement and distribution using channels of mid-day meals (MDM) and integrated child development services (ICDS) supplementary nutrition programs, engaging the surplus workforce, women and men, now converged in the villages.

IT-enabled monitoring for evidence-based policy

Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the latest Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) reveal that malnutrition is the leading inhibiting factor for a healthier India. Morbidity and mortality arising from infectious diseases hamper the countrys GDP and economy and subsistence living of the poor. It is time to coordinate building a robust IT platform to collect and consolidate relevant data, with a focus on these vulnerable groups, for informed decision making and inert-sectoral synergy.

At a time when hunger and malnutrition are already sitting pretty on the ultra-vulnerable informal workers; the COVID pandemic has compounded their burden. Like the one-health approach, a holistic approach spanning land-agriculture-nutrition is what required to nourish these undernourished and accordingly the policy incentives must be repurposed.

Post-COVID, access to safe and nutritious foods for many of the migrant workers is important as part of the revival plan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Indrajit Das

There is an urgent need to go beyond the cash and food transfers imperatives and invest in building nutrition-resilience pathways for coping with COVID19. Formalising land and labour relations in rural areas and localising production and value chain development of nutritious food through small farming and women-collectives can be a dignified way to add assets, incomes and food in the hand of informal workers. This would also help the nation builders now converging in rural India to trigger a rural revival, as Gandhi would have dreamt.

Pranab R. Choudhury, the primary author of the commentary, is the founder and coordinator of NRMC Center for Land Governance. Basanta K. Kar is a recipient of the Global Nutrition Leadership Award 2019. Arabinda K Padhee is the country directorIndia of ICRISAT.

This article was originally published on Mongabay.

Here is the original post:

The Lockdown Revealed the Extent of Poverty and Misery Faced by Migrant Workers - The Wire

No country in the EU has suffered more from the coronavirus than Italy.

Although Spain has surpassed it in total number of cases, Italy has had the highest death toll. Its economy is projected to shrink 11 percent this year compared to 8.3 percent for the EU as a whole.

The EU needs to help. And it has.

Italy has been the largest recipient of disinfectants, masks, medical gowns and ventilators donated by EU member states.

Germany, Poland and Slovenia have sent doctors. Austria and Germany took in coronavirus patients when Italian hospitals were overwhelmed.

Dutch researchers processed lung echos to quickly diagnose patients. The European Commission has suspended rules on state aid to allow the Italian government to underwrite up to 200bn in business loans.

The European Central Bank is pumping more than 1 trillion into the European economy in order to lower borrowing costs for businesses and governments.

This has provided immediate relief to Italy's banks, which are saddled with excessive levels of non-performing loans and government debt.

But when it comes to Italy's longer-term recovery, it's not unreasonable to ask it to make some changes to qualify for aid from a proposed 750bn EU fund.

Italy's economic problems didn't start with COVID-19.

The European Commission has advised it for years to invest more in education, improve the efficiency of its judicial system and simplify the tax code.

Year-after-year, Italy rejected that advice. It spends less on tertiary education than its neighbours. Only 27 percent of Italians in their thirties have a higher degree, the second-lowest rate in the eurozone, where the average is 40 percent. Tax evasion is between two and three times higher in Italy than in France, Germany and Spain.

Italy is one of the worst rich-countries to start and run a business in, and the time and effort it takes to enforce contracts and resolve bankruptcies in Italy's slow courts, where cases can drag on for years, is a major reason.

Poor availability of credit and excessive licensing requirements are two more.

For young Italians, it's almost impossible to start a career as a lawyer, notary, pharmacist or even a taxi driver unless they inherit a license from their parents or can buy one from a family friend.

These factors conspire to drive a lot of economic activity into the informal sector and deny young Italians job security. Just 45 percent of Italians under the age of 30 had a job before the pandemic, compared to a eurozone average of 63 percent. Nearly eight-out-of-ten of those could only find part-time work.

The current government, led by Giuseppe Conte, hasn't helped by passing a 20bn tax-evasion amnesty and overturning the labour reforms of the last centre-left government, which introduced a new type of permanent contract to close the gap between insecure part-time work without social benefits and impossible-to-break full-time contracts with generous benefits.

Even those reforms did not apply to anyone in work. At the insistence of the trade unions, they only applied to new contracts. Hence their short-term effect was limited, which Conte's government used as an excuse to cancel them.

Rather than tackle these problems, which would mean taking away some of the security and wealth of incumbents and the well-connected to give younger and entrepreneurial Italians a chance, Italy's politicians blame outsiders.

They accuse Europe of "abandoning" Italy in its hour of need and call on the EU to "take responsibility".

They said the same thing during the migrant crisis. And during the euro crisis. Italy is always the victim. Northern Europe, which would rather Italy took some responsibility for its problems before asking for help, is always at fault.

Conte insists he will not accept a "weak compromise" on the recovery fund. He argues conditions would "stigmatise" recipients and warns that, if Italy doesn't get what it wants, it would "destroy the common market."

But his government can't even tell what it would spend the money on.

One of the two ruling parties, the Democrats, wants to invest in infrastructure. The other, the Five Star Movement, argues for tax cuts.

Little wonder the leaders of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are unwilling to sign off: they're not going to give money so the Italians can fund a tax cut in the middle of an economic crisis.

Yet it's them Italians blame, not their own leaders.

Years of blaming Brussels have turned Italians into one of the most Eurosceptic people in Europe. Just 38 percent told Eurobarometer last year they had faith in the EU.

Only the British, French and Greeks trusted the EU less. Italians were more likely than most to cite unemployment as the reason, even though that is still largely the preserve of national governments. 28-percent supported leaving the euro, the highest rate among eurozone nations. Italy is the only country in the EU where the young are more Eurosceptic than the old.

Italy's politicians are failing the next generation of Italians. They need to stop demonising the only countries that can - and will - help Italy and resist the temptation to enact more stop-gap measures that only perpetuate the inequalities and inefficiencies that hold the country back.

Read the original:

Italy has a responsibility, too - EUobserver

6 mins read

MP with a vision and a progressive outlook towards issues Supriya Sule is a veteran at her job. The two-time top performing member of the parliament, Sule may belong to a family crowded with political leaders but she is far from being understated. She has created a distinct name for herself through her push towards the betterment of her constituency from which she has been an MP since 2009.

In this interview, Sule opens up about her views on womens safety, migrant crisis, queer community being vulnerable, her work as an MP and how she has tremendously managed COVID-19 in her constituency, even though Maharashta is struggling as a state..

You have been the MP of Baramati for the last three terms, how do you distinguish this term going different from the others?

Supriya Sule: Clearly COVID-19 is a challenge in itself but it has nothing to do with my term. It is a global issue and it doesnt matter which profession one is in.

How is Baramati tackling COVID-19?

Supriya Sule: Baramati Lok Sabha Constituency is handling the situation very well. People along with the administration are helping each other amidst the coronavirus crisis. We implemented stringent lockdown even after the national lockdown was reopened. The local administration did effective crowd prevention and management and contact tracing efforts, earning the district the tag of corona-virus free.

(Since the interview, few positive cases have come up in the district. In the last 15 days, Baramati record six cases of coronavirus and one death.)

In this interview, Supriya Sule opens up about her views on womens safety, migrant crisis, queer community being vulnerable, her work as an MP and how she has tremendously managed COVID-19 in her constituency, even though Maharashta is struggling as a state.

As a parliamentarian, how challenging is it to contain it in your constituency when entire Maharashtra is struggling?

Supriya Sule: I dont think Maharashtra is struggling in isolation, the world is struggling. It isnt about being a member of parliament, it is about being a human. Human misery is far more painful. Your profession doesnt matter when the whole world is going through such a miserable time. I cant be so selfish and insensitive to just view Maharashtra as battling the infection.

You have been the best performer in the parliament consecutively, this time for tackling the pandemic effectively. What are your thoughts on it and how have you made it possible?

Supriya Sule: It is a job that I love to do and I try to the best of my abilities. It is not about where I stand in politics but about how I work with the other MPs as a good team player and thats all that matters to me.

What are some of the other challenges that Baramati is facing?

Supriya Sule: The biggest challenge is to tackle the economic depression that will arise due to the coronavirus crisis. But everybody has challenges in the world and the beauty of it is that you have to rise above them. Thats why, as representatives, we have to find solutions to them and make peoples lives better with the legislation we make in parliament.

The biggest challenge is to tackle the economic depression that will arise due to the coronavirus crisis. But everybody has challenges in the world and the beauty of it is that you have to rise above them. Thats why, as representatives, we have to find solutions to them and make peoples lives better with the legislation we make in parliament.

But what are some challenges specific to your constituency that you want to do better in?

Supriya Sule: I want to completely eliminate malnutrition in the top-performing constituency that Baramati is. Secondly, I also want to tackle anaemia in my constituency and I want all these illnesses like TB, malaria, dengue, COVID-19 free constituency.

There has been a rise in domestic violence against women across the world, have you seen a spurt of such cases in your constituency and how are you dealing with the rise?

Supriya Sule: We have taken this proactive step to prevent similar cases from occurring in the Pune rural region. Vigilance committees consisting of women from three agencies the Women and Child Department, Anganwadi workers from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and panchayat samitis are visiting houses in each ward of a gram panchayat. The tormentors would be transferred to an institutional quarantine facility, which could mean a town hall or a village lodge or any other public facility in villages.

How do you think this pandemic is impacting the queer community as you have always shown your support to them and have always pushed for gender-neutral laws in the Lok Sabha?

Supriya Sule: One doesnt have to wait for a pandemic to realize that the LGBTQ+ community is vulnerable; they have always been marginalized. We have to take care of our queer community round the year whether there is a pandemic or not.

With the current situation and the migrant crisis, how is your leadership ensuring to deal with it?

Supriya Sule: We have done a lot of work in sending people from our constituency to other parts of the country by ensuring them train tickets, water, food and other such relief material. In our district, it happened flawlessly and I am very grateful to the local administration who made sure that relief work happens smoothly.

We have set up camps across the Pune District on highways for people traveling to their homes to provide them with a safe place to rest and stay, with nutritious food, necessary medical care, toilet and registration for transport being arranged. Moreover, till May 21st, 50 shramik special trains have departed from Pune district. Around 62,000 people have traveled in these trains.

2,689 buses have departed to various places outside Maharashtra. Around 41,000 people have left for their homes in these buses. 3,238 buses and minibuses have left for different districts of Maharashtra with students and labor heading to their homes. We are helping migrant workers by providing them kits with essential commodities and hot meals.

(We conducted this interview on 28 May so the number may vary now.)

We have set up camps across the Pune District on highways for people traveling to their homes to provide them with a safe place to rest and stay, with nutritious food, necessary medical care, toilet and registration for transport being arranged. Moreover, till May 21st 50 shramik special trains have departed from Pune district. Around 62,000 people have traveled in these trains.

Also read: Political Apathy During The Pandemic Traumatized Me: Karur MP Jothimani

Do you think this pandemic has shown a very classist side of the society with the migrant workers being pushed to walk their way home?

Supriya Sule: It has always existed but the brutal truth is that we all have to face classism again and again because of some decisions that we have radically taken in the past. I dont want to blame anyone in these challenging times as it would be unfortunate.

How does a typical day look like in the times of coronavirus in the life of an MP?

Supriya Sule: We get up and we are on the phone the whole time to cater to distress calls. To help people deal with the crisis, we have to be connected with the administration at the state level and local level. It begins with having a review of the issues not only in the constituency but across the state. Some of the tasks include coordinating with the administration, conducting meetings on digital platforms with policy makers, legislatures and representatives from each sector. Apart from this, we have to take feedback from the constituents and streamline things accordingly and we believe in interacting with people across the state on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram too. My Team and I are available 24*7 to help people who need help.

Like everybodys mental health is impacted by the intense fear around coronavirus similarly, MPs must be affected too mentally. How is it like in your case?

Supriya Sule: Giving up is so easy and this is not the first challenge all of us are going through. We have seen so many challenges, but we learn from each other and evolve accordingly.

Do you think the ongoing political discourse of communalism is having an impact in your constituency? Tell us more about it.

Supriya Sule: We are all working extremely hard in helping every individual who needs help to be distracted by these things.

Also read: Amravatis Independent MP, Navneet Rana On Politics, Misogyny And COVID-19

Finally, how has the experience of being a female MP been for you? Were asking this in the context of women being a minority in the parliament and politics being a highly misogynistic workplace.

Supriya Sule: I come from a very liberal Maharashtrian society which is not gender-biased at all. Maharashtra is very gender-equal. I dont see gender in parliament. An MP is an MP no matter what gender they belong to.

All pictures have been taken from Supriya Sules Facebook profile.

See the original post here:

I love my job, Supriya Sule On Being A Top Performer In The Parliament - Feminism in India

Pradyut Bordoloi and Gaurav Gogoi, members of Parliament from Assam, failed to catch the last flight from Delhi to Guwahati on March 24. Until the previous day, both the Congress MPs were present in the Lok Sabha for the budget session. And neither of them had an inkling that a nationwide lockdown was in the offing, something that came at a four-hour notice.

Fast forward two months later to May 25. As domestic flights resumed operations, both the MPs rushed to their constituencies Nagaon and Kaliabor, respectively. But Covid-19 protocols, as devised by the government of Assam, mandated that they take swab tests and go from the airport to a hotel for institutional quarantine.

When we were all stuck in Delhi during peak lockdown, the chief minister of Assam (Sarbananda Sonowal) sent a chartered flight to bring back the BJP MPs. They all landed in Guwahati and reached their respective constituencies by road. None of them was quarantined. Covid rules are applicable only to the opposition, Bordoloi tells ET Magazine over the phone.

Opposition-only Covid rules, as alleged by Bordoloi, could be an exaggeration, but the pandemic has indeed opened a window of opportunity for the ruling party to consolidate its base even as opposition parties are struggling due to rampant Covid restrictions.

Political rallies and mass protests often considered a lifeline for the Opposition are now forbidden or impossible as the virus has forced everyone to either stay indoors or maintain social distancing in public places. In Kerala, the high court on Wednesday banned political protests in public places until July 31. Even as India has been unlocking in a phased manner, localised lockdowns, weekend stay-at-home orders and night curfews have disrupted the opposition parties political planning.

In contrast, government agencies have been operating from Day 1 of the lockdown. Though the inept handling of the migrant crisis dented the popularity of the ruling BJP at the Centre, the damage can be offset by its concerted pro-poor drive: the distribution of 24 crore food packets, monthly free ration to 80 crore individuals from the Centres coffers as well as a transfer of Rs. 500 a month to every woman who has a Jan Dhan account. Other parties can have advantages in states where they rule. In Kerala, the ruling Left Democratic Front, for instance, has showcased its administrative prowess in containing the pandemic. But even in states the numbers are skewed in favour of the BJP which, with its allies, rule 16 of them. The Congress rules only three and is a partner in the Maharashtra government.

Since March, the Congress has lost Madhya Pradesh after Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to the BJP with 22 loyal MLAs, and now in Rajasthan, the party is practically split after Sachin Pilot revolted and was subsequently sacked as deputy CM and state party president. The only reversal the BJP faced was in Manipur where a coalition government led by N Biren Singh was reduced to a minority one last month. But prompt politicking four recalcitrant MLAs of its ally NPP were brought to Delhi to have a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah resolved the crisis.

The big question now is how will the ruling and opposition parties campaign once the Election Commission announces the polling dates for by-elections in 24 assembly segments in Madhya Pradesh and for the critical assembly election in Bihar, the nomination process for which will likely begin in September.

So far, South Korea has been a role model in conducting a large election during the pandemic. The campaign was largely conducted digitally. In the April 15 elections in the East Asian nation, voters had to mandatorily wear masks, maintain social distancing, and those having a body temperature of over 99.5 degree Fahrenheit were taken to separate booths for voting.

The result? The Left-leaning ruling party, Democratic Party, with a smaller ally, clinched a landslide victory with the biggest majority since 1987, the year the nation transitioned into a democracy.

Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, OP Rawat, says India can follow only a modified form of South Korean model to conduct elections. A digitalonly campaign wont work in India, he says. India needs to ensure a level-playing field for the ruling and opposition parties.

"According to an estimate, about 55 crore out of 90 crore voters in India still don't have mobile connectivity. Let's not go by the number of connections. In digital-only election campaigns, the majority of Indian voters will find it difficult to make an informed choice," he says, adding that the government should buy time slots in private television channels and FM radio stations and allot those to political parties on the basis of their performance in the last elections, so as to make the Covidtime election process fair.

Now, over to Bihar in autumn.

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Opposition seems to have lost its sting during pandemic, but the ruling party is consolidating its base - Economic Times

According to recent stats, India ranks 3rd in the world in terms of the total cases of Covid-19, with the current all-time high of 20,000 fresh cases each day. What went wrong with the management? How did we end up here and can our democracy survive this? Hop on as we together unravel the start of the end of Democracy.

Let's begin this journey from 8 pm on March 24, 2020. A nationwide lockdown was imposed in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation and drew a parallel between The Mahabharata and the Lakshmana Rekha to advice the citizens to stay at home for the next 21 days. The so-called world's strictest lockdown was imposed. But the fate of the lockdown in the realm of India Democracy was known way before it was imposed. It was impossible to contain a population of 1.353 billion without violating the fundamentals of democracy.

The biggest conviction to the failure of lockdown was the prevalent Individualism (Precedence of freedom of action for individuals over state control) in our country. Although it has had its advantages in the form of higher economic growth rate by giving rewards to non-conformism (willfully disobeying), it was not meant to handle a pandemic for it that included the handicap of Parochial Altruism( Narrow scope of welfare for others). This made taking a collective and coordinated decision (or even response to a decision) almost impossible as it focused on individual gains rather than societal gain. On the contrary, the lockdown proved to be more successful in authoritarian regimes such as the People's Republic of China where collectivism prospered.

The figure below based on the World Value Survey Data (WVS) OxCGRT; Googles COVID- 19 Community Mobility Reports proves that stricter policies to curb mobility were less effective in major democracies and more effective in regimes like China.

MIGRANT CRISIS

What followed the lockdown was a complete chaos. Factories and workshops were shut down leaving the labourers unemployed. They faced acute shortages in terms of money, clothes and shelter. The labourers took their journey to reach their native villages, which served as a transmitter for the infection. In utter helplessness, a myriad of migrants gathered near bus and railway stations and some even preferred to walk to their homes. Flying rumours about travel facilities being arranged by the government, without any prior notice fueled their migration. Not all made it back home, many died due to starvation, depression, police brutality and road and rail accidents.

The Opposition and the ruling majority started with the years old mudslinging (A very important feature of contemporary Democracy).

Provisions were made by the government but their implementation remained a problem. The stock of food grains was there to sustain the laborers for at least a year but their distribution through the One Nation, One Ration Card system (Which was implemented in few cities) remained an area of concern.

Lack of Centre and state coordination was also highlighted through this crisis. On March 27, a directive was issued by the Home Ministry ordering the states to contain the migration. It also gave the states the authority to use the National Disaster Response Fund to provide the basic necessities (such as food and shelter) to the laborers. Still, Regional Friction remained a problem. While there were some states that chose to use a region specific approach rather than a uniform National one, there were others too that followed the Central order to such an extent that it lead to severe Police Brutality, violating the Human Rights of all those affected.

Although Financial Assistance was promised, over 90% of labourers who reached out in the month of April reported that they have not been provided with any financial assistance from the government. In Tamil Nadu, 97% were not paid during lockdown and in Punjab, 84% had less than Rs100 remaining.

Social Ostracism (Procedure under Athenian Democracy, where any citizen could be expelled from Athens, used here to refer to social exclusion) of migrants remained a problem as they were considered sources of transmission of infection. No one wanted to be near them. diminishing income and societal discrimination took a huge Psychological toll on the migrants and thus deprived them of their equal status in the society.

This can again be linked to the first point about individuality and narrow scope of welfare for the society.

ONLINE ALGORITHMS

The Wuhan virus has changed the trajectory of our lives. Everything you can think of has taken the big leap of faith from offline to online. Online teaching has started via apps such as Zoom, Discord, and et-cetera. Our lives are no longer governed by us, but by these Big Data Algorithms. We unknowingly give them this permission when we click on agree to the terms after installing any application.

Concerns have been raised regarding the theft of data through apps like Zoom. There are 2 Major fronts: Lack of transparency and Distribution of Information to a third party without user consent.

To quote the General Data Protection Regulation, consent for collecting personal data must be freely given, and that if there is an imbalance of power between the parties, it cannot be a free choice and that any consent obtained is invalid.

Following this a school in Sweden was fined 20.000 dollars for using facial biometrics to track 22 students. One might say that the parents had given the consent but consent (in this situation) is not a valid legal proof due to the clear imbalance between the data subject (Students) and the controller (School authorities). The same reasoning can be applied in the current online environment. Any invitation to a teleconference can be stated as an imbalance of power as there is no realistic option to decline.

Due to these very reasons Companies like Google, Space X and Governments of Taiwan, United States of America and the Australian Defense force have banned the usage of such apps (ZOOM).

Even the Government of India has banned 59 mobile apps which are a viable threat to the

SOVEREIGNTY & TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

We have often heard that Human Liberty is the Soul of any democracy. It reflects the, "Free Will" which is the utmost source of authority. But is this will truly free? Isn't it affected by these algorithms that dictate our actions and responses?

It was rightly stated by Yuval Noah Harari in his book, 21 lessons for the 21st Century that, "When the Biotech Revolution merges with the InfoTech revolution , it will produce Big Data Algorithms that can monitor and understand my feelings much better than I ever can, and then Authority will probably shift from Humans to Computers."

This is the truth of our lives, we are still living in a Utopian Society if we consider that we make our own choices. All the choices are fed to us by these algorithms, and we merely respond to it the way it wants us too.

CONCLUSION: It is often said that the best way to judge any Democracy is to see the result it produces and the challenges it overcomes. These challenges have existed since a long time and have only evolved with the incoming wave of Covid-19. Will our Democracy survive this test of time or will something Novel, Stronger and Better emerge from this?

REFERENCES

1. Covid-19 and the Future of Democracy ,Carl Benedikt Frey, Giorgio Presidente, Chinchih Chen 20 May 2020

2. Zooms Security and Privacy Woes Violated GDPR, Security Week

3. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari

See the rest here:

COVID-19 & the end of Democracy: The Indian Perspective - The Tribune

As I travelled to nearby villages during the lockdown due to unavoidable work, I interacted with some of the migrant labour that had returned from big cities back to their homes in north Bihar. What struck me the most was their simplicity and their positive attitude towards life despite most already having pronounced doomsday in terms of the overall outlook, growth of the economy, job prospects etc. Kapil Mahto, 41-year-old labourer, who worked in Pune for 15 years in a ball and bearings factory, may not be able to put his acquired skills to good use in his village, yet he appeared willing to start all over again. My father, who is no more, was of the view that we should not depend on farming and he forced us to go to cities for a better livelihood. Though my father used to work hard but the uncertainty of the monsoon always kept him in debt. Now I will have to relearn the techniques of farming or poultry and depend on groundwater for crops. Rambhukhan Sahu, 49-year-old farmer from Sitamarhi said, We wont let our own people starve. When the cities are locked down, we are working hard to ensure that India overcomes this unforeseen crisis. We dont know much about GDP, but Bihar will definitely contribute to bringing back things on track.

The Nitish Kumar led government had been a forerunner in mapping the skills of returning migrant labourers. The state government has also been making announcements that job opportunities are being created for them. The government claims to have created 3.5 crore man-days through various government schemes, but these claims will run into rough weather when seen together with reports of nearly 17 lakh migrants returning to Bihar. The unemployed youth remains unsure about the governments claims, especially with assembly elections just a few months away. Rewind to 2005 when Nitish Kumar had just assumed power, he claimed that Bihari youth would not have to migrate for jobs. But in 2020, the situation doesnt seem to have changed much. Adding to the governments woes is a recent CMIE survey which has pegged the unemployment rate for April at 46.6%.

Even as the state government faces a daunting task of being able to provide employment, many migrants I met were willing to face the challenges ahead. A 37-year-old migrant labourer Dukhi Mandal from Keoti village of Darbhanga said, The wage per day is definitely low in my village compared to what I earned in Delhi per day, but here in my village at least I will survive for some more months without a job, because I dont need to pay rent and through PDS my family gets enough to eat. Maybe things get better next year because I have decided not to go back to Delhi and work in the fields. Biltu Sadah, a 46-year-old Scheduled Caste migrant labourer said, I dont have a sizeable land for producing grains, but I have enough land to produce cash crops like vegetables. I have bought a goat and a hen. I am hopeful that from next year I will be able to earn at least half of that I used to earn in cities as a labourer.

With nearly half of the youth population still being jobless, the employment pliability in the conventional agriculture sector of Bihar is almost negative. The government needs to tweak policies promoting agro-based food industries to change the dynamics of demand and supply chain. The workforce can be provided with employment by utilizing land banks to establish industries and providing infrastructure and logistic connectivity to the Bay of Bengal for maintaining the global supply chain. Fixing the economy does appear a big challenge for the state government, but this return of migrants also offers a silver lining for Nitish Kumar to herald what could be termed a remarkable turnaround.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Migrant labour: Can Nitish Kumar convert the Covid crisis into a golden opportunity? - The Times of India Blog

Photojournalists are pivotal in telling a news story. Photos allow the reader to experience thefeelings a situation evokes first-hand. However,with the majority popularion equipped with asmartphone camera, professionals face a threat. Metrolife spoke to a range of photojournalists to discuss their relevance in a changing world.

Most people see life as a video, we see it as a collection of freeze frames, says Anantha Subramaniam, a photojournalist with 25 years of experience.

Approaching every event with the same level of curiosity and passion is important. You are there to capture interesting moments and pictures that hold the attention of the viewers, he says.

Samyukta Lakshmi, a freelance photojournalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Bloomberg, says authenticity is important. We dont just click a picture of whats happening; we inquire about the situation and try to understand why something is happening, she says.

Vaishnavi Suresh, documentary photographer and photojournalist, works with NGOs.

The focus is on documenting an event, area or situation for a long period of time and then working towards getting it published to bring attention to a certain cause, she says.

Subramaniam adds that intuition is a must. One never knows what will happen. But its our job to know, to anticipate situations and be ready with our finger on the shutter. I was once in Sri Lanka to cover a cricket match, but on the way to the stadium there was a bomb blast in front of me. I was able to stay focused and deliver the pictures, he explains.

Are journalistic ethics alwaysfollowed?There is a certain pressure from above that you cant ignore, but for certain things you have to put your foot down, says Subramaniam.

He explains how photojournalists are often asked to document the family of students who have died by suicide. We are asked to take pictures that capture their grief and sometimes even inquire for happy pictures of the student. That is something I refuse to do as I feel its disrespectful to the family, he says.

Samyukta says they can always take a photo and help the person after, but their consent is always important.

I know of photojournalists covering the migrant crisis who go up to the people and help them afterwards, either by providing them with more information or food and money. Most times you can do more by just getting their story out, she says.

Vaishnavi says she is aware of the gaze of the camera and the effect it has. I always try to take pictures of individuals at the eye-level, so as to not portray them as lesser than or greater than the viewer, she explains.

Cracking the field

For the past few years, newspapers have been asking for journalists with a certain educational qualification and a portfolio.

They should be able to write small reports, so courses that teach this are an added advantage. But with that being said, nothing can beat experience, I have no qualifications above Class 10, Subramaniam says.

He says that the field has become extremely competitive with smartphones coming into the picture.

Reporters, nowadays, feel like an image they click with a smartphone will suffice for their story. For us to survive, we constantly have to innovate and train the eye to see beyond the usual frames, he adds.

Vaishnavi does not think it is an easy field to break into; she doesnt think she has completely cracked it either. There are stories of people who slog for months and years as unpaid interns, but still dont get a job. Its even more difficult for women, she says.

Freelancing opportunities galore

Samyukta says being a freelancer does not mean you are less successful. One constantly has to hustle, but she enjoys it more than being a staff photographer. While there is a higher risk in terms of income, its more fulfilling to be able to work for different publications, she says.

Vaishnavi works freelance and in the NGO space, which she says can be a double-edged sword. I dont have to censor my work to fit a certain ideal, but I do wish I had guidance since Ive barely been in the field for the five years, she says.

A woman in the field

Samyukta says that being a woman can have its pros and cons. Safety is a prime issue: The best way to combat it is to research and prepare. You should know where youre going, who will be there, who your fixers are. Vaishnavi adds that sometimes even if they are prepared, there is always reluctance to send a woman photographer to a charged situation.

Samyukta says that her gender helps when trying to get people more comfortable. Women photographers definitely have an edge when covering women: they always open up to us more comfortably, she explains.

Vaishnavi adds, Im young and five feet tall, which makes me more accessible to the people I shoot. They dont see me as a towering figure.

Mental health

Samyukta says that when she is on the field she concentrates solely on getting the best pictures. In a way, I am detached until my day ends, thats when all the physical and mental exhaustion hits. To deal with this, Ive turned towards activities like yoga that help me relax, she says. Vaishnavi says the kind of attachment you have to a project and how long you spend with it changes the way it affects you. I have been covering various protests, but since they are short-term I dont really have the time to interact with people and empathise, she says.

On the other hand, her longest project, the movement against mining at Hasdeo, had a significant impact on her.

On my first visit, I had taken a picture of a father and son and on my next visit, I found out that they had passed away. That took a great toll on my mental health. Its an inexplicable feeling to think that your photograph of someone might be the last reminder of their life, she says.

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Pro ways to capture emotions - Deccan Herald

As the pandemic and resulting crises of unemployment and mass migration of labourers in Bengaluru began escalating, so did the harrowing incidents of starvation and deprivation. Moved by the plight of migrants stranded around the city, Siddharth J Menon (22) and his friend Avinash Jalari (23), decided to do something to help.

As persons with hearing impairment themselves, the duo could relate to the predicament of fellow sufferers. Putting on their prior experiences of volunteering for various NGOs to use, they began rounding up such aid as they could in terms of cash and kind from family and friends and formed Deaf Youth of Bangalore (DYB).

After collecting about 2.5 lakh in a weeks time, the DYB team made a room in Siddharths home their base of operations and began packing provisions of rice, flour, pulses and oil they had collected, into parcels for distribution. Mindful of lockdown protocol the team would sanitise themselves and wear masks while stepping out. By word of mouth and contacts within their group, the team began delivering these essentials, says Jayshankar A V, Siddharths father.

However, once they got started, they realised they could not turn a blind eye to other migrant workers, street dwellers and daily wage earners who were also suffering and they began to provide for them too, he adds.

Eventually, the group moved to making and packing biryani as meal packets that they distributed to those camped at KSTRC bus stations, police stations and other areas. For over a fortnight, the DYB team went about the city offering whatever relief they could, in whichever way they could, despite a lack of skilled training in social work.

Looking forward, the DYB team hope to register their NGO and diversify their sphere of aid for the needy.

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How Deaf Youth of Bangalore stepped up in a time of crisis - The Hindu

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SRINAGAR: Following the traditions set by its founder Prof Achyuta Samanta,Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) and its sister institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS),hasresponded swiftly tothe raging pandemic by helpingreduce the suffering of people.

Soon afterthe outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic,the institutionreachedout to the worst-affected, touching the lives of patients, stranded migrant workers, people living in containment areas and even starving animals.

Predicting the challenges that lay ahead, KIIT & KISS initiated an action plan to help the worst-hit sections of the society. It was the first mover in creating awareness on the disease even before the State reported its first coronavirus case. Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), the medical wing of KIIT, organized alecture on CoronaVirus A Global Threaton 1stFebruary, 2020 in which standardinfection control strategies to prevent the spread of coronavirus was discussed. Subsequently, Kalinga Institute of Nursing Sciences (KINS) and KIIT School of Public Health also joined the awareness effort.

The student community is one of the worst affected groups in the present crisis. Examinations, admissions and academic sessions all remain disrupted. KIIT Deemed to be University, which has been recognized as an Institution of Eminence by the Govt. of India, has 30,000 students from all parts of India and over 50 countries. Another 30,000 underprivileged students study in KISS, the worlds largest fully-free fully-residential institute exclusively for tribal students. Anticipating the problem early, all the students of KIIT and KISS were safely sent back to their homes well before India declared the nationwide lockdown.

But for KIIT and KISS students, being away from the campus did not mean academic loss. KIIT is the first University to have begun online classes for 30,000 students. Encouragingly, about 95% of the students are attending the online classes, conducted through Zoom, regularly. Not only online classes, but there is good participation in the one-day academic seminars conducted online, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students. As such, KIIT has been able to maintain the academic calendar perfectly so far. If the crisis persists for a longer time, KIIT has made all preparations to conduct online examinations also. Similarly, 30,000 tribal students of KISS are in constant touch with their teachers through WhatsApp groups. KISS has taken initiative to start e-Learning classes for them through Kalinga TV.

While in their homes in various districts of Odisha, KISS students are actively engaged in creating awareness on social distancing and respiratory hygiene in their areas.Involving the students of the institute, KISS launched Project Uday, a massive awareness campaign on social distancing, proper use of mask, hand washing andrespiratory hygiene in six aspirational districts of Odisha: Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Kandhamal, Balangir, and Gajapati. Under Project Uday, students are carrying out door-to-door campaigning and organizing awareness camps at market places. More than 500 volunteers are involved in the project covering 220 villages.

In one of the most significant measure in Odishas war against Covid-19, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) set up Indias first standalone COVID-19 hospital, a 500-bedded ultramodern facility including 50 critical care beds, with the support of the Govt. of Odisha.This Covid Hospital is functioning from a dedicated block of KIMS with an exclusive team of doctors, nurses, paramedicsand housekeeping staff.The quick turnaround time in setting up of the state-of-the-art dedicated Covid Hospital received much praise. Today, KIMS is the go-to hospital for any suspected coronavirus patient in the capital city of Bhubaneswar.

The vision of Shri Naveen Patnaik, Honble Chief Minister of Odisha in tackling the pandemic has been proactive and ahead of any other Indian state. The MoU with KIMS takes that vision one step further. KIMS will definitely put in all possible effort to justify the Chief Ministers faith and fulfill his vision, and serve the people of the state in a better and bigger way. I hope that this partnership will bear fruit and we can soon have a COVID-19 free Odisha, said Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS.

In anticipation of the possible spike in positive cases in districts, KIIT has also set up three 200-bedded COVID-19 hospitals, one each in Kandhamal, Balangir and Mayurbhanj districts, with the support of the respective district administration. In Balangir and Mayurbhanj, the facility functions from the satellite campuses of KISS, which were inaugurated recently. All three District COVID-19 Hospitals, already operational from the mid of April, are managed by KIMS and provides round the clock services following WHO and ICMR guidelines.The Covid Hospital in Kandhamal, a district having no railway connectivity, is a boon for the local people, who are yet to be exposed to the world of high speed internet connectivity. Besides Covid Hospital, KIIT & KISS are providing groceries and cash for miscellaneous expensesto over 40 orphanages, old age homes and leprosy centres in Kandhamal district.

Another constituent of KIIT,KIIT-Technology Business Incubator (KIIT-TBI) under KIIT School of Biotechnology, has been recognised as a Centre for Augmenting War with COVID-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH) by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, along with other eminent institutes in India, including IITs. KIIT-TBI is responsible for implementing this program in East & NE.

The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a global health emergency, it have also caused a grave humanitarian crisis due to prolonged lockdowns and loss of livelihoods for millions. KIIT and KISS have been trying to identify and reach out to various groups facing hardship due to the extended lockdown. It distributed family survival packets comprising of essential food items like rice, pulses, cooking oil, etc. to the disadvantaged people living in various slums in Bhubaneswar. The survival packets were giventhrice a week for the first month during lockdownto40,000 people in the slum areas of Bhubaneswar.

We are doing our bit to ensure that vulnerable sections of the population around do not face starvation. We are augmenting the efforts of the State Government, which has robust policies for such sections, in a humble way, Prof. Samanta said, while urging every citizen to do whatever best they can individually and to support the local administration in these challenging times.

KIIT also took initiative to deliver cooked food to police personnel on duty, who were diligently enforcing the lockdown. Lunch was provided every day to more than 2000 police personnel across Bhubaneswar as well as adjoining cities of Puri and Cuttackto honour their work to make people aware about Covid-19.

The institution is working closely with the Govt. of Odisha to provide all support from its available resources like logistics, infrastructure, healthcare, human resources, etc. It provided temporary shelter and cooked meals to migrant labourers, who were stranded in Bhubaneswar, after the lockdown was announced.More than 1000 migrant workers were helped in this initiative.After some areas in Bhubaneswar were marked as containment zones, it distributed food and essential items to the people of the zone. KISS worked closely with the American Embassy in the evacuation of personnel who were stuck in Odisha and other adjoining areas. It also distributed feminine hygiene products to women and girls in all the districts of Odisha.

Other community outreach activities include provision of one month supply to the Tibetan population in Chandragiri and Padmasambhava Monastery in Jiranga, a Tibetan settlement area in Eastern Odisha; adoption of two old age homes in Chandragiri.KIMS is also supporting a hospital in Jiranga and has provided PPE to the health workers.

Reaching the unreached, KIIT & KISS extended a helping hand to the red light areas in Bhubaneswar. Groceries and other essentials were provided to the needy. KIIT, KISS, Sakha and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives came together to distribute ration and essential items for the transgender community in Bhubaneswar, Rayagada and a few other districts of Odisha.

KIIT and KISS even set up a team to source and distribute fruits, vegetables, biscuits and other food materials to animals like monkeys, cattle and dogs, in and around the campus. It has adopted 140 peacocks in Bhubaneswar is taking care of these beautiful birds and providingfinancial assistance to more than 10 Goshalas in Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. I wish to remind everyone that while we need to be kind to every other human through social distancing, we must not forget about these animals who are so much dependant on us. Show some kindness, bring a smile to everyone in this difficult time, says Prof. Samanta.

COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious global health crisis of our times and also the toughest humanitarian challenge. It has extracted a huge human toll, besides causing big setbacks to the economy. Our efforts are a drop in the ocean and aim to bring smiles on the faces of as many people as we can touch. But, I am sure, together, we will overcome this crisis also, he added.

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COVID-19 Pandemic: KIIT & KISS Rise to the Occasion - Kashmir Observer

The migrants are not criminals or animals, as President Trump has called them. They are desperate people fleeing life-threatening gang violence, and hoping for a new life. One migrant had three members of her family shot dead, while she miraculously survived five bullet wounds. Another migrant woman joined a peaceful protest in Guatemala and then those protesters started disappearing. Going back to Guatemala would be a death sentence.

My gut hurts. I feel physical pain after hearing these stories, said trip organizer Vicki Schmidt of West Fargo. These are people with hopes and dreams. They have been physically and mentally traumatized, and theyre treated like vermin. I feel so hopeless, sad and embarrassed.

One group member, Martha Castanon of Moorhead, was a migrant farm worker for 40 years.

It brought me back to when I was a migrant worker, Castanon said. Seeing the poverty, the lack of water, and the injustices really bothered me. They said were not criminals. Were just seeking a better way of life. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories.

The Rev. Karin Moberg, who serves Lutheran churches in Walcott, Christine and Hickson, N.D., felt a calling to go to the border.

We believe to ignore migrants is a contradiction of Gods will, Moberg said. I was powerfully moved by personal stories, the experience of traveling here, and how vulnerable they are. They came to our borders with lots of hope of being in a safe place, and they were not welcomed.

One huge problem the group found is that the migrants are tossed around in a very confusing and inconsistent court system, designed to work against them. Many dont have the money or transportation to make it to court. Otherwise, a migrant will show up for a court hearing, and that hearing is constantly delayed without adequate explanation.

Rep. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, and Karen Ehrens, Bismarck, do art work with migrant children in Juarez, Mexico. Special to The Forum

The problem is, our policy is a continuing moving target, said Rep. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo. The rules keep changing. We have underfunded immigration courts.

They shared how badly they were treated and the excuses as to why their court cases have been delayed, said Rep. Ruth Buffalo, D-Fargo. When you have innocent people whose lives are being ripped apart, our policies need to change. The criminalization and dehumanization of the migrants is disheartening.

The group couldnt do much to change the situations for the migrants, but just listening to their stories and offering love and support made a big difference. Up until now, the migrants felt nobody cared about them.

Dr. Mary Jo Lewis of Fargo does artwork with migrant children in Juarez, Mexico. Special to The Forum

I have never choked up or teared up more in my life, said former Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams. The inhumanity of it. All that was happening to these women and children and nobody cared. We dont know how lucky we are.

Indeed, we need to constantly remember how lucky we are.

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Shaw: The crisis at our border continues - Grand Forks Herald

As the Queen reaches 25,000 days on the throne, here are some of the events and milestones of her reign:

1952: George VI dies and Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen. Flood devastates the Devon village of Lynmouth. Mau Mau rising in Kenya.

1953: Sweet rationing ends in Britain. Queen Mary dies. Everest conquered on eve of the Coronation.

1954: Study links cancer to smoking. Crash grounds BOACs Comet aircraft. French defeated at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. Elvis releases his first record. Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute mile record.

1955: Cyprus goes on strike against British rule. Sir Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister due to his failing health. The Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. Princess Margaret calls off plans to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend.

1956: Hungarian uprising and Suez crisis. Teddy Boys rock around the clock. Prince Rainier III of Monaco marries American film actress Grace Kelly.

1957: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan tells a Tory rally most of our people have never had it so good. The Treaty of Rome sets up the European Economic Community. Russians launch the Sputnik satellite, the first man-made object ever to leave the Earths atmosphere.

1958: Race riots flare in Notting Hill. Manchester United players die in the Munich air crash.

1959: The Mini car makes its first appearance and the first UK motorway, the M1, opens.

1960: Macmillans Wind Of Change speech. Princess Margaret marries Tony Armstrong-Jones.

1961: John F Kennedy succeeds Dwight D Eisenhower as US president. Berlin Wall rises. Soviet Union puts first man, Yuri Gagarin, into space.

1962: US spaceman John Glenn orbits the Earth. The Cuban Missile crisis is resolved.

1963: Lord Beeching wields the axe on British Rail. Martin Luther Kings I Have A Dream speech. John F Kennedy is assassinated. Profumo scandal. Great Train Robbery. One of the coldest, snowiest winters on record.

1964: Beatlemania grips the UK and US. Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston. Mary Quant pronounces Paris fashion out of date.

1965: Rhodesia declares independence. US bombs North Vietnam. Britain appoints its first female High Court judge.

1966: Swinging London revolves around Carnaby Street and the Kings Road. The Queen Mother undergoes major abdominal surgery. England win the World Cup. Aberfan disaster in Wales.

1967: Breathalyser introduced. Arab-Israeli War. Nigerian Civil War. Abortion and homosexuality are legalised.

1968: Enoch Powell makes rivers of blood speech. Ulster Troubles erupt with civil rights protests.

1969: Death penalty for murder permanently abolished in Britain. Prince of Waless Investiture at Caernarvon. British troops sent to Northern Ireland. American Neil Armstrong becomes first man to walk on the Moon. Woodstock music festival.

1970: Voting age cut from 21 to 18. North Sea oil fields discovered. First jumbo jet lands at Heathrow. Edward Heath wins election for the Tories. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi takes over as leader of Libya.

1971: British entry into EEC agreed. Decimalised currency launched in the UK. Angry Brigade bombs Employment Secretarys home.

1972: Miners strike and power crisis state of emergency declared. Industrial Relations Act disputes. Bloody Sunday. Duke of Windsor dies. First home video game system is released.

1973: Britain joins the EEC. The Princess Royal marries Captain Mark Phillips.

1974: Edward Heath loses narrowly to Harold Wilson, who wins second general election. US President Richard Nixon resigns over the Watergate affair.

1975: Margaret Thatcher becomes Conservative Party leader. Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts. End of Vietnam War.

1976: James Callaghan replaces Wilson at No 10. One of the hottest summers on record. Concorde begins commercial flights.

1977: Lib-Lab pact. Grunwick picket clashes. Punk rock. Silver Jubilee. The Queen becomes a grandmother. Red Rum wins Grand National for a record third time.

1978: Rhodesia settlement. Anna Ford becomes ITNs first primetime woman newsreader. Red Brigades kidnap former Italian premier Aldo Moro. Worlds first test tube baby, Louise Brown, born in Oldham. Winter Of Discontent strikes.

1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes Britains first woman prime minister. Queens art adviser Anthony Blunt exposed as Russian spy. Fall of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Islamic revolutionaries come to power in Iran.

1980: SAS storms Iranian Embassy. Runners Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe win Olympic gold.

1981: Brixton riots. The Prince of Wales weds Lady Diana Spencer. Unemployment reaches 2.5 million. Britain in recession. The launch of the first space shuttle Columbia.

1982: Falklands War Prince Andrew is among those serving in the forces. Intruder in Queens bedroom. Pope visits Britain. King Henry VIIIs Mary Rose raised in the Solent. Prince William born. Economic recession.

1983: US President Ronald Reagans Star Wars speech. Russians shoot down Korean jetliner.

1984: The IRA bombs Grand Hotel, Brighton. Indira Gandhi assassinated. Bob Geldofs Ethiopia appeal. Miners strikes. Prince Harry born.

1985: Bradford City football stadium fire kills 56. Heysel stadium riot kills 39. Live Aid concert held to raise money for Ethiopian famine.

1986: Funeral of Duchess of Windsor at Frogmore. Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson and becomes Duke of York.

1987: Zeebrugge disaster. The Great Storm sweeps through southern England. IRA bombs Enniskillen Remembrance Day parade. Hungerford massacre. Kings Cross fire.

1988: Piper Alpha oil platform disaster. Lockerbie jumbo jet bombing. Government loses Spycatcher legal battle. Professor Stephen Hawkings A Brief History Of Time is published.

1989: Hillsborough disaster. Berlin Wall falls. Tiananmen Square massacre. Author Salman Rushdie goes into hiding. Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.

1990: John Major becomes prime minister. Iraq invades Kuwait. Nelson Mandela is released from prison. Poll tax riots.

1991: Allies launch Operation Desert Storm in Gulf War against Iraq. Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev resigns. Birmingham Six freed after 16 years in jail.

1992: The Queens annus horribilis the Princess Royal and Captain Phillips divorce, the Waleses and the Yorks separate, Windsor Castle goes up in flames. Black Wednesday the day Britain crashed out of the ERM. The break-up of Yugoslavia.

1993: Publication of the Prince of Waless intimate talk with Camilla Parker Bowles. The IRA bombs Warrington. Buckingham Palace opens to the public. Stephen Lawrence is stabbed to death in Eltham, south-east London.

1994: Labour leader John Smith dies. The Queen and French President Francois Mitterrand open the Channel Tunnel. 50th anniversary of D-Day. Prince of Wales admits adultery in TV documentary. IRA ceasefire. The Queen visits Russia. Genocide in Rwanda.

1995: Official Aids cases pass one million mark. Barings Bank collapses. Terrorist gas attacks panic Tokyo and Yokohama. VE Day and VJ Day commemorated. Princess Dianas Panorama interview.

1996: The Duke and Duchess of York divorce. The Prince and Princess of Wales divorce. Mid-air crash in India kills more than 350. Fire in Channel Tunnel. Ban on exports of British beef amid BSE crisis.

1997: New Labour under Tony Blair beats the Conservatives, ending 18 years of Tory rule. Royal Yacht Britannia decommissioned. Diana, Princess of Wales dies in Paris car crash. Scotland and Wales votes for devolution. Dolly the Sheep cloned. Handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China.

1998: War breaks out in Europe as a Nato coalition attacks Yugoslavia. Digital TV launched. Operation Desert Fox in Iraq. Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Omagh bombing.

1999: Birth of single European currency, the euro. Prince Edward marries Sophie Rhys-Jones.

2000: A new millennium and the Queen Mothers 100th year. British rower Steve Redgrave makes Olympic history by winning his fifth consecutive gold medal. George W Bush becomes US president.

2001: September 11 terrorist attacks. Foot-and-mouth outbreak in UK. First space tourist. Britain joins the US in strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

2002: The Queens Golden Jubilee. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret die. Twelve European Union countries adopt the euro.

2003: Britain and the US go to war against Saddam Husseins Iraq.

2004: Double Olympic gold for Kelly Holmes in 800m and 1,500m in Athens. Asian tsunami kills more than 100,000.

2005: Pope John Paul II dies and is succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI. The Prince of Wales marries Camilla Parker Bowles. London wins 2012 Olympics bid. July 7 terror attacks in London. Civil partnerships give same-sex couples legal rights.

2006: The former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is hanged in Baghdad. Lebanon War.

2007: Gordon Brown replaces Tony Blair as Prime Minister. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary.

2008: Jury return a verdict of unlawful killing in the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The UK enters a recession following the financial crisis. Barack Obama is elected to become the first black US president.

2009: Singer Michael Jackson dies. Swine flu pandemic. MPs expenses scandal.

2010: David Cameron becomes Prime Minister, leading a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition. The Queen becomes a great-grandmother for the first time when Savannah Phillips is born. Volcanic ash cloud blowing in from Iceland grounds flights. Burmas pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest.

2011: Middle East uprising. Japanese tsunami. Nato air raids on Libya. Prince William marries Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey. Queen visits Ireland. The summer riots.

2012: The Queen marks her Diamond Jubilee. London 2012 Olympics. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announce they are expecting a baby.

2013: Continuing civil war in Syria. Pope Benedict XVI resigns. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio becomesPope Francis. Baroness Thatcher and Nelson Mandela die. Prince George of Cambridge is born.

2014: Major flooding in England and Wales.The first same-sex wedding takes place after gay marriage becomes legal in England and Wales. Crisis in Iraq and Syria over the Islamic State militant group. Scotland votes no to independence. Ukraine crisis. Ebola epidemic.

2015: Attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Princess Charlotte of Cambridge born. Conservative win majority in general election. Migrant crisis. The Queen becomes Britains longest reigning monarch. Terror attacks in Paris, including at theBataclan concert hall.

2016: Shooting at gay nightclub in Orlando. Queen celebrates her 90th birthday. British astronaut Tim Peake returns to Earth after a six-month mission on the ISS. The UK votes for Brexit in referendum on the EU. Theresa May becomes Prime Minister. The Queen becomes the worlds longest-reigning, still-serving monarch after the death of the king of Thailand.

2017: US President Donald Trump takes office. The Queen reaches her Sapphire Jubilee 65 years on the throne. Manchester Arena bombing. Early election. Grenfell Tower fire. The Queen and Philip celebrate their platinum wedding anniversary.

2018:Diplomatic row breaks out with Russia over poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal. Prince Louis of Cambridge born.Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle.

2019: Notre Dame fire. Terrorist attack in Sri Lanka. Archie Mountbatten-Windsor is born to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Donald Trumps state visit to the UK. England win the Cricket World Cup. Theresa May resigns. Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister. The Duke of York steps down from royal duties amid the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

2020: Megxit Harry and Meghan quit royal life. Brexit the UK leaves the EU. Coronavirus outbreak. Lockdown in the UK. Black Lives Matter protests follow the death of George Floyd in the US.

Read more:

Milestones and events of the Queen's long reign - shropshirestar.com

New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) and its sister institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), moved by the compassionate vision of its Founder, Professor Achyuta Samanta, have always responded swiftly to reduce the suffering of people at the time of natural calamities. This time also, right from the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, it has been doing its bit to reach out to the worst-affected, touching the lives of patients, stranded migrant workers, people living in containment areas and even starving animals.

Predicting the challenges that lay ahead, KIIT and KISS initiated an action plan to help the worst-hit sections of the society. It was the first mover in creating awareness on the disease even before the State reported its first coronavirus case. Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), the medical wing of KIIT, organised alecture on CoronaVirus- A Global Threaton 1stFebruary, 2020 in which standardinfection control strategies to prevent the spread of coronavirus was discussed. Subsequently, Kalinga Institute of Nursing Sciences (KINS) and KIIT School of Public Health also joined the awareness effort.

The student community is one of the worst affected groups in the present crisis. Examinations, admissions and academic sessions all remain disrupted. KIIT Deemed to be University, which has been recognised as an Institution of Eminence by the government of India, has 30,000 students from all parts of India and over 50 countries. Another 30,000 underprivileged students study in KISS, the worlds largest fully-free fully-residential institute exclusively for tribal students. Anticipating the problem early, all the students of KIIT and KISS were safely sent back to their homes well before India declared the nationwide lockdown.

But for KIIT and KISS students, being away from the campus did not mean academic loss. KIIT is the first university to have begun online classes for 30,000 students. Encouragingly, about 95 per cent of the students are attending the online classes, conducted through Zoom, regularly. Not only online classes, but there is good participation in the one-day academic seminars conducted online, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students. As such, KIIT has been able to maintain the academic calendar perfectly so far. If the crisis persists for a longer time, KIIT has made all preparations to conduct online examinations also. Similarly, 30,000 tribal students of KISS are in constant touch with their teachers through WhatsApp groups. KISS has taken initiative to start e-Learning classes for them through Kalinga TV.

While in their homes in various districts of Odisha, KISS students are actively engaged in creating awareness on social distancing and respiratory hygiene in their areas.Involving the students of the institute, KISS launched Project Uday, a massive awareness campaign on social distancing, proper use of mask, hand washing andrespiratory hygiene in six aspirational districts of Odisha: Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Kandhamal, Balangir, and Gajapati. Under Project Uday, students are carrying out door-to-door campaigning and organizing awareness camps at market places. More than 500 volunteers are involved in the project covering 220 villages.

In one of the most significant measure in Odishas war against COVID-19, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) set up Indias first standalone COVID-19 hospital, a 500-bedded ultramodern facility including 50 critical care beds, with the support of the government of Odisha.This COVID Hospital is functioning from a dedicated block of KIMS with an exclusive team of doctors, nurses, paramedicsand housekeeping staff.The quick turnaround time in setting up of the state-of-the-art dedicated COVID Hospital received much praise. Today, KIMS is the go-to hospital for any suspected coronavirus patient in the capital city of Bhubaneswar.

The vision of Shri Naveen Patnaik, Honourable Chief Minister of Odisha in tackling the pandemic has been proactive and ahead of any other Indian state. The MoU with KIMS takes that vision one step further. KIMS will definitely put in all possible effort to justify the Chief Minister's faith and fulfill his vision, and serve the people of the state in a better and bigger way. I hope that this partnership will bear fruit and we can soon have a COVID-19 free Odisha, said Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT and KISS.

In anticipation of the possible spike in positive cases in districts, KIIT has also set up three 200-bedded COVID-19 hospitals, one each in Kandhamal, Balangir and Mayurbhanj districts, with the support of the respective district administration. In Balangir and Mayurbhanj, the facility functions from the satellite campuses of KISS, which were inaugurated recently. All three District COVID-19 Hospitals, already operational from the mid of April, are managed by KIMS and provides round the clock services following WHO and ICMR guidelines.The COVID Hospital in Kandhamal, a district having no railway connectivity, is a boon for the local people, who are yet to be exposed to the world of high speed internet connectivity. Besides COVID Hospital, KIIT and KISS are providing groceries and cash for miscellaneous expensesto over 40 orphanages, old age homes and leprosy centres in Kandhamal district.

Another constituent of KIIT,KIIT-Technology Business Incubator (KIIT-TBI) under KIIT School of Biotechnology, has been recognised as a Centre for Augmenting War with COVID-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH) by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), government of India, along with other eminent institutes in India, including IITs. KIIT-TBI is responsible for implementing this program in East & NE.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a global health emergency, it have also caused a grave humanitarian crisis due to prolonged lockdowns and loss of livelihoods for millions. KIIT and KISS have been trying to identify and reach out to various groups facing hardship due to the extended lockdown. It distributed family survival packets comprising of essential food items like rice, pulses, cooking oil, etc. - to the disadvantaged people living in various slums in Bhubaneswar. The survival packets were giventhrice a week for the first month during lockdownto40,000 people in the slum areas of Bhubaneswar.

We are doing our bit to ensure that vulnerable sections of the population around do not face starvation. We are augmenting the efforts of the State Government, which has robust policies for such sections, in a humble way, Prof. Samanta said, while urging every citizen to do whatever best they can individually and to support the local administration in these challenging times.

KIIT also took initiative to deliver cooked food to police personnel on duty, who were diligently enforcing the lockdown. Lunch was provided every day to more than 2000 police personnel across Bhubaneswar as well as adjoining cities of Puri and Cuttackto honour their work to make people aware about COVID-19.

The institution is working closely with the government of Odisha to provide all support from its available resources like logistics, infrastructure, healthcare, human resources, etc. It provided temporary shelter and cooked meals to migrant labourers, who were stranded in Bhubaneswar, after the lockdown was announced.More than 1000 migrant workers were helped in this initiative.After some areas in Bhubaneswar were marked as containment zones, it distributed food and essential items to the people of the zone. KISS worked closely with the American Embassy in the evacuation of personnel who were stuck in Odisha and other adjoining areas. It also distributed feminine hygiene products to women and girls in all the districts of Odisha.

Other community outreach activities include provision of one month supply to the Tibetan population in Chandragiri and Padmasambhava Monastery in Jiranga, a Tibetan settlement area in Eastern Odisha; adoption of two old age homes in Chandragiri.KIMS is also supporting a hospital in Jiranga and has provided PPE to the health workers.

Reaching the unreached, KIIT & KISS extended a helping hand to the red light areas in Bhubaneswar. Groceries and other essentials were provided to the needy. KIIT, KISS, Sakha and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives came together to distribute ration and essential items for the transgender community in Bhubaneswar, Rayagada and a few other districts of Odisha.

KIIT and KISS even set up a team to source and distribute fruits, vegetables, biscuits and other food materials to animals like monkeys, cattle and dogs, in and around the campus. It has adopted 140 peacocks in Bhubaneswar is taking care of these beautiful birds and providingfinancial assistance to more than 10 Goshalasin Puri, Bhubaneswarand Cuttack. I wish to remind everyone that while we need to be kind to every other human through social distancing, we must not forget about these animals who are so much dependant on us. Show some kindness, bring a smile to everyone in this difficult time, says Professor Samanta.

COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious global health crisis of our times and also the toughest humanitarian challenge. It has extracted a huge human toll, besides causing big setbacks to the economy. Our efforts are a drop in the ocean and aim to bring smiles on the faces of as many people as we can touch. But, I am sure, together, we will overcome this crisis also, he added.

Posted By: Aalok Sensharma

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KIIT at the frontline of Odisha's war against coronavirus - Jagran English

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian mother Alemtsehay Nasir went to Lebanon dreaming that her maids job would let her earn money to make a better life for her young son. But she was fired when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and her employers dumped her on the streets.

The 32-year-old was left on the curb outside the Ethiopian consulate in a suburb of Beirut, one of hundreds of women abandoned by employers without the means to get home after the pandemic hit, on top of a financial crisis that has devastated the Lebanese economy.

Lebanese labour laws offer little protection for migrant workers. The best the women can hope for is that a charity will help them get home.

They just take them out and dump them on the streets with their belongings, Alemtsehay told Reuters. Even right now, there are many women on the streets, waiting for someone to come to their rescue.

Ethiopia accounts for the biggest percentage of migrant workers in Lebanon, according to Lebanese government data.

In May, Alemtsehay was one of around 650 women returned to Ethiopia on a flight organised by Addis Ababa authorities and the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Another woman on the flight said she had been dumped without her wages or passport and arrested for not having identification. She didnt want Reuters to identify her for fear that traffickers that she paid to bring her to Lebanon would track her down and force her to repay her debts.

Maureen Achieng, IOMs chief of mission in Ethiopia, said women were still keen to work in Lebanon despite the horror stories.

The dangers are for the most part well known but ... not always a sufficient deterrent, she told Reuters.

Alemtsehays family is just happy to see her.

Thank God now she is back home, in one piece, said her mother Workitu Metaferiya as Alemtsehays 6-year-old son, Christian Mikias, smiled shyly. He was 2 the last time she was home.

Reporting by Kumerra Gemechu and Nazanine Moshiri; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Giles Elgood

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Ethiopian maids 'dumped' in the streets in Lebanon as COVID hits - Reuters

Written by Yoginder K. Alagh | Updated: July 10, 2020 9:26:39 am Statements emphasising that in a downturn economy, local labour will fill the gap, simply ignore the cycles in the demand for labour. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar)

Migrants, very often, get an undeserved bad name in our market economy. However, in Indias not very old experience, and in the process of development generally, as migration plays a major developmental role its careless and somewhat irresponsible to downplay the role of migrant workers. Statements emphasising that in a downturn economy, local labour will fill the gap, simply ignore the cycles in the demand for labour. We in the cities, after all, will have to worry about our needs whenever the M or the W-shaped swing takes place.

In the Seventies of the last century, the economist K N Raj, a guru to many of us, brought the importance of migrant labour to our attention. Raj, an example to many of us, worked in India for most of his career. But at that time, certain compelling personal reasons led him to work with the UN. He chose to go to the ILO and set up the ILO ARTEP an Asian Regional Employment Programme. There Raj brought to our notice the historical role of migration in Japans development. He propagated the work of the eminent Japanese economist Kaoru Ishikawa. Ishikawa had shown that labour migrated to those Japanese prefectures which were growing fast economically, including agriculturally. Diagrammatically, if you plotted output per unit of land against labour per unit of land, you got an inverse relationship in a rectangular hyperbola. If agricultural productivity went up, more labour was sucked into the prefecture. Much like migrant workers from UP and Bihar going to the Green Revolution belt.

Raj wanted to test Ishikawas hypothesis in India. He asked me, G S Bhalla and Amit Bhaduri to do this job. He knew me because he was a great admirer of my patience in selecting younger people at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram and holding my own against some of the bigwigs of the institute who tended to be very formal.

I had co-authored a book with Bhalla on district-level agricultural experience and had a lot of data. Over many rounds of analysis and discussions, Bhaduri kept on saying that this business was a truism. At one stage, a little fatigued, I had to tell him: We dont want to work with falsisms, do we? Lets go ahead. This was the origin of the, by now, well-known Alagh, Bhalla and Bhaduri thesis. Our paper proved that there was indeed a suction mechanism in Indian agriculture.

Opinion | There is an irrational preference for expensive Covid treatments over effective ones

Not satisfied, Raj organised a set of seminars on the issue in different parts of India. At Bengaluru, D T Lakdawala, the then deputy chairman of the Planning Commission chaired the meeting. D M Nanjundappa, chairman of the Karnataka State Planning Commission, said that if instead of irrigation pumps we had the old buffalo driven wheels and water was lifted by buckets, employment in well irrigation would be higher. Bhalla, a Marxist by inclination and very critical of what he thought were ante-diluvian ideas, responded that if we do irrigation with spoons, employment would be even higher. Nanjundappa protested that Bhalla is making fun of him. Lakdawala, the great liberal, doused the fire.

Later, the ILO economist of Pakistani origin, Rashid Amjad, published a book that talked about the similar experience of migrant workers in several other countries, making the Ishikawa hypothesis a universal theory endorsed by the ILO. Labour migration as a serious policy issue had arrived.

In this century, as the different globalisation crises hit us, Iwan J Azis, the Indonesian economist who held positions at the Cornell University in the US and the National University of Indonesia, and I looked at reverse migration. Azis showed that the Southeast Asian economies were chugging along at 6 per cent plus growth when the SARS outbreak hit the region. The Thai baht lost half its value in a few days. The contagion was a lot like the later viruses. In a few months, many countries lost upto a third of their wealth. India, I showed, fared better because it was a relatively closed economy.

Azis showed that there was reverse migration. The migrants went back to their villages where they did not have to starve. They had picked up skills in the cities which helped them initiate agro-based development like diversification away from rice in Indonesia. The experience was similar in Philippines and Vietnam. Migrants were regarded as an asset.

Opinion | The regimes of boundaries: They have multiplied, even as Covid nudges us towards broader discourse of access

At a dinner in Delhi, I was made to sit at the head table with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I had written to him to get the meltdown in Surat looked into. He turned to me and said, Alagh saheb, sab theek hain (Everything is all right). I didnt have the heart to complain.

Migration has always been a shock absorber. It is this role we choked off by regional lockdowns and transportation blockages, causing enormous suffering and many deaths. I get disturbed when some very eminent colleagues recognise the uncertainty of the situation and yet choose livelihood over life. A filled up belly may starve. But the dead wont come back. This is not the empirical welfare economics my teachers many of them Nobel Prize winners taught me. Good economics doesnt make careless choices between life and death.

We have now, hopefully, learnt from our mistakes. Today, many of the migrants may say that they will never come back. But once opportunities are there, they will return. Until then, it is not quite kosher to stop them from going home under pressure from builder lobbies. The market should be allowed to work for both industry and labour.

In fact, the reverse migration could bolster the agricultural sector in the short-run. We should integrate the process of reverse migration with agro-based development in the short-run and wait for the migration back to cities as we get out of this disaster.

This article first appeared in the print edition on July 10, 2020 under the title Wait for the migrant. The writer, a former Union Minister, is an economist.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

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Wait for the migrant: Once opportunities are there, they will return - The Indian Express

Actor Sonu Sood, who catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will pen a book about his experience.

His debut book, as-of-yet untitled, will reveal the emotional and often challenging journeys the actor undertook along with the people he helped.

It will be released later this year, announced publishing house Penguin Random House India on Wednesday.

"... I want to thank God for making me a catalyst in helping the migrants. While my heart beats in Mumbai, after this movement I feel a part of me lives in the villages of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Uttarakhand and various other states where I have now found new friends and made deep connections.

"I have decided to put these experiences, stories that are embedded in my soul forever, in a book ... I'm excited, nervous and overwhelmed, and I can't wait to connect with you through my book. I look forward to your supportand love you all," Sood said in a statement.

The 46-year-old actor launched an initiative to help reunite migrant workers who were stranded in Mumbai with their families in distant corners of the country.

Sood and his team rolled out a toll-free number and a WhatsApp helpline to connect with the workers and then arrange transportation for those desperate to reach their homes. Later, he arranged for food, buses, trains and even chartered flights for stranded migrants, some of whom were walking home after the lockdown was imposed earlier in March and left them jobless.

"The past three-and-half months have been a kind of a life-changing experience for me, living with the migrants for sixteen to eighteen hours a day and sharing the pain. When I go to see them off as they begin their journey back home, my heart is filled with joy and relief.

"Seeing the smiles on their faces, the tears of happiness in their eyes has been the most special experience of my life, and I pledged that Ill keep on working to send them back to their homes until the last migrant reaches his village, to his loved ones," he added.

Famous antagonist in reel-life, and a true hero in real, Sood on Monday also pledged financial support to over 400 families of migrants, who died or were injured during the coronavirus lockdown.

Milee Ashwarya, publisher, Ebury Publishing and Vintage Publishing, Penguin Random House, said the book will bring together the story of Sood's amazing journey - "of people who were suddenly left without security and livelihood; of hope and the feeling of oneness that binds us all together".

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Sonu Sood to write book on helping migrants amid Covid-19 crisis - Deccan Herald

Bhubaneswar: As a little more than a million Migrant Laborers have registered with the State Governments dedicated COVID -19 Website and a large number of them have returned back home triggered by uncertainty over Corona Pandemic, time to map their skills to redraw livelihood strategies for them. Government should plan out both long-term and short term strategies so that their livelihoods are secured thereby avoiding the risk of distress, human trafficking and re-migration through alternative pathways, said the outcome of a National Level Webinar, a Virtual Dialogue on Mainstreaming Migrant Workers. Migrants after losing jobs are facing unemployment and poverty back home as uncertainty looms large all over.

The webinar was organized jointly by City-based Focus Odisha Foundation and Mahashakti Foundation in collaboration with the National level Migrant Resources Centre Migration Watch India on July 13. About one hundred participants drawn from a cross-section of society and representatives of civil society organizations from across the country participated to deliberate on the most pressing issue of the time Migrant crisis.

While making a lead presentation Executive Director of Action Aid Association India and Co-Chair of World Urban Campaign of UN Habitat Sandeep Chachra underlined the need for rebuilding livelihoods strategies and ensuring social safety net for both for returned migrants and informal workers working elsewhere in the country, a huge community estimated at one-fourth of the total population of the country. Chachra further added that we need to think beyond MGNREGS and explore alternative skill-based livelihoods.

Dr Niranjan Sahoo, Sr Fellow at New Delhi based Indias leading think tank The Observer Research Foundation stressed the need for ensuring legitimate entitlements of migrant workers as there have been a large scale resentment across the country following the alleged denial of their rights as these communities facing identity crises as nowhere people.

its good that MGNREGS have provided fifty percent jobs to a huge population of jobless people during the last couple of months in rural hinterlands and have created 1.2 million man day in this period, but if we will not properly implement Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, Food Security packages and a slew of programmes announced for migrants benefit, millions of people will be getting to poverty trap again, said Sahoo.

State head of UNDP Abha Mishra in her presentation highlighted the need for mapping the skills and knowledge of Migrant people so that we will be able to a draw a line between skilled and unskilled people and plan for the restoration of their livelihoods. She further added that there is a need to think about developing natural industries like livestock and diary development, focusing on nutrigardens, organic farming besides emphasizing on agricultural and Tourism development.

Shaonli Chakraborty of Bengaluru based nation-level forum Covid Action Collaborative called upon civil society actors, Industries, Governments to redirect their priorities for the resettlement and restoration of jobs of millions of migrant laborers; otherwise, we will lose sight of prospering societies. All it needed is to facilitate their social security and occupational safety both at Origin and Destination Places and at Transit points.

Mumbai based CSR Head of ACC Ltd Pratyush Panda questioned on how skill persons can be engaged in MGNREGS work which is largely for unskilled rural wage workers. As things stand today both Industries and civil society should come together to facilitate re-engagement of lakhs of skilled migrant workers.

Convenor of COVID-19-Civil Society Initiative and Migration Watch India Sudarshan Chhotoray while outlining the context described how Corona Pandemic has exposed vulnerability for a large section of the economically backward population. Time has come we need to recognize the Talents, Skills, and knowledge migrants have brought in and the key to unlocking their potential is to put a right based orderly system in place to reintegrate them in the local labour market thereby extending their access to social and economic security.

Prominent among the Guests who spoke were Sr Journalist and Foreign Affairs Expert Gopal Misra, Convenor of OIKTREE Initiatives William Stanley, President of ADHIKAR Ms N Amin, Joint Secretary of Utkal Samaj Madras Biswajit Kanungo and President of Mahashakti Foundation Santosh Kumar Mishra.

A special session was devoted on-How we reached out to thousands of standard Migrants? Where activists shared their experiences in dealing with the unfolding crisis and coordination they had with Government Authorities, Civil Society, Citizens Groups, Activists, Industries, and philanthropists across the Country.

CEO of Mahashakti Foundation Jugal Kishore Patnaik summed up the outcome and deliberations and Shrishita Rath proposed the vote of thanks.

Originally posted here:

National Level Webinar Held On Rebuilding Livelihoods of Migrants - Pragativadi

Bhubaneswar: As a little more than a million Migrant Laborers have registered with the State Governments dedicated COVID -19 Website and a large number of them have returned back home triggered by uncertainty over Corona Pandemic, time to map their skills to redraw livelihood strategies for them. Government should plan out both long-term and short term strategies so that their livelihoods are secured thereby avoiding the risk of distress, human trafficking and re-migration through alternative pathways, said the outcome of a National Level Webinar, a Virtual Dialogue on Mainstreaming Migrant Workers. Migrants after losing jobs are facing unemployment and poverty back home as uncertainty looms large all over.

The webinar was organized jointly by City based Focus Odisha Foundation and Mahashakti Foundation in collaboration with National level Migrant Resources Centre Migration Watch India on July 13. About one hundred participants drawn from a cross section of society and representatives of civil society organizations from across the country participated to deliberate on the most pressing issue of the time Migrant crisis.

While making a lead presentation Executive Director of Action Aid Association India and Co-Chair of World Urban Campaign of UN Habitat Sandeep Chachra underlined the need for rebuilding livelihoods strategies and ensuring social safety net for both for returned migrants and informal workers working elsewhere in the Country, a huge community estimated at one fourth of the total population of the country. Chachra further added that we need to think beyond MGNREGS and explore alternative skill based livelihoods.

Dr Niranjan Sahoo, Sr Fellow at New Delhi based Indias leading think tank The Observer Research Foundation stressed the need for ensuring legitimate entitlements of migrant workers as there have been a large scale resentment across the country following the alleged denial of their rights as these communities facing identity crises as nowhere people.

its good that MGNREGS have provided fifty percent jobs to a huge population of jobless people during the last couple of months in rural hinterlands and have created 1.2 million man day in this period, but if we will not properly implement Pradhan Mantri Graiba kalyan Yojana, Food Security packages and a slew of programmes announced for migrants benefit, millions of people will be getting to poverty trap again, said Sahoo.

State head of UNDP Abha Mishra in her presentation highlighted the need for mapping the skills and knowledge of Migrant people so that we will be able to a draw a line between skilled and unskilled people and plan for the restoration of their livelihoods. She further added that there is a need to think about developing natural industries like livestock and diary development, focusing on nutrigardens, organic farming besides emphasizing on agricultural and Tourism development.

Shaonli Chakraborty of Bengalure based nation level forum Covid Action Collaborative called upon civil society actors, Industries, Governments to redirect their priorities for the resettlement and restoration of jobs of millions of migrant laborers; otherwise we will lose sight of prospering societies. All it needed is to facilitate their social security and occupational safety both at Origin and Destination Places and at Transit points.

Mumbai based CSR Head of ACC Ltd Pratyush Panda questioned on how skill persons can be engaged in MGNREGS wok which is largely for unskilled rural wage workers. As things stand today both Industries and civili society should come together to facilitate reengagement of lakhs of skilled migrant workers.

Convenor of COVID-19-Civil Society Initiative and Migration Watch India Sudarshan Chhotoray while outlining the context described how Corona Pandemic has exposed vulnerability for a large section of economically backward population. Time has come we need to recognize the Talents, Skills and knowledge migrants have brought in and the key to unlocking their potential is to put a right based orderly system in place to reintegrate them in local labour market thereby extending their access to social and economic security.

Prominent among the Guests who spoke were Sr Journalist and Foreign Affairs Expert Gopal Misra, Convenor of OIKTREE Initiatives William Stanley, President of ADHIKAR Ms N Amin, Joint Secretary of Utkal Samaj Madras Biswajit Kanungo and President of Mahashakti Foundation Santosh Kumar Mishra.

A special session was devoted on-How we reached out to thousands of standard Migrants? Where activists shared their experiences in dealing with the unfolding crisis and coordination they had with Government Authorities, Civil Society, Citizens Groups, Activists, Industries and philanthropists across the Country.

CEO of Mahashakti Foundation Jugal Kishore Patnaik summed up the outcome and deliberations and Shrishita Rath proposed vote of thanks.

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Rebuilding Livelihoods of Migrant Workers: Odisha Government Urged to go for Skill Mapping of Migrant Workers - Odisha Diary

SANTA FE, N.M. (PRWEB) July 15, 2020

This summer, the School for Advanced Research (SAR), in collaboration with SITE Santa Fe and the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe (CCA), presents Beyond Borders, a powerful series of art installations and events that use the lens of art and social sciences to examine the global refugee crisis and realities of migration and border policy in the Northern hemisphere.

The series centers on the global debut of Hostile Terrain 94, a participatory art project and exhibition organized and sponsored by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), which is directed by anthropologist and former SAR resident scholar Jason De Len.

The physical exhibition is scheduled to debut at SITE Santa Fe later this summer, pending NM State approvals. The exhibition is created to raise awareness of the death and suffering that occur regularly at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and to remember those who have died, including many who remain unidentified.

The exhibit is composed of ~3,200 handwritten toe tags that represent the migrants who have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2019. During the COVID-19 shutdown, teams from SAR, CCA, SITE Santa Fe, and others, including students from the New Mexico School for the Arts, have been meticulously filling out the individual toe tag cards at the center of the Hostile Terrain 94 installation. Each tag includes the name, age, sex, cause of death, condition of body, and location of recovery for each person memorialized in this project.

Following its debut at SITE Santa Fe, Hostile Terrain 94 will continue on a tour of up to 150 additional locations around the globe, including Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Miami, Mexico City, San Pedro Sula (Honduras), San Salvador (El Salvador), and Lampedusa (Italy).

Several public programs will accompany the exhibit to facilitate deeper local community conversations about the issues and to offer additional perspective from De Len and other leading anthropologists and social scientists who work with and study immigrant communities.

Friday, July 17, 5-6 pm (MDT)Hostile Terrain 94 Virtual Exhibition Opening

Beyond Borders makes its groundbreaking global debut on July 17, 2020, with a digital opening of Hostile Terrain 94, a participatory art project and exhibition organized and sponsored by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), which is directed by anthropologist and former SAR resident scholar Jason De Len. This virtual event will begin with introductions by the three partners of the Beyond Borders collaboration and will feature an overview of the project and a virtual walk through by De Len of the HT94 installation at SITE Santa Fe

Register for this event here.

Mid-July, 2020 January 2021DISPLACED: Contemporary Artists Confront the Global Refugee CrisisSITE Santa Fe1606 Paseo de PeraltaSanta Fe, NM 87501

The physical installation of Hostile Terrain 94 is scheduled to debut at SITE Santa Fe in mid-July, pending the NM Governors reopening plans, as a part of Displaced, a new exhibition exploring the global refugee crisis. With works by artists from two generations and from around the globe, Displaced explores the experience of the refugee, the migrant, and the displaced from many cultural and historical vantage points. Hostile Terrain 94 brings stark attention to the refugee crisis at our own U.S. border with a powerful work that memorializes so many who have lost their lives fleeing danger and hardship and seeking a better life.

SITE Santa Fe is making plans to reopen and premiere Displaced and Hostile Terrain 94 in July, 2020, though this date is subject to change pending reopening approvals from the state of New Mexico. The show will run through January 2021.

Saturday, July 18, 2020, 3-4 pmMacArthur Fellows in Conversation: Jason De Len and Steven FeldPresented by the School for Advanced Research (SAR)

Online public program, Free and open to the public. Advanced registration is required.

Register for this event here.

Following the launch of Hostile Terrain 94, join MacArthur Fellows Jason De Len and Steven Feld as they explore how research and data can be translated creatively for public consumption through numerous forms of art and media, and be used to inspire individuals to take action in their own lives to contribute to the greater good.

Funding provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Friday, August 21, 2020, 1011 amBeyond Borders SymposiumPresented by the School for Advanced Research (SAR)$15 SAR members; $25 not-yet-members. Registration required.

Register for this event here.

Led by Hostile Terrain 94 artist Jason De Len, this symposium, designed to foster greater public dialogue about immigration, will bring De Len together with leading anthropology and social sciences scholars C.J. Alvarez, Deborah A. Boehm, and Ieva Jusionyte, where they will share and discuss their own work with immigrant communities and their research on border issues and policies.

Beyond Borders Virtual Film SeriesPresented by Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe/CCA Cinemathequeccasantafe.org

In conjunction with Hostile Terrain 94, Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe presents a series of two related films, including Border South (2019), a Ral O. Paz Pastrana film, and The Infiltrators by Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra.

Friday, July 24, 2020, 7 pmBeyond Borders presents A CCA Living Room Series programBorder South: A Zoom Discussion with Jason De Len

Ral O. Paz Pastranas film weaves together migrant stories of resilience and survival from different vantage points. The film exposes a global migration system that renders human beings invisible in life as well as death. Jason De Len served as producer and advisor to the film. (U.S./Mexico, 2019, 88m)

This is a book-club style event in which the film will be watched by participants individually prior to the Zoom gathering. Visit https://www.ccasantafe.org/living-room-series to register.

Friday, August 7, 2020, 7 pmBeyond Borders presents A CCA Living Room Series programThe Infiltrators: A Zoom Discussion with Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra

Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarras documentary, winner of two awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, reconstructs the remarkable, inspiring story of a rag-tag group of activist youthall Dreamerswho band together to wind up in one of Americas mysterious for-profit immigrant detention centers. From the inside, they plot ways to help protect the vulnerable detainees. (U.S., 2019, 95m)

This is a book-club style event in which the film will be watched by participants individually prior to the Zoom gathering. Visit https://www.ccasantafe.org/living-room-series to register.

For further information on the project and a full run of programs, please visit sarweb.org/beyond-borders-2020/

For interviews or high-resolution images contact:

School for Advanced Research / Merridith Ingram / (845) 674.3103 / mingram@66and.coSITE Santa Fe / Anne Wrinkle / (505) 989.1199 x 22 / wrinkle@sitesantafe.orgCenter for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe / JC Gonzo / (505) 919.7614 / marketing@ccasantafe.org

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Beyond Borders: Santa Fe partnership addresses the global refugee crisis and ongoing US/Mexico immigration issues through the lens of the arts and...