States on alert to tackle locust threat

NEWDELHI: The Delhi government on Thursday issued an advisory on preventive measures to control a probable locust attack in the national capital.

It called for organising awareness programmes for the public/ farmers to prevent/control the probable attack of swarms of locusts in the national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi.

It said that since the swarms usually fly during the day and rest at night, they should not be allowed to rest. “Concerned authorities may carry out spraying of insecticide/pesticide as per need during the night,” the advisory by the Development Commissioner of Delhi said.

Delhi labour minister Gopal Rai also convened a meeting at his residence to discuss preparations to meet the locust threat, ANI reported. The locust swarms which first attacked Rajasthan have now spread to four other states - Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and MP. Much of the current swarms of locusts are not yet adults. In favourable wind conditions they can travel long distances in a single day which makes tracking them difficult.

The Centre has also pitched in to help states battle the locust attack. In Maharashtra, the state agriculture dept has issued a ‘locust warning alert’ for all 11 districts in Vidarbha and four districts in north Maharashtra.

Swarms of locusts have moved towards Maharashtra’s Gondia district after attacking crops in neighbouring Bhandara, an official said.

An agriculture team rushed to Bhandara in the early hours of Thursday and sprayed pesticides with two fire tenders on trees in one-km radius in Temani village of the district, divisional joint director of agriculture Ravi Bhosle said. “When the team reached the area in the early hours, pests were seen on mango, teak, moha, jambhul, ber and other trees. Pesticides were sprayed and by morning, a large number the crop-eating pests fell from trees and died,” he said.

Haryana has issued a high alert in seven districts after locust swarms attacked crops in neighbouring Rajasthan and a few other states, official said on Thursday, asserting that there was enough insecticide in stock to tackle the pest menace.

Tractors mounted with chemical sprayers have also been deployed. After damaging crops in Rajasthan and MP, swarms of locusts entered UP’S Jhansi district amid what is being described as the worst attack in 26 years. Authorities in Haryana said that though the locust swarms have not entered the state, but they are maintaining a high alert.

Even after registration the migrants have to wait for a long time for their turns to come.

“At present, looking at the miseries of the migrant workers, we are of the view that some interim directions need to be issued,” the three-judge bench, also comprising justices SK Kaul and MR Shah, said.

The court asked originating states and railways to provide meals and water to migrants during train journeys, as is the current practice. “As and when the state governments put in a request for trains, railways has to provide them,” the bench said. The interim direction added that certain details be brought on record: number of those awaiting transportation to their hometowns, plan for transportation and mechanism of registration with states that are sending them back.

The court said replies by states and the Centre in the case will have to filed by June 5. Various private parties, too, have sought intervention in the case, including non-government organisations (NGOS) and Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

The top court took note of the matter on Tuesday with the plight of migrant labourers spiralling into a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the lockdown announced to contain the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Scores of migrants lost their jobs and began walking hundreds of kilometres to their hometowns without access to food or water in a massive socio-economic fallout of the lockdown. It was only in May that the central government launched special buses and trains to ferry them home even as many died in road accidents.

At Thursday’s hearing, the court threw at the Centre a volley of questions — from the period a person has to wait before boarding a train or bus to the logistics of ferrying them home to arrangements for their food and shelter.

“What is the normal time? If a migrant is identified, there must be some certainty that he will be shifted out within one week or 10 days at most?...there have been instances where one state sends migrants but at the border another state says we are not accepting the migrants. We need a policy on this,” the bench told solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre.

Asked about who pays for migrants’ journeys back home, Mehta said it was either the states receiving them or those sending them. “In some cases, the money is reimbursed by the receiving state,” he said.

The bench noted that such a policy creates confusion and underscored the need for a uniform policy. The court also pointed out that in case of reimbursement, a person should have money in the first place to buy a ticket to reach home.

The issue of train tickets has triggered a controversy in the past with opposition parties accusing the Centre of ignoring migrants and making them pay for their journeys. The Centre, however, says it is paying for 85% of the expenses, and states need to bear the cost of the remaining 15%.

“Food and drinking water is provided by railways free of cost. The first meal is provided by the state government [at point of origin] once the train starts. The food [on board] is provided by the railway ministry. If the journey is short, then one meal. And if it’s long, then two meals,” Mehta said, while also detailing the protocols followed at their destinations.

At the onset, Mehta submitted a preliminary report in the court, saying a total of 3,700 special trains for migrants had been run between May 1 and May 27, and many have been shifted by road. He said 9.7 million migrant workers had been ferried to their hometowns till Wednesday, adding that 80% of the migrants were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The court asked whether the people being transport were asked “to shell out any money at any stage?” “With food surplus available with the FCI [Food Corporation of India], is food being supplied to them while they wait for being transported back?” the bench asked.

Mehta said: “They are provided with food... This is an unprecedented crisis and we are taking unprecedented measures”.

The bench also enquired how much time the Centre will need to ferry all migrants to their destinations, and asked it to consider a monitoring mechanism for “food and basic necessities”. “It’s not that the government is doing nothing, but some concrete steps have to be taken,” the court said.

Mehta said many of the labourers opted not to shift due to the gradual reopening of activities. But when the authorities find a group that is walking, a bus reaches them and takes them to the nearest railway station, he added.

“They have already left their houses. So where is the foodgrain?” the court asked. To this, Mehta said, the Centre will file a detailed report on the issue. He also called for separate reports from states.

During the hearing, the court pointed out that no state should have the right to reject migrant workers coming back. “There is no question about that. They are all citizens of India,” Mehta replied.

Mehta also complained to the court about “prophets of doom” who keep spreading what he called misinformation.

“The Centre is doing a lot to prevent Covid-19, but there are prophets of doom in our country who only spread negativity, negativity, negativity. These arm chair intellectuals do not recognise the nation’s efforts,” Mehta said, requesting the court not to let anyone “use this platform” as a “political platform”. maker of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-mohammed (JEM) terror group, had put together the car bomb.

But the car bomb, a senior police officer told Hindustan Times, also exemplifies that the line between terror groups was only notional since they were working closely.

“This is purely a Jaish-e-mohammed and Lashkar-e-taiba joint operation. But the (terror) factory is located in Pakistan, whether it produces terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen, JEM or TRF (The Resistance Front),” Jammu & Kashmir Police chief Dilbag Singh told HT.

The initial intelligence input that led to an overnight operation in Pulwama was that a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist was driving the car. The input didn’t indicate which route he would take. “So, joint teams of the J&K Police, CRPF and the army mapped all the possible routes and set up checkpoints,” a Jammu & Kashmir Police officer aware of the developments said.

When the car suspected to be carrying the bomb was spotted at Ayekhand, the security forces — who had positioned themselves away from the road — started firing at the car. The terrorist drove for a bit before stopping and escaping into the forest.

The explosives were being carried in a drum on the rear seat of a Santro car which had a fake registration number plate. “Possibly more explosives could be fitted elsewhere in the vehicle,” the police officer said.

Security forces waited till dawn and evacuated people living in the neighbourhood. “The vehicle was exploded in situ by the Bomb Disposal Squad as moving the vehicle would have involved serious threat,” the official said.

Initial investigations said the vehicle’s registration number was traced to a scooter issued in Kathua district of Jammu province.

A top Kashmir police officer told HT that they had been working on this case for the last two months.

“This would have been a repeat of the (2019) Pulwama bombing,” he said, referring to the suicide bombing of a CRPF convoy that killed 40 troopers and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

The incident led India to carry out air strikes at a terror facility in Pakistan’s Balakot. Islamabad retaliated by attempting to carry out strikes at Indian installations in Kashmir. India shot down an F-16 plane that was being used to fire at Indian locations.

A senior counter-terror official in Delhi saw a link to the planned car bombing and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s repeated statements accusing India of prepping for a “false flag operation in Kashmir”.

The reference to the “false flag operation” is part of Khan’s government narrative that Pakistan does not sponsor terror groups in Kashmir and India f alsely accuses Islamabad of involvement so t hat i t can l aunch attacks.

“The sequence of events clearly demonstrate that PM Imran Khan had been preparing the ground to deny involvement in terror attacks orchestrated from its territory and support of the deep state,” the counter-terror official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. raised by ~40,000 crore under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (self-reliant India programme) of the Narendra Modi government, taking total funding for the programme this financial year to more than ~1 trillion, as the Centre sought to meet additional demand for rural jobs.

Since the lockdown for the coronavirus disease started on March 25, millions of migrant workers, mainly daily-wage earners who found themselves without a job, have left the big cities and headed home to their villages in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. Uttar Pradesh alone claims to have received 2.6 million returning workers.

Many of them have been looking to MGNREGS as they seek to tide over the Covid-19 crisis. Rural development ministry officials maintained that job allocations under the scheme, the only welfare programme with a budget in excess of ~1 trillion, would gain momentum. They expect MGNREGS to emerge as the backbone of the rural economy amid the pandemic.

Three figures are key to assessing the impact of MGNREGS on the ground: jobs demanded by beneficiaries, jobs offered by the states and jobs provided to workers.

While 50.8 million people have demanded jobs in the first two months of the financial year, the states have offered work to 50.1 million, out of whom only 28.8 million have been actually provided jobs. According to experts, this vast difference between the number of jobs offered and actually provided underlines the role of the states.

“The states always show very high levels of job offers to avoid paying compensation as per the law. But the impact of MGNREGS actually depends on how many people finally get work,” said Himanshu.

With the harvest season coming to an end and the lean agriculture season setting in plus millions of returning migrants seeki ng j o b s , t he p r e s s ur e o n MGNREGS for work allocation is expected to grow. April-july is the peak season for MGNREGS

Rural development ministry officials also said that until May 22, ~33,300 crore — one-third of the revised budget for the full year — had already been sanctioned, out of which ~24,500 crore had been released to the states.

The Arabian Sea is “very warm” and parts of it are conducive for development and intensification of a cyclone but IMD scientists said it is too early to give details of cyclone development.

“The models are not giving us a consensus statement right now. Some are showing intensification to a very intense or an extremely intense cyclone but many other global models are not showing such intensification. So, it’s too early to tell but a low-pressure area will form around May 31 to June 1. Sea conditions are favourable for intensification into a cyclone,” he added.

In its April forecast, the IMD said monsoon rains this year are likely to be normal at 100% of long period average with model error of 5%.

The monsoon, technically known as the southwest monsoon, is crucial for India’s farmers who rely on rain for irrigation of summer crops. Around 60% of the country’s net-sown area does not have any form of irrigation. Millions of farmers wait for the rains to begin summer sowing of major crops, such as rice, sugar, cotton, coarse cereals and oilseeds.

Deficient monsoon years have coincided with a drop in rural earnings, a factor that is likely to be more closely watched this year due to the widespread erosion of the economy as a result of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic and the lockdown it led to.

The monsoon season begins in June and lasts till September. The rains usually cover most of the country by mid-july, though the pace is often independent of when it makes landfall on the subcontinent.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has presented all its 351 witnesses before the court in the case.

After demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, the Uttar Pradesh government had set up a special court in Rae Bareli in September 1993 in consultation with the Allahabad high court for the trial of cases related to demolition of the mosque.

In April 2017, the Supreme Court transferred the Rae Bareli case to the special CBI court in Lucknow.

The Supreme Court on July 19, 2019, extended by six months the time frame for completing the trial in the case and set a ninemonth deadline for the final order. The deadline expired on April 19 and the special judge wrote to the apex court on May 6, seeking an extension. August 31 was then fixed as the deadline for the court to pronounce its order.