ASEAN, India call for global cooperation to combat terrorism
NEW DELHI: India and ASEAN have strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and emphasised the need to strengthen global cooperation to combat the menace in a comprehensive manner.
The issue figured prominently at the ninth ASEANIndia Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crimes (SOMTC) that took place virtually on Wednesday.
“Both sides strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and emphasised the need to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism and transnational crimes in a comprehensive and sustained manner,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
It said the two sides discussed ways to enhance cooperation to combat terrorism, illicit drug trafficking and cybercrime under the framework of the ASEAN-India work plan to combat transnational crimes.
“Institutional linkages and capacity building programmes between the two sides were also discussed,” the MEA said in a statement.
NEW DELHI: A total of 4,23,559 Indian migrant workers returned from ECR countries during the Covid pandemic between June 2020 to December 2021, with more than half of them from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
According to the Emigration Act, 1983, Emigration Check Required categories of Indian passport holders need to obtain Emigration Clearance from the office of Protector of Emigrants for going to 18 countries which are mostly in Gulf region.
In a written reply to a question in RS, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan stated that the number of Indian migrant workers returning from the ECR countries, between June 2020 to December 2021, as per records available in the eMigrate system is 4,23,559.
According to the minister, the Indian migrant workers returning from the ECR countries between June 2020 to December 2021 included 1,52,126 from the UAE, 1,18,064 from Saudi Arabia, 51,206 from Kuwait, 46,003 from Oman and 32,361 from Qatar.
The minister said it was the government’s priority to ensure during the pandemic that its impact on Indian workers in terms of loss of employment was mitigated.