Mamata declares 105 trains for migrants; Centre says more needed
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has faced flak for going slow on the return of migrant workers, on Thursday announced her government has arranged 105 trains to bring them home over the next month even as railway minister Piyush Goyal said the state needed as many trains daily.
“I am pleased to announce that we have arranged 105 additional special trains,” she tweeted and shared details of their schedule.
Goyal responded to Banerjee’s tweet hours later. “I feel sad that while there is a need for 105 trains/day to bring back migrants to WB, the state is accepting only 105 trains over 30 days. I once again hope for the sake of Bengali brothers and sisters in different parts of the country that WB will accept them back with open arms,” he tweeted. “Many migrants want to return to WB & if the state does not accept them, we may find more cases of migrants & even children walking for hundreds of kms & resorting to other dangerous means. WB should speed up setting up of adequate arrangements to receive their own migrants.”
In response, to Goyal’s tweets TMC national spokesperson Derek O’brien said : “The railway minister has been all but absent during this monumental crisis when millions of poor migrant workers have been abandoned. They’ve been left to fend for themselves, waiting for help from government. These people could have been moved in a matter of days.”
Shoojit Sircar’s Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Gulabo Sitabo would be the first mainstream Bollywood movie to be released globally across 200 countries on Amazon’s streaming service on June 12 due to the coronavirus lockdown, the US company announced on Thursday.
The comedy-drama was scheduled to open in theatres on 17 April. According to people familiar the developments, Anurag Basu’s next, Ludo, starring Abhishek Bachchan and Rajkummar Rao, will be released in a similar manner. Entertainment analyst Komal Nahta called it a logical step. “In the current situation, where no one knows when theatres will reopen, or how many people will actually go to the theatres in the short and medium term after they do, OTT is well poised to step in.” “How long will the producers hold on to a film? If a platform can pay, they will get the rights. This is logical,” he added. Sircar, in a statement, described the move as the “dawn of a new era for Indian entertainment”. “At Amazon we’re listening to our customers, and working backwards from there,” said Vijay Subramaniam, director and head of content at Amazon Prime Video, India.
Even with the theatres open, digital rights were a booming revenue stream, and grew from ~13.5 billion in 2018 to ~19 billion in 2019, according to an EY-FICCI report on the media and entertainment industry released in March this year. Digital release windows shortened too, with some movies being released on OTT platforms at the same time, or days after release in cinemas.
As the Covid-19 outbreak engulfed the world, the Oscars have declared that a theatrical release will no longer be a prerequisite for qualifying for the awards. Film festivals have moved online or been postponed indefinitely. There is no Cannes. This will be a year (or two) unlike any other in the history of cinema, and the fallout could be massive — for producers, distributors, cinema halls, and of course audiences.
I hope for the sake of Bengali brothers and sisters in different parts of the country WB will accept them back with open arms