Migrant workers leave Mumbai packed in trucks
This is the personal account of this reporter who had stepped out to check the condition of the migrant labourers who were struggling to return home from Maharashtra:
I started heading to various highways leading out of Mumbai to come across faces in real trouble due to the extension in the lockdown. Heading from Borivali towards the Ahmedabad highway, I spotted a group of 30 people resting in the shade of a huge loader, waiting for some vehicle to board to reach their home in Uttar Pradesh. Some families of workers and migrants came with women and kids; while some other men, coming from Kurla, Borivali, Mira Bhayendar, Vasai and Virar— all walking—comprised another group. Asked how they would go, they said by truck. But was a truck already booked? One 50-year-old Yadav, who works in a steel factory, replied: “We are waiting since last evening; one truck is coming from our hometown with some essential goods and when it reaches Mumbai after emptying some goods, we will board it and will pay the driver once we reach our hometown, as currently we don’t have any money left!”
But why were they travelling in such a risky manner, with kids and women? “Madam, what’s the option you tell us,” Yadav’s younger brother replied.
What about the trains and buses that have been made available by the government?
He said all such things were announcements on TV: “We do not have any access to all this. Standing in long queues of 7-8 hours, we applied for one form of police pass (he meant the exit pass that’s now been made available by nodal officers—the area’s DCP), but are yet to get permission though many days have passed. We have somehow survived in the past two months with no income; now this is enough; we will walk till we get our truck...”
One Shalini Yadav was seen pulling one of her small children, urging it to walk fast. She, with her husband and two children, was in a rush to reach the Toll Naka and said, “Madam, we don’t want to talk, but want to go back to our homes! Humein hamare ghar jaana hai bass.”
At the famous Hotel Foun
An analysis of the Pakistan army regarding its outlook towards the civilian establishment in the country, done by some Indian agencies in 2015, has become relevant today after the Pakistan army has sought a 20% pay hike in their salaries despite the country going through a massive economic crisis.
The Pakistan army is facing massive domestic discontent in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for allegedly carrying out the killing of popular Pashtun leader, Sardar Muhammed Arif Wazir, who was assassinated on 1 May in South Waziristan, with his supporters alleging that his killing was carried out under the instruction of the Pakistan army. His killing has come less than 12 months after 13 Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) supporters were gunned down by the army in the North Waziristan district of the Khyber-pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
Wazir was a prominent member of the PTM, a newly formed two-year-old political party, which has earned the reputation of being the only organised political party in the country that has criticised the Pakistan army for using jihadi groups to carry out proxy wars on its behalf.
In their analysis, which is classified and for the use of the departments concerned in India, the Indian agencies had found that “prolonged periods of military rule have instilled a feeling in the armed forces that they have a rightful place in the governance of the country and that they are the real guardians of the country’s ideology and territory”.
In its memorandum submitted to the Pakistan finance ministry on 8 May, the Pakistan’s military, through the ministry of defence, has sought an additional outlay of Rs 63.69 billion to cover a 20% increase in the salaries of the personnel of the army, navy and air force amid cost-cutting and austerity measures by the civilian government. It is pertinent to mention that the government in the 2019-20 budget passed had allocated Rs 1.5 trillion for defence, which was 14% of the total budget outlay.
This demand from the military has come even as Pakistan is going through a prolonged period of economic hardship.
As per a recent World Bank report, Pakistan is likely to fall into a recession due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the long years of economic slowdown that it has been going through. Last year in May, Pakistan was forced to seek a bailout of $6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to keep itself afloat. It was the 13th time Pakistan was forced to seek help from the IMF in the last 30 years.
“The Pakistan army, for