-The Hindu "We don’t want anything from the government. We just want to be dropped home," says a migrant worker from Chhattisgarh. Mungeli is more than 700 km away from the Uttar Pradesh capital. Yet for desperate and hungry Lalaram and his family, the distance did not matter as they set out on foot on Thursday evening, with a few bicycles loaded with meagre possessions, heading home to Chhattisgarh. With Lalaram were his...

-Press release by Right to Food Campaign dated 8th May, 2020 The Right to Food Campaign has issued a statement insisting the central and state governments to ensure that all labourers get free rations, transport facilities and are treated with dignity.   Please click here to access the statement issued by Right to Food Campaign insisting on free rations, transport facility and dignity for stranded migrants. For more information, please contact the following...

-Scroll.in The migrant exodus will undoubtedly hurt the economy. But that is no excuse for forced labour. The Indian government’s policies towards its vulnerable migrant worker population were already a mess. This week, Karnataka made it worse. The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state decided to cancel trains that would allow working-class people from other states to return to their homes five weeks after a national lockdown to combat Covid-19 left them stranded, often without...

-NDTV Karnataka Lockdown: The trains to ferry migrants were started last week after much back and forth between the Centre and the states amid a countrywide exodus of labourers. Bengaluru: Special trains from Karnataka taking home thousands of migrants stranded by the coronavirus lockdown have been cancelled by the BS Yediyurappa government, which says workers are needed for construction activities that have resumed in the state. The BJP government is forcing the...

-Hindustan Times The Congress chief said the central government barely gave a four-hour notice of the lockdown, thus denying workers and migrant labourers the opportunity to return to their homes. Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday attacked the government for charging train tickets from migrant labourers going back to their homes and announced that her party will bear the cost for the rail travel of all such workers stranded due to the...