Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The February 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of US history when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance. The footage of Arbery's death was not the only thing that rattled the nation's conscience. It took more than two months for his pursuers who told police they suspected he was a burglar to be arrested and taken into custody. That is fuelling calls for the resignation of local authorities who initially investigated the case and reforms of Georgia's criminal justice system. The modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another ...

Nepal on Saturday raised objection over India inaugurating a strategically crucial link road connecting the Lipulekh pass at a height of 17,000 feet along the border with China in Uttarakhand with Dharchula, saying this "unilateral act" runs against the understanding reached between the two countries on resolving the border issues. Nepal's Foreign Affairs Ministry in a statement said the government "has learnt with regret" about the inauguration of the link road connecting to Lipulekh pass, which Nepal claims to be part of its territory. The 80-Km new road inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday is expected to help pilgrims visiting Kailash-Mansarovar in Tibet in China as it is around 90 kms from the Lipulekh pass. After inaugurating the road through video-conferencing, Singh said pilgrims going to Kailash-Mansarovar will now be able to complete their journey in one week instead of up to three weeks. The road originates at Ghatiabagarh and ends at Lipulekh pass, the ...

Two flights carrying a total of 335 people from the Gulf countries landed in Kerala's two airports on Friday night, as India's Vande Bharat Mission to bring home its nationals stranded due to COVID-19 lockdown in various countries entered second day. While an Air India repatriation flight from Riyadh carrying 153 passengers, including 84 pregnant women, 22 children and four infants landed at the Kozhikode airport 8 pm on Friday night, another Air India Express flight from Bahrain with 177 passengers, including 5 infants, reached Kochi airport at 11.32 pm. Two flights had landed at Kochi and Kozhikode on Thursday from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively. According to Kozhikode airport sources, the flight from Riyadh carried five people having some health issues and they would be shifted to Manjeri and Kozhikode medical college hospitals. Ten passengers from neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu also travelled in the flight from Riyadh, the sources said. The passengers were ...

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said the West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach the state that may further create hardship for the labourers. In a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said not allowing trains to reach West Bengal is "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state. Referring to the 'Shramik Special' trains being run by the central government to facilitate transport of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, the home minister said in the letter that the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants workers to reach home. Shah said migrant workers from West Bengal are also eager to reach home and the central government is also facilitating the train services. "But we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This ...

One of the survivors of the tragedy in which 16 migrant workers were crushed to death by a goods train in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra on Friday, says he cannot come to terms with what happened after he saw his companions dying in front of him. Shivmaan Singh, who is now travelling back to his native place in Madhya Pradesh in a train along with the bodies of his 16 companions, said that he has not been to sleep after the accident as the disturbing images of the tragedy kept coming to his mind. "After the tragedy stuck on Friday morning, so many things happened. Although I was exhausted and tired, I could hardly sleep at night as the gory images of the accident kept coming to my mind. I am not able to forget the tragedy that unfolded before me," Singh told PTI. "After the news of the train accident broke, my family members tried calling me repeatedly. But my phone was off as its battery was discharged," he said. "After the accident, we were busy in helping the ...

Just a day before he was killed in the train accident in Aurangabad, 28-year-old Brajesh Singh had informed his father that he would be reaching their village by a special train soon. For Gajraj Singh, a resident of Antoli village in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol district, that phone call was the last conversation he had with his sons Brajesh and Shivdayal (25). Bodies of the two brothers, along with those of 14 other labourers, would be reaching their village on Saturday. At least 16 labourers, who were travelling to their home state Madhya Pradesh on foot, were mowed down by a goods train while they were sleeping on tracks near Karmad station in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district early morning on Friday. "Only a day before the mishap, my sons informed me that they had left on foot to board a train from Maharashtra and will reach Shahdol soon. They told me that they would sit in the train on Friday. But instead of my sons, the news of their death has reached me," said an ...

Opposition Congress in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday alleged that the 16 migrant workers, who were crushed to death by a train in Maharashtra on Friday, had applied to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan govenment for passes to travel back home about a fortnight ago, but the administration failed to act on it. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh tweeted a video in which a survivor of the train tragedy claimed that they had applied for their return to their respective districts in Madhya Pradesh. Alleging that the MP government's "negligence and inaction" led to the death of the workers, Singh also called for a probe to know what arrangements the BJP-led government had done to bring back these workers after they applied for return. "The workers killed in the train accident had asked for passes from the Shivraj government about fifteen days back. These 16 lives could have been saved, if passes were issued. Shivraj ji, these deaths are the result of jungle raj," Madhya Pradesh ...

The TMC on Saturday accused Union Home Minister Amit Shah of "lying" about the West Bengal government not allowing trains to reach the state, and said they have already planned eight trains to ferry migrants from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Telangana. The first train will be leaving on Saturday from Hyderabad to Malda, the TMC said. Shah on Saturday wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying while the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants to return home, it is not getting expected support from the state. "The Centre is lying, eight trains ready to ferry passengers to Bengal from different states: It is no right to say CM Mamata Banerjee not allowing migrants to come back.16 migrants died on your watch, will rail minister take responsibility," asked TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. In a zoom meeting with several TMC MPs, including Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien, said West Bengal is running 711 camps for migrants in the state and were taking good care of ..

The Odisha government has trained 1.72 lakh health personnel to fight COVID-19 in the state, where a spike in the number of positive cases was recently witnessed following the return of Odia migrant workers from other parts of the country, a senior official said. The state government has trained 1,72,499 health personnel to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak, Chief Secretary A K Tripathy said while launching the 'COVID-19 workforce portal' here on Friday. Altogether 129 fresh novel coronavirus cases were reported in the state since May 3, when the return of the stranded migrant workers began. Of these, around 114 COVID-19 patients are returnees who were stranded in Gujarat, a health official said. A total of 8,023 doctors, 8,296 staff nurses, 4,105 paramedical staff and laboratory technicians, 4,114 AYUSH doctors, 4,905 ambulance drivers, 1,35,820 ANM/ASHA/AWW workers and 7,236 sanitation workers have been drafted into the COVID-19 workforce, Labour and ESI ...

At least 1,200 people from Manipur stranded in Chennai will be brought back in a special train that will reach Jiribam at the state's border with Assam on May 12, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said. The train will start from Chennai later on Saturday, he said in a video message on Friday night. From Jiribam they will be brought to Imphal, around 200 km away, in special buses, Singh said. All of them will have to undergo isolation at the institutional quarantine centres set up at schools and colleges with the assistance of local MLAs and other organisations. Singh said that they will undergo full medical checkup before leaving Chennai and will further undergo check-up, including thermal screening, after reaching Jiribam. The cost of ferrying the stranded people from Chennai to Jiribam is around Rs 12,00,600, while the cost of transporting them in 50 buses is around Rs 1,05,000, Singh said. Two other special trains carrying migrants will also depart from Punjab and ...

In a slugfest over the transportation of stranded migrants to West Bengal, railway officials on Saturday said there was no proposal on record so far with the national transporter to run any more 'Shramik Special' trains to the state. The Indian Railways reaction came minutes after the TMC said they have already planned to run eight trains to ferry migrants from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Telangana. The railway said they did not even have the proposal yet for the train, which the TMC claimed has been scheduled from Hyderabad to Malda on Saturday at 3 pm. The Indian Railways has so far run only two trains to West Bengal, one from Rajasthan and the other from Kerala. According to the guidelines issued by the railways for these trains, the proposal has to be received from both the states along with the number of passengers for these trains to run. The officials said the railways has 47 planned for Saturday so far, none of them were bound for West Bengal. The TMC on Saturday accused

Gas leak was detected on a goods train transporting LPG on Saturday at Bhopal railway station in Madhya Pradesh, a Railways official said. He said the leakage was minor and controlled immediately. The train was headed towards Bakania, where bottling plant of an oil company is located, about 20 kms away from the railway station near Bairagarh. "The leakage was reported in the LPG container of a goods train at around 11.30 am at the Bhopal railway station. The goods train of Konkan Railway was going to Bakania near Bhopal. The leakage was immediately controlled," said a PRO of the Railways.

Migrant workers returning from Rajkot to Ballia on a special train on Saturday claimed that Gujarat Police charged them Rs 725 fare. Authorities here, however, said they had no information about it. The train carrying 1,170 migrant workers from parts of UP reached Ballia in the morning, following which they were screened and provided food packets, District Magistrate Hari Pratap Shahi said. "The migrants were then sent to their states. As many as 420 are from Ballia, while rest of them are from Prayagraj, Fatehpur, Hardoi, Maharajganj, Kushingar, Etawah and other districts," he said. Some passengers claimed that they had to pay Rs 725 train fare to Gujarat Police, the district magistrate said, adding that he had no information on this.

Filmmaker Satyanshu Singh has launched a unique initiative to raise relief money for those affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The director has started online classes for budding cinema students and has roped artistes from different fields of filmmaking for the initiative. Actor Vinay Pathak, screenwriters Anjum Rajabali and Sudip Sharma, cinematographer Siddharth Diwan and director Shoojit Sircar have come aboard the initiative. Since April 1, more than a dozen lectures have been conducted with students from cities like Bokaro, Kota, Bhilai, Almora, and Coimbatore taking part in them. Overseas students have also showed interest in the lectures. Through the initiative, Satyanshu has so far raised Rs 15 lakhs which has been donated to non-for-profit organisations like Milaap, Goonj, Sarvahitey, and Sneha, providing food and support to out-of-work labourers, women and children in slums, and the homeless. The daily wage workers from the film industry are also benefitting from this ...

A survivor of the Aurangagabad train tragedy says that the disturbing images of the death of his companions in front of his eyes were haunting him and left him with the mental trauma that he will never be able to overcome in his life. Shivmaan Singh, who is now travelling back to his native place in Madhya Pradesh in a train along with three other survivors and bodies of 16 victims, said that he has not been able to come to terms with the loss of his colleagues. Sixteen migrant workers- part of a group of 20 headed towards villages in Madhya Pradesh and who were resting on the tracks, were crushed to death by a goods train in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra in the early hours of Friday. "After the tragedy stuck on Friday morning, so many things happened. Although I was completely exhausted, I could hardly sleep on Friday night as the gory images of the accident kept coming to my mind. I think I will never be able to overcome the impact of the tragedy that unfolded ...

The West Bengal government is arranging special trains to bring back over 30,000 residents of the state stranded in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Punjab due to the ongoing lockdown, a senior official said on Saturday. The stranded people are mostly migrant workers, patients and their attendants, students, pilgrims and tourists from West Bengal, he said. "Talks are on with officials of other state governments in this regard. Everything has been finalised.... Our nodal officers are monitoring developments," the official told PTI. A total of 31,224 people are stranded in the four states, of whom more than half (17,000) are in Telangana, he said. Three trains carrying around 7,500 people from West Bengal will start their journeys from Bengaluru in Karnataka on Saturday and reach their destinations -- Bankura, Purulia and New Jalpaiguri stations -- in the state on Sunday and Monday, the official said. Two trains with around 2,418 people, mostly patients, will depart Vellore in Tamil

The Indian Railways has operated 302 Shramik Special' trains since May 1 and ferried home more than 3 lakh migrants stranded in various parts of the country amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, officials said. The national transporter has planned to operate 47 trains on Saturday, out of which 34 trains have already departed, they said. Every Shramik Special train has 24 coaches, each with a capacity of 72 seats. The railways, however, is allowing only 54 people in a coach to maintain social distancing norms by not allotting the middle berth to any passenger. While the railways has not yet announced the cost incurred on the special services, officials indicate the national transporter has spent around Rs 80 lakh per service. The government had earlier stated that the cost of the services has been shared on 85:15 ratio with states. Since the beginning of running the Shramik Special trains, Gujarat remained one of the top originating stations followed by Kerala. Among the receiving ...

Over 1 lakh migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh stranded in different parts of the country following the coronavirus-induced lockdown will return to the state by Saturday night on 114 trains, a senior government official said. Another 98 trains will reach the state on Sunday and Monday, while talks are on to allow 15 to 20 more, he said on Saturday. "Till Saturday morning, 97 trains have reached the state and another 17 will reach by the evening. With this, more than 1.20 lakh migrant workers and labourers will be back in the state," Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Awasthi said. These trains arrived at 36 railway stations of the state, with Lucknow and Gorakhpur receiving 11 trains each, he said. Awasthi said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has stressed that no migrant should undertake the journey home on foot or bicycle. The government has also given permission for 98 more trains which will bring back migrants from other parts of the country on Sunday and Monday, he said, ...

Fintech company Razorpay on Saturday said it will hire more than 50 people for critical roles across product and engineering teams, and is on schedule with appraisals, bonuses and promotions for its existing employees. With businesses seeing significant impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many startups have frozen hiring and slashed salaries. There have also been reports of layoffs by many firms. Razorpay said in view of the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, an increasing number of businesses are considering adopting online payment methods. "As a company, we are sufficiently capitalised and are on schedule with appraisals, bonuses and promotions for our employees, which will be announced this month end. We have always believed in rewarding our employees with healthy merit increases," Razorpay Head - People Operations Anuradha Bharat told PTI. While she did not disclose the quantum of hikes to be given, Bharat said the wage increases have been typically higher than the average

Five special trains will start journey from three states on Saturday to bring back 5,000 stranded Odia people, a day after the Supreme Court allowed the return of migrants to Odisha, officials said here. The Supreme Court on Friday stayed an interim order of the Orissa High Court which had asked the state government to ensure that only those tested negative for COVID-19 were allowed to return to Odisha. Three trains will come from Gujarat and one each from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the officials said, adding that about 5,000 people will return to Odisha by these five trains. A senior East Coast Railways official said one of the five trains has already left from Surat for Odisha's Ganjam district. Two trains will leave from Ahmedabad in Gujarat for Khurda Road in Odisha, one train from Panvel station in Mumbai will start the journey to Odisha's Titlagarh in Bolangir district and another will leave from Chennai for Jagannathpur in Ganjam district, the official said. Meanwhile, Odisha .

The ruling JD(U) on Saturday slammed AAP for claiming that it bore the cost of ferrying migrant workers from Delhi to their home in Bihar, saying the party was speaking "half-truth" as the Arvind Kejriwal government has sought reimbursement of the payment. The Janata Dal (United) headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar accused the Aam Admi Party (AAP) of resorting to "cheap politics to gain popularity". The JD(U) also came down heavily on Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav for lapping up the issue to attack the NDA dispensation, asking him to stop the rhetoric and do something good for the people of Bihar. The AAP had on Friday claimed that the Kejriwal government paid for the migrant labourers travelling home after the Bihar government left them in the lurch. The train carrying 1,200 migrant labourers left for Muzaffarpur, Bihar today. The Arvind Kejriwal government will bear their full travel cost, Delhi minister Gopal Rai had tweeted on Friday. In a ...

They had started their journey on foot from Maharashtra hoping to reach Madhya Pradesh, but it was their bodies that reached their home districts of Shahdol and Umaria by special trains on Saturday afternoon. The bodies of sixteen migrant labourers who were mown down by a goods train in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district were brought to Jabalpur by two bogies attached to a special train. From Jabalpur, the coaches were further sent to Shahdol and Umaria, said a police officer. A bogie with five bodies reached Umaria around 3 pm, where district officials received them and sent them to their villages in ambulances, he said. The five deceased belonged to two villages Chilhari and Maman. Another bogie with 11 bodies reached Shahdol around 4 pm. Local Member of Parliament Himadri Singh and senior officials were present at the railway station. These 11 deceased belonged to the villages of Antoli and Shahargarh of Shahdol district. In both the districts, officials accompanied ...

A group of 20 migrant workers returning to Jharkhand from West Bengal's Birbhum district by walking along railway tracks had a narrow escape when an inspection van stopped in front of them on a river bridge, officials said on Saturday. The labourers had managed to reach the temple town of Tarapith from Purba Bardhaman district during the lockdown and started on foot from there towards neighbouring Jharkhand on Friday night. When they were on a bridge over the river Brambhani around 9.30 PM, an inspection van came from the opposite direction, from Pakur in Jharkhand, officials said. The driver of the inspection van applied emergency brake after he noticed the people, who included women and children, on the track. After the driver informed the control room, a GRP team reached there and brought them to Nalhati in Birbhum district, officials said. Efforts are on to send the 20 people, who are now sheltered in the Nalhati I BDO's office, to Jharkhand. The incident occurred ...

In this edition, we find out how free speech and dissent has never been welcomed in our country by any of the ruling parties, why the approval of the Hubli-Ankola railway line is not yet final, the gaps in the social security law for unorganised sector being proposed by the finance minister, the brutal and brave stories of some rape survivors, and more.

Paul Basil of the Chennai based Rural Innovations Network (RIN) on the story of an irrigation invention that promises many benefits to farmers.

The Permumatty grama panchayat of Kerala's Plachimada village has appealed to the Supreme Court for revocation of a recent High Court order granting permission to Coca Cola to draw water upto 5 lakh litres per day. The High Court's ruling was based on an investigation that has raised more questions than answered. P N Venugopal and M Suchitra report.

This B-school's 96-acre campus occupies two steep hillocks. There is no independent water source for the entire institute and the average daily water consumption exceeds one lakh litres. The absence of pre-monsoon showers in mid-Kerala is causing worry elsewhere, but IIM-Kozhikode shows no signs of anxiety. Shree Padre finds out why.

With its enchanting greenery and network of backwaters and rivers, Kerala is thought to be a water-plenty state. After all, Kerala gets 6 months of rainfall, 2.5 times higher than the national average. Despite this, the state has been experiencing water scarcity, with conditions worsening in some regions. P N Venugopal analyses the causes.

This dairy in Palakkad, Kerala spent over Rs.2 lakhs buying water from outside in 2008, since borewell yields were insufficient. This year they will spend nearly eight-nine times less, because of a rain pond. Shree Padre has more.

Max Levchin’s financial technology startup Affirm Inc. has raised a $100 million in Series D, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Media reports that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has given clearance to Railways to approach the state government regarding the Hubli-Ankola rail link, which will pass through the dense Western Ghats in Karnataka. Kanchi Kohli writes on how the orders of NGT do not necessarily imply a complete go ahead for the railway line as the seems to suggest.

In the past few hundred years, every revolution has caused much more harm than the evil it sought to eradicate. Perhaps the conservative is on to something after all, writes Rajesh Kasturirangan.

Large water management projects are often announced with much fanfare, but as an audit of Gujarat's implementation shows, they're more likely to steer money towards other ends, and leave the taxpayers holding the bill for the benefits that have been diverted elsewhere. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports.

Village economies are increasingly unable to adjust to the forces of globalisation, which is capital-intensive, and has a large urban footprint. Aparna Pallavi reports on a meeting to address the challenges villages face, and the suggestions thrown up by participants confident that the challenges can be met.

Vocational training could play a key role in bridging the gap that keeps millions of workers in the unorganised economy away from a better future. The needs of informal sector workers are complex, and mere training for income-generation is seen to be insufficient, writes Varupi Jain.

The lack of economic activity in most SEZs leads to the suspicion that many were incapable of attracting economic production units in the first place. The rush to 'denotify' them only reinforces this, writes Kannan Kasturi.

Transfer-based bus networks can result in services that provide significantly higher quality and coverage. And many complaints that users have regarding transfers can actually be solved by moving to a more intensively transfer-based system itself, write Madhav Pai and Ashwin Prabhu.

Enterprises that seek to address socio-economic problems through focused business models could make significant impact with a little more support. Seema S Hegde discusses an example from Bangalore, and explains how the state and big business often fail to recognise that.

Darryl D'Monte analyses why the proposed Bullet Train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is not the need of the hour, nor worth the cost.

In a changing landscape for power production and transmission, Indian Railways and the Government will need to make new choices, says a new report from Brookings India.

Going back on its promise made in the Common Minimum Programme, the UPA government has put Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. on the carving table, allegedly to fund health and education. But the proceeds from the proposed sale of equity in BHEL are a fraction of what could be raised by different, less repulsive means, says P Sainath.

India has lost nearly a half-trillion dollars in illegal financial flows out of the country, says a new study by Global Financial Integrity. P Sainath reports.

The more crooked a leader, the more he trumpets his own patriotism, the more he pronounces who else is patriotic, says Dilip D'Souza.

No, net neutrality is not just about IT and activists! If you're still wondering why over two lakh people have already written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) about that, and whether you should follow suit, Supriya Unni Nair has some details for you.

Monies allocated for rehabilitation of persons affected by the Narmada dams have traveled a different path than to the people. A recent audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General has confirmed significant corruption in rehabilitation works in Madhya Pradesh and a culture of impunity amongst state officials, finds Himanshu Upadhyaya.

There is a strong case to reschedule the Kashmir valley railway line project, says Pavan Nair.

The ubiquity of genetically modified crops, brought about by the sustained efforts of agribusiness giant Monsanto has raised concerns globally. Neeta Deshpande reviews Marie-Monique Robin's The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Politics and Power.

Sunanda Bhat’s award-winning Have You Seen The Arana is deeply relevant in today’s world, as it explores the deep connectedness between man and nature, and the struggle of little-known people to preserve it in the face of many onslaughts. Shoma A Chatterji reviews the film.

Attention to international benchmarks, awareness of rights and proactive provision of basic facilities could make train journeys a less stressful experience for physically challenged passengers in the country, says Malini Shankar in the second part of her series.

In the concluding part of her series, Malini Shankar looks beyond the needs of the physically challenged and emphasises the criticality of appropriate facilities and infrastructure that would make train journeys convenient for those travelling for medical reasons.