Kavitha Iyer

In Mumbai, according to Persis Sidhva of non-profit Majlis, which has been operating a helpline for women, it's apparent that there is a need for change in messaging from the state.

The Khopoli-Pali Road, the Khopoli-Pen Road and the Panvel-Goa NH 66 have all been under repairs for nearly two years, and road construction activity is underway on all three stretches, though not as fast as motorists would like.

Since it took over the probe, the CID has caught 37 people it suspects were part of a mob of 500 villagers who attacked the car ferrying the sadhus to Surat. Immediately after the incident, the Palghar police had arrested 101 adults and detained nine juveniles for their role in the crime.

All along National Highway 66 – the Mumbai-Goa highway currently being four-laned to give tourists’ cars an uninterrupted high-speed carriageway – groups of families, children in tow, are walking back to villages in Konkan.

Activist Brian Lobo of the Kashtakari Sanghatana on Monday wrote to Palghar Collector Dr Kailash Shinde saying the administration has made only feeble efforts to provide employment despite the state and Central governments instructing local agencies to implement provisions of the MGNREGA.

Following reports of a very high cost of care at private hospitals, the Maharashtra government had recently issued a notification for private hospitals to cap surgery costs for both coronavirus-infected and other patients.

To ensure food security, the report recommends free groceries, including nutritious food such as millets, wheat, dal and vegetables, to be supplied through the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the next six months.

Under the scheme, any Pune district patient of Covid-19 without insurance cover can avail assistance for payment of private hospitals’ bills from funds made available through a public-private partnership.

“Without anyone forming queues or crowds, without any announcements, we hand over the supplies and leave quietly,” said Gulzar Waqar, a social activist and small denim goods trader and home-owner in Dharavi.

For over three hours, the bus was held hostage at Chisda village near Khanvel in Dadra-Nagar Haveli, about 13 km from Gadchinchle village in Palghar where the lynching occurred that night at around 11 pm.

Dr Seth Berkley is CEO of Gavi — The Vaccine Alliance, a partner of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which works for better and more equitable access to vaccines. He speaks to The Indian Express.

State Transport Minister Anil Parab had said earlier that 10,000 buses of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation have been kept ready for the workers’ repatriation once the Centre permits the same, but a final decision will only be taken on Friday.

Nilesh Telgade, the driver of the Eeco in which two sadhus were headed to Gujarat through Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was killed along with his two passengers by a mob that gathered at Gadchinchle village at the Maharashtra border.

Unknown to them, a wide ranging and substantive change has occurred this Ramzan — amid the lockdown, there is an explosion of charity in this dormitory town for its migrant workers, daily wagers, out-of-work vendors, autorickshaw drivers and others

Meanwhile, to curb the spate of rumours about gangs that kidnap children for their organs, the district administration has swung into action with various stakeholders at the village level roped in to spread awareness about the fake messages on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

On a normal April evening, 400 men would not have gathered in minutes on the highway alongside this remote village on the border of Maharashtra and Dadra-Nagar Haveli in Dahanu taluka, Palghar, 150 km from Mumbai.

The woman, having arrived in Mumbai on February 22, was living at an AirBnB accommodation in Bandra East until March 31. When she ran out of money to continue paying for her accommodation, she called the Colombian Embassy in New Delhi for help, she said.

"...based on reports we are getting, it seems this is because women are just not able to get out of their homes to approach the commission or other agency for help,” said Minister for Women and Child Development Yashomati Thakur.

In an order issued on Friday, Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta asked managing directors of these sugar mills to prepare an evacuation plan for the labourers who have been staying in temporary housing units at the mills for well over 14 days now.

The largest number of beneficiaries of these schemes will be in Maharashtra, where lakhs of migrant labourers are currently living in challenging conditions.

Facing a high mortality rate, the Pune hospital has responded to the ICMR’s call for applications from institutions for a clinical trial to study the safety and effectiveness of therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) and convalescent plasma therapy in treating COVID-19 cases.

Three weeks into the national lockdown, organisations and individuals providing free meals in Mumbai are unanimous: hunger in the financial capital has grown sharply and continues to grow.

Matadin Dhankar of Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, who has now spent three weeks at a Pimpri government school turned into a shelter for migrants, is losing patience.

For the workers who are now facing the prospect of waiting until April 30 before they can return home, the longer lockdown could mean costly delays in field preparatory works ahead of the kharif season on their own farm land.