Mayura Janwalkar

Earlier this month, Sagheer Ahmed Khan moved the Supreme Court stating that his “conscience is not allowing him to let poor migrants remain in lurch” and he offered to pay Rs 25 lakh to facilitate the travel of poor migrant workers from Mumbai to his home district of Sant Kabir Nagar “irrespective of caste, creed and religion”

Unlike a quintessential fish market, the Koldongri crowd of buyers was thin and the market rather quiet. In 45 years that she has been selling fish at the market, Manda Maushi says there hasn’t been a time more restless.

Even as the lockdown entered its fourth phase, the sight of many people asking for material help on the streets, especially outside grocery stores pleading with well-to-do shoppers to buy them flour, rice or milk packets, too has not been uncommon.

According to the BMC data, the civic body had started food distribution through its community kitchens set up in each of the 24 wards in the city.

The images of people crowding wine shops by the hordes all over the country went viral on social media on Monday. In Mumbai, a day later the BMC asked wine shops to down their shutters again.

Kunal Patil, who heads the Hamrapur unit of the Ganesh Utkarsha Mandal, says that with Mumbai and Pune bearing the highest burden of COVID-19 cases in the state, they should at least be allowed to send their idols to the rest of Konkan.

With conservation work brought to a halt in the wake of the lockdown, 91 donkeys and 41 people, who brought them in a truck, have been stranded at the bottom of the fort in temporary canvas sheds overlooking Hirkani Buruj.

In five days, the 11 men had walked 216 km from Mapusa to Bhoke, one station ahead of Ratnagiri on the Konkan railway. On April 14, however, they caught the attention of policemen at the Bhoke station.

The MoS said there were two possibilities: either Indians may not want to travel at all, or due to the mental exhaustion from staying at home during the lockdown (from March 24 to May 3, so far), they may want to travel.

The state Fisheries Commissioner has estimated the actual loss of fish production over March, April and May to be 80 per cent of the expected production.

Ratnagiri had four active COVID-19 cases Sunday. For the mango trade, that fuels the economy of Maharashtra’s coastal districts, the lockdown is a second blow in close succession, after the untimely rain in December costing 40 per cent of the yield.

Following the intervention of the Consulate General of Spain in Mumbai, and with the help of the city police, Cabrero was escorted out of the camp at the Civil Defence Ambivali Ground near the Versova Metro station.

Facing curbs on mobility amid the lockdown, many domestic helps have not been able to visit their employers to collect their pay and are facing a cash crunch.

“I would have expected them (the neighbours) to support my father and not ostracise him. If they had said or done nothing at all, it would have been golden," said the man, who lives with his father and domestic help, both of whom had tested negative for the virus.

The 68-year-old retired teacher from Pontevedra in Northwest Spain, arrived in Mumbai from Barcelona in on December 5, 2019.

The nine minutes, since 9 pm, went unnoticed at the camp, housing 285 people stranded due to the 21-day nationwide lockdown, even as nearby residential high-rises lit up with lamps and reverberated with the sound of conches and claps.

Those attending the last rites, have no flowers to offer to the departed, they pay their respects with lowered heads. Even those turning up are mindful of the physical distance they are required to maintain to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

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The women, most of them with smartphones, many with earphones plugged in, say they are aware that the virus has spread in India. They said they know that they need to keep washing their hands to protect themselves but they find the thought of ‘social distancing’ laughable.