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Migrant crisis ‘infecting’ economy says Mint & Express’ Once Upon a Time in Mumbai

A round-up of the most important reports in major newspapers around the country – from TOI and HT, Express and The Hindu to The Telegraph, Mumbai Mirror and The Tribune, as well as top financial dailies.

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Death of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Riyaz Naikoo in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama is the headline-maker Thursday.

The Karnataka government’s decision to cancel trains for migrant workers wanting to return home also comes under scrutiny. However, the doubling time of cases lessening in the coronavirus surge is what concerns most daily newspapers.


The Times of India’s lead story notes: “Doubling time worsens to 11 days as active cases spurt”. “The number of active Covid-19 cases is growing faster at 6.6 per cent now, leading to a shorter doubling time of 11 days, compared with 15 days on 2 May…”

This spurt in cases has increased the overall figures: “India crosses 50k cases; hits new peak of 3,600 cases in 1 day”.

According to the TOI, India went past “two grim Covid-19 milestones Wednesday’’ – it crossed 50,000 cases and breached the 3,000-figure in its daily tally for the first time.

Away from Covid, is the other big story: “Hizb’s India chief Naikoo killed in Pulwama shootout”. TOI calls Hizbul Mujahideen commander Naikoo “one of Kashmir’s most-wanted terrorists…’’ who was killed at his native Baighpora in Pulwama district, “bringing the curtains down on an eight-year run that saw him go from a mathematics teacher to a terror mastermind with a Rs 12-lakh bounty on his head”.


The lead story in The Indian Express says Naikoo’s death is a major success for security forces. More eye-catching is the photograph of a wall-painting in Mumbai, that Express says captures what Covid-19 has shut down — all public transport.

The central government and West Bengal stand-off continues. “In a new letter to Bengal, Centre points finger at ‘specific groups’”, the paper states.

It reports: “Union Home Ministry Wednesday slammed the state government for not enforcing Covid-19 containment measures effectively, allowing ‘specific groups in specific localities’ in Kolkata and Howrah to violate the curbs as well as attack police and healthcare workers’’.

The report also says that Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla had “flagged the plying of rickshaws, children playing cricket, and people bathing in rivers among the violations”.

In an analytical piece called ‘14 studies, 1 refrain: Closed public spaces are environments for super-spreading’, the daily notes that “public enclosed spaces like workplaces and restaurants can become super-spreading environments for Covid-19; however, schools are not prominent transmission centres…’’

And for the first time: “New by IMD: Forecast lists PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan”. Express calls this a “a subtle shift’’for the India Meteorological Department (IMD) which has started to call its meteorological sub-division of Jammu and Kashmir as “Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan and Muzaffarabad”.

Muzaffarabad is a part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir while Gilgit-Baltistan is also under illegal Pakistani occupation.


Hindustan Times’ lead story follows from the bad news in TOI — “50,000 cases and counting, fresh spikes in urban centres” and worries that the “limited reopening of businesses made necessary by a sluggish economy…’’ may trigger another wave of cases in hotspots.

Following Naikoo’s killing, the paper notes that there has been a “spike in encounters in recent days…” and blames Pakistan for it. The paper notes that “increased surveillance’’ by security forces and fresh infiltration attempts by militants are behind the frequent encounters in Jammu and Kashmir over the past one-and-a-half months. “Since 21 March, at least 33 militants and two of their associates have been killed in 15 gunfights across the Valley.”

HT also notes that “migrants” were “bitter about being forced to work against their wishes”. The paper states that “anger and disappointment coursed through the migrant worker population in Karnataka a day after the state cancelled special trains to take labourers home even as other states insisted they had no intention of following suit”.

Vinod Kumar, a 36-year-old labourer from Bihar who worked as a steel rod bender at a factory in Bengaluru, has been quoted as saying: “I want to see my family, including my two children…I don’t want to work here.”


The Hindu goes with the latest Covid-19 count as its lead story but unlike the other newspapers, it highlights the Congress’ reaction to the government’s handling of the crisis.

In ‘Centre is taking arbitrary decisions, say Cong. CMs’, the paper reports that during a videoconference with Congress president Sonia Gandhi Wednesday, the CMs of the party-ruled states had accused the central government of “taking decisions without consulting the states and not providing them with adequate funds to fight the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Hizbul commander Naikoo’s death is relegated to the latter half of the newspaper.

And with the controversy still raging over who pays for people returning home, Hindu says that “Indians returning on Navy ships may have to pay up”. The charges will be “reasonable” or nominal, says the paper, quoting sources.


The Telegraph’s lead story is ‘Centre blames patients’. The paper reports that the Union health ministry had articulated concerns about patients “reporting late” to hospitals. This has apparently angered health experts who said that “pinning culpability” on the public was “unfair” and amounted to “looking for scapegoats”.

The Kolkata-based newspaper’s anti-central government rhetoric continues in ‘Claim: Aarogya holes exposed’. Reporting on ethical hacker Elliot Alderson’s warnings about the government app, the paper notes: “The engineer who uses the name Elliot Alderson on Twitter claimed he had used the security holes in the app to determine a coronavirus-infected person was in the vicinity of the Indian Parliament and five persons ‘reported’ being ‘unwell’ in the Prime Minister’s Office earlier this week.”


In ‘Migrant crisis infects economy’, Mint leads with news about the labour ministry seeking national trade unions’ help to “dissuade” migrant workers from returning to hometowns. The fear is that it will increase labour shortage and “imperil the government’s efforts to restart the economy”, it adds.

In the backdrop — the Karnataka government has forced migrant workers in Bengaluru to stay back in a bid to “resume real estate and other economic activities” Wednesday.

Accompanying the report is an alarmingly red graph showing how India’s service sector activity dropped to 5.4 last month — “the lowest level in 14 years”.

And restaurants no longer want to be sitting ducks, incurring losses. In ‘Hotels plan own platform to rival food aggregators’, Mint notes that the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), consisting of 600,000 businesses, is developing a “technology platform that will offer online ordering, food delivery, loyalty programmes and contactless dining options”.

Amid reports about restarting the economy comes a contrarian view too. In an interview, AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria says India needs to continue the lockdown “for some more time with careful deliberation”. Unlike Italy and China, India is yet to see a declining trend in new coronavirus cases “even after 40 days into a strict nationwide lockdown”, he observes. He felt “Covid-19 curve is likely to peak in June or July in India”.

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