Chaos, confusion and cancellations — mainstream newspapers note that the first day of resumption of domestic flights was hit with more than just a little turbulence.
The pink papers continue with grim news about the economy as Mint notes the massive surge in unemployment in rural areas due to the reverse migration of migrant workers.
In some light at the end of the lockdown tunnel, the paper reports on the Centre’s deliberation of back-to-school norms. In ‘Older children first, staggered schedule: Centre works on back-to-school norms’, it reports that students are expected to return in batches — first those from Classes 9, 10, 11. Wearing masks, sitting six feet apart and pupils bringing their own lunch will also be the norm, it adds.
In the shadow of coronavirus, there are other issues being mostly ignored: in ‘Lockdown effect: Bail pleas of those booked under sedition, UAPA stuck’ notes that there is “a pattern…in almost all the sedition cases slapped by the government” during the protests against CAA and NRC. The reports that courts are not prioritising the number of bail pleas in cases of sedition and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), leaving them “stuck”.
Express also features a heartfelt goodbye to a great sportsman: ‘Not a household name, yet one of the greatest Olympians’, of hockey legend Balbir Singh Sr, who passed away Monday. The daily notes that the Olympic gold medalist was “soft-spoken, modest-to-a-fault …[and] was named among the world’s 16 greatest icons, across all sports, who took the Olympic movement to lofty heights in the last 100 years”.
The paper’s lead (‘Air travel resumes but many seats on 532 flights go empty’), explicitly states that due to poor coordination between the central and state governments, “a large number of passengers were left stranded as airlines were forced to cancel half the flights just hours before take-off”.
The second lead is equally important: ‘Testing up in States seeing massive return of migrants’ states that the Union Health Ministry is batting for “aggressive COVID-19 testing capacity scale-up” in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha that are witnessing “large-scale” return of migrant workers.
And an update from the eastern border — ‘Deliberations on to end LAC tensions’. The paper reports that discussions between military commanders of India and China are continuing daily but tensions at the LAC are still on the rise “with both sides digging in with reinforcements, and a wait and watch situation unfolding”.
In an exclusive interview with Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, Hindu discusses the “extraordinary” oil crisis. Despite India’s supply surplus, Pradhan has “ruled out any fuel price cuts in India” as the central government has taken a “cautious and conscious” decision to use the savings for “welfare”.
Nevertheless, like other mainstream papers, resumption of flights was the lead in The Times of India (‘Last-min cancellations cause chaos as air travel resumes’). The report notes, “Domestic air travel had a bumpy take-off… thanks to an already sanitised first-day schedule being almost halved at short notice to leave hundreds of stranded flyers marooned again in a mess of last-minute coordination between the civil aviation ministries and states.”
The second lead focuses on another mode of transportation — the Delhi Metro (‘Metro set to restart, awaits Centre’s nod’): “There are over 14,000 staffers on DMRC’s rolls and we have all been asked to report for work on Tuesday.” A “thorough briefing” on how to function during a crisis is expected.
And China is to airlift its citizens — ‘China to evacuate citizens from India’. The report states that this seems to be a “political move in the midst of strained relations and a military stand-off in the Himalayas”.
An important report, ‘CM says home isolation key focus area as cases cross 14k’ focuses on the rising coronavirus cases in Delhi, which crossed the 14,000-mark Monday.
“Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Monday that home isolation was effective for Covid-19 patients with mild or no symptoms and tried to ease concerns about the adequacy of Delhi’s hospital infrastructure to accommodate serious cases,” the report notes.
With the country already reeling under the pandemic, another crisis has hit other states — ‘Locust swarms hit three states, could reach Delhi if winds turn’. The report notes, “Swarms of crop-munching desert locusts entered deeper into Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh over the weekend and are now close to the national capital.”
Like Express, HT also pays tribute to legendary hockey player Balbir Singh Senior. The paper (‘Farewell to Indian hockey’s golden talisman’) calls him “a talismanic goal-scorer from the time when newly independent India won the hockey gold in three consecutive Olympic Games.”
The anchor story (‘Film & TV industry readies plan to kick back to life’) focuses on the revival of the entertainment industry with Akshay Kumar and filmmaker R. Balki shooting “a coronavirus awareness campaign for the Government of India at Kamalistan Studio in Jogeshwari, with social distancing norms in place.”
In some grim news, migrant workers may now be facing a future of joblessness. In ‘More than one in four jobless in rural areas amid migrant influx’, the paper cites a Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report that found “rural job loss rate in the country rose to 25.09% in the week ended 24 May from 22.79% a week earlier”. “The urban unemployment rate fell more than four percentage points in the same period”, it adds.
YES Bank is back in the news after the crisis in March when the bank was placed under moratorium by the RBI — ‘YES Bank scam on for many years: ED’. The paper quotes the Enforcement Directorate’s chargesheet that states the bank “had put out a credit watchlist naming several large borrowers” like “Reliance Group, Essel Group, Cox & Kings, Dewan Housing Finance, Omkar Group, Radius Developer and others”.