Unsatisfied by private airline's apology, Manglauru passenger opts legal battle

May 6: Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Tuesday termed as "inhumane" the government's decision to "impose excessive costs" on NRIs and expatriates for bringing them into the country from COVID-19-affected nations.

He demanded that the central government fly in the poor and vulnerable free of cost while charge the others with normal fares instead of high costs.

"The central government's decision to impose excessive costs on NRIs flying in special flights from the Covid-affected countries is an inhumane act," he said in a statement.

Venugopal said it was due to protests by a large number of expatriates and their relatives as well as the general public over the past few days that the central government took the decision to bring back Indian citizens from abroad.

"However, it is cruel that the Central government has taken advantage of this plight of expatriates by increasing the price of air fares up to three times. This is inhumane," Venugopal said in his statement.

He urged the Centre to take urgent steps to provide free travel to the most vulnerable, unemployed, sick and pregnant women and to others on normal fare.

Air India will operate 64 repatriation flights for a week from May 7 while the Navy deployed two ships as India rolled out a massive evacuation plan on Tuesday to bring back thousands of its nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

Those availing the repatriation flights will be charged, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told a virtual press conference in New Delhi. A passenger on a London-Delhi flight will be charged Rs 50,000 and on a Dhaka-Delhi flight Rs 12,000, he added.

From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned airline operate the non-scheduled commercial flights till May 13 to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.

Mysuru, Mar 7: Former minister and senior Congress leader and sitting MLA Tanveer Sait has shot off a letter to state Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai expressing his dissatisfaction over the slow progress in the investigations regarding the attack on him.

In the letter, which he released to the press on Saturday, he claimed that although the police have already arrested the culprit, but it is yet to find the real masterminds, leaders or organisation behind the attack.

Mr Sait urged the Home Minister to request the police to speed up their investigation and solve the case at the earliest and give him justice.

Bantwal, Jun 26: A day after expressing gratitude for the overwhelming response from students for the SSLC examinations, Karnataka Minister for Primary and Secondary Education S Suresh Kumar on Friday took to Twitter to laud a student who didn’t let his physical hurdles deter him from writing the examination.

Sharing image of the student, Kaushik, who wrote the SSLC examination at Bantwal’s SVS High School, the Minister said that he was taken aback by the boy’s spirit for writing the exam independently without relying on anyone’s help. Such individuals give new meaning to life. Others should learn from this.

In the picture, Kaushik is seen seated on the floor and using his toes to write answers.