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Washington, Mar 18: Hundreds of distressed Indian students, stuck in the Philippines, are seeking help through video messages as they are unable to fly back home due to the travel restrictions imposed by India to contain the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus, according to friends and relatives of some of these students in the US.

The Indian government on Tuesday banned the entry of passengers from Afghanistan, Philippines and Malaysia to India with immediate effect amid stepped up efforts against the spread of COVID-19.

In a video message by one of these students Akhil Bala Nair, around 200 Indian students had booked their flight tickets for India in the next few days. But all of them have been cancelled due to the new policy.

Most of the students, she said, had booked their flights for March 17 and rest were schedule to travel to India on March 19 and 20. But the flights were cancelled and scores of Indian students are now stuck at the airport in Manila, Nair said in the video message sent to Prem Bhandari, head of the Jaipur Foot USA.

“It is need of the hour that the Indian government send a plane to bring these Indian students back home,” Bhandari, who in the past has worked for the cause of the Indian diaspora, and who was approached by these students told PTI.

According to these students, some 100 of them have been at the airport since Tuesday.

They all have confirmed tickets but the airport authorities are not allowing them to check in because of the new travel regulations.

While the airport authorities have asked them to go back to their respective place of residence, the students said they were unable to travel because of the absence of local taxi or shared ride services.

The students said that they are running out of time as the Philippines government has given them 72 hours time to exit the country, which started from March 16, after which the country will go into lockdown.

“This means we would not be able to travel anywhere outside Philippines after March 20,” Nair said in her message.

The students said that there are many of them who have applied for renewal of their visas and are unable to travel to India.

There are nearly 1,000 Indian students presently in Manila who are willing to travel back home, they said.

Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Manila, in a tweet, said that they, along with the Ministry of External Affairs, are trying to work out a solution.

“It is requested to all to kindly have patience,” the embassy said.

New Delhi, Jan 1: Newly-appointed Chief of the Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday said the armed forces stay away from politics and work as per the directives of the government of the day, remarks that come amid allegations that the forces were being politicised.

Gen Rawat also said that his focus as CDS will be to integrate the efforts of the three services and to work as a team.

"We keep ourselves away from politics. We act according to the directives of the government of the day," he said.

Gen Rawat said his focus will be to ensure best and optimal use of resources allocated to the three services.

New Delhi, Mar 2: As communal violence spiked in north-east Delhi earlier this week, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh residents of a colony came together and stood guard against frenzied mobs which ran riot in nearby areas vandalising homes, shops and torching cars.

They have not let their guard down even as the situation is limping back to normalcy following four days of violence that has claimed at least 42 lives and left over 200 injured.

The B-Block colony in Yamuna Vihar has a Hindu-dominated Bahjanpura on one side and Muslim populated Ghonda on the other.

People from all faiths in the locality sit outside their homes at night and deal with any suspected outsider, Arib, a dentist in his 30s, said.

"It is the sloganeering by mobs that causes panic in the dead of night. Such slogans are from both sides and we hear groups of people moving forward towards our area.

"This is where we let the Muslim locals deal with Muslim groups and Hindu residents deal with Hindu groups coming from outside," he said.

Businessmen, doctors and people working at government offices stuck together as violence reached its crest on Monday and Tuesday, and have been guarding the locality round the clock.

Earlier, the locals had claimed inadequate police deployment in the area, but were satisfied as patrolling by security personnel increased in the last two days.

Charanjeet Singh, a Sikh who owns a transport firm, said residents have ensured that not too many people gather to guard the colony at night. It has been decided not use sticks or rods, an idea which seems to have worked in maintaining peace, he said.

"I was 10 years old when we came to this locality from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut in 1982. There were riots in 1984 and tension in 2002, but even then our area remained peaceful. We have always been united and that is the way we have helped each other," Singh, who is now in his 50s, told PTI.

Faisal, a businessman in his 30s, said after two days of major violence, there was palpable tension in the area. "Nobody could sleep in the neighbourhood even on Wednesday and Thursday when the situation was brought under control," he said.

Faisal said around 4 am on Wednesday, three to four miscreants had torched a car, but were chased away by vigilant residents. They raised an alarm and others gathered, saving other vehicles parked nearby from being damaged, he added.

On the idea of not keeping sticks while guarding B-Block, Singh said, "Violence begets violence, crowd begets crowd. We thought if somebody would see sticks or rods in our hands from a distance and large crowds standing guard, it is likely they would want to come prepared. This could fuel violence."

"Now, if there is some young man returning late in the night, we identify if he belongs to our area. If not, we normally inform him about the situation and guide him to his destination, if required," he added.

Seventy-year-old V K Sharma said people in his colony never had any trouble with each other, as he blamed "outside elements" for the violence in north-east Delhi.

"Some people have some problem with symbols. If they find a particular religion's symbol on a shop, home or a car, they vandalise it.

"This is on both sides, Hindus as well as Muslims. But not all people in all religion are like that. There are good people who outnumber these handful people involved in violence," he said.

The violence happened for two days but it would take months for fear to subside, Sharma said, as he took out his two granddaughters, aged nine and two, out for ice cream.

"I cannot reduce the tension outside my home, but at least I can make these kids feel good by reducing their craving for ice cream,” he added.

Colony resident Shiv Kumar, a property consultant, and Wasim, a government official, said they too were members of this voluntary guards' team of the colony which stays up at night to fend off miscreants.