Railways ready to run 300 trains daily to ferry migrants home in next 3-4 days: Piyush Goyal

Coronavirus in India Live updates: Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has appealed to all states to permit the operation of migrant special trains so that the stranded can reach home in the next three to four days. "As per the directions of Hon'ble PM Narendra Modi ji, Railways is fully geared up to run 300 Shramik Special trains everyday at short notice since the last six days," he tweeted. The appeal comes a day after Home Minister Amit Shah wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow such trains to run.

As India enters the last week of the third phase of the lockdown, which is scheduled to end on May 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold another meeting with state Chief Ministers via video-conference on Monday afternoon at 3 pm. This will be his fifth meeting with CMs to discuss the post-lockdown strategy. The nationwide tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases has neared the 63,000-mark including 2,109 deaths and 19,358 recoveries. Of the 62,939 cases, 41,427 are active. Though Covid-19 cases are doubling at a faster pace into the first week of the third phase of the lockdown, the general sentiment in the government appears to be against rolling back the relaxations towards a gradual un-lockdown.

Globally, there are over 4 million coronavirus cases, with deaths exceeding 2,79,000. Former President Barack Obama harshly criticized President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic as an "absolute chaotic disaster" during a conversation with ex-members of his administration. Boris Johnson will unveil a virus alert system, similar to the color-coded terror-threat scale, in a Sunday address to Britain that will set out some conditions for removing restrictions on the economy.

(Inputs and image from indianexpress.com)