Ukraine crisis: Over 7K Indians to be evacuated in next 2 days, says Centre
Darpan News Desk IANS, 03 Mar, 2022 01:10 PM
New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) Over 7,400 Indian nationals are expected to be evacuated under the 'Operation Ganga' in the next two days, the government said on Thursday.
The Centre has initiated an airlift operation to evacuate Indians, who have found their way to the neighbouring countries of war-torn Ukraine. It has deployed a number of special charter as well as Indian Air Force flights to ferry back the citizens.
On Friday, 3,500 are expected to be brought back, while over 3,900 will be ferried back on Saturday.
As per a Ministry of Civil Aviation statement, a total of 17 flights are expected to land in India -- 15 in New Delhi and 2 in Mumbai -- on Friday.So far, the Centre has brought back over 6,200 citizens, including the 2,185 coming on Thursday alone through 10 special civilian flights, since the evacuation process began on February 22.
On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that over 4,000 Indian students will be evacuated from Romania in the next three days.
Scindia is one of the four Union Ministers, along with Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju and Gen V.K. Singh (retd), who have gone to countries adjoining Ukraine to support and supervise the ongoing evacuation operations.
Similarly, six flights each will be operated on Thursday and Friday.
Furthermore, he said that flights will also be operated from Suceava, Romania.
According to an estimate, a total of 18,000 students are stranded in war-torn Ukraine. However, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Tuesday said that so far, 12,000 Indians have been evacuated from Ukraine, which is 60 per cent of the country's total population in the war-ravaged nation.
On Wednesday, The Prime Minister's rally in Ferozepur had to be cancelled due to a security lapse after some protesters blocked a route and forced his convoy to spend about 20 minutes on a flyover. The Prime Minister was enroute the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala when the incident happened.
Although the department has all infrastructural needs in place to deal with the large number of cases expected in case of the third wave becoming a reality, he also appealed to the people to get themselves fully vaccinated against the virus as it is the most potent tool to avoid Covid-19.
Regretting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to cancel his scheduled visit to Ferozepur midway, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said on Wednesday that there was no security lapse that led to the cancellation of the Prime Ministers visit to the bordering town.
Holding the Punjab government squarely responsible for the "gross security lapse" during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Punjab, that eventually led to cancellation of all his programmes, former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday demanded dismissal of the government and imposition of President's rule.
With the spike in Covid-19 cases, Punjab on Tuesday imposed statewide night curfew daily from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and ordered closure of all educational institutions till January 15.
The accused, identified as Ashish Kumar, tied his wife Ranjan Devi and son Vaibhav to the bed and set them on fire at his house in Mayurwa locality, which comes under the Triveniganj police station.
