Wealthy countries should agree on a comprehensive plan to take one million refugees from Syria over the next five years to end the unfolding series of boat disasters in the Mediterranean, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants has urged.
UN’s François Crépeau on the refugee crisis: ‘Instead of resisting migration, let’s organise it’
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In a Guardian interview, François Crépeau said Europe was creating a market for people smugglers by failing to act on Syria. He said his plan could be extended to seven years or widened to include other nationalities, including Eritreans who have been fleeing war.

Migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean have claimed more than 1,750 lives this year – 30 times higher than the same period in 2014.

“We know a great number of Syrians in particular are going to leave these countries and if we don’t provide any official mechanism for them to do so, they will resort to smugglers. The inaction of Europe is actually what creates the market for smugglers,” said Crépeau, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

“We could collectively offer to resettle one million Syrians over the next five years. For a country like the UK, this would probably be around 14,000 Syrians a year for five years. For Canada, it would mean less than 9,000 a year for five years – a drop in the bucket. For Australia, it would probably be less than 5,000 per year for five years.

“We can manage that.”
François Crépeau, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights of migrant, speaks at a news conference
François Crépeau, the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights of migrants, said Europe was creating a market for people smugglers by failing to act on Syria. Photograph: SNTV

Crépeau’s comments came as Italy pressed the EU to devise concrete, robust steps to stop the tide of migrants on smugglers’ boats, including setting up refugee camps in countries bordering Libya.

Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, said Italy had saved 200,000 migrant lives at sea since the start of 2014 but that his country’s “noble, generous reaction alone isn’t enough”.

“We are asking Europe to be Europe, not just when it’s time to devise a budget,” Renzi said, to help combat “21st-century slave drivers” of migrants.

Defence minister Roberta Pinotti also said human traffickers must be targeted with military intervention. “We know where the smugglers keep their boats, where they gather,” Pinotti told Sky TG24 TV in an interview. “The plans for military intervention are there.”

smugglers at the main departure point for Mediterranean migrant crossings in Libya scoffed at plans to launch a military campaign. “What are they going to do, put two frigates here? Two warships? In Libyan waters? That’s an invasion,” the smuggler told the Guardian.

On Thursday EU leaders will hold an emergency summit in Brussels called in the wake of a shipwreck off Libya last weekend that authorities believe may have killed more than 800 migrants. If confirmed it would be the highest known loss of migrants’ lives in a single incident in the Mediterranean.

In the latest arrival of migrants, an Italian naval vessel docked in the Sicilian port of Augusta with 446 people on board who had been rescued from a smugglers’ boat on Tuesday off the southern coast of the Italian mainland. The navy said 59 of the migrants are children.

Britain has given £700m in humanitarian aid to Syria but agreed to settle only 143 Syrian refugees. That has been criticised by Nigel Farage, the leader of the rightwing Ukip, party who is otherwise hardline on immigration. The US has a similar record.

Crépeau said the west had to acknowledge the refugees were “stuck in a place where there’s no future for themselves or their children” and had to change policy.

“This is going to be a long-term commitment and we should go at it together. It’s a much better system for everyone – you reduce the number of deaths, you reduce the smuggling business model, and you reduce the cost of asylum claims.”

The plan could allow Syrian refugees to apply from places such as Istanbul, Amman and Beirut to come to Europe, North America and Australia “for a meaningful chance to resettle, instead of paying thousands of euros to only die with their children in the Mediterranean”.

Crépeau also defended “economic migrants”, many who try to come to Europe and developed countries from sub-Saharan Africa. They were “people who may not be in need of protection but are desperate for a future because there’s no job for them anywhere near their country”.

Instead of resisting mobility, countries had to organise it, Crépeau said. That meant taking action on poor working conditions and tackling the underground labour market.
Migrants trying to reach Greece are rescued by members of the Greek coastguard and locals just off the island of Rhodes on 20 April.

“They come to Europe because they know there are jobs there. Countries in Europe say, ‘We don’t have any job for our own citizens, we can’t welcome all these people’, but that’s not true. There are jobs. There are very poorly paid jobs in agriculture, in construction, in hospitality or in the care of the elderly or care of young people.

“We refuse to acknowledge our underground labour market because we like the price of tomatoes in June; we like our cleaning lady to be that cheap. These people know there are jobs. This is a huge pull factor.”

Crépeau suggested a seasonal entry visa that would allow low-skilled migrants to enter the country for a certain number of months for a number of consecutive years. If the migrant didn’t find work in the first four months, they would return home and try again the next year.

“If you create mechanisms that incentivise people, you would not have underground immigration to such an extent that you have,” Crépeau said.

“Let’s not be afraid of mobility. Mobility is exactly what we need.”

He pointed to the example of the UK between the first enlargement of the European Union in 2005 and the credit crunch of 2008. In that time, the country welcomed 1.5 million central Europeans and at least two-thirds of them left after 2009.

“This is exactly the flexibility of the labour market that we’re looking for,” he said.

“If we develop, regulate, organise mobility, we will have, in the long run, much better results. “But for that we need political leadership to happen. We need people who are able to say to that Sun journalist [the controversial columnist Katie Hopkins who compared migrants to “cockroaches”], ‘You’re wrong and you should know that.

Associated Press

Pune, India: Suzlon Group, world’s sixth largest wind turbine manufacturer and pioneer of Green Energy in India, in continuation of its vision of ‘Powering a greener tomorrow’ celebrates the ‘Earth Day’ at it’s group headquarters- One Earth Campus in Pune, India. Suzlon distributed 300 kgs of free manure to employees, prepared from recycled garden waste generated within Suzlon’s One Earth Campus. The objective of the initiative was to encourage employees to use the manure for plantation at their residence. Further, Suzlon also urged it’s employees in Pune to use bicycles & car pooling to commute to work on 22nd April which is Earth Day. An educational documentary on environment titled ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was screened for employees at Suzlon’s headquarters. Suzlon marked the International Earth Day to increase awareness on protecting the planet and appreciating Earth’s natural environment. Additionally, Suzlon Group with over 26,000 MW of wind energy installations across 30 countries reduces over 44 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Tulsi R. Tanti, Chairman, Suzlon Group said: “We believe that environment sustainability is the only way to shape and protect our future. The initiatives on the occasion of International Earth Day are small steps to encourage our employees to come together, towards building a sustainable and favourable ecosystem to provide better world to our children.”

Apart from being a technology leader, Suzlon endeavors to protect the environment, strengthen communities and propel responsible growth. The Suzlon Foundation, as one of the goals works towards ensuring minimal impact on the environment. The initiatives have had the following positive impact so far:

ü 65,749 CuM water conserved

ü 1.21 million trees planted

ü 170 tonnes grass grown

ü Over 3,627 ha land treated for conservation

ü 83,803 kg solid waste recycled

Suzlon group’s vision to preserve as well as expand the green blanket cover through its 26,000 MW wind energy installation globally and CSR initiatives, is testimony of Suzlon Group’s commitment to contribute towards a sustainable ecosystem for the future.

New Delhi: International news channel Al Jazeera was today forced to go off air in India for five days as the government penalised it for repeatedly showing wrong maps of the country.

Al Jazeera today only showed a blank screen with a message saying that “as instructed by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, this channel will not be available from 00.01 hours on 22nd April till 00.01 hours on 27th April 2015.”

Earlier in an order, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had said that it had come to its notice that Al Jazeera had shown a wrong map of India in some of its broadcasts in 2013 and 2014, after which the matter was referred to Surveyor General of India (SGI).

The SGI had observed that in some of the maps displayed by Al Jazeera, “a portion of Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (i.e. PoK and Aksai Chin) has not been shown as a part of Indian territory.” The channel also did not show Lakshadweep and Andaman Islands in some of the maps, the SGI said.

The SGI also said that the maps were not in accordance with the Survey of India copyright map and is also against the National Map policy, 2005 and map restriction policy issued by Ministry of Defence from time to time. The Ministry of External Affairs also pointed out similar airing of a wrong map by the channel.

In their reply to a Show Cause Notice, Al Jazeera said that all maps that are displayed by them are generated by an internationally known software used by Global News Providers.

The channel also added that it takes Indian government’s concerns about maps very seriously and accordingly reviews all its India and Pakistan maps to ensure compatibility with recent official UN map.

As per the order of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the Inter Ministerial Committee which was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of External Affairs, after deliberations, held that the channel had clearly violated the provisions of the programme code and recommended to prohibit transmission or re-transmission of the channel throughout India for five days.

In a gruesome incident, a man allegedly hacked his wife to death today and walked to the police station at nearby Pollachi with the severed head, police said.

The accused, Chinnapparaj (49), was an agricultural labourer and he had frequent quarrels with his 40-year-old wife over her illicit relationship with a local man since the last few months, police said.

Despite her husband’s warning, the woman continued her relationship.

Chinnapparaj found his wife missing from the house last night and surmising that she was with her paramour, waited with a sickle, chased and killed her as she was returning home about 8.30 AM today, police said.

Defence PSU Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd has bagged its biggest order of building three advanced stealth frigates for Rs 20,000 crore from the Indian Navy.

“This is the highest-ever order which GRSE has got. This shows how much trust the government and the Navy has on us. It is a big shot in the arm for us,” GRSE’s Chairman and Managing Director Rear Admiral A K Verma told reporters here today.

Under project P-17A, Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), Mumbai, will make four stealth frigates while the Kolkata shipyard will make three such frigates, all of which will be of the same design.

“Frigates are one-man army which can attack under water, surface level and also at air. It can also carry helicopters and has detection abilities as well. It will become the most potent weapon of the Indian Navy,” Verma said.

Once the final design is ready, the construction at GRSE will begin after three years and the first ship will be ready by 2023.

“The rest will come at one-year intervals and within ten years all the ships would be ready. We would be working in close collaboration with both the Navy as well as MDL,” the official said.

Commodore Ratnakar Ghosh, Director (shipbuilding), GRSE, said they are building a new modernised integrated modular construction unit which would be used for manufacturing the frigates.

“It is because of the modular construction that we can bring down the time of construction to five years. Traditional shipbuilding method takes much more time,” he said.

GRSE already has Goliath cranes and workshops with sliding roofs from where 200-tonne blocks can be lifted out.

Burdwan (WB): A Trinamool Congress worker was on Wednesday gunned down allegedly by a party member at Ketugram in West Bengal’s Burdwan district on the penultimate day of campaigning for the state-wide civic polls.

Police said the incident occurred this morning when the TMC worker Apel Sheikh, known to be close to the party’s Bibrhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal, was sitting in his shop at Kumorpur village.

A gang of about 10, including TMC member Zahid Sheikh, barged into the shop and sprayed bullets at him killing him on the spot.

District Superintendent of Police Kunal Agarwal said a large police contingent rushed to the spot but none was arrested as yet.

The killing is suspected to be a result of intra-party feud, he said, adding that investigation was on.

Civic polls in the state, seen as ‘semi finals’ to the Assembly polls scheduled next year, would be held on Saturday. The results, along with that of Kolkata civic board, would be announced on April 28.
PTI

Author Rana Dasgupta’s literary potrait of Delhi “Capital” is among six books shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for political writing 2015.

The book is the third work of fiction by Dasgupta who had previously won the 2010 Commonwealth prize for his work “Solo”.

In the shortlisted book, Dasgupta explores life-changing consequences for Delhi’s people, meeting with billionaires and bureaucrats, drug dealers and metal traders, slum dwellers and psychoanalysts.

The 43-year-old British-Indian author who was born in the UK has been living in Delhi for the past 15 years, ever since he moved here from New York in the year 2000.

The Orwell Prize worth 3000 pounds, named in memory of the British journalist, novelist and essayist George Orwell is scheduled to be announced on May 21.

Other shortlisted books include “Hack Attack” by Nick Davies, “In Plain Sight” by Dan Davies, “Modernity Britain” by David Kynaston, “Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else,” James Meek and “The People’s Republic of Amnesia” by Louisa Lim.

Ben Kingsley is one of the most versatile actors in World Cinema and he just proved it again with his depiction of an Indian Sikh in his latest movie, ‘Learning To Drive’. The theme of the movie revolves around a Manhattan writer, who starts taking driving lessons as her marriage dissolves. This movie reminds us as to how trivial things can turn out to be the most amazing experiences of our life if we pay enough attention to them.

With an amazing star cast and a beautiful story, this is surely one of the films to watch out for.