AHMEDABAD: Widespread flooding in India’s western industrial state of Gujarat has killed more than 120 people and paralyzed infrastructure, officials said on Friday, with tens of thousands of cotton farmers also suffering heavy damage.
Torrential monsoon rain and flooding in recent weeks have killed at least 300 people in western and eastern states, an official in the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters in New Delhi.
“Our teams are working in different parts of India with soldiers to ease the situation,” said Deepak Ghai, an emergency room control officer.
More than a million households had been affected and losses to farmlands were being assessed.
The airport in Ahmedabad, the main commercial hub of Gujarat, was partially flooded, forcing airlines to divert flights. More than 150 factories were forced to shut down, said A.R. Raval, a district administrator.
The floods have come at a particularly bad time for cotton farmers in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. Raval said more than 50,000 were struggling to drain water from their land and homes.
Recent downpours have hit cotton and millet in Gujarat and Rajasthan, where farm experts now fear pest infestations.
“Cotton and millet harvests are expected to suffer in about three districts each in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but the biggest worry is that the extra moisture could lead to pest attacks in these areas,” Devinder Sharma, an independent farm expert, said.
Rains have been 4 percent above average since the four-month monsoon season began in June, according to the state-run India Meteorological Department.
Floods kill 120 in India’s Gujarat, with industry, cotton hit
Floods kill 120 in India’s Gujarat, with industry, cotton hit
19 EU countries call on EU to fund ‘return hubs’
- The European Parliament must still vote on the measures
- Denmark has made illegal immigration one of its main battlehorses during its six-month stint at the helm of the EU presidency
COPENHAGEN: After the European Union significantly tightened its immigration policy earlier this month, 19 EU countries on Wednesday urged the European Commission to finance “return hubs” outside the bloc for failed asylum-seekers.
Interior ministers from the 27-member bloc greenlighted a package of measures on December 8 that include the opening of return hubs and harsher penalities for migrants who refuse to leave European territory.
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden called on the Commission to make the changes possible.
“Specifically, the EU countries want ... the Commission to help ensure, going forward, that the financing of, among other things, return centers can be done using EU funds,” the Danish immigration ministry said in a statement, with the signed letter sent to the Commission attached.
The European Parliament must still vote on the measures.
Denmark has made illegal immigration one of its main battlehorses during its six-month stint at the helm of the EU presidency, which ends at the end of the month.
“The work is not done, and I’m glad that there are now 19 countries that stand behind a letter calling on the EU system to provide diplomatic and economic help to ensure that the new and innovative solutions — such as return centers — will become a reality,” Danish Immigration Minister Rasmus Stoklund said in a statement.
“For years, Denmark has worked hard to persuade other European countries of Danish ideas such as moving the processing of asylum applications outside Europe, as well as other ideas involving cooperation with third countries outside the EU,” the ministry added.
“The group of EU countries that support such new and innovative solutions has steadily expanded,” it said.
Activists working with migrants have meanwhile denounced the measures, saying they violate migrants’ human rights and risk pushing them into danger.
