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Business Line March 05, 2020 Pritam Ranjan Bose Illegal movement of people, drugs and gold through West Bengal border is causing serious concern to law enforcing agencies of both India and Bangladesh. On Monday, two women ― Rina Saha and Tania Biswas ― apparently from North-24 Parganas in West Bengal, were apprehended by law enforcers from Kolkata airport. They were headed to Jakarta on Indian passports. Human trafficking Preliminary enquiries reveal both are Rohingyas (Arakanese Muslims), named Ruksana Akhter and Taslima. They entered India through Ghojadanga border in 2014 on Bangladeshi passports and later managed to obtain Indian passports. This is not the first time Rohingyas have been found to be in possession of Indian passports. In March 2019, two Rohingya women were apprehended at Kolkata airport before they could fly to Kuala Lumpur. Both had come from Bangladesh and had later obtained Indian passports. In February 2019, seven Rohingyas were ca...

apnews.com By KATHY GANNON LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Page after page, the names stack up: 629 girls and women from across Pakistan who were sold as brides to Chinese men and taken to China. The list, obtained by The Associated Press, was compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks exploiting the country’s poor and vulnerable. The list gives the most concrete figure yet for the number of women caught up in the trafficking schemes since 2018. But since the time it was put together in June, investigators’ aggressive drive against the networks has largely ground to a halt. Officials with knowledge of the investigations say that is because of pressure from government officials fearful of hurting Pakistan’s lucrative ties to Beijing. The biggest case against traffickers has fallen apart. In October, a court in Faisalabad acquitted 31 Chinese nationals charged in connection with trafficking. Several of the women who had initially been intervie...

 Bijay Sankar Bora Aug 12, 2018  The publication of the final NRC draft in Assam has once again brought to fore how sensitive the Northeastern states of India are to the problem of illegal migration, and that they consider migration a grave threat to the identity and political rights of the ethnic groups residing in the region. The news of over 40 lakh applicants (out of the total 3.29 crore) being left out of the final draft of NRC spread like wildfire in the region. Contrary to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s high-decibel rhetoric that the NRC update was a ploy of the BJP government in Assam to drive the Bengalis out of the state, indigenous apolitical and political organisations in neighbouring Northeastern states of Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur which share boundaries with Assam, raised the alarm that those left out of the final NRC draft would flock to their states to avoid detection and deportation in Assam. People whose na...

Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty /11/AUG/2018 Manipur/Mizoram: International entry and exit checkpoints in two states bordering Myanmar opened The government of Myanmar officially opened its border in two northeastern states by installing international entry and exit checkpoints on August 8. This action of the neighbouring country has taken India government’s Act East Policy a step closer to reality. R.K. Shivchandra, convener of Act East Policy Committee, soon after the inauguration of the two land border points, reportedly said that they were the last to officially open in entire Southeast Asia, meaning ease of crossing land borders between various countries on that route. As per the new modalities, the special land entry permission, which visitors entering Myanmar via land routes in the Northeast had required to fetch till now, would be replaced by visas, making them official international entry and exit points. While one such entry/exit point was opened at Tamu, the Myanmar...

The Hindu Prabha Kotisawarn February 13, 2018 India should not follow the raid-rescue-rehabilitation model.  Last year, India protested against the release of a report, ‘Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage’, a collaborative effort of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Walk Free Foundation, and the International Organisation for Migration. The report estimated that there were 40.3 million “modern slaves” worldwide in 2016, with 24.9 million in forced labour and 15.4 million in forced marriages. It did not name countries, but the writing on the wall was clear as 17,000 interviews had been conducted in India, and 61.78% of the “modern slaves” were in Asia and the Pacific. Registering its protest with the ILO, India vowed to undertake its own surveys. The Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and member of NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy, was scathing in his critique. He called the estimates on forced marriag...