This week, the news that generated a lot of buzz in India and Canada was the deportation of 104 Indians by the US. Men, women, and children of various ages were sent back to India onboard a US military aircraft and most of them were handcuffed and chained.
Most of the deportees came from the states of Gujarat and Haryana, but the plane landed in Amritsar, Punjab, which triggered fresh controversy as Punjab parties saw it as a deliberate ploy to malign Punjabis.
The Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar told Parliament while responding to the Opposition’s charge that India didn’t register its protest that these deportations have happened in the past too, and since 2012, US has introduced restraining as part of their deportation procedure. He also told Parliament that women and children were not handcuffed or chained. But India’s mainstream media countered this claim by the minister by publishing testimonies of women deportees where they narrated the harrowing ordeal of being chained to their seats while being airborne.
Sher-E-Punjab AM 600 Radio covered this issue on February 5 and 6 on Mornings With Mani. Indian journalist and commentator Sanjay Kapoor of Hard News spoke with Manimugdha Sharma on February 5 and said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi should cancel his trip to the US on February 13 in protest.
Sher-E-Punjab’s listeners were concerned about this and expressed their dissatisfaction with the Indian government’s handling of the issue during an open-air segment on Mornings With Mani on February 6.
Sushant Singh, well-known journalist and lecturer at Yale University, spoke to Manimugdha Sharma on Mornings With Mani on February 6 and said India has meekly surrendered to the whims and fancies of US President Donald Trump and the country’s image under Narendra Modi’s leadership has taken a significant dent globally.
Manimugdha Sharma (Mani)
Host, Mornings With Mani