Kolkata, Jun 12 (PTI) Free ride for women on West Bengal government-run buses has been a welcome move for many. However, private bus operators say they have been suffering losses due to the outflux of women passengers to state-run buses and higher fuel costs.

To offset losses, operators are seeking support from the state government through a “kilometre scheme”, under which the transport department integrates privately owned buses into its fleet, while owners provide drivers and maintain the vehicles for a fixed payment per kilometre operated.

The secretary of the Joint Council of Bus Syndicates, Tapan Banerjee, said every private bus owner is suffering a revenue loss of Rs 500 to Rs 700 daily following the introduction of free travel for women in state government buses.

He said that private buses are the backbone of public transportation in West Bengal, accounting for the travel of more than 85 per cent of passengers.

“Women passengers are availing government-run buses wherever available, resulting in a decrease in passengers for private buses,” he told PTI.

Banerjee said that when a mother takes her girl child to school and gets her back in the afternoon, that accounts for four tickets bought. But this revenue is lost due to the free travel option on state government-run buses.

“Women passengers are opting for state-run buses wherever available to save expenditure on conveyance,” he said.

Rahul Chatterjee, the general secretary of All Bengal Bus Minibus Coordination Committee, said it would help private operators if the state government took over bus transport entirely, bringing private buses under its umbrella through the kilometre scheme.

“It will help both the passengers as well as private operators as we won’t have to worry about operating losses,” he told PTI.

Under the kilometre scheme operational in some states, private operators buy and maintain the buses, and supply the drivers, while the state transport department integrates these buses into its fleet. The buses use state-run routes and are managed by government conductors. Private owners are paid a fixed rate per kilometre operated, while the government collects all passenger fares to cover the per-kilometre running cost.

About the free travel for women in state buses, both Banerjee and Chatterjee said it was up to the government to decide on its policies.

The BJP government has introduced free travel for women in buses of West Bengal Transport Corporation, South Bengal State Transport Corporation and North Bengal State Transport Corporation, following up on its promise for the recently-concluded assembly polls.

Chatterjee said that there has been some decrease in passenger traffic for buses which ply on routes where there is a good frequency of government-run buses.

“In routes like Siliguri-Cooch Behar, there are ample state-run buses, and there is a loss of passengers for private buses,” Chatterjee said.

He said the same is the situation on some bus routes from Howrah railway station to different parts of Kolkata.

Chatterjee also lamented that bus fares have not been increased by the government for about nine years. “Bus fares were last increased in 2018 when the present chief minister held the charge of the transport department (in the then TMC government),” he said.

He claimed that bus fares have been consistently increased in several other states to keep parity with fuel costs, but that has not been done in Bengal.

While bus and taxi fares have not been officially raised since 2018, private buses have been charging higher fares since fuel prices increased after the COVID period.

“Diesel prices have increased by about Rs 10 per litre in just about a month in May this year, but the fares have remained unchanged,” Chatterjee said.

Mohammed Jubair, a conductor on a bus on route number 73 in Howrah city, said they have not suffered any decrease in passengers since there is no competition from state buses on that route.

Subho Das, another conductor on a bus that plies on a north-south route across Kolkata, said that they have suffered a decrease in passengers since the introduction of free rides for women passengers.

The World Cup returns to the U.S. on Friday for the first time in 32 years after Trump threw himself into winning the bid to co-host the soccer tourney during his first term. He’ll be feted Sunday, his 80th birthday, during a UFC fight night that’s expected to draw thousands to the White House grounds. Hours after the final bout, he’s scheduled to jet off to the G7 summit in the French Alps for talks with several world leaders he’s been beefing with over war and tariffs.

But Trump set expectations even higher for the coming days when he announced Thursday that the U.S. and Iran could come to terms this weekend on an agreement that would set the pathway to end the three-month-old war that’s been broadly unpopular with Americans and has rattled global oil markets. He said he plans to dispatch Vice President JD Vance to the signing of the agreement.

Trump has said on several occasions in recent weeks that he’s on the cusp of a deal without anything coming to fruition. A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry told state television following Trump’s comments that mediators were active but nothing had been finalized to end the conflict.

Still, Trump is claiming this time might be different.

The breakthrough comes after he threatened to escalate the conflict with more intense bombardment of Iran and by seizing control of Iran’s oil industry, including capturing Iran’s vital Kharg Island oil facility. The president’s threats followed back-and-forth strikes this week that had rendered a temporary ceasefire agreed to in early April all but meaningless.

“They’ve taken a pounding like very few people could take,” Trump said in an Oval Office exchange with reporters as he explained why he was confident that, this time, a deal would come through. “And they want to make the deal a lot more than I do.”

Trump offered scant details about the settlement he says is taking shape, but told reporters that he believed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been wounded on the first day of the war and has not been seen in public since, is ready to sign off on the deal.

Trump is billing the deal as “very strong,” though he says it remains “a little conceptual,” and says it would ensure Iran is blocked from ever developing a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s heightened threats are aimed at creating an off-ramp

With the conflict intensifying over the past week, Trump’s threat to escalate U.S. military action seemed in part aimed at demonstrating to the hawkish flank of his political base that he was willing to play “hardball” with the Iranians if they didn’t come to a deal soon, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.

Trump in March warned he would target Iran’s infrastructure and put American troops on Kharg Island before he ultimately backed down, and the two countries agreed to the temporary ceasefire.

Almost immediately after raising the idea again on social media Thursday, Trump appeared to back away. He called into a morning show on Fox News Channel and questioned whether Americans had the “stomach” for an option that would require putting U.S. troops in harm’s way.

Hours later, Trump announced he had decided to cancel orders for “very hard” strikes on Iran and said a deal was close.

Vaez said even as Trump was posting on social media Thursday about escalating strikes, mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar had been making progress in their talks with Iran.

At the same time, Iran also may have reset the equation for Trump with its decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the first time since the ceasefire after Israeli forces carried out military strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

With the move, Iran signaled that Israel could no longer bomb Lebanon without facing a meaningful reaction and in the process also raised the cost for the U.S. to follow through on its commitment to help safeguard Israel.

“It really does appear to me that Trump wants to bring this to an end, but his real challenge is that he’s looking for a victory lap and an exit ramp and those two things are not necessarily compatible,” Vaez said.

Trump expresses frustration with war narrative

Trump has been boasting since the early weeks of the conflict that he’d already won the war — much of the Islamic Republic’s leadership has been killed in the bombings and the Iranian navy and air force have been severely degraded.

But Iran continues to effectively keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, choking a waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply passed before the war, and has yet to agree to restart negotiations with the U.S. over its concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, the main reason Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave to justify launching the war.

But the real problem, Trump grumbled Thursday, was largely a public relations issue.

“They could wave the white flag of surrender. They could say: ‘We surrender, we surrender, we’re finished, we’ve had it. The United States is the greatest power, praise be to Allah,’” Trump said on Fox News. “They could say it loud and clear. And the fake news would say it was a great victory for Iran.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump has grown impatient with Iran and the renewed strikes and threats on Kharg Island and Iran’s energy sector were intended to get the negotiations back to the “right place.”

Polls show that the conflict is largely unpopular with Americans. McCaul said he believes the Iranians want to “try to drag this out as long as they can,” closer to the midterm elections in November, because they see that as being to their benefit.

War will be high on agenda at next week’s G7

Deal or no deal, the war will loom large during next week’s talks at the Group of Seven summit in bucolic Évian-les-Bains, France.

Trump has frequently criticized some of the group leaders — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — for resisting his calls to aid the U.S. and Israeli war effort.

The four leaders have also angered Trump by criticizing how he’s gone about executing the war and his lack of consultation with allies before jumping into a conflict that’s hurt the global economy as oil prices have surged.

But Trump said he is optimistic he could have an agreement before his talks with leaders in France.

“The strait will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon — maybe over the weekend in Europe,” Trump said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report and has sought ​comment from India’s finance ministry.

The country, the world’s ​third-largest oil importer and consumer, is willing to let ⁠the budget gap widen by as much as 50 ​basis points to 4.8% of GDP compared with the 4.3% ​target for this fiscal year that started on April 1, according to the report.

Higher crude prices and supply disruptions after the closure of ​the Strait of Hormuz have hit India, prompting state ​retailers to raise petrol and diesel prices by about 8%. The government ‌has ⁠also cut subsidies on cooking gas cylinders for households.

India ships in about 90% of its oil and is one of the countries most-exposed to prolonged Iran war-related disruptions to global ​energy supplies.

The ​government’s fertiliser subsidy ⁠is likely to jump 20% in the fiscal year, a government official had said earlier.

Authorities ​are keeping their options open for now ​and plan ⁠to reassess the fiscal outlook later this year, when there is more clarity on non-tax revenues and subsidy needs, Bloomberg ⁠News ​reported.

The government is also evaluating possible ​spending cuts across ministries to contain the deficit, the report said.

Mumbai, Jun 12 (PTI) Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty rebounded in early trade on Friday and were trading sharply higher, following a rally in global markets and a drop in crude oil prices after US President Donald Trump declared that his country has ended the war with Iran.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 921.30 points to 74,753.85 during initial deals. The 50-share NSE Nifty surged 254.20 points to 23,417.25.

US President Donald Trump said that a deal to end the war with Iran is nearly complete and is expected to be signed over the weekend in Europe, as he called off military strikes on the gulf nation hours after threatening to take control of its oil industry.

Trump, speaking to reporters at the Oval office on Thursday afternoon, said Vice President J D Vance is expected to attend the signing ceremony which could take place in Europe as soon as this weekend.

Later, addressing a tele-rally in favour of Georgia Lt Governor Burt Jones, who is running for the post of Governor, Trump declared that the US has ended the war with Iran.

“I don’t know if you heard, but we ended the war with Iran today (Thursday), and they have agreed never to have a nuclear weapon, something that we insisted on. That was the whole purpose,” Trump said.

From the 30-Sensex firms, InterGlobe Aviation, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finance, Eternal, Trent and HDFC Bank were among the biggest winners.

Tech Mahindra was the only laggard from the pack.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, dropped 1.62 per cent to USD 88.92 per barrel.

In Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi jumped over 8 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index climbed more than 3 per cent. Shanghai’s SSE Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index were also quoting higher.

US markets ended significantly higher on Thursday.

“The biggest overnight trigger came from the United States, where markets rebounded strongly after President Donald Trump signalled a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran and called off planned military strikes.

“The development significantly reduced geopolitical risk premiums that had been weighing on global equities and energy markets over the past week,” Hariprasad K, Research Analyst and Founder, Livelong Wealth, said.

Asian markets have responded aggressively to the shift in sentiment, he said.

“For India, the most significant macro development is the sharp decline in crude oil prices. Brent crude has corrected nearly 4 per cent, easing concerns around imported inflation, the current account deficit, and rupee stability,” Hariprasad added.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,987.09 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

In the previous session, the 30-share BSE Sensex declined 150.63 points, or 0.20 per cent, to settle at 73,832.55. The Nifty edged lower by 53.35 points, or 0.23 per cent, to end at 23,161.60.

Retail fuel station dealers have been directed to sell up to 200 litres of diesel per customer ​or vehicle a day, according to a government order issued late on ​Thursday, adding the customers cannot resell the diesel.

Commercial customers, like trucking ⁠companies, have been buying diesel from retail outlets of state-run companies where prices ​have been cheaper than at the usual bulk supply points, and this has ​led to shortages at retail pumps in some areas.

The government said restrictions were necessary to ensure equitable availability of petrol and diesel across the country, prevent diversion and hoarding, and maintain ​uninterrupted fuel supplies at fair prices.

While state fuel retailers are suffering a revenue ​loss of about 36.5 rupees ($0.38) per liter on diesel sales to retail customers, the fuel is ‌sold ⁠at market rates for industrial buyers. On gasoline sales they are losing 9 rupees per liter.

India is a net exporter of refined fuels, but higher fuel sales at subsidised rates within the country are hitting the profitability of the state ​fuel retailers – Indian ​Oil Corp, Bharat ⁠Petroleum Corp, and Hindustan Petroleum Corp.

The three state-run fuel retailers control about 90% of India’s more than 100,000 fuel stations.

Referring ​to the U.S-Israeli war with Iran, the government’s order said ​geopolitical tensions ⁠have strained global petroleum supply chains, shipping logistics and the availability of petroleum products, making prudent management and conservation of supplies necessary.

The measures will remain in force ⁠for an ​initial period of up to 90 days unless ​revoked earlier through a separate order, the order said.

($1 = 95.7500 Indian rupees)

Mumbai, Jun 12 (PTI) The rupee surged 65 paise to 95.20 against the US dollar in early trade on Friday as global crude oil prices retreated after US President Donald Trump indicated an imminent deal with Iran.

A weaker greenback and positive sentiment at the domestic equity markets provided further boost to the local unit, according to forex traders.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 95.40 before rising further to 95.20 against the greenback.

The rupee had plunged 60 paise to settle at 95.85 against the US dollar on Thursday.

“The rupee opened stronger on Friday, fuelled by a sharp retreat in global crude oil prices. This relief comes in the wake of statements from US President Donald Trump indicating an imminent deal with Iran and the cancellation of planned military strikes,” Aamir Makda, Commodity & Currency Analyst, Commodity Technical Research, Choice Broking, said.

“We expect the rupee… to maintain a positive bias between 95 and 95.30 throughout the day. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently rolled out a series of aggressive measures to stimulate dollar inflows and defend the local currency, Thursday’s slide below pre-intervention levels underscores the relentless pressure on the rupee,” Makda said.

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading at 99.75, down 0.11 per cent.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading lower by 1.07 per cent at USD 89.41 per barrel in futures trade.

On the domestic equity market front, Sensex jumped 921.30 points to 74,753.85, while Nifty surged 254.20 points to 23,417.25.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 1,987.09 crore on a net basis on Thursday, according to exchange data.

No World Cup match has had that many players ejected since a 2006 game between Portugal and the Netherlands, when four players received red cards — a World Cup record.

The last World Cup in Qatar in 2022 had only four red cards in the entire tournament.

On Thursday at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, Sphephelo Sithole and Themba Zwane were sent off for South Africa while César Montes was shown a red card for the tournament co-host.

It’s the first time three players have been sent off in the opening match of a World Cup – and all three were straight red cards, meaning none of the ejected players were given two yellows.

Mexico won the match 2-0.

Sithole was red-carded after taking down Mexico’s Brian Gutierrez on the edge of the box at the start of the second half.

Things got worse for South Africa when Zwane was sent off following a video review for striking Roberto Alvarado in the face in the 84th minute. Finally, in stoppage time, Montes saw red for bringing down Khuliso Mudau.

The red cards mean the three players will be suspended for at least one more match. South Africa’s next match is against the Czech Republic and Mexico next faces South Korea in Guadalajara.

The match between Portugal and the Netherlands at the 2006 World Cup in Germany stands out with its four red cards – two for each team. That game in Nuremberg also had 16 yellow cards.

The rally at Savitribai Phule Pune University followed the group’s first major street protest in New Delhi last week. It demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged examination irregularities and repeated paper leaks.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, a political communications strategist and Boston University student, addressed supporters and said Thursday marked the start of a broader national campaign. He announced plans for protests in other cities and said supporters would return to New Delhi later this month if the education minister did not step down.

“The government cannot ignore the youth,” Dipke, who recently returned from the United States to lead the campaign, told reporters.

The movement emerged in May, after Supreme Court judge Surya Kant’s remarks comparing some unemployed youth to “cockroaches” triggered outrage. Supporters embraced the term as a symbol of resilience, helping the group amass more than 22 million followers on Instagram.

The movement’s message has since expanded to include concerns over unemployment, rising living costs and government accountability.

The CJP mixes self-deprecating humor with political criticism. Supporters jokingly call themselves unemployed and chronically online, while videos and memes mocking unemployment, corruption and political dysfunction have attracted millions of views. Many parody CJP accounts have also adopted the cockroach as a satirical political symbol.

New Delhi, Jun 11 (PTI) A study has estimated that about 19 million people, averaging 1.35 million per year, have migrated from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates since 2010.

The data compares to 13.6 million movements from Mexico to the US over the entire period since 1990, researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria and the University of Hong Kong said.

Globally, the Middle East experienced the highest total inflow of migrants, chiefly from South Asia and the Philippines, with immigration from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia alone averaging around 3,00,000 people per year from 2010 onwards, according to a global migration map published in the journal Nature.

“Our annual data provides a clearer picture, revealing that this (migration) rate has actually risen since 2000,” co-author Guy Abel, a research scholar in the migration and sustainable development research group of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Population and Just Societies Program, said.

“This upward trend appears to be driven by long-term demographic shifts and economic development rather than sudden, isolated crises,” Abel added.

The researchers have built the first dataset of migration flows between all countries for the period 1990-2023, offering a more detailed picture of global movement than traditional data, which is highly fragmented, they said.

“We estimate that, since 2010, a total of 19 million people, averaging 1.35 million per year, migrated from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE,” according to the study.

The authors said the current analyses on migration rely heavily on migrant population data published at five-year intervals by the United Nations and at 10-year intervals by the World Bank.

However, the information provides a snapshot at a fixed point in time. As a result, big events — wars, recessions, pandemics, or climate shocks — have sometimes been missed in the data capture, the researchers said.

More detailed migration data helps policymakers respond to crises, plan services, and understand global trends, they said.

The dataset can be particularly useful in unravelling trends in migration movements in the Global South, where data have traditionally been less plentiful and detailed than in the Global North, the team said.

The researchers used deep learning algorithms to combine official statistics, census data, among other sources, with geographic and economic factors.

Migration has become more common overall since 2000, with dips only during the 2008-09 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, the migration map shows.

Europe was found to consistently rank as the region with the highest volume of intra-regional migration, surpassed only once by Sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s during the Rwandan civil war.

These big coastal floods happen when high tides and storm surges — the amount above normal tide level — combine with seas that are already rising. Those pile on top of natural climate patterns and other human influence.

Climate change has strengthened storms like Hurricane Ian, which caused significant flooding in 2022, scientists say. Flooding threatens hundreds of millions of people each year in low-lying coastal areas across the globe. It also causes billions of dollars in damage and can be deadly.

Floods that historically had a 1% chance of striking a coastline in a year are now about 12 times more likely, on average, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Wednesday. Those events have become about four times more likely due to human-driven climate change, the research shows.

Researchers looked at how often extreme sea level events — which cause coastal flooding — happen by considering long-term records from tide gauges at more than 100 sites, as well as using climate modeling. The study looked at the increase from 1900 to 2005. It was limited through 2005 because after that, there weren’t enough models that could point to instances of human-driven climate change. The researchers said their findings likely understate today’s risk, because human contributions to changes in coastal extremes have only increased since then.

Researchers looked at which changes were caused by human activity, natural forces or shifts in the landscape. Although sea level changes earlier in the 20th century could mostly be chalked up to natural forces, the scientists found that since the 1960s, human-caused warming was the main reason sea levels are going up.

A separate study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday also supports the idea that extreme ocean heights come from climate change, specifically around 58% of the days with big floods from 2000 to 2018. Climate change has also, on average, nearly tripled the number of days where the sea tops extreme flood levels since the 1970s, according to that study.

“Essentially every coastal flood today has human fingerprints on it through climate change,” said Ben Strauss, chief scientist at Climate Central and a co-author of the Science Advances study. “Without the extra bit of sea level rise caused by global heating, most of these events would not have reached the status of flood.”

The research in Nature Climate Change didn’t fully examine individual human factors, said Sönke Dangendorf, the lead author, but he noted greenhouse gases — the result of burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal — are the most significant.

“Since the 1970s, it’s by far the dominating factor, and this is of course not good news,” said Dangendorf, also an associate professor at Tulane University. He said the threat is growing, and communities need to do more to prepare.

Jeff Williams, a retired United States Geological Survey oceanographer who wasn’t part of either study, said the research shows that planners need to take the growing threats into account. They should also think about how much money they’ll need to increase coastal protection, he said, and figure out who pays for it.

The current protections for New Orleans, for instance, “will likely not be adequate beyond the next couple decades,” Williams said.

Nations across the globe are increasingly using renewable energies like solar and wind. Last year, clean power generation exceeded overall global electricity demand growth, and the share of renewables hit more than one-third of the world’s electricity mix for the first time.

Even in the United States, where the Trump administration has boosted fossil fuels, solar is growing as coal power declines. As such, scientists have recently said the world is no longer on track for the worst case scenario for warming — but it’s also not on track to the best case, either.

“The impacts, even of a relatively little sea level rise, can be pretty impactful on our coasts,” Dangendorf, the Tulane author, said.

“There is a silver lining because we have control about how much we emit, right?” he said. “So we can stop that development, at least to some degree.”

Source – Alexa St. John, Associated Press