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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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Home Guards lose job as transfer of ‘babu’ at HQ delays extension

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Home guards in India
Diwali is a festival of joy. However, for Home Guards attached to Nagpur district headquarters, Diwali has proven to be a lost opportunity for no fault of theirs. The service of 29 Home Guards working with Central Railway for four months, was discontinued as a ‘Babu’ with Home Guards headquarters at Mumbai got transferred and proposal for extension of their services awaits approval. These Home Guards were working at Nagpur, Ajni, and Wardha railway stations.


There are 450 men working with Railway Protection Force (RPF) and as many as 150 posts in RPF are lying vacant across Nagpur Division of Central Railways. Considering the vacancies, the Railways administration decided to deploy Home Guards at Nagpur, Ajni and Wardha stations. Accordingly, Home Guards were deployed on June 2, 2012. They were deployed on various duties including in parking areas, scanners, and other places.
Home Guards proved their worth with their performance. A Home Guard at Nagpur railway station nabbed a passenger carrying country-made revolver. Taking note of such positive results, Senior Divisional Security Commandant of RPF Ibrahim Sherrif moved a proposal for continuation of services of Home Guards and sent the same to Nagpur Division office, which forwarded it to head office of Home Guards one-and-a-half month back.

However, sources said, RPF did not receive approval to the proposal from Home Guards’ headquarters at Mumbai. As a result, services of Home Guards were discontinued from October 2, 2012. Asked about reason behind lack of approval, sources said that a ‘babu’ at Mumbai headquarters of Home Guards got transferred a month back. Already, a time of 15 days had passed by till then. Since transfer of ‘babu’, nobody cared for the proposal.

At present, a total of 1,852 personnel are attached to Nagpur district headquarters of Home Guards. As per the norms, Home Guards could be deployed with any Government agency for four months only and continuation of deployment requires approval from head office of Home Guards. 
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