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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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Book railway retiring room online now

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Indian Railways has made it possible for a passenger to reserve retiring room online sitting at his drawing room. Rooms at the originating station or at the destination station could be reserved online.
Earlier, one had to avail the retiring room on reaching the destination station and it was purely dependent on availability. Then, in the next phase, Railways introduced online reservation possible wherein the passenger had to visit the nearest railway junction, where the matron of the retiring room, having the access to online reservation will block the room and give a reservation slip. Passenger will have to provide the PNR Number of his ticket and an ID proof to get the reservation done. Now, a passenger having a confirmed ticket PNR number will have to just visit www.railtourismindia.com of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and punch in his PNR number.
The system will show the details of the retiring rooms available during the said journey period. The passenger could choose the type of accommodation and also whether with or without AC. He could remit the money online either through online banking, debit card or credit card and get the room blocked. 
But, passengers having tickets with RAC or wait-list status will have to wait till their tickets were confirmed. The facility is now thrown open to as many as 51 railway junctions across the country. As each junction gets onto the computerised reservation facility, they would be slowly hooked to the online reservation. This actually eliminates the need for a passenger to visit the Junction for blocking his room and could have the room reserved in a way he got his journey ticket reserved.

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