A video from Punjab which became viral in June showed a newly married woman—wedding bangles (chooda) on her wrists—taking drugs. She put a lighted candle below a foil and snorted what was thought to be chitta—Punjab's notorious synthetic drug made from heroin and other substances. The video indicates that Punjab's drug problem is not restricted to the typical demographic of unemployed youth. It is rampant across divides such as class, gender, age and geography. No wonder, the Punjab government recently ordered all its employees to undergo drug tests. A crackdown on drugs by the state government after Capt Amarinder Singh came to power last year has led to arrests of a large number of peddlers and choked supply routes. Yet there is no end to the problem. In June this year, dozens of drug-related deaths were reported in the state. In the last few years, while the business and economy in the state kept sliding, the drugs trade flourished. With addicts turning peddlers and severa...

  Foreign students in the UK have been plunged into financial hardship as they struggle to pay their tuition fees during the coronavirus pandemic and are blocked from accessing state support, charities warn. Dismissal from part-time jobs and a loss of financial support from family members abroad due to Covid-19 has left some students having to choose between eating meals or paying their course fees, which they are usually required to pay in order to remain in the UK. This is exacerbated by the fact that most overseas students are blocked from accessing state support because of the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) policy, which prevents thousands of migrants from accessing help from the government due to their immigration status. Ministers are being urged to take action to ensure that these individuals are able to access support, and are not suspended from their studies and forced to leave the UK as a result of not being able to pay their tuition fees, which vary between £10,000 a...

At least three in four countries – home to 91 percent of the global population – have imposed partial or complete border closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and roughly one in two human beings is living under lockdown as governments try to slow the spread of the virus. While perhaps necessary from a public health standpoint, the limitations on movement make it more difficult for people fleeing wars and persecution to access protection, and raise pressing questions about what special steps governments need to take to safeguard asylum seekers and irregular migrants in these unusual times. But migration policy experts also warn that some governments are taking advantage of the crisis to push through legally dubious, hardline migration policies that can’t be justified by public health concerns and that could stay in place long after the COVID-19 outbreaks subside – in particular, ending or curtailing access to asylum. “You do absolutely have some governments who have exploited the situa...