India Tales: how 'Facebook love' landed a Pakistani in an Indian jail

Akbar Shah Durrani left his home in Jamsora, Pakistan, and came to Dewas, Madhya Pradesh to "meet and wed the love of his life". Sadly, his story was not to have a happily ever after.

Akbar had met Safia, who ran a coaching institute in the town, on Facebook. They became friends, fell in love and, in January 2013, they solemnised their nikah

in

Dewas.

Akbar went back to Pakistan, only to return

a few

months later

Apparently, Akbar had applied for an extension to his visa a month before it was to expire but it didn't come through.

His sentence ends on 9 August. The CJM had, in his verdict, directed the police to take Akbar to the Indian embassy after the completion of his jail term so that he could be deported to Pakistan.

Akbar and Safia have a son Aariz, who is now over a year old.

Rohit Gupta, 27, was appointed a junior engineer in Madhya Pradesh Vidyut Vitaran Nigam, the state's power utility company, in December 2012. He was tired of the job within a year, he says, but stuck around for two years until he got an offer from a private company.

Vipin Singh, 26, too hired as a junior engineer for the company's Bhopal distribution division in 2012. He left in 2015, and has since worked for a private company.

Rohit and Vipin are among at least 80 engineers who have left the state-run company since 2012. At least 30 of them have left without formally quitting, or even informing their bosses.

But why have so many engineers left such secure jobs in a state where people are desperately looking for even half-decent jobs? The chief reason, company insiders said, is that while they had joined the company to work as engineers, they were being pushed to "manage weird targets".

The engineers, the sources explained, are given "zone-wise monthly targets to recover dues, investigate cases of power theft, reduce losses and increase realisation per unit to the company". They are also given monthly targets of "providing electricity connections to slums and new clusters". "If the targets are not met, their salary is cut or withheld all together," said an official.

Asked about this, Sanjay Nihlani, the company's head of human resources and administration, said the engineers who have left without quitting have been sent notices and "given the last chance to join back their duties".

Ganesh Shanmugam from Tamil Nadu is one of the nearly 10,000 Indian workers in Saudi Arabia who have been laid off without being paid their dues. His is a heartbreaking story.

Ganesh had gone to Saudi Arabia last February with the dream of working as an engineer "in a big company". His dream was shattered when he realised he would have to work as a labourer. The "agent" through whom he had got the job had misled him. Worse still, he was injured at work.

He has tweeted to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, imploring for help but has not received any response. He cannot return home because his passport and other documents have been confiscated by his employer.

Ganesh's narrated his ordeal over the phone from Jeddah: "I approached an agent in Chennai and asked him to get me a job in the Gulf. He had got jobs for people there - good jobs. He promised to get me a job as an engineer. So, I mortgaged my house and gave him Rs 1.25 lakh to get me here."

"Here, I was told I would have to work as a labourer in a construction firm. I had been promised a salary of Rs 44000, but paid only Rs 23,000."

The Rajasthan government has decided to plant saplings on pasture land, and along roads and canals. The work will be done under MGNREGA. There is a catch though: to ensure the plants do not wither, MGNREGA workers will be made responsible for watering and caring for them. If the plants die, their wages will not be paid.

"Payments will be based on the number of years the plants survive. As the plants die, the wage bill too will shrink," said Rohit Kumar, Commissioner, MGNREGA.

The plan was conceived to tackle a recurring problem: a large number of saplings planted by the state are not cared for. Consequently, they wither or get eaten by animals. According to one estimate, less than 5% of the plants survive every year.

A worker will be responsible for a maximum of 200 plants and will be paid Rs 19 per plant. "The worker will look after the plant for five years," Rohit Kumar said. Apart from the wages, the worker will have the first right to the plant's produce during this period."