Indian students wanting to return home soon due to Corona
UPDATE 04.05.2020: It seems that we will have a CDG - DEL flight on the 15th of May. Please check the PDF.
UPDATE ON 05.05.2020: I had a slip of tongue on this video which I wish to correct here. We did not initiate a discussion with the MEA on an evacualtion plan of our own, but we were discussing with team members on how to initiate that, and were working towards that.
The full discussion can be found in our Facebook group.
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If you are an Indian student living in France and want to go back to India as soon as possible, please sign up in our list. This will help us to see how many students want to go back, and if the number is large, can be escalated.
For this, you login to this website, go to your update profile page, at then check the check box "I want to go back to India ASAP" at the bottom. Once you hit the Update button, you will be added to a list. Click here to update.
If the above links do not work, please type this in the address bar and scroll down to the bottom to get the checkbox: https://www.indiansinfrance.com/profile
Please note that you cannot select both options for getting finacial aid and going back. Though at this moment none of these options are confirmed, we need to ask you to choose one of them to get statistical clarity and an honest reply.
However, it is important that if you decide to go back to India, you take an informed decision
Here are the arguments that you may want to consider before taking your decision.
- There is a chance of you getting affected with Coronavirus during your travel from your residence in France till the aeroplane.
- The aeroplane being a closed space, there is a high chance of you getting affected by Coronavirus inside the flight.
- Once you are in the Indian airport, depending on how well the airport is organised, you may have to stay for upto 14 hours in the airport, as various testimonies are suggesting, and this can also be a place where you get contaminated.
- If you are contaminated, you will spread it to people in India, especially to your near and dear ones. There have been multiple recorded cases of this nature.
- You are young and your chances of surviving Coronavirus is very high, over 99%, but your aged parents will be at a higher risk, if you give it to them.
- From testimonies received, there is a social backlash towards both those who are returning, as well as his/her family.
If after reading all of the above you still want to go back, follow the steps as described above. If there is a enough number of Indian students willing to go back, we will try to escalate this.
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To see the number of people who are registered so far, please click here.
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Question: I do not live in Paris, can I avail this ?
TGVs are running, though the frequency is less. You have to check what option you have to travel from your city to Paris by yourself. Check in the websites of TGV and SNCF.
Question: I have to move forward after reaching Delhi, how can I do that?
We do not have an answer to that yet.
Question: Who will pay for the fight ?
I understand that people will pay for their own tickets.
Question: Is this confirmed ?
We are trying to understand the requirement of our community, and based on this we will escalate this to the concerned authority. Of course this post would have been worded differently if we had a confirmed flight with date and time.
Sourav Choudhury is a social entrepreneur living in France since 2003 and working for the cause of Indian community of France, since 2007. He is founder of multiple projects: the largest social network of the Indian community of France, a French language school for english speaking expatriates, this website, and few other projects.