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Satyajit Ray had an inedible mark on the Indian cinema. His films are admired by cinephiles all over the world.

May 2 marks 100 years since Satyajit Ray was born, and to celebrate his 100th birth anniversary, an artist paid the legendary filmmaker a poignant and relevant tribute. A Mumbai-based artist named Aniket Mitra celebrated the historic day by reimagining Satyajit Ray's iconic film posters amid the Covid times.

Aniket Mitra used ten films by Satyajit Ray to depict the Covid-19 crisis going on in India. Posters of films like Pather Panchali, Devi, Nayak, Seemabaddha, Jana Aranya, Mahanagar, Ashani Sanket and more, were used to show the citizens' struggle during the second wave of the deadly virus.

The poster of Pather Panchali shows a healthcare worker driving an ambulance while wearing a PPE suit. The poster of Devi shows a healthcare worker helping a newborn baby, both dressed in protective equipment.

The poster of Seemabaddha shows police officials, who have been working on the frontline during the pandemic, wearing face masks and a face shield. Jana Aranya shows pyres burning in a cemetery, showcasing the deaths due to Covid-19.

The poster of Mahanagar showed the oxygen supply crisis in India that has become the cause for many losing their lives during the second wave. The poster of Abhijan showed the migrant crisis.

Take a look at the poignant creations by Aniket Mitra:

Sharing the post on Facebook, Aniket Mitra said that given the current situation in the country, he was paying homage to the renowned filmmaker by highlighting the plight of the common man.

The posters created a storm on social media and earned praise from netizens. At the time of writing this article, the post had 4,000 likes and 3,200 shares.

India saw a slight dip in the daily Covid-19 cases on Monday as it registered over 3.68 lakh fresh cases and 3,417 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry.

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Artist recreates Satyajit Ray's film posters on 100th birth anniversary to depict Covid crisis - India Today

In the city of Brianon in eastern France, a group of people is searching for the heroes lost on their adventures. The migrants attempt to cross the Alps in below zero temperatures, without warm clothes and often without enough food.

Fana is only 18 but he feels he became a man at the age of 12 when he decided to go on an adventure and leave his home in Guinea, seeking a better life in Europe. Unlike our previous hero Mamadou, he made it to France. In this episode, we explore what happens to the tounkan namo, or the adventurers, who succeed. And the price of their success.

Cry Like a Boy is an original Euronews series and podcast that explores how the pressure to be a man can harm families and entire societies. Stay with us as we travel across the African continent to meet men who are defying centuries-old gender stereotypes and redefining their roles as men.

The podcast is available in French under the name Dans la tte des Hommes.

Listen to us on Castbox, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and dont hesitate to rate us or to leave a comment.

Danielle Olavario: Welcome to Cry Like a Boy, a podcast in which we travel to five African countries to tell extraordinary stories of ordinary men defying centuries-old stereotypes. Im Danielle Olavario.

In the previous episode, we told you the story of Mamadou Alpha, a young Guinean man who went on a dangerous migration journey called tounkan, or the adventure to find success in Europe.

In Guinea, this adventure is a rite of passage for some young men, who see the hardships and experiences they have on this journey as essential to becoming real men. Those who survive and make it, are treated as heroes, and those who fail, are shamed by their communities.

In Europe, the term adventure is often associated with great explorers, pioneers, and travelers hiking up mountains and sailing the great wide ocean to seek fortune.

Our story this week starts in the French Alps, where young men like Mamadou are crossing mountains. It is a different kind of adventure.

Its a quiet winter night and the snow is bright and crisp.

We are at the Italian border near the city of Brianon. This region has recently become a crossroad for illegal migrants from the Balkans, Middle East or Africa, seeking a better life in Western Europe.

The temperature has dropped below zero. The tall mountains seem dark and threatening, but Juliette, a 22-year-old photography student, knows these trails very well. Together with other locals, shes looking for people who might have gotten lost or injured.

Juliette:Some nights we get down with about 20 people, some nights no one.

Danielle Olavario: Juliette is part of the association Tous Migrants. An initiative that helps find the people who have been on the road for many days, sometimes months. Many of them have frostbite, some are seriously injured, most are exhausted.

In her backpack, there is always a first aid kit, hot beverages and candy bars.

Juliette:These people are not necessarily equipped for the cold, they dont always have hot drinks or food. We find people who are really cold. They haven't eaten much and have nothing to drink.

Danielle Olavario: Tous Migrants was founded in 2014 after the beginning of what politicians call the European migrant crisis when hundreds of thousands of people started arriving in Europe, gathering in huge migration camps in Greece or other parts of the continent.

Many try to escape these conditions, hoping to cross into Western Europe on foot. And Brianon, France, a city nestled in the Alps, has become one of the hubs for those who were injured or lost their way during their adventure, and cant quite continue the trip.

Juliette:It's not acceptable for us to let people die in the mountains, we don't want our mountains to become cemeteries. It's just not possible.

Danielle Olavario: Since 2017 more than 12 000 people have gone through Refuge Solidaire, another NGO inBrianon, helping migrants with medical care, shelter and papers.

But settling down isnt that simple. We met with one of these migrant travelers in Gap, France, the largest city in the Hautes Alpes, a French region that borders Italy and famous for its sports culture and beautiful nature.

Fana:My name is Syla Fana. I come from Guinea Conakry and I am 18-years-old.

Danielle Olavario: Fana left at a young age because he thought hed find better opportunities in Europe.

Fana:Apart from the family situation, when you see the political, socio-economic situation of your country, even if you're a kid, you can still have some thoughts. You think to yourself: why this? Why us?

You see that there are all these resources, but you are struggling, you don't live well, you live in misery.

Danielle Olavario: He decided to go on the adventure, by travelling from Guinea to France.

Fana:I left on my own at the age of 12. Can you imagine? It's crazy. I went to Mali from Guinea.

I met smugglers who actually take people from Mali to Algeria. In fact, I negotiated with them. I did all the necessary things with them. I left like that, country by country, country by country until I got to France.

Danielle Olavario: Fana is from Conakry, Guinea. And like Mamadou, he went on the migration route to Europe. With one crucial difference: he made it to the other side and now lives in France.

Fana:My family considers me a hero. The others? Maybe, who knows but I don't know.

There are many who are proud of you. There are also some who hate you because you have succeeded in your life.

Its calm here.

I've been living here for a few months and I think, yeah.

Danielle Olavario: Fana is wearing sunglasses, comfortable gray pants and a bright yellow hoodie. He seems confident and relaxed as we walk towards his apartment block. Hes been living in Gap for two years, but he has only recently moved to this residential area.

Fana is in an internat, a kind of public boarding school where he is learning to be a caretaker for the elderly. Most of the time he sleeps at school, but during breaks, he lives with a friend.

Their small studio is in slight disarray. A double bed takes most of the room and there are travel pictures of several people on the walls, but none are of Fana. You can tell that he doesnt spend much time in the apartment.

But he doesnt mind. He hasnt had a steady home for a really long time. The adventure wasnt so easy for him. He says his family considers him a hero, except that he prefers to hide from them, for now.

Fana:They haven't heard from me for a long time and that's normal. I would prefer it that way.

I prefer to hide well. When I have a better life I'll see my brothers, I'll do what I can for the others. For now, I have to concentrate on what I am doing.

Danielle Olavario: According to UNHCR, despite the coronavirus pandemic, over 41, 000 people arrived in Europe irregularly through Spain in 2020, undertaking the Mediterranean route. And Guineans were the second most numerous group of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa after Malians.

Anthropologist Julie Kleinman, author of the book Adventure Capital about illegal migrants in Paris says, the desire to leave home in some West African cultures is a coming of age rite, and succeeding means you are a man.

Julie Kleinman:In the 19th century there are many documented cases of leaving one's village to become a man. In most of West Africa, leaving and migrating is a kind of initiation rite through which one becomes a man.

Danielle Olavario: Fana says that already at the age of 12, boys in Guinea feel like grown-ups.

Fana:He feels helpless if he sees his mother struggle. Trying to get something to eat when he knows that he is a boy, he is the one who has to help his parents.

I know families in Africa, even in Guinea, where a 13-14-year-old child feeds the whole family. It's from the age of 12 that he starts to work.

Danielle Olavario: According to studies, poverty is generally one of the main drivers of migration from Guinea. The second is moving up the social ladder.

Heres Guinean sociologist Dr Abdoulaye Wotm Sompar.

Dr Abdoulaye Wotm Sompar:The economic factor is there. But as it is not the poorest country, the most unstable country, the country where there is war, we must look for the answer elsewhere too.

Do people not want to migrate because they want to get a promotion? A social promotion?

After getting a job there, they send money, build houses. We have even noticed that in villages where there is a lot of immigration, such as the sub-prefecture of Kolaboui in Bok, the most beautiful houses belong to migrants living abroad, who are now positively called Diaspo.

Danielle Olavario: Many migrants say that getting the papers is the most difficult part. But for most, the hardships on the road to success have to do with finding a place in their host countrys society.

Heres Julie Kleinman again.

Julie Kleinman:The first and most serious way that the host country creates difficulties is through this economic marginalisation. That, of course, comes along with politics in terms of having or not having papers on immigration rights. So they both take away the rights of people by not allowing them to work legally. And even when they can work legally, they are very much sort of kept in a particular role of the unskilled, the quote-unquote unskilled migrant. And I do not agree with the word unskilled because most of these migrants will, in fact, gain a lot of skills while they're abroad.

Danielle Olavario: Fana finds that the adventure taught him a lot of things. And now that hes settled, he can pursue his passion: taking care of others.

Fana:I'm a bit versatile, I can do a lot of jobs, several jobs. But I like this school.

Danielle Olavario: Julie Kleinman says that back home, working-class jobs like the one Fana is pursuing, are often not considered manly enough, but migrants dont mind. Because theyre living the adventure. And someday, they will reach success.

Julie Kleinman:There's this famous saying in the Malian language Tunga te danbe don, meaning that exile has no dignity. So when you go abroad somewhere, you can do any kind of job. It's not going to be an assault on your family's lineage or on your own dignity, as it might be if you stayed in West Africa because you can do any sort of job.

They use these resources to remind themselves that they can do these jobs, which may be considered less dignified where they're from, but they can do them because they're on this migratory adventure. And they use it as a resource to overcome some of the attacks on their dignity that they experience to remind themselves that this is not necessarily the context that counts the most.

The context that counts the most is still where they're from and their communities, where their lineage and their dignity as a man and as a person matter.

Danielle Olavario: There is no African market in Gap. To get the food hes used to, Fana has to go all the way to Marseille, a big port city in the Mediterranean. Often, he and his friends would take a car and load it with Guinean spices, vegetables, and peanut butter.

When we ask Fana about Guinea, he lights up.

Fana:I miss everything about Guinea. My family, the life there, even if it's hard, but I like the life there, actually. It's hard, but I was born there.

The temperatures, the climate there. Even the air.

Danielle Olavario: Despite homesickness, Fana doesnt want to go back. As were walking towards the city centre after the interview, he says that the adventure was the best school of life he had.

Fana:The adventure has really matured me and grown me, in fact. You have to know that great men are often not born great, they grow up. This is my case.

Danielle Olavario: In the next episode of Cry Like a Boy, as always, my co-host Khopotso Bodibe, will meet two guests and explore the world of the adventure globally.

Cry Like a Boy is published every second Thursday. If youre new to our podcast, check out our previous episodes on the illegal miners of Lesotho. These men risk their lives every day and experience trauma from living months underground. In our documentary on the Banna Mamanaera, you can hear how these men are coping with the trauma of life in the mines. Have a listen, its a gripping story.

I, Danielle Olavario, will see you next time.

In this episode, we used music by Ba Cissoko.

With original reporting and editing by Makeme Bamba in Conakry, Guinea, and Naira Davlashyan in Gap, France. Marta Rodriguez Martinez, Lillo Montalto Monella & Arwa Barkallah in Lyon, Mame Peya Diaw in Nairobi, Lory Martinez in Paris, France and Clitzia Sala in London, UK.

Production Design by Studio Ochenta. Theme by Gabriel Dalmasso.

A special thanks to our producer Natalia Oelsner for collecting the music for this episode. Our editor-in-chief is Yasir Khan.

For more information on Cry Like a Boy, a Euronews original series and podcast go to our website to find opinion pieces, videos, and articles on the topic. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram.

Our podcast is available on Castbox, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked this episode, please give us five stars and leave a comment. We love reading those.

Share with us your own stories of how you changed and challenged your view on what it means to be a man. Use #crylikeaboy. If youre a French speaker, this podcast is also available in French: Dans la Tte des Hommes.

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The cost of success: What happens to West African migrants in Europe - Euronews

Migrants walk near a gate along the U.S. border with Mexico after being spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and taken into custody while trying to cross on March 21 in Abram-Perezville, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP hide caption

Migrants walk near a gate along the U.S. border with Mexico after being spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and taken into custody while trying to cross on March 21 in Abram-Perezville, Texas.

The number of migrants crossing into the United States in March was higher than in any other month in at least 15 years.

That's according to preliminary data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that was reviewed by The Washington Post. The figures show U.S. agents apprehended more than 171,000 migrants in March, including more than 18,800 unaccompanied minors. In all, the number of arrests and detentions has more than doubled since January, according to the Post.

The skyrocketing numbers have posed an early test for the Biden administration, which has refused to refer to what's happening on the border as a crisis.

"The truth of the matter is nothing has changed," President Biden said during his first press conference in office late last month. "It happens every single, solitary year: There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. That happens every year."

Cecilia Muoz, who worked on the Biden transition team and previously served as director of former President Barack Obama's Domestic Policy Council, says there is indeed a crisis that needs solving, but it's a crisis that extends far beyond the border.

"This is a refugee crisis in our hemisphere, and you're never going to be able to fix a refugee crisis with the measures that we take at the border," Muoz says.

Muoz, currently an adviser with the think tank New America, spoke with NPR's Morning Edition about the migrant surge, saying that until the U.S. addresses the crises in Central America that are causing people to flee their homes in the first place, the challenges on the border won't go away. "You can't fix it at the border," she says.

Below are excerpts from the conversation, edited in parts for clarity and length.

On what has led to the current conditions on the border

In 2014, the Obama administration faced a similar problem. It took a couple of months, but ultimately for the rest of the Obama administration it was managed with the right facilities and the right procedures. We never ran out of shelter space again and the process flowed pretty smoothly. I think that's where the Biden administration is ultimately heading. But they signaled early on that it was going to be messy at first because they inherited a mess, and that it was going to take time until we're able to manage the flow and to properly house people.

But ultimately, this is a refugee crisis in our hemisphere, and you're never going to be able to fix a refugee crisis with the measures that we take at the border. So it is tremendously important that the president has asked Vice President Harris to lead the conversation with the Northern Triangle countries [of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala], where people are coming from, that they have plans to reinstate the kinds of investments that started getting made in the Obama years, and very importantly to help people in the region get to safety without having to cross all of Mexico with smugglers. We lost four years of progress and momentum, but the sooner we get started and the Biden administration is getting started the sooner we will be able to manage this problem and its roots, which is really how you fix it. You can't fix it at the border.

The Biden administration has announced it wants to spend roughly $4 billion to address root causes failing economies, violence in Central and South American countries. The Obama administration spent $750 million, sent that money to those countries in 2016 alone, and it just didn't work. Is this throwing more money at a problem that can't be solved that way?

Look, this is not a problem which is going to go away over the long term unless we actually get very serious about addressing the reasons that people migrate in the first place. We did see some progress in Honduras, for example, as a result of the investments that the Obama administration made.

But ultimately, you can't secure long-term progress in the course of a year or two years. At the end of the day, this is our hemisphere. We live in it and we are reaping the effects of disinvestment over a long period of time. We are seeing the effects of failing to fix our own immigration laws over a long period of time. They haven't been updated since the '90s, and had we done that we wouldn't be seeing nearly the scale of problem that we're seeing now.

But what are the realistic benchmarks for these countries and these governments when it comes to getting this foreign aid? What effects does the money need to have in order to say this is money worth spending?

So, for example, in Guatemala, which is experiencing a drought which had a disastrous failure of the coffee crop, the United States had been engaged in work in Guatemala to change the kinds of crops that people are raising to ultimately make their lives more sustainable in response, frankly, to the ways in which climate change is changing agriculture in the country.

In Honduras, Honduras has just suffered two huge hurricanes that happened in exactly the same place within two weeks of each other. So, immediate disaster assistance is a short-term way to make sure that people can survive at home and not have to resort to making a very dangerous trip in order to survive. People don't choose to take a trip this dangerous or to send their children with smugglers because it's easy. They do it because they're desperate. So we can measure the impact of creating the wherewithal so that people can stay at home, which is ultimately what they prefer.

This story was produced and edited for broadcast by Marc Rivers, Elena Moore and Simone Popperl. Jason Breslow produced for the Web.

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Former Obama Official On The Surge At The Border: 'This Is A Refugee Crisis' - NPR

MADRID - Like thousands before him, Oufame Mdiay left Senegal in search of work and a better future.

Taking his life in his hands, he spent a week in a cramped boat with nearly 130 others who recently made the Atlantic journey from Senegal to Spains Canary Islands, 100 kilometers off the coast of Morocco.

I want to find work here as there is nothing for me back in Senegal. I came with my four brothers, he told VOA from his temporary new home on the island of Gran Canaria.

The 19-year-old is learning Spanish while he waits to find out if his claim for asylum will be successful or he will be deported back to Senegal.

Cleared of Reports of Turning Back Migrants, Frontex, the European Unions Border Agency, Faces More Scrutiny

Frontex is an increasingly powerful agency that monitors the 27-nation bloc's external borders

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Snchez will make the reverse journey, traveling from Madrid to Senegal and Angola starting Wednesday - in an official jet rather than a flimsy boat - to launch a new diplomatic initiative to make Africa a priority for Spain.

Spain's leftist government wants to combat illegal immigration by boosting Madrid's economic links with a raft of African nations by 2023.

During his visit to Senegal, Snchez will praise the work of Spanish police who are posted in the West African to fight people smugglers.

The goal of the strategy is to curb illegal immigration that brings thousands of unskilled African laborers who, some politicians complain, contribute little to the Spanish economy.

The strategy, called Africa Focus 2023, also includes a plan by the government to encourage financial programs to support Spanish companies seeking to expand in Africa and to call for debt relief for African nations at G20 meetings.

The program also includes a raft of educational initiatives including one called Eramus+ that will attempt to encourage Africans to come to Spain to train for jobs which could be useful for the Spanish economy in the future.

This would reverse the trend of sub-Saharan migrants who end up picking crops or peddling fake designer handbags on Spanish beaches.

In the past year, Spain has become the focus of the European migration crisis after more than 25,000 people arrived in the Canary Islands since January 2020 from Western Africa.

Authorities were left struggling to cope with the deluge of arrivals and thousands were left living in tents in a makeshift dockside camp.

In Spain's Complex Migration Game, Africans See a Disadvantage

Arriving at the Promised Land, immigrantsfrom Africa claim Spain favors arrivals from Latin America,butthe rules and numbers suggestthe truth is more complex

Emergency camps were set up but the trail of migrants trying to escape the economic crisis in Africa caused by the pandemic shows no signs of let up.

Escalating efforts

Apart from economic aid to African states, a Spanish warship will be deployed off the coast of West Africa to combat the pirates and smugglers.

At a time when Spains unemployment rate and the number of failing businesses are surging as a result of the pandemic, the measures are a sign of a growing urgency for Madrid to halt illegal immigration.

We think that the most effective way to obtain this result is through prevention at origin and transit countries, a Spanish Foreign Ministry source told VOA.

Prevention means assisting our migratory partners in coping with the challenges on drivers of involuntary migration from their countries so the link between migration and development will be for some time still strong, the source said.

Spain will also boost support, both politically and financially, to law enforcement agencies in training in African states that are on the front line against the fight against people smugglers.

Analysts believe Spain's diplomatic initiative needs to reverse years of neglect of the region by Europe while China has forged strong links with many African states.

Europe has got to get a more efficient relationship with Africa in terms of instilling more democracy, better practices for immigration and economic investment. They have got to reverse this division which has existed until now, Carmen Gonzlez, an expert in international migration at the Real Elcano Institute, a Madrid research organization, said.

She said opening up an Erasmus scheme for African students would start to give them a chance to train for qualified jobs.

Gonzlez said Spain, like other southern European countries such as Greece and Italy that have received large numbers of migrants in recent years, have failed to obtain the support they need from the EU to cope with the burden.

The EU has to take into account more the African perspective or the problem will carry on. There must be more solidarity among EU states.

In COVID-19 Migration Surge, Africans Take a More Dangerous Route

Traffickers send African migrants to Canary Islands as authorities clamp down on Mediterranean route to Spains mainland

NGOs welcomed the Spanish governments initiative but called for more humanitarian visas for migrants to gain access to Europe instead of closing frontiers in return for economic aid.

One of the ways for legal and secure access to Spain that they could start is the concession of more humanitarian visas for people who feel that they have been forced to leave their countries because they have no other option, especially from African countries, Nuria Ferre, of the Spanish Commission for Refugees, told VOA.

We think this would be the best way to reduce illegal immigration and not asking transit countries to close their frontiers in return for more aid for development, Ferre said.

More here:
Spain Looks to Africa for Ways to Curb Migrant Influx - Voice of America

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gave a compelling argument on immigration policy on Tuesday, dismissing the term border crisis and instead calling it an imperialism crisis and a climate crisis.

While answering questions from her Instagram followers Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez responded to someone who asked, Why are you not addressing the border crisis and the kids in cages like you used to?

Are you for real? Ocasio-Cortez responded. So often people wanna say, Why arent you talking about the border crisis? Or why arent you talking about it in this way? Well, were talking about it; they just dont like how were talking about it.

Ocasio-Cortez continued, saying its not a border crisis but rather, Its an imperialism crisis, its a climate crisis, its a trade crisis. The current immigration system is based on the U.S. carceral system, she said, and the solution should be rooted in foreign policy.

Last month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that there had been an influx of people at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, overwhelming the facilities set up to house them. Psaki said factors including the pandemic creating undue hardships, natural disasters, and flight from violence or persecution has contributed to the rise in people.

Ocasio-Cortez attributed the United States outsized role in the climate crisis to the increase of natural disasters in regions including the global south, which has ultimately forced people in those regions to leave their homes.

The U.S. has disproportionately contributed to the total amount of emissions that is causing a planetary climate crisis right now, Ocasio-Cortez continued on Instagram. But who is bearing the brunt of that? Its actually not us.

She continued: Its South Asia, its Latin America that are gonna be experiencing the floods, wildfires and droughts in a disproportionate way, which ding ding ding, has already started a migration crisis.

Ocasio-Cortez also denounced calling the increased number of people crossing the border a surge, because of the terms militaristic and white supremacist connotations.

This is not a surge. These are children, Ocasio-Cortez said. And they are not insurgents. And we are not being invaded which by the way is a white supremacist idea, philosophy. The idea that if an other is coming in the population, that this is like an invasion of who we are.

Last week, President Joe Biden addressed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border during his first official press conference, including children being detained for long periods of time instead of being transferred to shelters. Biden said the increase in people migrating to the U.S. in the winter months occurs every year. (While the total number of people crossing the border is relatively similar to prior years during the same period, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border between January and February 2021 is significantly up, government data shows.)

The reason theyre coming is that its the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert, number one, Biden said.

He proposed putting together a bipartisan plan of over $700 million to deal with the root causes of why people are leaving their countries. Biden also said former President Trump eliminated funding for government agencies like Health and Human Services to provide proper care for migrant families, which has led to the influx of children being detained. (NBC reported that this claim is partially true.)

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AOC Expertly Breaks Down Why Words About Immigration Matter - NowThis