Massive airlift operation to take place from Thursday to bring back Indians stranded in foreign countries. 64 flights will operate to bring back close to 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries in first week of ambitious exercise to repatriate lakhs of people. The operation, as foreign minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet, is titled ‘Vande Bharat Mission’. Indians stranded in Gulf, US, UK, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines to be brought back. Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said,'In the first week (May 7-13), Air India will operate 64 flights to 12 countries on which we expect to bring about 15,000 Indians back home. Already, about 2 lakh Indians abroad have registered to return to the country. We do not know what the final number of Indians who return will be. It could be 4 lakh.'