RNI No.: MAHENG/2018/76663Day of Publishing:

Every Tuesday and Friday www.newsandnriconnect.com

MUMBAI: TUESDAY, MAY 07, 2019 • VOL. No. 1 • Issue No. 60 • IPEPCIL PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. • 8 PAGES • PRICE: ₹ 8

Voters show their finger marked with indelible ink after casting vote at a polling station during the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections on Monday at Hajipur in Bihar.

UAE economy vibrantDUBAI: Confidence among business owners in the UAE hit a new high, while condi-tions improved significant-ly last month, suggesting stronger growth in the local economy, new data showed.

However, while opti-mism levels are high, em-ployers are still reluctant to expand their payrolls or recruit new staff, leading an economic expert to believe that consumer spending will likely remain subdued.

The Emirates NBD Pur-chasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which is designed to provide insights into how the country’s entrepreneurs are faring, climbed for the second month running in April, hitting 57.6 from 55.7 in March. It suggested that

operating conditions in the non-oil private sector im-proved sharply last month, thanks to new orders and ongoing projects.

Confidence among com-panies was also the highest since seven year ago. About 82pc of those surveyed for the study said output is likely to rise over the com-ing year.

“The improvement in the volume of activity and new order growth last month is encouraging. However, with firms still competing on price, there is still a reluc-tance to boost hiring and we haven’t seen a meaningful improvement in job growth. Household consumption is likely to remain constrained in the absence of job and/ or

wage growth,”said Khatija Haque, Head of MENA Re-search at Emirates NBD.

Economic growth in the UAE was earlier forecast to be at 2.6pc in 2019 and three per cent in 2020 as the country pushes infrastruc-ture investments ahead of Dubai’s Expo 2020, accord-ing to World Bank. In Emir-ates NBD’s study, higher new orders combined with a number of ongoing projects, led to a substantial growth in business activity in the UAE last month. Output prices in April, however, fell for the seventh consecu-tive period and was more marked compared with April as companies resorted to offering price discounts to boost sales.

Indians completing master’s in US may get H-1B visasWASHINGTON: New rules aimed at ranking US degree above skills gained in for-eign countries.

Under the new visa regime in the US, which kicked off in April, foreign students who complete their master’s or any higher degree from American uni-versities will have a better chance of obtaining H-IB visas, say immigration ex-perts.

The master’s cap of 20,000 visas is available only to applicants with a master’s or a higher degree from nationally-accredit-ed public or not-for-profit educational institution in the US. As per the changed policy, a lottery for 65,000 visas will be held first with both bachelor’s and advanced degree holders eligible for selection. Once the regular cap is filled, the

master’s cap, restricted only to those with advanced de-grees, will be held. Earlier, 20,000 applicants with ad-vanced degrees would have moved out of the system by the time the regular lottery was conducted, giving oth-er applicants a better shot at selection. Now, there would be more such applicants in the regular draw, which obviously results in a dis-advantage for those apply-ing with just a bachelor’s degree.

Mark Davies, global chairman of New York-based Davies & Associates, LLC, said: “Given the chal-lenges facing the H-1B pro-gramme at present, any pro-posal to prioritise students who study in the US would represent a very positive de-velopment for Indians, who account for around 20pc of all international students

in the country.” Echoing a similar sentiment, Vivek Tandon, founder and CEO of EB5 BRICS, a California-based immigration advi-sory firm, said, “Under the changed scenario, it would be interesting to see how Indian students in the US may stand a better chance to get H-IB visas.”Eligibility

The eligibility require-ments for students remain unchanged. Yet, with a la-ger pool of master’s and ad-vanced degree holders par-ticipating in the draw, those planning to apply for an H-1B after a bachelor’s de-gree will be at a disadvan-tage, he added. Facing sig-nificantly higher rejections and Requests for Evidence (RFEs), Indian IT compa-nies have already begun ramping up hiring in the US, but are hampered by

the small size of the talent pool in that country. “This change shrinks the pool of visas available to Bachelor’s degree holders and will make it tougher for Indian IT workers to work in the US,” added Tandon.

The USCIS had recently reversed the order in which it conducted the H-1B lot-tery, which is held if the number of H-1B petitions exceeds the annual cap of 85,000 visas. This cap con-sists of two categories — 20,000 visas open only to applicants with a Master’s or higher degree and 65,000 visas open to all eligible applicants including those with advanced degrees. Until now, the lottery for the master’s cap was held first. Going ahead, lottery for the regular cap will be done first followed by the baster’s lottery.

Forex reserve rises over $4b MUMBAI: India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves increased by $4.368 bil-lion during the week ended April 26.

According RBI’s weekly statistical supplement, the overall forex reserves rose to $418.515 billion from $414.147 billion reported for the week ended April 19. India’s forex reserves comprise Foreign Cur-rency Assets (FCAs), gold reserves, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and India’s reserve position with IMF. On a weekly basis, FCAs, the largest component of the forex reserves, edged higher by $4.387 billion to $390.421 billion. Besides the US dollar, FCAs con-sist of 20 to 30pc of the other major global curren-cies. The RBI’s weekly data showed that the value of the country’s gold reserves was stagnant at $23.303 billion. However, the SDR value inched lower by $5.9 million to $1.449 billion.

Sushma rescues Indian woman from QatarHYDERABAD: A Hyderabadi woman who was stranded in Qatar after being lured to the Gulf country on the pretext of a job, has been rescued.

Syeda Mariyum, who is now back in India, said she was offered the job of a nurse in Qatar for a salary of Rs 40,000 per month by an agent named Fatima.

“Our family was facing some financial problems earlier due to which I took her offer and left for Qatar on April 11. After landing there, I was picked up by another agent whose name is also Fatima and she kept me in an office which be-longs to Gopal, another agent. Gopal took my phone and locked me in the office for four days,” she said.

Recalling her ordeal, Syeda said despite being offered the job of a nurse, she was sent to a resident’s house to work as a maid. Upon refusing to comply with the instructions, Syeda

said her employer took her to the Indian embassy in Qa-tar and left her there. “The embassy officials called Gopal, who was already in-volved in three other cases apart from mine. He was ar-rested by local authorities. Later, Fatima took me from there and tortured me a lot. She said I should stay in Qatar for five years or else my family should pay Rs 2 lakh for sending me back to India,” she claimed.

Owing to her condition in Qatar, Syeda informed her mother Tabassum Be-gum about the develop-ments. “My mother com-plained to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj through a letter to which the Indian embassy responded and immediately asked my agent to send me back to India as soon as possible,” she added. “I would like to thank Swaraj and the Indian embassy in Qatar for rescu-ing me,” said Syeda.

Air India earmarks Rs 500cr to get grounded aircraft operationalMUMBAI: To meet high de-mand and raise its market, Air India has earmarked Rs 500 crore to get 19 of its grounded passenger jets back into operations. Cur-rently, the national carrier has 19 aircraft grounded due to various reasons most prominent amongst them being expensive spare parts and engine overhauls.

Nevertheless, an in-crease in demand due to the peak travel season along with industry’s ca-pacity constraint has led the airline to earmark at least Rs 500 crore for the grounded fleet. “This is an

opportune time to raise our market share and meet the healthy demand. All our assets (aircraft) have been deployed strategically. But we still have more aircraft which are grounded,” a se-nior Air India official told a TV channel. “We expect at least two aircraft to join the fleet within days. Addition of other aircraft will aide us to augment our market share.” Notwithstanding the fresh funds, the official said that all grounded air-craft are unlikely to become operational before August.

Over 10 Airbus A320s and the rest Boeing 787-800s

Dreamliner and a few Boeing 777s have been grounded. Air India’s fleet augmenta-tion is also in line with the government’s request to air-lines to advance their aircraft induction plans. As of 2019, Air India Group — Air India, Air India Express, Alliance Air — have a combined fleet of over 160 aircraft which fly to 122 destinations, includ-ing 78 domestic and 44 in-ternational destinations. Ad-ditionally, the airline plans to hire more cabin crew and pilots. The plan envisages the airline to hire over 200 cabin crew from the now grounded Jet Airways.

Qatar Airways’ Ramzan offersDOHA: Qatar Airways has announced special fares to mark the Holy Month of Ramzan. Qatar Airways passen-gers can enjoy all-inclusive discounts of up to 25pc in Premium Class and up to 35pc in Economy Class. Privi-lege Club members can also receive double Qpoints in Premium Class or 50pc bonus Qpoints in Economy Class.

Qatar Airways COO Simon Talling-Smith said: “As the holy month of Ramadan is here, we un-derstand the importance this spe-cial time holds for many of our pas-sengers. Ramadan is known as the month of sharing, giving and being with one’s family and so we are de-lighted to our passengers with our Ramadan offers and provide them with an opportunity to share special

moments with loved ones around the world. “With Qatar Airways’ growing global network of more than 160 des-tinations worldwide, as well as our award-winning service and hospital-ity onboard, visits overseas have nev-

er been more comfortable. On behalf of Qatar Airways, we would like to wish all our passengers and a blessed Ramadan Kareem.”

A multiple-award-winning air-line, Qatar Airways was named “World’s Best Business Class” by the

2018 World Airline Awards, man-aged by international air transport rating organisation, Skytrax. It was also named “Best Business Class Seat”, “Best Airline in the MidEast” and “World’s Best First Class Airline

Lounge”. Qatar Air-ways had launched an array of exciting new destinations recently in 2018, including Gothen-burg, Sweden; Mom-basa, Kenya and Da

Nang, Vietnam. The airline will add a number of new destinations to its extensive route network later this year, including Izmir, Turkey; Rabat, Morocco; Malta; Davao, Philippines; Lisbon, Portugal; Mogadishu, Soma-lia and Langkawi, Malaysia.

2 EMIGRATION Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Published by IPEPCIL Publications LtdRNI No.: MAHENG/2018/76663

Publisher: Supreet M.J.Editor : E.L. VaidyanathanVolume No.: 1, Issue: 60

Published at: Office No. 1001, 10th Floor,Navjivan Commercial Premises Co-op. Society Ltd.,Lamington Road, (Dr.D.B.Marg), Mumbai Central,

Mumbai - 400 008. Ph.: 022 - 23001102 / 23001103.Printed at: Inquilab Off set Printers Ltd., 156, D J Dadaji Road,

Tardeo, Mumbai-400 034, Maharashtra, India.

Indian Women Association’s (IWA) Bazaar team with Special Guest Dr Ghazala Shahabuddin, wife of Jawed Ashraf, High Commissioner of India, in Singapore. Held at the Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore, the Bazaar featured 90 vendors that brought the colours and warmth of from different parts of India to this sunny island.

US-Indian student Nitya bags John Hertz FellowshipSTANFORD: The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced its 2019 class of graduate fellows, which included Indian American Nitya Mani. Nitya, a student at Stanford University, was among 11 Fellows named by the foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ad-vancing groundbreaking ap-plied science with real-world benefits for all humanity.

The young researchers were selected from a pool of more than 840 applicants to receive up to five years of academic support valued at up to $250,000.

Along with the funding, Fellows will also be free of many constraints typical of

other fellowships, providing them the freedom to pursue innovative research wher-

ever it may lead.“It is increasingly chal-

lenging to get funding for truly creative scientific re-search, but it is even more so for young researchers to

pursue their own ideas,” said David Galas, chairman of foundation’s board and a senior investigator at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute. “I am very grati-fied that these terrific new Hertz Fellows will now be able to focus on the research questions they find most compelling in their fields,” Galas added.

Nitya, who is studying mathematics and computer science, explores the un-derlying properties of net-works, called graphs, which characterise transportation systems, social media, bio-logical systems, and other aspects of modern life, her bio notes. She is particularly

interested in how nodes in a graph can be grouped to have many internal connec-tions or to influence the rest of the network.

She also uses machine learning on networks with applications that include finding new diseases that an existing drug can treat, it said. Nitya also grapples with challenging optimisation problems that reside at the intersection of mathematics and computer science. Many everyday questions, including finding optimal pharmaceuti-cal treatments and processing images, are optimization prob-lems that are difficult to solve using current techniques, her bio added.

Nitya Mani

LONDON: A 32-year-old Indian-origin man, dubbed as “romance fraudster” by UK police, has been jailed for six years and one month after he was found guilty of conning six women he met online and luring them to invest huge amounts in non-existent companies. Keyur Vyas, from east London, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court, marking the conclusion of a four-year-long investigation by Scot-land Yard into his fraudulent activities. The recruitment agent would befriend women online with the pretense of building a relationship with them by wining and dining them. The Metropolitan Po-lice investigation found he had committed fraud against six different women, with his overall fraud estimated

Indian-origin fraudster jailed in UKat over Rs 7.2 crore.

“Vyas used a tried and tested technique to commit fraud. He used the trust he had gained to get them to invest in non-existent companies,” said Detective Constable Andy Chapman, from the Met Police’s Central Specialist Command. “He went as far as having fake contracts drawn up with outlandish conditions, but essentially he used the rela-tionship to get their money. Vyas was selfish and cruel in his actions by emotionally involving the victims and conning them,” he said.

The Met police began an investigation into Vyas’ activities in Oct 2014. They found that between 2014 and 2017, he was employed as a recruitment agent who would befriend women on-

line under false pretenses. The court was told that he would romance them and trick them into believing he was an affluent man work-ing in finance. He would use commonalities with the victims, such as religion and his wish to start a family, to build trust with them. Once he had gained their trust, Vyas would encourage them to invest in various business ventures for a large return. However, these ventures did not actually exist and he would use the money to gamble. Vyas would also put pressure and be abusive to the victims to continue to invest more money in order to get the promised returns. He also used fear tactics and warned his victims that if they went to the police, they would lose all their money.

US-Indian receives Science Foundation’s grantCHICAGO: Dr Bala Chaud-hary, assistant professor in the Department of Environ-mental Science and Stud-ies at DePaul University in Chicago, has been awarded the National Science Foun-dation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development grant — considered the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty, who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.

The grant worth $715,000 over five years, will help support Chaudhary and her team’s multifaceted project that combines trait-based ecology, macroecology and physical laws to study dis-persal of mycorrhizal fungi. In her lab in DePaul’s Col-lege of Science and Health, Chaudhary, who compares

traits of soil fungi under a microscope in an effort to address a variety of different

environmental challenges such as biodiversity con-servation, sustainable agri-culture and climate change, said that mycorrhizal fungi are among the most common beneficial fungi for plants, mining soil nutrients and delivering them to plants in exchange for sugars.

She explained that all

plants on Earth, from farm crops to fruit trees, deli-cate herbs to vegetables in

backyard gardens, prairie grasses and exotic flowers, need a little help from these often overlooked partners in order to survive and thrive. However, the impact they have on plants depends on the type of fungal species present, noted Chaudhary, whose research focuses on the ecology of mycorrhizas,

the common symbiotic as-sociations between plants and fungi.

“Environmental factors and dispersal determine microbial community struc-ture, but little is known about how microbes disperse long distances,” she said.

Chaudhary said: “Receiv-ing the NSF Career award has been the honour of a lifetime,” and noted that “as the highest recognition given to pre-tenure scientists in the US, it lends legitimacy to my research programme and recognition of the ideas I have been developing for over a decade.” She said: “The five years of funding will provide financial stabil-ity for graduate students and staff in my lab to conduct continent-scale research in microbial ecology.”

Bala Chaudhary

MOSCOW: As many as 41 people, including at least two children, have died after a Russian passenger plane made an emergency landing and erupted in a huge ball of fire and black smoke at Moscow’s busiest airport.

Dramatic footage that went viral on social media showed Aeroflot’s Sukhoi Su-perjet 100 aircraft crash-land-ing and then speeding along the runway at Sheremetyevo international airport, flames pouring from its fuselage. Passengers could be seen leaping onto an inflatable slide at the front and running from the blazing plane as huge black columns of smoke billowed into the sky.

“There were 78 people including crew members on board the plane,” the Inves-tigative Committee said in a statement, adding that the plane had been flying to the northwestern Russian city of Murmansk. “According to the updated info which the investigation has as of now, 37 people survived.”Managed to fl ee

A spokeswoman for the investigators confirmed the death toll was 41. Another 11 people were injured, Dmitry Matveyev, the Mos-cow region’s health minister said earlier in the day. Wit-ness Alyona Osokina said she was inside the terminal when she suddenly saw a plane on fire rushing along the runway. “The blaze was devouring the plane,” she told Rain TV.

Osokina said that fire

Russian plane crash horror:

41 killed, several injuredengines had arrived quickly but could not immediately put out the blaze. “This hor-ror and tragedy happened before our eyes,” she said,

adding that those who man-aged to flee the plane then walked calmly towards the airport. “I believe they were in a state of deep shock.”

The jet carrying 73 pas-sengers and five crew mem-bers had just left Sherem-etyevo when the crew issued a distress signal, officials said. “Flight Su-1492 took off on schedule at 6:02 pm

(1502 GMT),” said a state-ment from the airport. “Af-ter the take-off, the crew reported an anomaly and decided to come back to

the departure airport. At 6:30 pm, the aircraft made an emergency landing,” it added. Russia’s flagship carrier said the plane had to return to the airport “due to a technical reason” and its engines caught fire upon landing. Previous reports had said the fire broke out in mid-air.

The jet reportedly man-

aged to land on its sec-ond attempt, hitting the ground with its landing gear first and then its nose. The plane’s fuel tanks were full

and a much bigger death toll could have been a real possi-bility, aviation experts said. Investigators said they were looking into various lines of inquiry and it was pre-mature to draw any conclu-sions about the cause of the accident. Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered his condolences to the vic-tims’ loved ones, the Krem-

lin said. He has also said the investigation “should be as thorough as possible,” the Kremlin added.

Prime Minister Dmitry

Medvedev ordered a special committee to investigate the disaster. The Murmansk region -- where many of the casualties are believed to be from –went into a three-day period of mourning begin-ning Monday. Some flights have been diverted to other Moscow airports or Nizhny Novgorod, some 400km east of the Russian capital.

An Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft crash-landing and then speeding along the runway at Moscow international airport, flames pouring from its fuselage.

SpiceJet adds 12 fl ights from Mumbai, Delhi MUMBAI: SpiceJet has an-nounced the introduction of 12 new flights from New Delhi and Mumbai to other destinations. Of the 12 new services, which commence from May 11, six are to and from Mumbai while the rest connects the national capital.

The airline will deploy Boeing 737 NG aircraft on these routes and the new services from Mumbai will be operated from Terminal 2. The airline has introduced new flights on the Delhi- Vishakhapatnam and Delhi-Kochi sectors besides adding a fifth daily service on the Mumbai-Bengaluru route, and a second frequency on the Mumbai-Gorakhpur

route. Frequencies on the Mumbai-Chennai and Delhi-Srinagar routes have gone up to five and three services, respectively.

Since April, it has intro-duced 77 new flights includ-ing 48 flights connecting Mumbai,16 connecting Delhi and eight between Mumbai and Delhi as it seeks to fill the capacity deficit due to the shuttering of Jet Airways mid last month. In addition to these 77 flights, SpiceJet has also announced more international connectivity. Some of the new interna-tional routes include Hong Kong, Jeddah, Dubai, Co-lombo, Dhaka, Riyadh, and Kathmandu from Mumbai.

US sends bombers to MidEastWASHINGTON: It marked the latest in a series of moves by Trump’s administration aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Iran in recent months. The White House has announced that the US was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and Air Force bombers to the MidEast because of “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” related to Iran.

A statement from US National Security Adviser John Bolton said: “In response to a number of troubling and escalatory in-dications and warnings, the US is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber taskforce to the US Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on US interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” CNN reported. The US is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.

3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIESTuesday, May 07, 2019

DISCLAIMERReaders are requested to verify and make ap-propriate enquiries to satisfy themselves about the veracity of an advertisement before re-sponding to any published advertisements in this newspaper. NEWS AND NRI CONNECT, its publisher and owner IPEPCIL Publications do NOT vouch for the authenticity of any advertisement or advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s products and /or services. In no event can the owner, publisher, printer, editor, director, employees of this newspaper/com-pany be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any claims and /or damages for advertisements in this newspaper.

FOR SUBSCRIPTION CALL022 - 23001102 022 - 23001103

Email: circulation@newsandnri.com

Please visitwww.newsandnriconnect.com

NATIONAL

4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Tuesday, May 07, 2019

MUMBAI: Engineering ma-jor L&T’s software arm LTI will be hiring around 3,800 freshers this fiscal as it expects the business to grow at a faster clip, a top

official has said. The com-pany is working at a very high utilisation level now and wants to hire more to get down the level, chief executive Sanjay Jalona said. “We will be hiring 3,700-3,800 freshers this fiscal year as against the 3,000 freshers we hired in FY19,” he told a leading news agency.

Additionally, it will also

HYDERABAD: The Indian School of Business, Hy-derabad, has signed an MoU with Cisco to build what it calls India’s first digitally-intuitive cam-pus. ISB said this cam-pus lays “the framework for connected campuses, empowered teachers, in-formed administrators and students who will have the tools they need for success in a digital world.”

It will allow ISB to enhance teaching quality (with Cisco’s connect-ed classroom solutions), boost student engagement and retention, better man-age campus facilities by utilising Wi-Fi access, foster global connections, and support innovation and research. This initia-tive is also part of Cisco’s Country Digital Accelera-tion (CDA) programme, an effort to partner with na-tional leadership, industry and academia to foster inclusive growth and in-novation.

hire laterally as well as per project requirements on a “just-in-time” basis, he said. Asked whether the necessary talent is avail-able on call, especially

given the fact that a lot many companies are de-pending on the just-in time hiring model, Jalona said talent is the biggest issue which keeps him awake and the concerns have only aggravated lately.

In FY19, the indus-try added 1.7 lakh new jobs, according to industry lobby Nasscom. However, industry executives keep

expressing concerns over the quality of the man-power available and doubt their skillsets are enough for a dynamically changing industry.

In the year to March 2019, Jalona said LTI has hired over 4,000 people on a net basis, of which 656 were in the fourth quarter alone. The utilisation rates including trainees had stood at over 82pc, and the company decided to ramp up hiring, even at the cost of compromising the margin, Jalona said. The high utilisation is very “unhealthy” for a company of its size which is grow-ing, he added.

LTI reported a 31pc growth in March quarter net at Rs 378.5 crore on a faster revenue accre-tion. Overall revenue grew 29.3pc during the fiscal to Rs 9,445 crore. Jalona said the demand environment is healthy for FY20 as the average contracted value during the quarter stood at a healthy $ 100 million per client.

L&T Infotech to hire 3,800 freshers ISB to have a fully digital campus

CHENNAI: Madras Fertilizers Limited has re-leased an official notification inviting applica-tions for the recruitment of General Manager, Safety Officer, Company Secretary and other posts. The interested candidates should apply online on the official website-madrasfert.co.in by May 20, 2019.Dates to remember:

• Online application starts: April 17, 2019 • Online application ends: May 20, 2019Application fee:

• General Manager and Jr. Medical Assistants & Jr. Fireman: Rs 250 • All other posts: Rs 500Vacancy details:

• General Manager (Plant): 1 post • General Manager (M&D): 1 post • Company Secretary: 1 post • Manager (Electrical): 1 post • Manager (Instrumentation): 1 post • Dy. Manager (Civil): 1 post • Dy. Manager (Liaison Officer): 1 post • Safety Officer: 1 post • Welfare Officer: 1 post • Jr Medical Assistant: 1 post • Jr. Fireman: 4 postsSelection Procedure:

• The selection of the (Jr. Medical Assistants & Jr Fireman) candidates will be done on the basis of written test. In the case of Fireman, skill test will have to be undertaken. For all other posts, interview will be conducted.Educational qualification:

• The candidates should check the official notification for the academic qualification, since they differ for every post.How to apply for MFL recruitment 2019

MFL recruitment 2019: Applications invited for various posts

• Interested candidates should apply online by clicking on the direct link.

Important information:• For more information, the candidates

should check the official notification.

MUMBAI: Institute of HRD, will be hosting the Mumbai HR Summit 2019, on May 24-25, 2019 at Ramada Powai Hotel, Mumbai, In-dia. In these two days HR Summit, over 150 to 200 Human Resource Profes-

sionals from India, Asia Pacific, Africa and Middle East Countries are expected to participate and deliber-ate on the theme “Human Capital Management- Chal-lenges & solutions”.

Mumbai HR Summit 2019HR Directors of leading

companies such as Boston Consulting Group, KPMG, Cognizant, Aegon Insur-ance, Fujitsu Consulting, L & T, India Bulls Housing Finance, Tata Communica-tions, HGS, Godrej Proper-

ties etc. will be addressing the delegates on a wide range of issues regarding the theme.

For details contact: +91-9663064455 or visit https://www.hrsummit.in/

NEW DELHI: Homegrown mobile messaging platform Hike announced that it will collaborate with Indraprast-ha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-D) for developing artificial intelligence (AI) and ma-chine learning (ML) in the country.

This collaboration is in line with the company’s goal to facilitate research collaboration with Indian universities and research institutions, Hike said in a statement.

By facilitating this re-search opportunity, we want to help enable the Indian academia to con-nect to early-stage research

Hike teams-up with IIIT-D for AI, ML developmentand support the transla-tion of that research to fuel advancement in the AI and ML ecosystem, Anshu-man Misra, Vice-President (VP) Op-erations, Hike said.

According to re-search by Itihaasa, India currently ranks third, far be-hind China as the leader of research in the field of AI. Through this ini-tiative, Hike aims to help bridge that gap along with stakeholders in the ecosystem

The goal of the research

collaboration initiative is to work with stakehold-

ers and academia to help

enable more deep-rooted research in AI and ML

in the country; and as part of this initiative, Hike is looking to collaborate wi th Ind ian institutions to help boost the AI and ML eco-system in India, the statement said.

The area of research will comprise nat-ural language p r o c e s s i n g (NLP), speech, link prediction,

deep learning and com-

puter vision.A project of this depth

is one of the first in the AI and ML ecosystems, and we hope this encourages more Indian academia to partner with Hike. We believe this will play a huge role in facilitating our students to help create a future shaped by open research, Tanmoy Chakraborty, Director, Lab-oratory for Computational Social Systems (LCS2), IIIT-D said.

The company is cur-rently building one of the largest repositories of AI and ML enabled stickers for its recently announced local messaging platform, Hike Sticker Chat.

MUMBAI: To obtain the much-coveted tag of ‘In-stitute of Eminence’, Jio University must apprise the UGC-appointed Em-powered Expert Committee (EEC) of the steps it has taken in the last six months and its plans for the next two-and-a- half years.

“The university is yet to get the Institute of Emi-nence (IoE) tag, for which it needs to provide informa-tion as to what it has done in the last six months and what are their plans for the next two-and-a- half years,” said N Gopalaswami, Chair-man, Empowered Expert Committee.

The time is running out for Jio University as

Jio University must convince UGC panel about actionsthe Committee may not be inclined to give more than two-and-a-half years for obtaining the tag, which is critical for the University

to take off and reach the big league.

Last year, Jio Institute was selected for the ‘In-stitute of Eminence’ (IoE) status. The Ministry of Hu-man Resource Development

had said it was under the “greenfield category”.

The list of institutes selected for the IoE sta-tus included IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IISc-Bangalore, Jio Institute by Reliance

Foundation, BITS-Pilani and Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Public sector in-stitutes selected un-der the IoE will get a government grant of Rs 1,000 crore over five years. Private universities won’t get the grant, but will be given regu-latory freedom. For instance, they can take their own deci-

sions on courses, admission policies and course fees.

MUMBAI: In a first in recent history of tax fil-ings, income tax e-filings in FY2019 have dropped by more than 6.6 lakh, a trend that analysts said was surprising as tax base was expected to increase post demonetisation.

According to statistics put out on Income Tax De-partment’s e-filing website, income tax e-filings in FY 2018-19 was 6.68 crore, down from 6.74 crore in the previous fiscal.

Kotak Economic Re-search in an April 30 report said: “We are surprised with the decline in income tax e-filing in FY2019.”

“If the filings are indeed plateauing, it will be a

Income tax e-filers drop by over 6.6 lakh in FY19worry for the fiscal which has seemingly shifted its focus to compensatory expenditure,” it said. “Tax filings have surprisingly plateaued in FY2019. This is surprising given that post demonetisation it was expected that the tax base would continue to increase.”

However, registered fil-ers have been on the rise - they grew by 15pc to 8.45 crore as on March 31, 2019, the e-filing website showed.

Registered filers were just 2.7 crore at the end of March 2013 which al-most doubled to 5.2 crore in March 2016 and to 6.2 crore in March 2017.

In signs of lower com-pliance, the ratio of actual filings to registered filers was 79pc in FY2018-19, down from 91.6pc in the previous fiscal. The com-pliance ratio was 85pc and 83pc in the preceding two years. It was 79.3pc in FY2014-15, which was a decline from 82pc of FY2013-14.

The data showed a steady rise in filers in the Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh range with 1.05 crore fil-ings in FY2018-19 includ-ing 1.02 crore of individual taxpayers.

Kotak said the declin-ing e-filings “does beg the question whether compli-ance was weaker in the

latter part of FY2019 given that the number of regis-tered filers has continued to see steady growth.”

“If compliance has been weak, the new government will aim at increasing the filings and collec-tions in FY2020,” it said. “A focused utilization of the data on deposits dur-ing demonetization could yield better compliance, especially in the higher income brackets.”

This combined with the granular GST filing data will be essential in increas-ing the filings as well as revenues over the next few years, it said. “The task is cut out for the next govern-ment looking at improving

the tax buoyancy -- essen-tial to fund the increasing transfers in expenditure.”

The government needs to look at further expand-ing the tax base (optimally using the data repository from demonetization and GST). Without a significant improvement in the tax base, the medium-term growth path will be at risk, Kotak said.

It said that while it is hoped that the filings for the assessment year increase (around August when filings are complet-ed), a relatively muted tax filing growth will create further headwinds in an al-ready stressed fiscal space.

“With the recent in-

ception of direct transfers in the budget, the fiscal could easily be on a slip-pery slope unless there is a rationalization of ex-penditure,” it said adding around 55pc of central government expenditure is fixed in nature and the eventual impact could be on further lowering capex.

Given the stressed fis-cal space, debt markets are burdened with heavy government and PSE bor-rowings, which are likely to keep the yield curve steep in FY2020, it added.

Kotak said while a num-ber of activity indicators have been signalling a slowdown in parts of the economy, the tax collec-

tions corroborate it too.“Aggregate indirect tax

revenues’ buoyancy has been weak along with targets being missed on direct taxes too. Further, persistently high borrow-ing cost for financial in-stitutions and companies (given crowding out by the government sector) will weigh on the near-term aggregate demand in the economy,” it said.

From a medium-term perspective, if the govern-ment does not expand its capital expenditure (higher transfers and muted tax growth), the growth pros-pects will be under doubt given estimated fiscal mul-tipliers, it added.

NEW DELHI: The Asia-Pacific region is expected to power ahead growing at 5.7pc this year but esca-lating trade tensions are a source of worry, ac-cording to Ta k e h i k o Nakao, Pres-ident and Chairperson, Asian De-velopment Bank.

Address-i n g t h e opening session of the Board of Governors at ADB’s 52nd Annual Meet-ing, Nakao said that con-sumer and investor behav-

Asia-Pacific to grow 5.7pc this yeariour could be undermined by trade tensions between countries.

“There has been much

debate about it but I’m a firm believer in the mul-tilateral system,” he said, adding, “but we have to reform and reorient our-

selves to earn the support of members and their tax-payers.”

The bank’s lending grew to a record $21.6 billion in 2018, 10pc higher compared to 2017. Nakao elaborated on the Strategy 2030 plan of ADB which will focus on six key areas — operational and action plans for the pri-vate sector, addressing remaining poverty and inequality, accelerat-ing progress in gender equality, continuing to

foster regional cooperation and integration, expanding private sector operations and using concessional resources effectively.

GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Tuesday, May 07, 2019

� � � � � � � � �

� � � �� � �� �� � ��

�� �� � �� � � � �� �

� � �� � �� � � �� �

� � �� �� � �� �� �� �

� � � � �� � �� � �

� �� � � � �� � � ��

�� � �� � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� �� �� � �� �� �� �� ��

�� �� � �� �� �� � �� ��

�� �� �� � �� �� � �� ��

�� � �� �� �� �� �� � ��

� �� �� �� �� � �� �� ��

�� �� �� �� �� � �� �� �

�� � �� �� � �� �� �� ��

�� �� � �� � �� �� �� ��

�� �� �� �� �� �� �� � �Puzzle #: 60 Diffi culty : Medium

Sudoku Puzzle Rules: To solve a Su-doku puzzle, every digit from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine verti-cal columns, in each of the nine horizontal rows and in each of the nine boxes.Solution for Puzzle # 60 will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 59 Answer

Your wellness

Exposure to second-hand smoke may be bad for your heart and

overall health as it increases the risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a study.

“Avoid exposure to sec-ond-hand smoke regardless of whether the smoker is still in the room,” said Pro-fessor Byung Jin Kim from

Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea.

“Our study in non-smok-ers shows that the risk of high blood pressure (hy-pertension) is higher with longer duration of passive smoking – but even the low-est amounts are dangerous,” Kim said in a statement.

Passive smoking at home or work was linked with a 13pc increased risk of hy-pertension. Living with a smoker after age 20 was as-sociated with a 15pc greater

risk, researchers said.Exposure to passive

smoking for ten years or more was related to a 17pc increased risk of hyperten-sion. Men and women were equally affected.

Participants with hyper-tension were significantly more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work (27.9pc) than those

with normal blood pressure (22.6pc).

Hypertension was sig-nificantly more common in people exposed to pas-sive smoke at home or work (7.2pc) compared to no exposure (5.5pc). High blood pressure is the lead-ing global cause of prema-ture death, accounting for almost ten million deaths in 2015, and those affected are advised to quit smoking.

Previous research has suggested a link between

passive smoking and hy-pertension in non-smokers.

However, most studies were small, restricted to women, and used self-reported questionnaires in which respondents typically over-report never-smoking.

T h i s i s the first large study to as-sess the as-sociation between second hand smoke and hyper-tension in never-smokers verified by urinary levels of cotinine, the principal metabolite of nicotine.

It included 131,739 nev-er-smokers, one-third men, and an average age of 35 years.

“The results suggest that it is necessary to keep completely away from sec-ond-hand smoke, not just reduce exposure, to protect against hypertension,” said Kim.

“While efforts have been made around the world to minimise the dangers of passive smoking by ex-panding no smoking areas in public places, our study shows that more than one in five never-smokers are still exposed to second hand smoke.

Smoky rooms, cars ups high BP risk

Researchers claim to have developed a website which

could be beneficial in de-creasing suicidal thoughts.

Researchers asked more than 3,000 website visitors how they felt before they

got to the site compared to a few min-utes on the

website. Nearly one-third were significantly less suicidal, and the intensity of their negative emo-tions had also decreased, according to the study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Lead author Ursula

Whiteside, said,” the re-sults offer hope for people struggling to cope. The

New website may help eliminate suicidal thoughtssite exposes visitors to dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), a form of psychotherapy that com-bines behavioural science and Buddhist principles on mindfulness and ac-ceptance.”

“We set out to build a free resource based not only in science but also with the voices and stories of people who had expe-rienced suicidal thoughts. We wanted clinicians to feel empowered to help those who are struggling,” she added.

The home page presents a panel of video-linked im-ages of individuals with

relatable experiences on suicide and negative emo-tions and resources to

explore DBT skills.Users were asked to

rate their suicidal thoughts or negative feelings on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the most suicidal or negative).

“The vast majority of people who die by suicide never receive specialized mental health care,” Whi-teside said.

Researchers noted that nearly half of all people who die by suicide see some type of healthcare provider in the month before their death.

They said newly re-leased screening and care guidelines have the poten-tial to increase the num-ber of suicidal patients detected in healthcare settings.

Unfortunately, they said, most providers - particularly those in pri-mary care settings, where the majority of patients are seen before death by suicide - have no relevant training and lack immedi-ate resources to support patients.

Thirty-eight per cent of the students of Jawahar Navodaya

Vidyalayas (JNVs) who ap-

peared for the JEE Mains examination, have quali-fied, according to the re-sults that came out last week.

JNVs are co-education residential schools that come under the Ministry of Human Resource Devel-

38pc students from JNV clear JEE mains exam

opment for children from rural areas, particularly for girls and those from vul-nerable groups. There are

546 JNVs across the country.

Of the 1 1 , 7 3 3 JNV stu-dents that appeared f o r t h e examina-tion, 4155 p a s s e d

the exam. They include 100 of the 105 children with special needs who appeared.

Significantly, over 50pc of the students from the Scheduled Caste (1,380 of 2,637) and Scheduled Tribe (732 of 1281) also

cleared the exam.These schools also reg-

istered a stellar perfor-mance in the CBSE class 12 examinations – results for which came out on May 2 – with a pass percentage of 96.62. This figure how-ever, was slightly lower than last year’s 97.07pc. The national pass percent-age stood at 83.01pc.

Of those who cleared, girls remained slightly ahead of the boys with a pass percentage of 96.87. Among SC and ST, the pass percentages were 96.37pc and 93.25pc re-spectively.

The average score across students of these schools was 74.91pc, slightly higher than last year’s score of 74.2pc.

The Savitribai Ph-ule Pune University (SPPU) is eyeing

greater industry partner-ships and long-term as-sociations with companies that would extend their corporate social responsi-bility (CSR) funds to sup-port research, projects and academic activities at the university.

With an eye on self-

sustenance, the university, in its latest annual budget for 2019-2020, had plugged many “unwanted” expenses — to the tune of Rs 47 crore — while tabling a budget-ary sum of Rs 632.61 crore. Similar measures had also been undertaken in the past two academic years.

In the current academic year, officials said, the uni-versity has developed paral-

SPPU eyeing industry tie-ups to fund researcheslel models to fund several activities of the university, one of them being roping in CSR funds.

“While we have not cut the budgets by big sums, our efforts are towards making efficient use of the allocated sums. We are in talks with companies who are keen to partner for some of the projects,” a senior of-ficial from SPPU said.

In the recent months, the Maharashtra Natural Gas Limited (MNGL) had offered to operate CNG-run 14-seater vehicles and sup-port the existing transport facility on a campus, span-ning across 411 acres.

“Two such vehicles will be introduced to ferry stu-dents and others within the campus. The MNGL has agreed to invest a sum

anywhere between Rs 30 lakh to 35 lakh for this,” SPPU vice-chancellor Nitin Karmalkar said.

Kirloskar Cummins will

be engaging with the SPPU in helping the campus im-prove its water storing ca-pacities even as some of the existing tanks are in need for immediate upgrada-tion. The company, SPPU officials said, will extend around Rs 30 lakh to Rs 35 lakh to revive the existing water tanks that were aban-doned and rendered useless long ago. “One of the water tanks, built by Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, has been out of operations for many years now. Now, we are working on ways to revive these tanks,” Karmalkar said.

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is yet another company that has recently agreed to invest Rs 35 lakh to supply biofuel required to operate vehicles, including the soon to be

launched 14-seater, on the SPPU campus.

Exide, which works in the field of batteries, too, has partnered with the

S P P U t o initiate re-search on i m p r o v -ing the ef-ficiency of b a t t e r i e s . The com-pany has so far agreed to

provide Rs 35 lakh for car-rying out joint researches.

Highlighting that a world-class sports arena is under construction on the campus, Karmalkar said its maintenance will pose a bigger challenge in future. Hence, the university, he said, was evaluating the possibility of outsourcing the operations to some com-pany. “Erecting infrastruc-ture comes with a signifi-cant cost in itself, besides they also require huge sums towards maintenance. We are presently considering to tie up with companies, which would work and help us maintain in the up-keep of these facilities,” Karmal-kar said.

Several in-house utilities and facilities are also likely to be outsourced.

The admit card of the West Bengal Joint Entrance examina-

tion is likely to be avail-able on the official website on Tuesday, May 7. The students who will appear in the examina-tion can down-load the hall ticket through the official web-site- wbjeeb.nic.in.

T h e We s t B e n g a l J o i n t Entrance exami-nation (WBJEE 2019) will be held on May 26, 2019, which was earlier scheduled to be held on May 19.

The West Bengal Joint Entrance exam (WBJEE 2019) will be conducted in two schedules on May

WBJEE 2019: Admit card to be released soon26, paper-I (Mathematics) from (11-1 pm), and paper-II (Physics and Chemistry) from (2-4 pm). A science teacher from a Kendriya

Vidyalaya school in Kol-kata apprehended that the confusion on Joint Entrance exam date will affect the preparation of the students. “The delay in the WBJEE exams will

hamper the preparation of the students as most of the students will also appear for other state entrance examinations including JEE

Main and Advance,” said the teacher.

The online application process for West Bengal Joint Entrance examination was closed on January 22, 2019.

Students who wants to apply for West Bengal Joint Entrance Examina-tions (WBJEE 2019) must have passed class 12 or

equivalent exam with Physics and Mathemat-ics as subjects. They should have chemistry/ biotechnology/ biology/ com-puter science/ computer appli-cation as com-pulsory subjects with individual pass marks (in both theory and practical wher-

ever applicable) in all the three subjects. They should score at least 45pc marks in the above subjects. There is 5 per cent relaxation for the reserved category students.

The booming IT/soft-ware sector reigns supreme by continu-

ing to create the maximum jobs in the country, accord-ing to a report by online job portal Shine.com.

Shine.com mapped the key growth areas in terms of hiring in April 2019, compared to same month last year from its pool of data. The report further revealed that the BPO/call centre industry has dropped down several places, forfeit-ing its second position on the list to the manufacturing industry, which has shown promising growth. Further, the BFSI and education and training industry has witnessed increased jobs creation, allowing them to retain their top spots in the list.

“The increased focus on technological deployment across industries has truly accelerated the growth of job opportunities. We are witnessing a substantial increase in jobs in domains such as IT, education, train-ing and language, and res-taurant and hotels,” Shine.com CEO Zairus Master said.

In terms of functional areas, the report revealed that production, mainte-nance and service sector has

IT sector to create maximum jobs in 2019shown exceptional growth, shifting to the number one position on the top 10 list. Meanwhile, as the hospital-ity industry in India contin-ues to boom, the restaurant or hotel sector has earned a place on the list of top job creators, it said.

Additionally, it said that with more and more professionals focusing on up-skilling and re-skilling for new-age job roles, the

education, training and language sectors have also registered a significant up-tick, appearing high on the top 10 list. Sales, a domain that created the most jobs in 2018, has dropped down to the fifth position on the list, as several areas such as production, IT, quality testing and customer service took precedence over it.

Furthermore, the report found that a slowdown in job creation across nu-

merous domains includ-ing marketing, advertising, public relations, events, administration, front office, secretary and HR or recruit-ment. These sectors, which were a part of the 2018 top 10 list, were dropped out of the list in 2019 due to this slowdown, it added.

In a city-wise analysis, Shine.com report noted that Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi have retained their

position as the top job creators in the country. While metro cities are ab-sorbing max-imum pro-fessionals, a substantial g rowth in jobs is also

being witnessed in tier II cities like Chandigarh and Jaipur, proving that these cities are also beginning to stake their claim in the jobs landscape, it said.

The high talent demand from emerging cities are ex-pected to continue as these regional hubs accelerate technological deployment only to create a plethora of new, high-value jobs for skilled professionals, it added.

6 IN FOCUS Tuesday, May 07, 2019

I have been with my company for just two months but business is not good and there are rumours that staff will be made redundant. This is a worry as I only moved to Abu Dhabi a few months ago and need the job. If I was to lose my job does the company have to pay me anything? Do I have any rights even if I have only been there a short period?

I have established that you are on a two-year fixed contract and your em-ployer is a mainland company. Under UAE Labour Law, properly known as Federal Law no 8 of 1980, there are distinct differences between someone whose employment is terminated when they are on a fixed-term contract and someone on an unlimited contract. While a company can terminate employment for legitimate financial reasons without any issues or having to pay anything more than the usual salary over the agreed notice period, if an employee is on a fixed term contract there is an ad-ditional liability. Article 115 of Labour Law states: “Should the employment contract be of a determined term … he shall be bound to compensate the worker for the damage incurred thereto, provided that the compensation amount does not exceed in any case the total wage due for the period of three months or for the remaining period of the contract, whichever is shorter, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract.” Whether the employer is liable for the cost of a flight to a home country depends on the circumstances of the employment. You were hired when already in the UAE so is on a “local contract”, this means the employer is not obliged to pay the cost of a flight to a home country. The employer, however, is obliged to pay a sum equivalent to three months’ salary if he is made redundant.

Encashing chequeI gave a cheque to a friend as security for an amount of money they lent me a few months ago. I have now paid back nearly 75pc of the money and will pay the rest soon. I have asked my friend to return the cheque as I no longer owe that amount. He said no so I want to know where I stand and whether I can make him give the cheque back? Or can I tell my bank not to cash it if he tries to pay it in?

This is a tricky situation and unless there is a proper agreement in writing, which I don’t believe there is, is impos-sible to prove what was agreed and the terms. Under UAE law, if a cheque has been signed and given to someone, it is not permitted to request the return of a cheque or to ask for it to be cancelled or rejected by a bank. Article 401 of Criminal Law 3 of 1987, commonly known as the UAE Penal Code, clearly states that it is illegal to give a cheque in bad faith or knowing it cannot be honoured but is also goes on to say, “(he) shall be sentenced to detention or to a fine… if he orders a drawee not to cash a cheque or makes or signs the cheque in a manner that prevents it from being cashed .“ This remains the case even if the bulk of the monies owed have been repaid. I suggest that you try to come to an amicable agreement with your friend and that once you have agreed how to proceed that put this in writing to protect both your interests.

Visa problemI have returned home after spending sev-eral years working in and maintaining a bank account in Dubai. My resident visa expired in April and I have initiated the required procedure to have a new resident visa. As a result of my current status, my bank said it will freeze my account. Would you consider that follow-ing the issuance of my new resident visa this will result in reversing my account to the normal status?

It is standard practice for banks in the UAE to freeze accounts when notified that a customer is leaving their job so it is unusual that the account was not frozen at the time you left your employ-ment. Residency visas should also be cancelled at the time that employment ends so it is somewhat irregular that this appears not to have been the case here. Where a bank account has been frozen, this is usually reversed within days if there are no debts such as personal loans or credit cards. Where there are debts, the common practice is to unfreeze the

Will I get end-of-service benefi ts?account once the customer provides sight of a new employment visa, proof of income and the first month’s salary has been paid in.

False alarmA month ago I was shopping in a mall along with a friend. When I was leaving a store, the alarm at the door went off. The store manager insisted on search-ing me personally and wouldn’t let me leave the shop. Despite my refusal, he searched me and my belongings. When he did not find anything, he apologised profusely and I left the shop. Is this behaviour legal? Since I was falsely accused of stealing, what legal recourse is available to me?

The store manager’s actions are against the law and he is not entitled to do a personal search unless after their consent or as per specific situations determined by law and the concerned authorities only. Therefore, the questioner may file a complaint before the Public Prosecution against the shop and the shop in-charge who searched the questioner. The Public Prosecution might refer the said person to the criminal court. Also the questioner may file a case before the civil court against the shop and the shop in-charge to claim compensation for moral damages incurred by the questioner due to such illegal action.

Performance reportI have worked as a teacher in a private school in Dubai for three years. I was on my annual leave which was sup-posed to be for one month. Two weeks into my holiday, I received an email from the school management saying my service has been terminated as per the annual performance report. The report shows my work performance is weak as per my school management. Does the school management have the right to terminate my service while I am on annual leave? In case the termination is valid, does it affect my annual leave payment? Do I have to file a labour complaint against the school? I am still here in Dubai. Do I have the right to request from the labour ministry to reinstate me in the service and cancel my service termination as I have a bank loan and have been terminated during my annual leave? Is the termination valid as I was notified while I was in my annual leave?

To answer the questions, I would like to advise the questioner that as per the UAE Labour Law the employer has no right to terminate the service of an em-ployee while she is on an annual leave. It is an arbitrary dismissal. Therefore, the questioner has the right to ask for com-pensation which equals to three months full salary along with the other end of service benefits. The questioner has no right to ask the labour ministry or the labour court to force the employer to re-instate her in the service. The questioner is advised to file a labour complaint immediately against the employer at the labour ministry. Finally, the termination is considered valid only after the annual leave period is over and does not affect the annual leave payment.

Paternity leave My wife and I are expecting our first child early next year and I want to take some time off. My employer says they do not offer any paternity leave, but is that correct? Does the UAE not offer leave for fathers?

As at time of writing there has been no amendment to UAE Labour Law to include any days for paternity leave for male employees in the UAE. Earlier this year, however, the newly launched National Family Policy, a government committee, announced it is currently working on a paternity leave law although the details have yet to be confirmed. At this stage we have no information as to what form this might take. The only official paternity leave available is for employees of the Abu Dhabi govern-ment, where men are entitled to three days paid paternity leave. This applies to all civilians working in government branches in the emirate and is available after the birth of each child. There is no legal requirement in other emirates or for any private sector employers to provide this. However, some firms have set their own policies and choose to offer paternity leave at their own discretion.

GULF FAQs

Maha Vajiralongkorn was officially crowned as king of Thailand in an elaborate and spectacular yet centuries old coronation ceremony held at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The function was a mix and Brahminical-Buddhist practices.

MUSCAT: The government is likely to issue a regu-latory decision to allow leasehold of properties for foreign individuals (expa-triates) this year.

The annual report of Implementation Support and Follow-up Unit (ISFU) said: “In 2019, the aim is to issue the regulatory de-cision to allow leasehold of properties for foreign individuals and define the permitted scope.” The report added that the idea of opening the real estate market to expatriates was developed with the goal of attracting foreign expen-diture and revitalising the real estate market, both of which are expected to have a positive impact on the

Oman law on expats holding leasehold properties soon

Sultanate’s economy.“This initiative began its

journey at the Financial Af-fairs and Energy Resources Council, though after all preliminary endorsements were acquired from the council of ministers, the ministry of housing took ownership.” On the cur-rent status, the report said: “There were several chal-lenges to see if this was initiative passed, the first of which was a debate on whether the directive would be issued in the form of a ministerial deci-sion or a Royal Decree.” It said the ministerial deci-sion will only allow lease-hold of properties without actual ownership, while “conversely”, a Royal De-

cree permitting foreign ownership of properties is the sole approach for for-eigners to own freehold real estate outside Integrated Tourism Complexes (ITCs).

ISFU said it has been of-fering guidance throughout the process and encourag-ing the initiative to pursue the issuance of the ministe-rial decision and follow up the issuance of the Royal Decree. The ministry of housing and the ministry of legal affairs are currently the stakeholder in this deci-sion. It may be noted that a leasehold is a form of land tenure or property tenure where one party buys the right to occupy land or a building for a given length of time. The leasehold

estate can be bought and sold in the open market.

A leasehold differs from a freehold where the own-ership of a property is purchased outright, and thereafter held for an in-determinate length of time and also differs from a tenancy where a property is let (rented) on a periodic basis. Speaking to a TV channel , a top official from the developing company, Aqar, said the decision to allow expatriates to own properties outside the ITCs is one of the much-awaited in the construction sector. “We expect our type of properties to be included in this decision and it will also benefit the construc-tion sector.”

WASHINGTON: As many as 24 US members of Congress sent a letter to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, urging him not to end a vital trade conces-sion for India, a day before the Trump administration is likely to announce a deci-sion on it.

Ending the General-ized System of Preferences (GSP), which allows prefer-ential duty-free imports of up to US$ 5.6 billion from India, would impose “hun-dreds of millions of dollars annually in new taxes” on American companies, the lawmakers said in a bipar-tisan letter led by Demo-cratic Representative Jim Himes from Connecticut. “In the past, even temporary lapses in such benefits have caused companies to lay off workers, cut salaries and benefits and delay or cancel job-creating investments in the US,” the letter says. They urged the administra-tion to continue negotiating

Trump urged to continue India’s trade privileges

a deal with India that would protect American jobs. A decision to scrap the trade privilege comes as President Trump has vowed to cut the US trade deficit and repeatedly called out India for high tariffs.

India is the world’s largest beneficiary of GSP, which dates from the 1970s, and ending its participation would not only be the stron-gest punitive action against the country since Trump took office, but would also open a new front in the global trade war. The elimi-nation of GSP is likely to bring retaliatory tariffs from New Delhi, according to a senior source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Last June, India said it would step up import duties varying from 20pc to 120pc

on a slew of US farm, steel and iron products, angered by Washington’s re-fusal to exempt it from new steel and aluminium tariffs. But it has since repeatedly

delayed adopting the higher duties --- a move that could be implemented if GSP is withdrawn, the source added. India is hoping the decision to end the trade privilege is delayed and the Trump administration is open to further negotiations, the source said. In April, Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Mark Warner, co-chairs of the Senate India caucus, urged Lighthizer to delay adopting the plan. India sent a trade package listing the concessions it was willing to make to the USTR in late Feb but hasn’t heard from them. “They are usually very responsive so it is highly unusual for them to not respond to the trade package that was sent,” the source said. The decision to drop GSP is also ill-timed as it comes in the middle of elections in India, hamper-ing the country’s ability to negotiate further, the source added.

DOHA: Residents in Qatar will be able to invite their relatives and friends this summer easily as Qatar has further eased visa processes as a part of “Summer in Qatar” programme.

Under the initiative, resi-dents in Qatar will be able to invite their relatives and friends on free visa during the summer festival that will run from June 4 to August 16. “Citizens and residents of Qatar can bring their relatives, friends and other guests into the country hassle-free during the sum-mer festival,” said Akbar Al Baker, Secretary-General of QNTC and Group Chief Executive of Qatar Airways, while launching “Summer in Qatar” programme. Qatar has already allowed citizens of 80 countries for visa-free entry. “People who are not from the countries that have visa- free and they want to bring their families they can do free of charge,” Rashed Alqurese, Chief Marketing Officer, Qa-tar National Tourism Council told a TV channel.

Visa-free entry for ‘Summer in Qatar’

DUBAI: An Asian beggar on visit visa, who was found to have made a whopping Dh100,000 in just a month, was arrested in Dubai’s Al Quoz area. This was re-vealed during the launch of an anti-begging campaign by the Dubai Police.

“Most of the beggars come on visit visas and some are brought by tourist companies who are sup-posed to check on people

Beggar making Dh1 lakh per month in Dubai arrestedbefore bringing them here,” said Brig Abdel Hameed Abdulla Al Hashimi, acting-director of police stations. He added that if the beggar caught is found from a tour-ist company, the firm will be fined Dh2,000 and if it repeats the action, it will be blacklisted.

Talking about the newly-launched anti-begging cam-paign, Brig Al Hashimi said that the drive is aimed at

nabbing beggars and crack-ing down on begging during the holy month of Ramadan. The campaign -- themed as “Together Against Begging” - seeks participation of the people and urges them to report any such practice on hotline 901. The campaign is being spearheaded by the Dubai Police, in co-operation with the govern-ment and local authorities. As part of the crackdown,

security and civilian pa-trols will be carried out to combat begging, particularly in areas where beggars are concentrated, including markets, residential areas, Ramadan tents, places of worship and parking spots.

Brig Al Hashimi said that begging is a negative phenomenon, which prolif-erates during the month of Ramadan when beggars cash in on people’s sentiments.

CORPORATE NEWS 7Tuesday, May 07, 2019

MoneyGram, the global provider of money trans-

fer and payment services, plans to expand its foot-print to 5,000 more loca-tions in India this year, even as it explores tie-ups

with banks and e-wallet companies to facilitate digital money transfers.

Currently, the company is present in 40,000 loca-tions across the country.

MoneyGram to add 5,000 more locations“The Indian remittance

market is the largest in the world. From the global perspective, it plays an incredibly important part in our business...So, there is a great focus on it,” said Joann Chatfield, Chief

Marketing Officer, Money-Gram.

Among countries, the top remittance recipients in 2018 were India at $79 billion, followed by China

($67 billion), Mexico ($36 billion), Philippines ($34 billion), and Egypt ($29 billion), according to the World Bank’s latest Mi-gration and Development Brief.

“Our strategy is to grow our retail foot-print and at the same time make sure that retail locations meet the stan-dards of Mon-eyGram when it comes to cus-tomer service and compliance requirements,” said Chatfield.

M o n e y -Gram operates th rough the principal-agent

model, where its principals such as Thomas Cook, Muthoot Fincorp, Unimoni, and Supreme Securities appoint agents, including their own branches and

retail stores, so that cus-tomers can receive money at a location near them.

A senior MoneyGram India official said the com-pany intends to have the right set of agents with the right capabilities to service customers. “We are con-stantly growing…So, this year, we will be adding about 5,000 locations,” the official said.

MoneyGram is work-ing on giving an option to customers where they can receive money either via their mobile banking app or e-wallet.

“For example, a custom-er can go into the mobile banking app of the bank we are partnering with, click on the MoneyGram icon, and key in the eight-digit code. So, the digital exchange of KYC will hap-pen, and money will be re-ceived into either the bank account or the e-wallet,” the official said.

Online supermarket major Grofers India is pursuing profit-

ability by consolidation and focussing on doubling its sales to Rs 5,000 crore by FY’20.

The company is also gearing up to hit the capital market with initial public offer (IPO) within the next three years.

“We have closed FY’19 with Rs 2,500 crore sales. At present our monthly sales have touched Rs 225 crore, growing at 8.5pc month on month. We ex-pect around Rs 5,000 crore sales in the current fiscal,” Grofers co-founder & CEO Albinder Dhindsa said.

The online player that was last valued at $ 600 million has moved out of hyper-local delivery model 3 years ago.

The decision not only aided its survival but also helped it to thrive year af-ter year, Dhindsa indicated.

Grofers plans doubling sales to Rs 5,000crThe same s t ra tegy

helped the company to inch closer to break even in major cities in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

Grofers, despite rais-ing $60 million recently,

remained focussed on con-solidating its presence in 12 cities (where it is already present) across the country to push profitabil-ity instead of aggressive geographical expansion.

“We are very close to break even in Delhi and we have managed to break even in Gurgaon and Noida regions. Kolkata numbers are also on the verge of turning positive,” Dhindsa said.

He also said by end of the current financial year many more cities will turn profitable except for the ones in western and south-ern India, where Grofers is still in investment mode.

“At the company level, we will start making profits by 2020- 21,” he said.

The company wi l l continue delivering value proposition through its in-house brand a common strategy for the online

players to boost their margin.

“Already, our own brand sales such as Mother’s choice, Happy Home, Happy Day and Gfresh, have touched 40 per cent of sales and in the next two years it will expand to 60 per cent,” the modest co-founder of the startup said.

About 86pc of Gro-fers users use in-house brands, the company

CEO said.Dhindsa also said the

company will pump in fresh resources in capacity building for sourcing and supply.

“In two years, we pro-

pose to expand the ware-house capacity from 26 million square feet to 40 million square feet to sup-port supply chain,” he said.

Speaking about east, Dhindsa said Kolkata is one of the fastest growing market for the company with a growth rate of 18pc.

He said expansion to Bhubaneswar and Guwa-hati during the third or fourth quarter of the year is also in the pipeline.

However, a final call would be taken after a review, Dhindsa said.

Currently, Grofers only operates out of Kolkata in the eastern region.

By leveraging existing warehouses in the NCR region, the company will spread its services to near-by cities such as Rohtak, Bhiwadi and Meerut.

Grofers works closely with 4,000-5,000 small merchants who help the company fulfill its orders.

The Postmaster Gen-eral, Mumbai Re-gion, Mumbai will

be holding Pension Adalat for Pensioners / Family pensioners of Department of Posts who are retired or taking pension from office under Mumbai Region on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 at 11.00 Hrs in the Of-fice of The Postmaster General, Mumbai Region, Mumbai GPO Building, Mumbai-400 001.

Pensioners may send their Applications for pen-sion Adalat addressed to The Senior Accounts Of-

Dept of Posts: Pension Adalat for Pensioners

ficer, O/o The Postmaster General, Mumbai Region, GPO Building, Mumbai -

400 001 so as to reach on or before June 3, 2019. The application received after June 3, 2019 will not be considered in the Pension Adalat. Cases involving purely legal issues, griev-ances involving policy matter, promotion & fixa-tion of pay will not be con-sidered in Pension Adalat. Proforma for application for Pension Adalat is avail-able at Maharashtra Postal Circle website https://maharashtrapost.gov.in.

Private sector lender Federal Bank’s net profit rose up to Rs

381.51 crore for the fourth quarter of 2018-19, over 160pc increase from the Rs 144.99 crore in the same period a year ago. This

was on the back on stable asset quality and improved income.

Federal Bank Q4 net profit at Rs 381crFor the quarter ended

March 31, 2019, the bank’s total income grew by 20.33 pc to Rs 3,444.04 crore as against Rs 2,862.14 crore a year ago.

Net interest income rose by 17.5pc to Rs 1,096.53

crore in the January to March 2019 quarter as compared to Rs 933.22

crore. Other income grew even more sharply by 31pc to Rs 411.72 crore in the quarter under review.

Net interest margin stood at 3.14pc for 2018-19 and at 3.17pc for the fourth quarter. For the full

fiscal 2018-19, net profit rose 41.5pc to Rs 1,243.89 crore from Rs 878.85 crore in 2017-18.

The gross NPA of the bank as on March 31, 2019 stood at Rs 3,260.68 crore or at 2.92pc of gross advances. Net NPAs were at Rs 1,626.20 crore or 1.48pc of net advances. The Provision Coverage Ratio

(including technical write-offs) stood at 67.16pc as on March 31, 2019.

Pharmaceutical major Morepen Laborato-ries said that it has

wiped out all pending debts and clocked 125pc rise in standalone net profit at Rs 9.2 crore in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2018-19.

At the same time, the total revenue increased 31pc at Rs 207 crore led by good growth in all business segments. The company’s net profit was at Rs 4.11 crore on total revenue of Rs 158.3 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal.

Significantly, Morepen Labs had peak outstanding debt of Rs 750 crore with multiple banks in 2004-05 which was restructured

Morepen Labs becomes debt-freethrough strategic debt re-structuring scheme of the Reserve Bank of India in 2006 with a one-time settlement amount of Rs 150 crore.

Having cleared all the

outstanding debt of vari-ous banks, the company now enjoys the status of a debt free company, and is now poised for next phase of growth and sta-

bility,” said Chairman and Managing Director Sushil Suri adding all loans were serviced from internal cash accruals.

In the entire FY 2018-19, Morepen Labs reported

standalone revenue of Rs 721 crore, registering a jump of 28pc. Net profit stood at Rs 28.6 crore, up by 10pc from Rs 26.1 crore in FY 2017-18.

“Our increased focus on research and development besides documentation for regulated markets has helped us build a strong pipeline of latest anti-diabetic range of active pharmaceutical ingredient focused at both interna-tional as well as domestic market,” said Suri.

Morepen is engaged in the manufacturing and sale of active pharmaceutical ingredients, bulk drugs, home diagnostics, formula-tions and over the counter products. The company’s manufacturing facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh comprises a scientifically integrated complex of 10 plants, each with a specific product profile.

Aditya Birla Capital said that its board has approved rais-

ing funds up to Rs 3,500 crore through both equity and debt issuances.

The funds can be raised in one or more tranches by way of issuance of equity shares and equity linked instruments, includ-

Aditya Birla Capital to raise

up to Rs 3,500cr via equitying convertible preference shares, non-convertible debt instruments along with warrants, debentures, and/or any other securities convertible into equity

shares, global depository re-ceipts, Ameri-can depository receipts and foreign cur-rency convert-ible bonds, the company said in a BSE filing.

Following the board approval for rais-ing of up to Rs 3,500 crore, the company will now seek shareholders’ nod for the same, it added.

Dewan Housing Fi-nance Ltd (DHFL) said that it will raise

funds up to Rs 2,000 crore in one or more tranches.

The board of the com-pany in its meeting ap-proved the proposal to raise capital up to Rs 2,000 crore, DHFL said in a filing to the BSE.

“The Board has con-stituted a sub-committee named “Special Committee for Issuance of Securities” and authorised the said Committee to decide upon various factors viz. mode, pricing, terms & conditions and other allied matters in respect of the said issu-ance,” DHFL added.

DHFL to raise up to Rs 2,000cr

Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund (“Mirae-Naver”),

CDC Group and Alibaba Group has invested $150 million in online grocery firm BigBasket.

This marks Mirae-Nav-er’s largest investment in India so far. Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund is a joint venture between Seoul-based Mirae Financial Group and Naver Corpora-tion, South Korea’s leading internet company.

Mirae-Naver, CDC Group, Alibaba invest $150m in BigBasketSupermarket Grocery

Supplies Pvt Ltd, owner of the Bigbasket brand, will use the funds for further expansion and growth in its existing markets and its new markets by scaling up of its supply chain and for devel-oping new reseller channels.

Founded in 2011, Big-basket currently operates in 10 metro cities and 15 Tier-II cities.

Alibaba Group, which had previously led the Series E round at SGSPL in 2017,

participated in the current financing round as well.

Big Basket’s founder VS Sudhakar said in a state-ment, “We are re-engineer-ing our supply chain to allow for faster delivery to our resellers and to reduce the time from farm to our customers. We are also scaling up the back-end supply chain for our new businesses — BB Daily that delivers fresh milk and other fresh products, and BB Instant that creates

a network of vending ma-chines. This coupled with an expansion in our range of private label products will create a solid foundation for growth in both revenue and profitability.”

Commenting on the in-vestment, Ashish Dave, Head of India Investments for Mirae Asset Global In-vestments, said, “We are excited about the invest-ment opportunities in India, which is a key geography for us, where we continue

to identify and partner with market leading companies.”

“SGSPL offers a trans-formational and convenient experience to its consum-ers, which makes it a pre-ferred grocery platform. As India moves towards organised retail that of-fers standardised quality, comfort and speed in the shopping experience, we firmly believe the Bigbas-ket brand will continue to define this segment as a category leader,” he added.

8 Travel / Entertainment

Printed by Supreeth MJ and published by him on behalf of IPEPCIL Publications Pvt Ltd. and printed at Inquilab Off set Printers Ltd.,156, D J Dadaji Road, Tardeo, Mumbai-400 034, Maharashtra and published from Offi ce No. 1001, 10th Floor, Navjivan Commercial Premises Co-op. Society Ltd., Lamington Road, (Dr.D.B.Marg), Mumbai Central, Mumbai - 400 008. • Editor: E.L. Vaidyanathan • Volume No.: 1, Issue No. 60 • RNI No. MAHENG/2018/76663.

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD.

9010, 9th Floor, Ozone Biz Centre, Mumbai Central (E), Mumbai - 400008. Mob.: 8898261303, 9730073400Email: circulation@newsandnri.comPhone: 022 - 23001102 / 23001103.

Subscription FormName .................................................Address ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................Pin Code ............. Mob.: ...................Email ................................................Draft No. .............. Amount ...............Bank .................... Branch ................

Duration Issues By Post By Courier 6 Months 52 375/- 1000/- 1 year 104 700/- 1500/-

Date ................. Signature ................. Demand Draft to be drawn in favour of “IPEPCIL Publications pvt ltd.” payable at Mumbai. Money Order to be sent to: IPEPCIL Publica-tions (This subscription form should be filled in and posted along with M.O details)

EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

Rates are subect to change without notice. Errors &omissions excepted

As on 06th May, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 47.25 49.75Bahraini Dinar 179.50 189.50British Pound 89.45 92.45Canadian Dollar 50.25 52.75 Emirati Dirham 18.40 19.40Euro 76.15 79.15Kuwaiti Dinar 223.00 233.00Omani Rial 175.40 185.40Qatari Riyal 18.55 19.55Saudi Riyal 18.00 19.00Singapore Dollar 49.65 52.15Swiss Franc 66.60 69.60US Dollar 68.40 70.40

Source:

An IPEPCIL initiative to help Gulf job-seekers

Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council (IPEPCIL)

is a 39-year-old professional body devoted to resolving the grievances of overseas placement community. This council

consists of only registered recruiting agencies who are legally and professionally engaged in sending manpower to overseas,

particularly to the Gulf nations.

IPEPCIL Publications (P) Ltd.IPEPCIL Publications is publishing NEWS AND NRI CONNECT,

which is the “Gateway to Global Opportunities”. Published from In-dia’s business capital Mumbai, this bi-weekly (Tuesday and Friday) newspaper is circulated pan-India. This English newspaper carries Gulf and national placement advertisements and provides authentic and useful information of Indian and overseas recruitment, critical news packets of job opportunities and crucial changes in policies that affects the industry.

Coming from the stable of highly experienced professionals in the placement business, NEWS AND NRI CONNECT will uphold the highest standard of ethics and professionalism. We will publish only authentic advertisements to protect our job aspirants. A newspaper runs on its credibility and we are committed to this trust.

IPEPCIL Publications (P) Ltd.Offi ce No. 1001, 10th Floor,Navjivan Commercial Premises Co-op. Society Ltd.,Lamington Road, (Dr.D.B.Marg), Mumbai Central, Mumbai - 400 008.

Prince Sultan bin Salman inaugurating the National Aviation Academy of Saudi Arabia.

First international aviation academyopens at Saudi Arabia’s KAECThe National Aviation

Academy of Saudi Arabia (Tayaran) was

inaugurated at its headquar-ters at King Abdullah Eco-nomic City (KAEC) Prince Sultan bin Salman, head of its board of trustees.

The prince said Tayaran had been established to train talented individuals pursuing careers in various aeronautical fields in ac-cordance with the highest international standards, and would provide sustainable employment opportunities for young Saudi citizens.

“The academy wil l strengthen the Saudi econ-omy and the aviation in-dustry. With the Kingdom’s strategic position and strong economy, it continues to make great progress in avia-tion, with the largest air-ports, the largest freight jets, and many significant

international aviation con-ferences and forums,” he said.

Tayaran’s general man-ager, Capt. Mohammed Al-Subaiei, said the acad-emy would support 1,650

trainees annually, including 1,200 in aircraft mainte-nance and 450 pilots, mak-

ing it the largest center of its kind in the Middle East. There are also programmes to sponsor talented students

unable to fund themselves.“We have 35 male spon-

sored students. We accept

sponsored applicants who pass our admission tests regardless of their gender,” he said, adding that Tayaran

would eventually open its doors to international stu-dents.

“In three years, the acad-emy will accept students from around the world. Such an ambitious project will initially begin with around 5 percent of the total number of applicants.”

He added that Tayaran would also conduct courses at their center in Al-Thuma-mah from September 2019, focusing on piloting aircraft and operating drones.

“As a science, aviation is a sophisticated field of study, not only for the safety and security con-ditions it demands, but also for the high cost of the training equipment it requires to ensure the best educational outcomes. Students can finish their maintenance program in 36 months.”

AI, SpiceJet, IndiGo likely to getJet Airways’ foreign fl ying rights

NRI wins Dh15m inAbu Dhabi Big Ticket

An Indian expatriate from Sharjah became the latest multi-millionaire of the Big Ticket raffles after winning Dh15 million in big money draw

in Abu Dhabi. Shojith KS, an Indian national from Sharjah, won

with the lucky number 030510. At the moment of the announcement he didn’t answer his phone as the or-ganising committee of the Big Ticket raffle frantically trying to call him, despite this the money is still his and organisers will keep trying to reach him.

Shojith bought his lucky ticket online on April 1, often referred to as April Fool’s Day, but when he an-swers his phone next the news he is about to hear will be no joke. Big Ticket is the largest and longest-running monthly raffle draw for cash prizes and dream luxury cars in Abu Dhabi. These tickets can be purchased online or at Abu Dhabi International Airport, Al Ain Duty Free and City Terminal Abu Dhabi. Tickets re-main at their usual price of just Dh500 and if you buy two tickets one ticket is given for free under buy-one-get-one free scheme.

Grounded airlines Jet Airways’ testing time continues as the gov-

ernment now looks to re-allocate the airline’s foreign flying rights to competitor carriers including IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet. Redi-recting rights on internation-al routes would mean addi-tional capacity on important sectors and hence would bring fares down. Civil avia-tion secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola chaired a meeting with Directorate General of Civil Aviation officials and senior airline executives to discuss the matter.

The decision shows the government’s intent to have other local airlines operate on foreign routes where Jet Airways has ceased op-erations because of lack of funds. Redirecting rights on international routes would mean additional capacity on important sectors and hence would bring fares down. However, it will significantly hit Jet Airways’ valuation. The local carriers are eyeing lucrative sectors including Mumbai to Paris, Mumbai to London and Delhi to Dubai and are now looking at slots to be distributed by the gov-ernment on these route.

SpiceJet and Air India are aiming for flights to

Dubai while Air India is also interested in increas-ing number of flights on Mumbai-London route. An-other route being eyed by airlines is Delhi-Singapore, a private airline executive said. However, the rights would be given to airlines on a “temporary basis”, the executive added.

Ministry of civil aviation has sought fleet induction plans of airlines in order to arrive at a fair decision on issuing traffic rights. The ministry might decide on temporary allocation in “two-three days,” the executive said.For domes-tic routes, SpiceJet has ac-quired a majority share of Jet Airways’ slots and has enhanced flights to quite an extent from Mumbai and Delhi where Jet Airways once had a strong presence.SpiceJet has announced 77 flights since April 1 includ-ing 48 flights connecting Mumbai, 16 flights connect-ing Delhi, and eight flights between Mumbai and Delhi. The ministry has reiter-ated that allocation of flying slots is temporarily for three months highlighting that Jet Airways’ historic rights will be protected. Airlines bring-ing additional planes would be preferred.

Travel agent booked

The Moga police have booked a woman travel agent for duping a local youth of Rs 8 lakh on the

pretext of sending him to Germany on work permit. She is, however, yet to be arrested.

A case under Sections 406, 420, 464, 465 and 468 of the IPC has been regis-tered against the woman agent, Nisha. The complainant, Devinder Singh, a resident of the Old Town area, stated to the police that he met Nisha in August last year. She lured him by claiming that she had already sent many youths to the European countries and promised him a work permit to Germany, he said.

The agent demanded Rs 20 lakh from Devinder for arranging the work permit and sending him to Germany. Initially, he gave a sum of Rs 8 lakh to her in instalments. Nisha claimed that she had arranged a work permit for him and showed some documents after which she demanded the rest of the amount. In the meantime, the complainant came to know that she had committed a fraud with him. The work permit and visa ar-ranged by her were prepared by forging the documents.“When I demanded my money back she gave me a cheque for Rs 5 lakh, which was not entertained by the bank due to the paucity of funds,” Devinder told the police.

e-Visa popular, over 25 lakh tourists visited India in 2018India had issued over 25 lakh e-

Visa last year, a five-fold jump from 2015, and reduced the

main category visa from 26 to 21. Home ministry officials said sub-categories of visa has been reduced from 104 to 65, thus rationalising and simplifying the visa regime and removing confusion.

The number of e-Visas issued by the Bureau of Immigration, under the home ministry, has risen from 5.29 lakh in 2015 to 25.15 lakh last year. On the other hand, the number of regular or paper visas issued by Indian mis-sions abroad has come down from 45 lakh to around 35 lakh in the same period. The number of main categories of visa has been reduced from 26 to 21 by clubbing some categories.

The e-Visa facility now covers 166 countries and foreigners can obtain online visa within 72 hours for travel related to tourism, busi-ness, health, medical attendant and conference purposes. The scope of film visa( for cinema shooting) has been increased to include web shows and series and recce of

locations. No registration is now required if stay of a foreigner with film visa is up to 180 days in India. These measures will remove the present obstacles in implementa-tion of film visa regime and is expected to promote India as a fa-vourite destination for shooting of various kinds of films and shows.

The scope of tourist visa has been expanded by including activi-

ties like short-term, unstructured courses (up to six months dura-tion) on local languages, music, dance, arts and crafts, cooking, medicine. Voluntary work up to one month has also now been allowed under tourist visa.Provi-sions of Internship Visa have been liberalised.

Earlier, it was given only after graduation or completion of study. Now, a foreigner can come for in-ternship in India at any time dur-

ing his studies. Visa for internship in Indian companies can now be given for a lower salary minimum of Rs 3.6 lakh per annum instead of the earlier minimum limit of Rs.7.8 lakh. This would facilitate grant of more Internship Visas to foreigners.

India’s Visa Regime has been overhauled during the last two years by making it simpler to understand and administer. It has become more liberal in terms of length of stay, number of visits allowed and flexibility in under-taking various activities. The sim-plified visa regime will promote tourism, business and people-to-people contact, another official said. The duration of e-Tourist and e-Business visas increased from 60 days to one year. Restrictions on two entries in one year has been removed. Now multiple entries are allowed on these e-Business and e-Tourist visas. A foreigner can apply online for e-Business and e-Tourist visas any time. Restriction of maximum 120 days of advance application prior to expected date of arrival in India dispensed with.

One-Stop-Shop for tourism projects in OmanA single-window sys-

tem for the process-ing of applications

linked to tourism related projects is currently being established at the ministry of tourism — one of several initiatives spearheaded by the Implementation Support & Follow-up Unit (ISFU) in support of the Omani government’s economic di-versification goals.

Together with parallel ef-forts to amend usufruct and land lease regulations, the proposed One-Stop-Shop is expected to do away with bureaucracy and dramati-cally speed up the licens-ing and approvals process linked to tourism related in-vestments in the Sultanate.

The move to “Enhance Applicant Services for all Tourism Related Projects” aims to provide a “clear and transparent set of standard operational procedures” for investors to secure ap-provals for their projects,” said ISFU, which operates under the auspices of the Diwan of Royal Court, in a new report. “It also aims to accelerate and streamline the application process for tourism projects, such as the establishment of one to five

-star hotels, by setting up a single-window for client ser-vices which will come under the umbrella of the Ministry of Tourism (MoT),” it stated.Tourism Lab

Given the role of multiple government ministries and agencies in licensing and approval procedures gov-erning tourism investments, the Tourism Lab organised by Tanfeedh (the National Programme for Enhancing Economic Diversification) proposed the introduction of Service Level Agreements (SLA) to be signed by the tourism ministry with all of the relevant government stakeholders. These stake-holders include the Royal Oman Police (ROP), Min-istry of Housing, Muscat Municipality, Dhofar Mu-nicipality, Ministry of Envi-ronment and Climate Affairs (MECA), and Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources.

“By signing this agree-ment, it is expected that all relevant stakeholders will respond to tourism ap-plications within a specific duration for each entity. For example, the process to establish a new hotel ap-plication (one to five stars)

will take a maximum of 27 working days and the pro-cess for allocating unmarked land will take a maximum of 92 working days,” the ISFU report explained.

“The SLA will help by giving clear processes and expected timelines for inves-tors to avoid uncertainty and have a clear window of cor-respondence, enquiries and advisory support,” it noted.

With the support of ISFU, the Ministry of Tourism has succeeded in signing a number of Service Level

Agreements with various stakeholder entities aimed primarily at resolving chal-lenges faced by the promot-ers of single-asset tourism projects. As part of this ini-tiative, a competent techni-cal team will be selected to support the One-Stop-Shop

in resolving any complex technical challenges that may be encountered when processing investment ap-plications.

ISFU is eager for the Single Window System to be fully operational before the end of 2019.