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New Emigration Bill ready

Union Minister of State for External Affairs (in charge of NRI affairs) V Muraleedharan interact-ing with Indian workers at the Dubai Labour Camp.

DUBAI: Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleed-haran visited Dubai while on a stopover from his official visit to Nigeria.

From skyrocketing air-fares to issues faced by NRIs relating to the Aadhar card, India’s newly appointed minister of state for foreign affairs has promised to ex-pedite solutions relating to various issues of expatriates. His first official trip to the UAE began with a meeting with the blue-collared work-ers at the Eversendai labour accommodation in DIP in the morning. He also met the members of the Indian business community dur-ing a meet organised by the Indian Business and Profes-sionals Council, followed by an official reception at the Consulate-General of India in Dubai.

The minister said making air travel to India flexible and comfortable for NRIs residing in the Gulf is a top

priority, as presently Gulf NRIs face multiple issues while planning trips back

home, especially the high cost of travel. Muraleed-haran also said escalating airfare is an alarming issue and after his meeting with

the minister for civil avia-tion, the price regulation on air tickets have been placed

on a priority list. He added: “From Gulf region, there are a total of 1,050 flights that travel to various destinations across India every week.

The grounding of Jet Air-ways flights has contributed more towards this problem.

I think our priority should be to sort these issues out as soon as possible.” He sug-gested that flights to India from Gulf region, especially

to airports in Kerala, faced several issues, and he ex-plained his plans on meeting with the respective authori-ties to resolve these issues as soon as possible.

During the interactive session with members of the Indian community, Mu-raleedharan said he would like to take steps to make Indian airports more travel-ler-friendly. He added that several mechanisms were put into place to make trav-elling easier for Indians, in-cluding removing the ceiling on the baggage tax, reducing the number of screening processes, etc. “Our air-ports should help anyone who wants to travel. We are aiming to provide a friendly atmosphere,” he stated.

Muraleedharan said dis-cussions for the Emigration Bill 2019 are in the final stages. Nevertheless, it will not be tabled in this parlia-mentary session. The min-istry of (Contd. on page 2)

Saudi’s sin tax on sugary drinksRIYADH: Saudi Arabia will start levying the new excise tax on drinks containing added sugar before the end of this year, as the kingdom, the largest Arab economy, continues to diversify its revenue streams.

Mohamad Al Jadaan, the minster of finance and the chairman of the kingdom’s General Authority for Zakat and Tax (Gazt), has approved the amendments to the ex-cise tax legislation, includ-ing the “implementation of excise tax on sweetened drinks” from Dec 1, Umm Al Qura, one of Saudi Arabia’s official newspapers reported.

The kingdom, Opec’s top oil producer and the biggest crude exporter in the world, said in May it would impose a 100pc tax on electronic cigarettes and a 50pc levy on drinks with added sugar, broadening the excise duty on similar products as it looks to expand its revenue base and cut its reliance on

oil income. The latest state-ment from Gazt did not con-firm if the tax would also be implemented on e-cigarettes from the same date.

The kingdom’s excise du-ties on cigarettes and other tobacco products as well as energy and soft drinks, have been in place since June 2017.

The country has intro-duced a number of new taxes and fees in recent years in line with Crown Prince Moham-med bin Salman’s economic transformation agenda. Al-though crude accounted for about two-thirds of the gov-ernment’s earnings in 2018, according to Bloomberg, non-oil revenue has been growing steadily, jumping 46pc in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the same period last year largely because of higher in-come from taxes.

The six-member econom-ic bloc of GCC pledged to introduce excise and other taxes including VAT, to boost non-oil revenues.

New education policy for teachers in UAEABU DHABI: Ministerial De-velopment Council presided over by Deputy Prime Min-ister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed the policy for educational professionals in the UAE in line with the government’s continuous effort to advance the education sector.

The Council reviewed the policy for professionals working in the UAE educa-tion sector, which involves public and private schools in the country, to improve the quality of the country’s education sector. The policy review is seen as a step for-ward in providing students with further support on

their learning endeavours, as well as a means to en-courage educators to further advance their skills in the field through self-learning mechanisms. The policy applies to all educational institutions in the UAE and targets educational profes-sionals.

The Council also re-viewed the national eco-tourism programme “Natu-ral Treasures of the UAE”, which aims to increase the country’s attractiveness as a global destination in the tourism sector in general, and ecotourism in particu-lar. The programme would also create a new economic

growth positions for the UAE, placing it as an impor-tant ecotourism destination globally, while also creat-ing jobs and raising public awareness on preserving the local environment and ensuring the sustainability of its biological diversity and natural resources. Also on the Council’s agenda was the development of a system that links pension funds operating within the country to help facilitate transfer processes involving civil servants across federal, local, and military bodies.

Concerning government affairs, the Council reviewed the recommendations of the

Federal National Council for various topics, including Ministry of Community De-velopment policy on family affairs, the General Author-ity of Islamic Affairs and Endowments policy and medical leave entitlements in the UAE. The meeting also reviewed several government reports, including a report by the Higher Committee supervising the process of compliance with internation-al standards for combating money laundering and terror-ism financing. The Council reviewed the IMF report, as well as a report issued by National Media Council for the year 2018.

Aramco IPO on track, says Saudi crown princeRIYADH: Saudi Arabia is committed to listing its state oil producer Saudi Aramco between 2020 and 2021, de-pending on market conditions, according to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“We are committed to the Aramco IPO, given favour-able conditions and the right time, and as I said before we expect that between 2020 and 2021,” he told Arabic daily Asharq Al Awsat.

Aramco, the world’s larg-est oil exporting company, sells crude on behalf of the kingdom. The producer emerged as the most profit-able company in 2018, beat-ing the likes of tech giants Apple and Google. Aramco made $111.1 billion in net

income and had earnings before interest, tax, deprecia-tion amortisation of $224b last year. The five per cent listing of Aramco is critical to Prince Salman’s Vision 2030. An initial public of-fering is expected to fetch as much as $100 billion in proceeds for Saudi Arabia based on the government’s $2 trillion valuation of Ar-amco. However, the merger of Aramco with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, the region’s largest-listed chemi-cals company, delayed the IPO. The oil giant acquired a 70pc stake in Sabic in a $69 billion deal in March.

Aramco then issued a $12 billion bond, appetite for which topped $100 billion in

April. Demand for the issue was the largest for emerging markets since an order book value of more than $52 billion for Qatar’s $12 billion bonds last year, and surpassed $67 billion in demand for Saudi Arabia’s inaugural bonds in 2016. Aramco received the fifth-highest ratings from Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service ahead of the issuance.

Moody’s assigned Aram-co an A1 credit rating while Fitch gave it A-plus.

Aramco will hold its first earnings call in August to dis-cuss its half-year performance.

The state producer shared its annual results last week in a new investor relations sec-tion on the company website.

Visa applications went up 66pc in Jalandhar alone last year

JALANDHAR: Believe it or not ----as high as 66pc more visa applications were processed in Jalandhar last year than in 2017. Even Chandigarh recorded a spurt of 54pc visa applicants. Vinay Malhotra, Regional Group Chief Operating Officer of VFS Global, which manages visa and passport-related administrative tasks for the gov-ernments of 48 countries, said the company processed 52.8 lakh applications last year in India. The highest upward trend of 66pc was from Punjab, followed by 45pc from Goa and 43pc from Puducherry.

Elizabeth Samuel, Head Operations, North and East, added: “The applicants from Punjab are choosing between the centres of Jalandhar and Chandigarh. On an average, 2,000 to 3,000 visa applicants come daily to VFS Global in Jalandhar alone since we are the exclusive service provider for countries like Canada, US, UK and Australia.” Though the company officials refused to share any data related to categorisation of visas, they said, “Our peak season for tourist visas is from March to June and for student visas from July to Sept. Students are showing more craze for courses in management, medicine and specifically herbal medicine.”

The experts said Canada was the favourite destination of the visa applicants and some of the new destinations included Japan, Turkey, Czech Republic and Estonia.

VFS Global said it was even offering doorstep assis-tance. “This, of course, comes at an additional cost. The applicants are calling our assistants home for helping them arrange documents, prepare their applications and do all paper work,” said Elizabeth Samuel.

HDFC among 57 Indian coson Forbes Global 2000 listNEW DELHI: As many as 57 Indian companies have found place in a list of the world’s 2000 largest public companies, compiled by Forbes magazine, with hous-ing finance major HDFC finding place among the top 10 consumer finance firms globally.

The overall list has been topped by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) for the seventh year in a row while Reliance Industries is the top-ranked Indian company (71st rank globally), as per the leading business magazine. Within the oil and gas sector, Reli-ance Industries is ranked 11th globally, while Royal Dutch Shell has come on the top. For the consumer financial sector, American Express has topped the chart while HDFC Ltd is ranked seventh.

Out of the 61 countries represented on the list, the US accounts for the largest number of 575 companies, followed by China and Hong

Kong (309) and Japan (223). In the overall top-10, ICBC is followed by JP Morgan, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of America, Apple, Ping An Insurance Group, Bank of China, Royal Dutch Shell and Wells Fargo. From India, Reliance Industries is the only one in the overall top-200 list and is followed by HDFC Bank at 209th, ONGC at 220th, Indian Oil at 288th and HDFC Ltd at 332nd place.

While TCS, ICICI Bank, L&T, SBI and NTPC also figure among the top-500 companies, other Indian companies in the overall “Global 2000” list include Tata Steel, Coal India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharat Pe-troleum, Infosys, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, ITC, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, JSW Steel, PowerGrid, Hindalco, HCL Tech, M&M, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finserv, GAIL, PNB, Grasim, Bank of Baroda, Power Finance and Canara Bank.

Will Swiss govt share info on bank A/Cs ?BERNE: Swiss authorities are in process of sharing details of at least 50 Indian nationals having accounts in Switzerland-based banks, with regulatory and enforce-ment agencies in the two countries tightening their noose on individuals sus-pected to have amassed illic-it wealth. These individuals largely include businessmen associated with companies, including the dummy ones, in sectors ranging from real estate, financial services, technology and telecom to paints, home decoration, textiles, engineering goods, gems and jewellery.

Switzerland has been striving hard for the past few years to shed a long-stand-ing perception of it being a safe haven for black money, while the issue has been a politically sensitive one in India as well. When the PM Modi-led BJP government first came to power in 2014, it had termed the crackdown on the black money, includ-ing those allegedly parked in Swiss banks, as a key focus area. Since then, the

two countries have strength-ened their framework for the exchange of informa-tion in cases of financial wrongdoings, including by signing the global automatic exchange of information framework.Some names

The full names that have been made public in re-cent weeks in the Swiss government federal gazette include Krishna Bhagwan Ramchand, Potluri Rajamo-han Rao, Kalpesh Harshad Kinariwala, Kuldip Singh Dhingra, Bhaskaran Nalini, Lalitaben Chimanbhai Patel, Sanjay Dalmia, Pankaj Ku-mar Saraogi, Anil Bhardwaj, Tharani Renu Tikamdas, Mahesh Tikamdas Tharani, Savani Vijay Kanaiyalal, Bhaskaran Tharur, Kalpesh-bhai Patel Mahendrabhai, Ajoy Kumar and Dinesh Kumar Himatsingka, Ratan Singh Chowdhury and Ka-thotia Rakesh Kumar

The two countries have also strengthened their bi-lateral pact on this front and the economic considerations for boosting the bilateral

economic ties have further helped increase the coop-eration when it comes to bringing to book the people with dubious records, es-pecially in amassing illicit wealth. Citing the federal gazette notifications issued by the Swiss government to the concerned individuals, the officials said at least 50 Indian nationals have been issued notices in the past few weeks giving them one final opportunity to appeal against proposed sharing of their details with the Indian authorities.

Some of these notices have followed after the pre-liminary appeals by the concerned clients of Swiss banks have already been rejected due to inadequate supporting facts and docu-ments, leaving a limited chance of their further pleas getting heard, officials said. They said the sharing of details of Indian clients of Swiss banks with dubious records, showing suspected illegalities in amassing of funds deposited there, has been a (Contd. on page 2)

2 EMIGRATION Tuesday, June 18, 2019

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the media before the start of 17th Lok Sabha at Parliament House in New Delhi. Others with him are: Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi, PMO Minister Dr Jitendra Singh and the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal.

Dubai business confi dence stands at 52-week highDUBAI: Businesses operat-ing in Dubai’s wholesale and retail sector recorded the sharpest improvement in confidence, helped by new orders, as did the travel and tourism sector. This helped overall sentiments among UAE private businesses to a 52-week high, according to the economy tracker for May.

The other strategically vital sector — construction — maintained upbeat senti-ments that were on par with what it has been recording for some time now. In gen-eral, the private sector in Dubai reflected a mood of confidence that businesses elsewhere in the UAE re-ported for May. On the jobs’ side, only retail saw new intakes, while the other two sectors are still operating on a lean workforce principle.

“The earlier start to Ramadan this year may

also have contributed to increased activity, particu-larly in the wholesale and retail sector,” said Khatija Haque, Head of MENA Re-search at Emirates NBD. As per the Emirates NBD Dubai Economy Tracker Index, the wholesale and retail ended May with a 61.9 score, while travel and tourism had 59.5 and construction 54.6. This helped push the overall economy index to a 52-month high of 58.5 in May, from 57.9 in April.

“The record increase in total activity was driven by faster growth in new busi-ness — faster intakes of new work contributed to another improvement in 12-month expectations for activity across the non-oil private sector in May,” the report notes. Incidentally, this is the fourth time in the first five months that non-oil private

sector activity has shown gains. “Growth rates were at new peaks in travel and tour-ism and wholesale and retail, while construction posted the second-fastest increase on record,” the report adds.

The Index tracker notes that employment opportu-nities remain on the weaker side. “Jobs continued to de-cline in both the travel and tourism and construction sectors,” but wholesale and retail managed to post the biggest improvements in three years. (Over the past 12 months, the Employment Index has averaged exactly 50.0.) But businesses have other worries to contend with — as has been the case in recent months, May’s order gains came about on lower prices being quoted.

“Prices charged for goods and services fell for the 13th month running, albeit

at the slowest rate in three months,” the report says. “Discounting was most no-table in the construction and wholesale and retail sec-tors.” Going forward, busi-nesses will need to break the spiral of offering discounts to win orders. How soon they manage to break out of this cycle will determine not just the well-being of the private sector but the overall economy as well.

But for the moment, busi-nesses are basking in the buzz of new orders stream-ing through. “Travel and tourism and wholesale and retail both registered sharp increases in new work dur-ing the month,” the report says. “Faster intakes of new work contributed to another improvement in 12-month expectations for activity across the non-oil private sector in May.”

US-Indian trauma surgeon to run for senate seatWASHINGTON: An Indian American trauma surgeon based in Nashville, Tennes-see, Manny Seth (Repub-lican), has announced his bid to run for one of the US Senate seats in the state. He will seek the seat currently being held by retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander. He is among the first candidates to enter the race. Democratic attorney James Mackler and Republican country musi-cian Stokes Nielson previ-ously launched campaigns for the seat.

A conservative outsider, Sethi, who also released a campaign video, said: “I think President Trump needs a trauma surgeon in the US Senate to act decisively to help solve (problems)”. The doctor has been discussing running for Alexander’s seat since at least late last year, Nashville Scene reported.

In addition to his work at Vanderbilt, Sethi has run a preventative health non-profit and co-edited a book on health policy with Bill Frist, the former Vanderbilt surgeon who served as US Senate Majority Leader, the report said. Sethi said he would prioritise illegal im-migration and repealing the Affordable Care Act.

“My parents taught me to be grateful, I was born in America because every-

Manny Seth

thing our family has was given to us by this country,” Sethi, the son of Indian immigrants, said. “I am a product of the American

dream. I want to make sure that dream is available to our children and grandchil-dren.” Former Governor Bill Haslam, Ambassador Bill Hagerty and US Rep Mark Green are among the promi-nent Tennessee Republicans who have publicly weighed campaigns for the seat but have yet to announce a deci-sion. While Sethi, who has never run for political office, has significantly less name recognition than Haslam or Hagerty, his early entrance into the race provides him an opportunity to build his campaign and raise money 14 months ahead of the August 2020 primary elec-tion. Calling himself very conservative, Sethi said his campaign will focus on

three things: repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, fixing the im-migration crisis along the southern border of the US

and combating the opioid epidemic, the report said.

As the founder of the preventative health non-profit Healthy Tennessee, Sethi has travelled across the state holding health fairs and clinics, while learning how the opioid crisis has affected people. Sethi traces his interest in politics back to when his father was bat-tling liver cancer. He said over a span of three months, he saw hundreds of people visit his dying father in Hillsboro. “When he passed away, I just realised in that moment how much that community meant to our family,” he said. Sethi said his father instilled in him a desire to do something big-ger than himself.

Attorney Neera Bahl named to Cobbs Election BoardWASHINGTON: Cobb Re-publican Party chairman Ja-son Shepherd has appointed Marietta, Georgia, attorney Neera Bahl to the Cobb County Board of Elections.“I am honored to be appoint-ed to the Board of Elections for Cobb GOP and will do my best to ensure that the elections are administered with utmost fairness and ac-curacy,” Bahl said in a state-ment. “I greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve in this capacity.”

Bahl is the founder and managing partner of One Path Legal. The Indian American attorney will re-place current Republican Party appointee Joe Pettit, whose term expires June 30. “Neera brings with her not only a vast amount of experi-ence in the law, but a zeal for growing the Republican base in Cobb County,” Shepherd said in a news release

A native of India and naturalized US citizen, Bahl received her master’s in Eng-lish from Punjab University, bachelor of education in

Neera Bahl

psychology from DAV Col-lege and bachelor of science in chemistry and biology

from DS College in India. After moving to the US, Bahl spent more than 20 years in medical and scientific research before graduating from Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School in 2000.

She is a graduate of the 2018 class of Leadership Cobb and was appointed to the Judicial Nominating Commis-sion by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, the report added.

Cobb GOP Outreach Am-bassador Jeff Souther said: “Neera Bahl is a natural fit for the Cobb Board of Elections. Neera’s professional experi-

ence as an immigration attor-ney combined with her life experience as a naturalised citizen drives her passion for civic engagement. She is committed to ensuring every citizen has their voting rights accessible and protected.”

In addition to her legal work, Bahl is a volunteer for the Truancy Intervention Project and with Raksha Inc. helping victims of domestic violence. She is the current president of the US Pan Asian American Chamber of Com-merce-South East chapter.

Jayshree Ullal in Forbes’ list NEW YORK: Chief execu-tive of computer network firm Arista Networks Jay-shree Ullal has figured in Forbes latest Richest Self-Made Women l i s t . U l l a l , No. 18 on the list, has a net worth of $1.4 billion. The 58-year-old owns about five per cent of Arista’s stock.

Jayshree Ullal

DUBAI: A six-year-old Indian boy died after he was left behind alone in a bus for several hours in Dubai. The child, identified as Mohamed Farhan Faisal from Kerala, was a student at an Islamic centre in Al Quoz.

According to family sources, he slept off after boarding the bus from Karama. He was left behind after all the other students disembarked outside the centre at 8 am. The Dubai Police were notified about the tragedy at 3 pm. A top official from the centre said he was found as the driver took the bus out to drop the students back home. The actual cause of death is yet to be determined.

Such incidents are rare in the UAE, but have been reported previously.

In 2014, a KG1 pupil at Abu Dhabi’s Al Worood Academy Private School suffocated to death after being forgotten inside a bus. The news had shocked the nation and sparked a major discussion on child safety in buses. The principal, bus driver and super-visor were jailed and directed to pay Dh1 lakh as compensation to the victim’s family.

NRI child dies in schoolbus due to negligenceWalmart hires US-Indian as CTO

Suresh Kumar

ARKANSAS: Retail giant Walmart t has hired Suresh Kumar as its chief tech-nology officer and chief development officer. In his new role, Kumar will report directly to president and CEO Doug McMillon.

“Walmart is one of the great success stories in how a company evolves over time to serve the changing needs of its customers and today, it is in the midst of a very exciting digital transformation,” the Indian American executive said in a statement. “With more than 11,000 stores, a high-growth eCommerce busi-ness and more than two mil-lion associates worldwide, the potential for technology to help people at scale is un-paralleled, and I am excited

to be part of this.”Kumar joins at a time

when Walmart is rapidly transforming its customer and associate experiences and he brings more than 25 years of technology leader-ship experience coming from Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM. “The technology of today and to-morrow enables us to serve our customers and associ-ates in ways that weren’t previously possible. We want to take full advantage of those opportunities,” said McMillon in a statement. “Suresh has a unique under-standing of the intersection of technology and retail, including supply chain,

and has deep experience in advertising, cloud and ma-chine learning. And, he has a track record of working in

partnership with business teams to drive results.”

Kumar was most recent-ly at Google, serving as vice

president and general man-ager of display, video, app ads and analytics. Prior to Google, he was the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and operations. Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in various leadership roles, including vice president of technol-ogy for retail systems and operations and he led Ama-zon’s retail supply chain and inventory management systems. Before Amazon, he was a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center. Kumar earned a bachelor’s degree from the IIT- Madras and a doctorate in engineering from Princeton University.

(Contd. from page 1)external affairs had proposed to introduce the Emigration Bill to replace the existing Emigration Act, 1983. He said the bill would focus on providing safety to workers aspiring to travel to Gulf countries. “The law would ensure that workers will not be cheated by fraudulent re-cruiting agents and the gov-ernment will provide them

Will Swiss govt...(Contd. from page 1)continuing process in the recent months. While details of more than 100 Indians na-tionals have been shared in the past one year by the Swiss government with the Indian authorities, there is a high chance that a large majority of the cases currently under scrutiny would result in the administrative assistance be-ing provided in the coming months, officials said.

Under the Swiss laws, foreign clients of Swiss banks are given an opportunity to appeal against proposed shar-ing of their details within 30 days (only 10 days in some cases) after a country with a mutual assistance treaty, or party to the multilateral infor-mation exchange framework, seeks the details while giving sufficient proof of suspected financial wrongdoings. New Emigration Bill ready

with job protection and training. The workers will also be given post-departure counselling,” he explained.

However, when quizzed about the proposal to register NRI details on the e-migrate platform, Muraleedharan said the government is still mulling over the issue. “We are still discussing whether to make it mandatory or voluntary. However, I do

hope we will be able to table this at the earliest possible parliamentary session,” he added.

Meanwhile, in a bid to resume Emirates Airlines services to Kozhikode , mem-bers of the business com-munity, including Dr Azad Moopen, chairman, Aster DM Healthcare Group, along with James Mathew, senior partner and CEO of Crowe,

and representatives from the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) had a meet-ing with the minister.

According to officials at the KMCC, the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority has re-quested India’s ministry of civil aviation to grant Emir-ates a temporary approval to operate 2,500 weekly seats in each direction on the Dubai-Kozhikode route for

four months, effective June 2019 for the summer high peak demand. “The minister has assured to take it up on priority with the cabinet secretary for civil aviation at New Delhi in two weeks. A response to the letter is an-ticipated from India for get-ting the necessary approvals from the authorities,” said Anwar Naha of the Dubai chapter of KMCC.

Four US-Indian familymembers found deadWASHINGTON: Four mem-bers of an Indian-American family were found dead with gunshot wounds inside a house in the state of Iowa, authorities said. Officers with the West Des Moines Police Department were sent at around 10 am on Satur-day to the 900 block of 65th Street, where they found the bodies.

Police identified the bod-ies as Chandrasekhar Sunkara (44), Lavanya Sunkara (41), a 15 and a 10-year-old boy. The police said they all died of apparent gunshot wounds but an autopsy has been scheduled to determine the exact cause of death. “This tragedy will impact family, friends, co-workers, anyone that knew this family,” Sgt. Dan Wade said in statement.

“We are continuing to work through this investiga-tion. We will follow through until we have answered as many questions as the evi-dence allows. We are con-fident, though, that there is no continuing threat to the community.” Authorities said other family members -- two adults and two children --

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Tuesday, June 18, 2019

NEW DELHI: The entrance examinations of IGNOU’s MBA (OPENMAT) and BEd programmes for January 2020 admissions will be conducted by National Testing Agency on 27th July 2019, at more than 100 cities across India.

NTA has been conducting Computer Based Entrance Test for higher educational institutions. In order to assess the competency of candidates for admission and recruitment purposes, NTA conducts the Tests in an ef-ficient, transparent manner following international standards. Now, NTA is conducting Computer Based Entrance Test for IGNOU as done for JNU and Delhi University.

Prof Nageshwar Rao, Vice Chancellor of IGNOU said that the decision to seek NTA’s help has been taken because of the agency’s expertise in holding entrance exams transparently, efficiently and swiftly and also the fact that NTA is a government agency. If the experiment goes well, IGNOU is con-templating to go for Online Examination for its popular programmes as well.

Registration for the entrance test will be Online soon. Students are advised to visit the website of NTA, www.ntaignou.nic.in for the online submission of the form. Interested candidates are also to note that no application in hard copy will be accepted. Complete details of the progrmmes are available on the IGNOU website www.ignou.ac.in.

Last date of On-line Registration is July 1, 2019.

NTA to hold IGNOU Entrance Test for MBA (OPENMAT), BEd

NEW DELHI: The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) is expected to release a notification for Combined Competitive (Pre) Exam 2019 soon. As per reports, the council may announce notification on June 20, while the ap-plication process will begin in July.

The BPSC had last year announced vacancies for 1,255 posts under 64th Combined Competitive Exam. In its notification, the BPSC is expected to announce vacancies for 500 posi-tions in various positions like supply inspector, revenue officer, rural devel-opment officer among others.

Those who are interested to ap-ply may do so once the notification is out through official website www.bpsc.bih.nic.in. The exam is expected to be held in the month of August. Candidates must at least be graduate or have an equivalent degree from any university or institute recognised by the government of India.

Exams will be held in two stages which are Prelims and Mains. They will first have to appear for prelims. Those who qualify will have to ap-pear for an exam, which will be fol-lowed by the interview round. The commission will issue admit card 15 days before the exam. Candidates may download their admit card from the official website.

NEW DELHI: While the reg-istration dates for admission to Delhi University have been extended, students looking to pursue science courses in evening colleges are in for a disappoint-ment— none of the eight evening colleges under the university offer any BSc programme, except Pan-nalal Girdharlal Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (PGDAV) col-lege, which only offers a

BPSC to release notifi cation for Combined Competitive (Pre) Exam 2019 soon

Lack of BSc courses in evening colleges disappoints Delhi students

NEW DELHI: The Railways Recruitment Board (RRB) has announced the first schedule for document verification for the candi-dates who cleared the exam conducted for technician posts. The examination was conducted on May 10, 2019, the result for which was announced on June 4, 2019.

The process for docu-ment verification will be-gin from June 23, 2019 and end on July 4, 2019. Candidates have been di-vided into batches of 60 to make the verification process easier.

The venue for the docu-ment verification process is Shambhunath Institute of Engineering & Tech-nology (SIET), Education Block, Jhalwa, Prayag Raj (Allahabad). Candidates are requested to bring the e-call letter for document verification. The call letter

Registration Number Date and time for document verification121002079540011 to 201003093500065 June 23, 2019 at 8:30 am201003093880136 to 201013079380272 June 23, 2019 at 1 pm201013079380317 and 201021080410379 June 24, 2019 at 8:30 am201022050810102 to 231003092450009 June 24, 2019 at 1 pm231004086830254 and 231022086830105 June 25, 2019 at 8:30 am231022090960031 and 301001078660617 June 25, 2019 at 1 pm301001084810961 to 301009078660271 June 26, 2019 at 8:30 am301009078660631 to 301018083660270 June 26, 2019 at 1 pm301018094660285 to 301026078120120 June 27, 2019 at 8:30 am301026078660017 to 381008079900277 June 27, 2019 at 1 pm381008087630793 to 391013094860091 June 30, 2019 at 8:30 am391014085710071 to 441001004430114 June 30, 2019 at 1 pm441001004430293 to 441002080431647 July 1, 2019 at 8:30 am441002082130063 to 441004079390067 July 1, 2019 at 1 pm441004079400155 to 441005080430614 July 2, 2019 at 8:30 am441005080431195 to 441006096950042 July 2, 2019 at 1 pm441006096960050 to 441008080441050 July 3, 2019 at 8:30 am441008080590012 to 441009096400110 July 3, 2019 at 1 pm441009096970002 to 441011005470015 July 4 2019 at 8:30 am441011013480085 to 441012079480004 July 4, 2019 at 1 pm

RRB ALP, Technician CBT 3: Document verification begins on June 23can be downloaded from the official website of RRB Allahabad rrbald.gov.in, through the available link.

Candidates also need to bring one original valid and current photo ID proof presented at the time of the Computer Based Test (CBT). They need to carry 6 passport size colour pho-tographs (not more than one-month-old). Mobile phones are not allowed during document verifica-tion.

A fees of Rs 24 needs to be paid to get a medical test done after the docu-ment verification. The date and place of the medical test will be communicated on the day of the docu-ment verification.

The second schedule for document verifica-tion will be communi-cated soon. Candidates can check the official website for more updates.

BSc (H) in Mathematics, but no other BSc course.

Ravi Wadhwa, an admin-istrative official of PGDAV College, said the idea be-hind evening colleges was to provide basic education to working students, and perhaps that’s why the necessary infrastructure required to support science courses was not created. “That is no longer the aim. The college hours and cut-

offs have increased over the years, leaving little differ-ence between morning and evening colleges. If there are lab facilities, students might be able to avail science courses,” he added.

Dean of Students’ Wel-fare Rajeev Gupta said that science practicals at the uni-versity can run up to four hours each day, which is a lot of time (evening colleges run for shorter durations)

and that could be one of the reasons why these colleges did not have any science courses. Registrar Tarun Das did not respond to calls and messages for a comment.

Vipin Aggarwal, princi-pal of Sri Aurobindo Col-lege, too emphasised on the lack of time being one of the major reasons.

“Science courses require more time. Evening colleges are run in a shorter span

of time so it is difficult to run science courses here. I would rather recommend opening more colleges in-stead of offering science courses in evening colleges, so that students can study the subjects they want.”

National Students Union of India, Delhi, president Akshay Lakra said that eve-ning colleges have mostly been a secondary option for students.

“Since these are mostly off campus colleges, they don’t provide the campus life students often seek. Be-sides, most such colleges do not even have the infrastruc-ture to support professional courses,” he said.

He added that despite being situated on the same premises, there was a stark difference between the fa-cilities provided by day and evening colleges.

KOLKATA: IIM Calcutta’s MBAEx Class of 2019 has become the first cohort to achieve 100% placement for the academic year 2018-2019 among all the leading one-year MBA programs across the country, said a statement from the Insti-tute. The recently gradu-ated 12th batch recorded stellar performance in the placement season with the average salary rising by 10.3pc to Rs. 26.98 lakh. The highest domestic salary offered climbed to Rs. 1.25 crore, an increase of 40pc over the previous batch.

The outgoing cohort of 60 students witnessed a whop-ping 104pc increase in aver-age salary relative to their pre-MBA compensation, said the statement.

Some of the prominent recruiters include Amazon, Accenture, EXL, Ford, Oyo, Swiggy, Sapient, and Zensar.

IIM-C MBAEx batch gets highest

placement offer this yearOne year full-time MBA

programs, like IIM Calcutta’s MBAEx, provide a platform for experienced profession-als to transition into mid and top management roles across various functions and industries.

IIM Calcutta’s MBAEx program (previously known as PGPEX) continues to pro-vide value for money year after year, the statement said.

“MBAEx process is very challenging, and it is in this program that job-person matching process is experi-enced in its truest sense,” said Amit Dhiman, Chairper-son - MBAEx, IIM Calcutta.

In a recently concluded survey by Times Higher Education (THE) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), MBAEx is ranked 3rd among all global one-year MBA programs, owing to excellent student engagement and job outcome.

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BPSC Recruitment 2019: Things you need to knowAge limit

Candidates in general male cat-egory: 37 Years

Candidates in general female/ OBC/ OBC (male/female): 40 years

Candidate ub SC / SC (Male/Fe-male): 42 yearsHow to apply online

Those looking to apply should visit official website www.bpsc.bih.nic.in

Click on the link “BPSC Civil Ser-vices Prelims Exam 2019”

Click on “Online Application” to fill up the form

A page will open, where candi-dates are required to click on “Apply Online”

Fill up the application form as per the guidelines.

Candidates will have to fill up to all needed information in “First Screen” tab and then click on the “SUBMIT” button

Upload photo, signature and pay Application Fee.

The candidate may now take out a print out for future use.

Note: Candidates in SC/ST/Woman/Handicapped/Permanent residents of Bihar (in all category) will have to pay an application fee of Rs 150/-, while others will have to pay Rs 600.

GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Tuesday, June 18, 2019

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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 # 71 will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 70 Answer

Your wellness

Scientists have devel-oped an artificial in-telligence system that

uses portrait photos in com-bination with genetic and patient data to efficiently and reliably diagnose rare diseases.

Every year, around half a million children world-wide are born with a rare hereditary disease. Obtain-ing a definitive diagnosis can be difficult and time consuming.

In a study of 679 pa-tients with 105 different rare diseases, scientists from the University of Bonn and the Charite – Universitats-medizin Berlin in Germany have shown that artificial intelligence can be used to diagnose such diseases.

AI tool detects rare diseases from portraits, health dataThe neural network,

described in the journal Genetics in Medicine, auto-matically combines portrait photos with genetic and patient data.

Many patients with rare

diseases go through lengthy trials and tribulations until they are correctly diag-

nosed. “This results in a loss of

valuable time that is actu-ally needed for early therapy in order to avert progressive damage,” said Peter Krawitz from the University Hospital

Bonn (UKB).Researchers showed how

artificial intelligence can be

used to make comparatively quick and reliable diagnoses in facial analysis.

They used data of 679 patients with 105 differ-ent diseases caused by the change in a single gene.

These include, for exam-ple, mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS), which leads to bone deformation, learning diffi-culties and stunted growth. Mabry syndrome also results in intellectual disability.

All these diseases have in common that the facial features of those affected show abnormalities.

This is particularly char-acteristic, for example, of Kabuki syndrome, which is reminiscent of the make-up of a traditional Japa-nese form of theatre. The

eyebrows are arched, the eye-distance is wide and the spaces between the eyelids are long.

The used software can automatically detect these characteristic features from a photo. Together with the clinical symptoms of the patients and genetic data, it is possible to calculate with high accuracy which disease is most likely to be involved.

The scientists trained this computer program with around 30,000 portrait pic-tures of people affected by rare syndromal diseases.

“In combination with facial analysis, it is possible to filter out the decisive ge-netic factors and prioritize genes,” said Krawitz.

The average person eats many more calo-ries than they did 50

years ago -- equivalent to an extra fast-food burger meal every day -- which is causing brain health

to decline much faster, a study has found.

The research, published in Frontiers in Neuroendo-crinology, reports about 30 pc of the world’s adult pop-ulation is either overweight or obese, and more than 10 per cent of all adults will

Junk food causing brain health to decline fastersuffer from type 2 diabetes by 2030.

“People are eating away at their brain with a re-ally bad fast-food diet and little-to-no exercise,” said Nicolas Cherbuin, a profes-

sor at Australian National University.

“We’ve found strong evidence that people’s un-healthy eating habits and lack of exercise for sus-tained periods of time puts them at serious risk of developing type 2 diabetes

and significant declines in brain function, such as dementia and brain shrink-age,” said Cherbuin.

“The link between type 2 diabetes and the rapid deterioration of brain func-tion is already well estab-lished,” he said.

“But our work shows that neurode-generation, or the loss and function of neurons, sets in much, much earlier -- we’ve found a clear association between this brain deterioration and unhealthy lifestyle choices,” he added.

“The damage done is pretty much irreversible once a person reaches midlife, so we urge ev-eryone to eat healthy and get in shape as early as possible -- preferably in childhood but certainly by early adulthood,” he said.

A standard fast-food meal of a burger, fries and soft drink is about 650 kilocalories -- roughly the extra amount that people worldwide, on average, are consuming everyday com-pared to what they were eating in the 1970s.

Cherbuin s a i d t h i s equates to a quarter of

the recommended daily food energy needs for men and just under a third for women.

“The extra amount of energy that people con-sume daily compared to 50 years ago means that many people have an unhealthy diet,” he said.

“One of the best chances people have of avoiding preventable brain problems down the track is to eat well and exercise from a young age,” he added.

Doctors in China have successfully direct-ed surgeons 200 km

away to perform a gall bladder surgery using 5G network in a remote area, official media.

The laparoscopic chole-cystectomy was conducted last week in north China’s Hubei Province which last-ed about an hour, China Mobile which is one of the four telecom firms to have received the license to rollout 5G on June 6, said.

The surgery, where a 5G Internet connection enabled the entire process, was conducted in the Shen-nongjia forestry district branch of Taihe Hospital and was transmitted via live feed to an expert team in Taihe Hospital in the city of Shiyan.

Thanks to the 5G tech-

Chinese surgeons conduct remote surgery using 5G technology

nology, there was almost no network delay, and the patient’s vital signs remained stable after the surgery, according to the surgical team, state-run news agency reported.

“5G technology guar-antees the clarity and

continuity of transmitted videos and photos. With the network, more doctors can cooperate to conduct surgeries regardless of their distance,” Gui Kunpeng, a senior official with China Mobile’s Hubei branch said.

China is implementing the 5G network to meet the public demand in sec-

tors such as transportation, entertainment and health care, the report said.

So far, Hubei has built more than 300 5G base stations and achieved full 5G signal coverage in its prefecture-level cities, it said.

C h i -n a ’ s c a p i t a l , B e i j i n g has built 4 , 3 0 0 5G base s ta t ions i n t h e city’s ur-

ban core areas and iconic buildings to implement the superfast technology as the Chinese government has begun issuing 5G licenses to telecom firms.

5G is the next genera-tion cellular technology with download speeds stat-ed to be 10 to 100 times faster than the current 4G LTE networks.

The candidates who have cleared the Joint Engineering Exami-

nation (JEE) advanced 2019 will have to register for the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) at the of-ficial website, josaa.nic.in. The JoSSA is the collective seat allotment system for IITs, NITs, IIESTs, IIITs and other government-funded institutes. The registration process has already started from June 16 (Sunday). Registrations for those who have applied for AAT (ar-chitecture aptitude test) will begin from June 21, 2019.

All candidates who have appeared in JEE (Main) 2019 are eligible to register for seat allocation in NIT while those who qualified for JEE Advanced are eli-gible for seat allocation in

JOSAA 2019: IIT admission process onall participating institutes including IITs.

The mock seat allotment can be filled by candidates from June 22 from 10 am to 5 pm. The second round of seat allocation will be

filled-in by candidates as on June 23, as per the official schedule. The candidate

registration and filling for the academic programme will end on June 25, 5 pm.

Candidates who do not fill-in choices within the specified time window will not be able to seek admis-

sion for this academic year. Only after registration will the counselling begin. After

counselling, one has to pay fee and get documents veri-fied to confirm admission.JOSAA 2019: seat allot-ment schedule

The seat al lotment rounds will be conducted on June 27, July 3 and July 6. The respective document verification rounds will be held on – June 28 to July 2 for round I, July 4 to July 5 for round II, July 7 to July 8 for round III.

There will be a total of seven rounds of counsel-ling. The round IV will be held on July 9 and seat allocation for round V and VI will be held on July 12 and July 15 respectively. For NITs, the seventh round document verification and acceptance of seat will be from July 19 to 23; while for IITs the same will end on July 19.

Ahead of the Inter-national Yoga Day, the Indira Gandhi

National Open University (IGNOU) has launched a Certificate Programme in Yoga (CPY). The course will begin from July 2019 session.

The course will be imparted in English and anyone who has attained education up to class 12, irrespective of the stream, can apply. The course will be for six months and students will be given maximum of two years to pass the course. Candidates will have to pay a fee of Rs 10,000 for the entire programme.

The programme will be offered through the fol-lowing Regional Centres: Delhi, Haridwar, Benga-luru, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur,

IGNOU launches certifi cate programme in YogaLadnun, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. The programme will have 3 courses with 16 Credits.

S.B. Arora, professor, IGNOU, said that after studying this particular

programme, the learner shall understand the basic principles and practice of yoga. He further added that the programme also aims to make the candidate aware about the history and the contribution of various

Yogis in the field of Yoga and attain both physical and mental health through Yoga.

“Yoga is essentially a practice based on an ex-tremely subtle science,

which focuses o n b r i n g i n g harmony be-tween mind, body and spirit. It is a very pow-erful means to achieve physi-cal, mental and emotional well b e i n g . Yo g a paves the way

to discover the self, the external world and nature. It is an art and science for healthy living. Yoga has several benefits includ-ing education, health and stress management,” said IGNOU in a release.

The Institute of Bank-ing Personnel Selection (IBPS) has released the

common recruitment process for Regional Rural Banks (RRB) notification. The candidates have to apply from June 18 by login the official website -ibps.in. The online registration window will close on July 4. IBPS will select candidates on the basis of preliminary, main followed by interview round. The interview will be coordi-nated by the Nodal Regional Rural Banks with the help of NABARD and IBPS in consulta-tion with appropriate authority. The allotment of candidates will conclude by January 2020.

The candidates who apply for the post of Office Assis-tant (Multi-purpose) will be

IBPS RRB 2019: Registration onprovisionally allotted on the basis of marks obtained in the main examination. For the post of Officers Scale I, candidates who will qualify in preliminary examination and shortlisted will have to appear for Main examination and shortlisted candidates from the mains ex-amination will subsequently be called for a common interview.Important Dates:

Online registration date: June 18 to July 4

Payment of Fees: June 18 to July 4

IBPS RRB Prelims: August 3, 4 and 11 (Officer Scale 1); August 17, 18 and 25 (Office Assistant)

IBPS RRB Main Exam: Of-fice Assistant (September 29); Officer Scale 1 (September 22)

IBPS RRB Single Exam for Officer Scale 2 and 3: Sep-tember 22

IBPS RRB Interview: Officer Scale 1, 2 and 3: November

Provisional Allotment: Jan-uary 2020

Application Fees: The can-didates can pay application fees from June 18 till July 4.

Officer (Scale I, II & III)– Rs.100/- for SC/ST/PWBD

candidates.– Rs.600/- for all othersOffice Assistant (Multi-

purpose)– Rs.100/- for SC/ST/PWBD/

EXSM candidates.– Rs.600/- for all othersIBPS will conduct pre-

exam training for candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes/ Minority

Communities/ Ex-Servicemen/ Persons with Benchmark Dis-abilities for the Post of Office Assistant (Multipurpose) and Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes/ Minority Communities for the Post of Officer Scale-I.

The IBPS will conduct training will be held at Wa-rangal, Anantapur, Naharlagun (Papumpare), Guwahati, Ajmer, Raibareilly, Guntur, Raipur, Gandhinagar, Srinagar, Luc-know, Mandi, Jammu, Ranchi, Dharwad, Varanasi, Malla-puram, Patna, Imphal, Jodhpur, Shillong, Aizawl, Kohima, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Salem, Howrah, Moradabad, Puduch-erry, Ludhiana, Gorakhpur, Rohtak, Rajkot, Hyderabad, Agartala, Muzaffarpur, Dehra-dun, and Nagpur.

Haryana Staff Se-lection Commission (HSSC) has released

an official notification in-viting applications for Ju-nior Engineers. Interested candidates should apply online on the official web-site-www.hssc.gov.in by July 4, 2019.The total number of vacant posts is 1624.Dates to remember:• Online application starts: June 20, 2019• Online application ends: July 4, 2019• Last date to deposit fee: July 8, 2019Educational qualification:• Interested candidates should check the official notification for academic qualification since they

HSSC: Apply for Junior Engineers postsdiffer for every post.Age limit:• Interested candidates should check the official notification for the age limit as they differ for ev-ery post.Application fee:• General category (Male/Female) category candi-dates will have to pay Rs 150.• General category (Female) (Haryana Resident) will have to pay Rs 75.• SC/BC/EWS category can-didates (Male) candidates will have to pay Rs 35.• SC/BC/EWS category can-didates (Female) candidates will have to pay Rs 18.Examination Scheme:• The selection of the can-didates will be done on the

basis of the Written exami-nation and Socio-Economic criteria and experience.• The written examina-tion will consist of 90 marks and Socio-Economic criteria will consist of 10 marks.

The online examination will be conducted from July 13, 2019 to August 18, 2019 and the date, time and place of the examina-tion will be as per admit card.How to apply:• Interested candidates should apply online on the official website- www.hssc.gov.in by July 4, 2019.Important information:• For more information, the candidates should check the official notification.

6 IN FOCUS Tuesday, June 18, 2019

I am employed by an employer – which is a Dubai registered company --- on an employment contract of unlimited dura-tion. Recently, my employer verbally warned me for taking too many breaks during work hours. Further, he threatened me that he will terminate me if I don’t reduce the number of breaks. I am a smoker and I take about three to four, five-minute breaks during the day and further half-an-hour break for lunch. I put in over nine hours in the office and have exceeded all the work-related targets during my tenure for three years with my employer. My productivity has not been affected by my habit of smoking, but my employer is very serious about the warning. What should I do?

An employee taking too many breaks during work hours is violation of nor-mal code of discipline at the workplace. Your employer may warn you and take action against you if you don’t reduce or stop your unusual breaks during work hours for smoking. Efficiency in work and disciplinary conduct are two sepa-rate aspects. An employee should follow work ethics and normal disciplinary rules at the workplace. This is in accordance with Schedule mentioned in ministerial order no. 28/1 of 1991 regarding mode disciplinary code, a guide to employee in making disciplinary regulations applied in their undertaking. The Schedule clearly states the kind of contravention and the degree of penalty to be imposed on the employee. An employee taking frequent breaks during working hours may attract the following penalties as mentioned in the Schedule: Contraventions in respect of time keeping: Leaving the work or the workplace before the working hours without permission or reasonable excuse may attract 25pc of salary deduction of the said day if the offence has been com-mitted by the employee for the first time. If the same offence is committed for the second time, the penalty shall be 50pc of the salary deduction of the day, one day’s salary deduction for the third time and two days’ salary deduction for the fourth time, respectively.

Contravention in respect of order dur-ing work: Employee’s idleness or presence in a place other than their workplace during working hours may attract the aforementioned salary deductions. After the fourth contravention, the employer may issue a written warning and the em-ployee may be dismissed if the offence is committed for the fifth time and within six months from the date of commission of the offence for the fourth time. Based on the aforementioned provisions of law, your employer may terminate your employment on the grounds of discipline and may also apply Article 120(e) of the Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 regulating employment relations in the UAE, which states: “An employer may dismiss an employee without notice if the employee does not perform his basic duties under the contract of employment and persists in violating them despite the fact that he has been the subject of a written investigation for this reason and that he has been warned that he will be dismissed if such behavior continues.”

Driving licenceI will be leaving the UAE soon to return home and my visa will be cancelled next week. I was hoping to keep my car for a few more weeks but am I still allowed to drive here? Will my driving licence be-come invalid when my visa is cancelled?

A UAE driving licence is not invali-dated when a visa is cancelled and it remains valid until the expiry date. The issue however, is actually about insur-ance. Privately owned vehicles can only be driven by someone with a residency visa and if a visa has been cancelled the insurance can be invalid. You should contact your insurance company to ask if you will be insured to drive the vehicle. If they agree, then you need to get con-firmation in writing.

Notice periodCan I sign a new job contract with anoth-er company while still serving the three

Can be sacked for indiscipline in offi ce months’ notice period from my current employer? The new employer is willing to wait for me to join, but my concern is that my visa from my current employer has not been cancelled yet. What is the right position?

It is not unusual for a new employer to ask someone to sign a contract of em-ployment before starting work and this also gives the individual time to read and fully understand what is being offered. If the terms of employment are accepted the new employer will probably be happier about starting the visa process as soon as they can. I see no real issue in signing a contract ahead of time, but there should be a clause stating this is subject to you finishing your current role and your resi-dency visa being appropriately cancelled. I also recommend that it states the terms are not binding until a new visa has been applied for so that you are not bound by the contract until she starts the new role.

Final salaryI have been with my company for nearly six years and have handed in my notice as I plan to leave the UAE and go back to India. Over the years, I have been promoted a few times and my salary has increased each time so it is now more than two times what it was when I started. I have been given a calculation for my end-of-service gratuity but it is less than I am expecting. I was expecting 30 days for each year on my final salary but the company has worked it out as 21 days for the first few years but on lower salary figures for each period. The dif-ference is large so I need to know that I am right so can I argue with them and get what they owe me?

In your case, neither the employee or the employer is wholly right. When some-one resigns after having completed more than five years of service they are entitled to receive a full end-of-service benefit but the law is very specific regarding how it is calculated. Article 132 of UAE Labour Law states: “The worker having spent one year or more in continuous service shall be entitled to an end-of -service gratuity upon the termination of his service. The days of absence from work without pay shall not be included in the calculation of the period of service and the gratuity shall be calculated as follows: 1. The wage of 21 days for each of the first five years of service. 2.The wage of 30 days for every additional year. Always provided that the total gratuity does not exceed the wage of two years.” The salary used for the calculation is the employee’s last basic salary only. The UAE government website confirms this as it states: “The end-of-service gratuity is calculated on basis of last wage which the employee was entitled to, namely the basic salary. Hence, it will not include allowances such as housing, conveyance, utilities, furniture etc.” In this case, your gratuity must be calculated using your current basic salary only with 21 days payable for each of the first five years of service and then 30 days for each full year over five years or pro-rata.

Salesman’s woesI am a salesman for a medium-sized com-pany and I have a salary and also com-missions. Sales are poor in the summer months, so I am not hitting my targets at the moment. My boss has told me that if I do not hit target the company, he will deduct money from my salary. I do not think this is in the contract I signed as I would remember. Can the company do this to me?

In short, no they cannot. UAE Labour Law includes a section that covers dis-ciplinary rules and the conditions are clearly laid out. An employee can be fined if they break a serious rule but this does not apply to work-related performance in this way. In addition, if there is nothing in the contract of employment that states that the salary itself is performance related then the employer cannot change the way someone is paid. You can register a case with the Ministry of HR and Emiratisation or your local labour office.

GULF FAQs

President Ram Nath Kovind administering the oath of Protem Speaker to Dr Virendra Kumar at a swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

BENGALURU: Former Info-sys CFO and multi-sector investor TV Mohandas Pai has said India does not face a job problem, but one of wages, as a lot of low paid jobs are being created which do not find favour with degree holders.

“India is not produc-ing good jobs, but creat-ing a lot of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 low-paid jobs which are not fancied by degree holders. India has a wage problem, not a job problem,” he opined. Also, India has regional and geographical problems, Pai pointed out.

Pai suggested that India adopt the Chinese model of opening up labour-intensive industries and building infrastructure

No job crisis, but wage problem: Painear coasts, besides invest-ing heavily in hi-tech R&D to meet the aspirations of job-seekers. “We should look at what China has done. They first opened

up the labour intensive industry --- invited the rest of the world to come and use its labour and started an export industry. We have not incentivised la-bour intensive industries. We don’t have proper poli-

cies, so we cannot use our surplus labour,” he said.

Pai pointed out that China has also invested heavily in hi-tech R&D

in many areas, includ-ing electronic assembly and chip creation, by in-centivising at lower level to create an eco-system. “Thirdly, China built in-frastructure near the coasts so that infrastructure and supply chain expenses come down. We have not built infrastructure around the coasts,” he said.Wrong job data

Pai said the data on unemployment put out by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) that 11 million jobs were lost in 2018 was erroneous.

“There are flaws in the

survey methodology for unemployment for the age group of 15 to 29 years,” he said. Pai said the best data on jobs was the EPFO payroll data, which says 60 to 70 lakh people get formal jobs every year. Even vehicle sales throw light on the job situation in India, Pai said, add-ing that every year 30 to 35 lakh people get jobs after discounting vehicle purchases. “For example, Indians buy about seven lakh tractors, six lakh au-torikshaws and seven-and-a--half lakh trucks every year. As many as 28 lakh cars are bought, of which five lakh may require driv-ers. The drivers create 30 to 35 lakh jobs every year,” he said.

Mohandas Pai

NEW DELHI: Come July, salaried employees will have to contribute less under the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) scheme. The government has de-cided to lower the rate of contribution under the ESI Act to four per cent from 6.5pc. This means employ-ers’ contribution will come down to 3.25pc from 4.75pc and employees’ share will be 0.75pc against 1.75pc. This would benefit 3.6 crore employees and 12.85 lakh employers.

According to the ESI Act, any factory with 10 or more employees (20 in the case of Maharashtra and Chandigarh) needs to be part of ESI. It covers em-ployees with wages up to Rs

DUBAI: Dubai-based Indian retail chain Al Adil Trading is aiming to expand into Eu-rope within the next year.

The company, which was founded in Dubai in 1984 and stocks around 9,000 Indian food prod-ucts, including spices and other ingredients, currently has 41 stores based in the UAE , Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It has plans to expand into Kuwait in the next six months, but it also has plans further afield outside the Gulf area.

“We’ll go to Europe… maybe next year,” Dr. Dhananjay Datar, manag-ing director of Al Adil Trading and known across Dubai by his customers as the “King of Spice” or the “Masala King”, told a TV

ESI contribution cut to four per cent

Indian spices co to enter Europe

21,000 per month (Rs25,000 in the case of persons with disability). Persons insured under the Act get medical, cash, maternity, disability and dependent benefits. Benefits provided under the ESI Act are funded by the contributions made by the employers and the employees. The ESI Act is administered by Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

According to an official statement, the reduced rate of contribution will bring about a substantial relief to workers and it will facilitate further enrolment of work-ers under the ESI scheme and bring more and more workforce into the formal sector. Similarly, reduction

channel. Datar is planning to open at least six more stores this year, he said. His most recent store opened in Silicon Oasis and the next launch will be in Sharjah, with growing population

centres like Business Bay, Jumeirah Lake Towers and Dubai Marina on the com-pany’s radar.

While some commenta-

in the share of contribution of employers will reduce the financial liability of the establishments leading to improved viability of these establishments. This will also lead to enhanced Ease of Doing Business. It is also expected that reduc-tion in rate of ESI contribu-tion shall lead to improved compliance of law.

With an intention to expand social security cov-erage for more and more people, the government started a programme of spe-cial registration of employ-ers and employees from Dec 2016 to June 2017 and also decided to extend the cov-erage of the scheme to all the districts in the country in a phased manner.

tors have said the Gulf is in a slowdown, Datar is optimistic. “Some economic researchers are predicting a sluggish growth ahead for the global markets, based on indicators like current trade

c o n f l i c t s b e t w e e n b i g p o w -ers, rising i n f l a t i o n , as well as hike in in-terest rates. Some are even warn-ing about a s lowdown

i n g l o b a l economy and a possible recession at the doorstep. To be honest, I can’t speak authoritatively and with full confidence about the

DUBAI: An Indian expat was drowned at the Jumei-rah Beach in Dubai during an outing with his family. John Preetam Paul (40) had gone to take a dip when the tragedy happened, accord-ing to family and friends. His three children were also with him along with his sister and husband who were on a visit to Dubai. “The police have confirmed that the cause of the death was cardiac arrest,” Jijo Jalal, Paul’s former boss said.

Paul worked as a Sales Head for Gilli FM, a UAE-based radio station. He has been a UAE resident for more than 14 years.

NRI drowns in

Dubai beach

future scenario. I am a trader businessman and have learned from the past experiences that there is nothing to worry.

“Markets are always vol-atile and pass through ups and downs. But it is also true that nothing remains constant. The tutelage of time is that change is the only constant. Personally, I fully believe in that golden truth and try to adjust myself according to the situation,” he added. “As of now, I don’t see any slug-gish trend… Inflation might affect consumer’s decisions to purchase some luxury items temporarily but there is no danger at all to the commodities and FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) sectors.”

Dhananjay Datar

CORPORATE NEWS 7Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Bharti AXA General Insurance has post-ed a maiden profit of

Rs 3 crore for the financial year ended March 2019. The private sector insurer, a joint venture between

Bharti Enterprises and French insurance major AXA, had registered a loss of Rs 92.6 crore in the previous fiscal. The company recorded a 29pc increase in its gross writ-ten premium (GWP) at Rs 2,285 crore in the financial year 2018-19 from Rs 1,772

Bharti AXA General Insurance posts Rs 3 cr profit in FY19crore in 2017-18.

Dr iven by g rowth across all product seg-ments and all channels of distribution, the company achieved healthy top line performance against an

overall industry growth of 12.9pc and private sector growth of 25pc in the fi-nancial year ended March 31, 2019, Bharti AXA Gen-eral Insurance said in a statement. The first-ever full-year profitability has been achieved by expand-ing the distribution net-

work, adding number of strategic distribution part-nerships and business al-liances and diversification of product lines, Bharti AXA General Insurance CEO Sanjeev Srinivasan said. “We will continue to focus on channel and segment diversification, productivity and prudent expense management to drive growth in years to come,” he said.

Health, personal ac-cident and travel category products recorded a 125pc growth at Rs 334 crore in 2018-19 as against Rs 149 crore in the previous fiscal, the statement said. Com-mercial lines saw a 70pc growth at Rs 288 crore as against Rs 170 crore in 2017-18. Motor insurance, which accounts for over 50pc of the business, grew by 6pc to Rs 1,143 crore from Rs 1,075 crore in the previous fiscal.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has ap-proved a project worth

Rs 1,650 crore to develop infrastructure in seven dis-trict headquarter towns of Tripura, a senior official has said. The ADB will provide Rs 1,650 crore, out of which 80 pc will be grant-in-aid and the state will have to repay 20pc loan in due course of time, he said.

Such an ADB-assisted ambitious infrastructure de-velopment project, first of its kind in Tripura, is ex-pected to modernize all the district headquarter towns and boost tourism and trade prospects in the future to realise the vision of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb of transforming Tripura into a model state,” the official told mediapersons.

Till now, there had been no provision of any funding for development of district

ADB approves Rs 1,650cr infra projects in Tripuraheadquarter towns in Tripura other than Agartala, he said. The ADB has approved the project submitted by the Urban Development Depart-ment amounting to Rs 1,650

crore for infrastructure devel-opment such as piped water supply, underground drain-age, underground sewage or scientific seepage manage-ment, roads with pavement, in the seven district head-

quarter towns, other than Agartala,” the official said.

The project will be taken up in Khowai, Ambassa, Dharmnagar, Kailashahar, Udaipur, Bishramganj and

Belonia. Representatives from the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs

had approved the project in its 89th screening committee meeting held in November 15, 2018.

Accordingly, the ADB sent a Consultation Mission to Agartala, on December 21, 2018 to seek the feasibility of Project Financing Readi-ness (PFR) and Technical Assistance (TA) for prepara-tions of DPRs of this project, the official said, adding the project received the final ap-proval on June 14.

The Urban Development Department of the Tripura government will start prepar-ing DPRs with the assistance of ADB for speedy execution of the said project, he said. “For the first time, the state government has taken a concrete decision for devel-opment of infrastructure in seven of the eight district headquarter towns, to meet the long- standing demand of the people,” he said.

According to the fil-ing, the board in its meeting, also

approved the proposal to raise funds by issuing up to 30 crore share of face

value of Rupee one each.South Indian Bank said

it will raise Rs 500 crore through issuance of debt securities on private place-ment basis in domestic and overseas markets.

The board approved a proposal of raising of funds

South Indian Bank to raise

Rs 500 crore via debtin Indian/ foreign currency by way of issuance of debt securities including but not limited to non-convertible debentures, bonds, of up to Rs 500 crores in do-

mestic and/ or over-seas market, on a private placement basis and/ or for making offers and/or invitations, the bank said in a BSE filing.

According to the filing, the board in

its meeting, also approved the proposal to raise funds by issuing up to 30 crore share of face value of Rupee one each.

South Indian Bank board also decided to amend its memorandum of association.

Xiaomi supplier Holi-tech Technology said that it has inaugu-

rated its firstcomponent manufactur-

ing plant in Greater Noida and will invest nearly $200

million over three years in the country.

Holitech Technology would be manufacturing compact camera modules (CCM), capacitive touch screen module (CTP), thin film transistor (TFT), flex-ible printed circuits (FPC) and fingerprint module locally.

The local manufacturing plant is ready and will be in production within the third quarter of this year and aims to generate 6,000 jobs in three years, Xiaomi said.

Spread across four fac-tories and spanning over

Xiaomi supplier opens 1st India mfg plant25,000 square metres, the component manufacturing plant will start mass pro-duction with a production capacity of over 300 mi l l i on c o m p o n e n t s per year.

“Xiaomi has witnessed sig-nificant growth in the country and we are pos-itive that Ho-litech’s plans for India will herald a new stage of evolution for the electronics manufacturing industry in India,” Murali-krishnan B, Chief Operating Officer, Xiaomi India, said in a statement.

The plant also boasts of class 1000 and class 100 clean room. A clean room is a contained space where

provisions are made to reduce particulate contami-nation and control other environmental parameters

such as temperature, hu-midity and pressure.

“ The phenomenal growth of Xiaomi along with their initiatives to promote local manufactur-ing has encouraged us to explore component manu-facturing for Xiaomi in India,” said Chenguisheng, CEO, Holitech Technology.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to set up a diesel exhaust fluid

plant in Bengal at an in-vestment of around Rs 150 crore to support the intro-duction of Bharat Stage-VI compliant fuel from April 1, 2020. The investment is part of the company’s expansion plans in the state across businesses.

Indian Oil officials said all its 1,200 retail outlets in Bengal would sell BS-VI compliant fuel from next April to ensure lower sulphur emission. Several automobile manufacturers have already introduced cars with BS-VI engines.

The non-BS-VI com-pliant diesel engines are likely to use diesel ex-haust fluids (DEF) to bring down emission to accept-able levels. The company

IOC in fuel switch drill expects a demand for DEF after the shift to the new fuel standard. The diesel-to-petrol consumption ratio in the state for IOC

is almost 4:1.“We are planning to put

up a new unit at Budge Budge. It would take an investment of around Rs 150 crore and the plant is expected to come up in a couple of years,” said Pritish Bharat, executive director, IOC’s Bengal state office.

The company is also augmenting its biofuel and ethanol capacities across its terminals in Bengal by around 5,000 kilolitres

within a year. This would involve an inves tment of around Rs 200 crore.

“Our re -fineries are gearing up to supply BS-VI compliant

fuel and the Haldia refin-ery would also be ready,” said Bharat.

The company had ear-lier said it would spend around Rs 7,000 crore to expand the capacity of the Haldia refinery to 8 million tonnes (mt) from 7.5 mt and also upgrade to BS-VI fuel standards.

Further, Indian Oil is planning to commission 100 retail outlets in the state by 2019-20 at an estimated investment of Rs 100 crore.

In the pipeline is a new Indane bottling plant at Kharagpur by March 2021 at an investment of Rs 163 crore.

“With the recent Ujjwa-la drives, LPG penetration in Bengal has moved up to 93.9pc, up 6pc since last year, propelling the state towards cleaner fuel and healthier kitchens,” said Bharat.

Indian Oil has equipped 700 of its retail outlets in the state with solar panels at an estimated invest-ment of Rs 5 lakh per outlet and 300 more are to be fitted with such panels this year.

Public sector enter-prise Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited

(BHEL) said its Solar Pho-tovoltaic (SPV) portfolio has touched surpassed the 1,000 megawatt (MW) capacity, after winning two orders worth Rs 800 crore for setting up 200 MW solar energy capacity.

“Bharat Heavy Elec-tricals Limited’s (BHEL) Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) portfolio has surpassed 1 GW with the company winning two EPC orders for setting up SPV plants with a cumulative capacity

BHEL to set up 200 MW solar power plantsof 200 MW,” the PSU said.

Valued at over Rs 800 crore, the EPC (Engineer-ing, Procurement and Con-struction) orders have been secured from public sector power giant NTPC Ltd and Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Ltd (GSECL).

The NTPC order envis-ages construction of India’s largest floating SPV plant with 100 MW capacity at NTPC Ramagundam in Telangana, while the GSECL order is to set up a 100 MW ground-mounted SPV plant at Raghanesda Ultra Mega Solar Park,

Banaskantha district in Gujarat.

BHEL offers EPC solu-tions for both off-grid and grid-interactive SPV plants at various lo-cations in India, in-cluding the Lakshad-weep islands. Out of its current portfolio of more than 1 GW of SPV plants, nearly 500 MW has already been commissioned.

Last week, the company had announced winning two separate renewable projects. On June 10, it had three major orders in quick

succession, for setting up of SPV power plants on EPC-basis in Maharashtra and Gujarat. The orders,

with a cumulative value of Rs 520 crore, have been secured from Maharashtra State Power Generation Company, GSECL and Gu-jarat Narmada Valley Fertil-izers & Chemicals.

A day later, BHEL an-nounced securing order for erection of the upcoming 2x1000 MWe Turbine Gen-erator Island Units 3&4 at Kudankulam Nuclear Pow-er project in Tamil Nadu, which is being set up with Russian cooperation. Val-ued at over Rs 440 crore, the order has been placed by the Nuclear Power Cor-poration of India Ltd.

BHEL’s Electronics Sys-tems Division in Bengaluru is manufacturing space-grade solar panels using high-efficiency cells and space-grade battery.

Byju’s is closing a $200-250-mi l l ion funding round from

Qatar Investment Author-ity (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the West Asian nation, another proof of the home-grown educa-tion technology company’s growth prospects. The deal will mark QIA’s first direct investment in an Indian start-up.

Sources directly famil-iar with the deal said the term-sheet had been signed between the two parties, and the deal will see QIA acquiring less than 5pc stake in the Bengaluru-based start-up. It could not be ascertained whether any of the existing inves-tors are making secondary stake sale.

Qatar sovereign fund to invest $200-250 million in Byju’s

A spokesperson of Byju’s declined to offer any com-ment on the story while QIA could not be reached for its comments. In March, Byju’s had raised $540 mil-lion at a valuation on $5.4 billion, making it the most-valued ed-tech company in the world. Early investor Sequoia Capital had sold part of its stake for $190 million, while Times Inter-net, another early investor, also pared some of its stake in that round, according to sources.

The QIA deal follows Byju’s raising money from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which was also the first direct investment by the Canadian pension fund in an Indian start-up. CPPIB

is an active investor in the realty space in India, while it has also backed com-panies such as ITC, HUL, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, among others.

QIA is one of major shareholders in Airtel, hav-ing invested $1.2 billion in the publicly traded telecom major in 2013. More recent-ly, it invested $300 million in office space developer RMZ Corp and is said to be considering investments in the affordable housing space.

Sovereign funds are known to be long-term in-vestors and typically invest in traditional sectors like realty, financial services and public markets. For that rea-son, the investment by QIA denotes a shift in strategy.

Power discom BSES un-veiled its first public Electric Vehicle charg-

ing station as part of its plan to set up over 150 EV charg-ing stations across its licensed area in the city.

Delhi power minister Sa-tyendar Jain inaugurated the facility at South Extension Part II. BSES plans to open 50 such charging points across Delhi this year.

Consumers can book a slot and pay online. “This charg-ing station, the first of 50 in 2019-2020 with over 150 planned with multiple part-nerships, will bolster decen-tralised energy management and battery storage which are key governance components of Delhi’s sustainability road-map,” said Jain.

According to the govern-

BSES launches EV charging station in Delhi

ment, the tentative total cost of charging, including the cost of electricity (as per DERC tariff) and the overheads (parking charges, recovery of equipment cost etc.) is ex-pected to be between Rs 160 and Rs 200 for a full charge. It roughly translates into `1.60 to `1.80 per km. A user can also save substantially per km on an electric vehicle. An electric vehicle will lead to a savings of over eight tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Consumers can locate the nearest charging station book their charging time in advance and pay online through a mobile applica-tion, ‘ElectreeFi’. “Seamless consumer experience will be delivered to citizens through app reservation and online payments,” said Jain.

E-commerce giant Ama-zon India is the most attractive employer

brand in the country fol-lowed by Microsoft India and Sony India, says a survey.

According to the Rand-stad Employer Brand Re-search (REBR) 2019, Ama-zon scored high on financial health, utilisation of latest technologies and a strong reputation.

Microsoft India emerged as the runner-up, followed by Sony India.

Others in the top 10 most-attractive employer

Amazon India most attractive employer brand, Microsoft India 2nd: Survey

brands in India for 2019 in-clude Mercedes-Benz at 4th position, IBM (5th), Larsen & Toubro (6th), Nestle (7th), Infosys (8th), Samsung (9th) and Dell (10th).

In line with the REBR philosophy, Google India had been inducted into the Hall of Fame category last year, for winning the coveted title for three con-secutive years.

The Randstad Employer Brand Research, covered 75pc of the global economy with 32 participating coun-tries and more than 2,00,000 respondents worldwide.

8 Travel / Entertainment

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Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Vijayan was in Delhi to attend the Nidhi Aayog meeting.

Don’t hand over Tvm airport to Adani, Vijayan urges ModiChief Minister Pinara-

yi Vijayan has urged Prime Minister Na-

rendra Modi to spare the Thiruvananthapuram air-port from privatisation. In a meeting with the Prime Minister in New Delhi, Vijayan requested the latter to hand over the running of the airport to the state on agreeable terms for the Centre and state. The state had proved its mettle by running two airports in the PPP model. International agencies like UN had ap-preciated the airport mod-els, he said.

The Adani group had, in Feb, won the bid to oper-ate five out of six airports, including the Tvm airport, proposed for privatisation by the central government. The state government had earlier appealed to the Cen-tre to reconsider its decision to lease out Tvm aerodrome for operation, management and development under the public-private partnership (PPP). Without the co-op-eration of the state govern-ment, no private company can develop the airport properly, Vijayan clarified. “Our stand is clear...that the airport cannot be handed over to private parties. Ei-ther hand it over to the

state government or carry on with the current admin-istration”, he said.

In 2003, the union civ-

il aviation secretary had given an assurance that private parties would be considered for the run-ning of the airport only after taking the state into confidence. The airport is situated on 35 acres of land. A major portion of this was donated by the erstwhile Travancore king and the state. Handing over of the airport to a private company is not justifiable, Vijayan said.

The chief minister said

co-operative federalism is still in the conceptual stage and very little structural changes have been made

in the past four years to make this work on the ground. States like Kerala have expressed concerns on the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Com-mission, which should be addressed. After do-ing away with the Five Year Plans at the national level, states have lost grants which they used to get as plan assistance earlier.

Now states have to bear a higher share – 40pc in-stead of the earlier average

25pc – for many centrally sponsored schemes. This results in the shrinking of state governments’ fis-

cal space. “NITI Aayog in the present form has not played the much-expected role of a facilitator in the past four years. There is growing realisation that it is perhaps not a substitute for the erstwhile Planning Commission,” said the CM adding that Kerala has been continuing with the Five Year Plans.

The adverse impact of the transformation of the Planning Commission to the NITI Aayog is that

states like Kerala have lost a source of funding for its state Five Year Plans. Re-ferring to the “Aspirational District Programme’, Vi-jayan said the “one size fits all” approach of the central-ly sponsored schemes goes against the basic principles of co-operative federalism. The central component of these schemes should not be viewed as gratis from the Centre to states. The states also contribute a share to these schemes, he said, adding, “state governments and local governments should not be viewed as entities in a pyramidal hi-erarchical structure below the Central government.”

The Centre spending on subjects in the state list has resulted in centralisa-tion in the design of welfare schemes. It results in states losing the flexibility for implementing schemes in social and economic sec-tors. Centralisation of these schemes restrains local-level initiatives. A more centralised control will not be in accordance with the constitutional amendments regarding decentralisation. Incursions into areas of leg-islative competence of state governments will weaken the federal system, he added.

Kochi airport to remain closed during daytime for four months from Nov 20

There will be no flight operations during daytime at the Cochin

International Airport Lim-ited (Kochi airport) for four months from Nov 20 due to runway re-carpeting works.

“As the mandatory run-way re-carpeting work of Kochi airport is slated in Nov, CIAL has instructed all the operating airlines to re-schedule the i r day-time servic-es for four months from Nov 20,” an airport statement said. The major re-carpeting work will start on Nov 20, 2019 and continue till March 28, 2020.

“There will be no flight operations from 10 AM to 6 PM in that period. The daytime flights will be re-scheduled to the night,” the statement said.

At present CIAL handles 240 aircraft movements a day. As a majority of interna-tional flights operate from 6 PM to 9 AM, the re-carpeting would not affect internation-al traffic in a big way. But around 35 domestic services have to be re-scheduled, the statement added

As per the prescribed practices, all airports should re-carpet their runways once in 10 years. Kochi airport had started commercial op-erations in 1999 and the

runway underwent its first re-carpeting in 2009. This is the second re-carpeting work fixed for the 3400-me-tre-long and 60 metre wide runway and will cost Rs 151 crore. The work includes re-tarring, maintenance and overhauling of entire stretch of the runway and taxiway.

The daily re-tarred por-tion has to be prepared for aircraft operation by the time the runway i s

handed back for operation. During the course of re-carpeting, the AGL (Airfield Ground Lighting) system will be upgraded to CAT III from the existing CAT I. “This will considerably improve the operational effi-ciency and aerodrome safety, especially during low vis-ibility and adverse weather conditions”,the statement said. As part of the CAT III lighting system, the spacing of existing runway centreline lights would be reduced from the existing 30 metres to 15 metres and the runway would be provided touch down zone lighting and approach side row lighting, the statement said.CIAL has already intimated airlines to re-schedule the timetable for the period to provide the up-dated schedule to passengers who book in advance.

Airlines in India are capitalising on the opportunity to add

more flights and increase fares as debt-laden Jet Air-ways remains grounded, which could help the avia-tion industry turn profit-able this year, analysts say. “Indian airlines are ramping up capacities fast to make up for the supply deficit in the wake of the cessation of operations by Jet Airways,” says Garima Mishra, an analyst at Kotak Institutional Equities.

The airline was India’s second largest, covering more than 60 destinations across the country and abroad, including London

Jet Airways’ closure benefi ts other airlinesand Dubai, with its fleet of 119 planes. Nevertheless, burdened with about $1.2 billion in debt, it was forced to suspend all flights in April as lenders refused to provide additional funding.

Jet’s crisis emerged as it fell into arrears in the wake of fierce competition in In-dia’s aviation sector, which forced Jet to slash fares to compete with budget car-riers such as IndiGo and SpiceJet. The lower fares made it difficult for the com-pany to cover its high oper-ating costs, including fuel and taxes, in what has been a challenging environment for all of India’s airlines. One less player to compete with

on the board is a boon to other carriers, analysts say.

“The closure of Jet Air-ways has positively trans-formed market dynamics for Indian carriers,” according to a report by CAPA India, an aviation consultancy. This financial year “could mark a positive turning point for the sector”.

In “an optimistic scenar-io”, the consultancy predicts the industry could post a profit of as much as $700 million in the financial year, which runs from April 2019 to March 2020. “Even in a pessimistic scenario, airlines are likely to remain in posi-tive territory to the tune of $250m to 400m”.

Such a scenario would be the first instance since CAPA started tracking the sector in 2003 of Indian airlines post-ing a combined net profit at an industry level. The rever-sal in fortunes is helped by an increase in fares, which are up as much as 12 per cent in April and May on the year for budget airlines, the consultancy’s figures show.

However, CAPA warns that while domestic routes are being filled quickly and are likely to return to normal in the next few months, “Jet’s closure leaves a notable gap in the international market”, predicting that recovery in the international sector could take one to two years.

AI to link Amristar, Delhi, Toronto

Air India will start Amritsar-Delhi-To-ronto flight, which

will fly three times during a week, from Sept 27, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. Puri, who is currently a Rajya Sabha member, had fought the 2019 General Elections from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, but lost to Congress’ Gurjeet Singh Aujla.

“Delighted to announce the commencement of a thrice-weekly Air India flight between Sri Amritsar Sahib and Canada. The Am-ritsar-Delhi-Toronto flight will commence on the oc-casion of World Tourism Day on Sept 27, 2019,” Puri said on Twitter. “I am glad I was able to help in fulfilling this long-pending demand of citizens of Guru Nagri and devotees who travel from North Americas to pay obeisance at Sri Harmandir Sahib, Durgiyana Mandir and other holy places,” he added.

The beleaguered nation-al carrier has been reeling under a spiralling debt cri-sis in the recent past.

The fifth International Day of Yoga will be celebrated with much fanfare in Abu Dhabi on

June 20 with an event organised by the Indian embassy at the Umm Al Emarat Park.

Though International Day of Yoga is observed worldwide on June 21, Abu Dhabi is celebrating it a day earlier to enable more families to come together and benefit from the experts and gurus present at the occasion.

“Yoga is for the public good. This is India’s contribution to humanity and

Tourists to get free Sim card in Dubai

Tourists in Dubai can enjoy a free Sim card, complete with complimentary talk time and data, on their ar-rival at the airport. Any tourist above 18 years can get

a free Sim card provided by du, thanks to a new initiative by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai. Maj-Gen Mohammad Al Marri, director-general of GDRFA, said the Sim card is valid for one month.“The initiative is the first-of-its-kind in the world. Dubai is the first destination in the world to provide free Sim cards to visitors,” Maj Gen Al Merri said. The free Sim card provides three minutes of talk time and 20mb data.

Yoga Day in Abu Dhabithe world. Keeping with the true spirit of yoga, we are determined to make it as inclusive as possible. Different yoga groups and schools will join us,” said Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri during a media interaction held at the Indian embassy. Thousands are expected to participate in the event. Free entry to the park, parking facility, yoga mats and yoga T-shirts will be provided to all partici-pants on a first-come, first-served basis. The common yoga protocol will be followed by other yoga demonstrations

by yoga enthusiasts from different countries. These demonstrations will be followed by a cultural programme.

UAE Minister of Tolerance Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan will be the chief guest for the programme, with activities beginning at 7pm. In the run-up to the event, photo shoots of yoga enthusiast performing yoga at iconic locations like the Emirates Palace, Etihad Towers and Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum were organised in collaboration with the Department of Culture, Abu Dhabi.

Setback for pilgrim tourism in Kerala

Pilgrim tourism in Ker-ala continues to take a beating as the arrival

of domestic tourists to the historic Guruvayur Sree Krishna Temple and the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram has reduced further. Last season, the world famous Sabarimala forest temple too suffered less crowd.

As per Tourism Depart-ment statistics, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram saw a drop of 4.5pc and 1.84pc, respectively, in the arrival of domestic tourists in the

first quarter of 2019 despite an 8.07pc increase in their footfall across the state. This downward spiral, said Tour-ism Department officers, was due to the drop in pilgrims’ arrival to the two temples.

While the arrival of do-mestic tourists had been on the decline in Guruvayur, this is perhaps the first time in recent years the Sree Pad-manabhaswamy temple, the richest temple in the world, also witnessed a drop. The negative growth assumes significance considering the fact the Centre and the

state government have been taking concerted efforts to develop spiritual tourism circuits across Kerala of late. The Centre even granted

around Rs300 crore for vari-ous initiatives in the state, including for projects in the two temples, over the last few years.

Tanker hit in attack reaches UAE

A Japanese tanker, attacked in the Gulf in an incident that sparked a new standoff between Washington and Tehran, “arrived safely” at an anchorage off

the UAE, its management said. The Kokuka Courageous was carrying highly flammable methanol through the Gulf of Oman when it and the Norwegian-operated Front Altair were rocked by explosions. The US and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of responsibility.

“Kokuka Courageous has arrived safely at the designated anchorage at Sharjah”, an emirate neighbouring Dubai, the vessel’s Singapore-based BSM Ship Management said in a statement. The crew, who remained on board, were “safe and well”, it said, adding that a damage assessment and preparations for transferring the ship’s cargo would start “once the port authorities have completed their standard security checks and formalities.”

BSM Ship Management had said earlier Kokuka Coura-geous was heading towards an anchorage on the eastern coast of the UAE facing the Gulf of Oman. The other ship, the Front Altair, has left Iran’s territorial waters, multiple sources said.