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Saudi appoints new foreign minister

RIYADH: Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has issued a royal order relieving Foreign Af-fairs Minister Dr Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al-Assaf of his post and appointing Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah bin Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud as foreign affairs minister. Prince Faisal thanked the leader-ship on his appointment. He hailed his predecessor and expressed his pride in joining the Saudi dip-lomatic family.

In another Royal De-cree, King Salman also re-lieved Transport Minister Dr Nabil bin Mohammed Al Amoudi of his post and appointed engineer Saleh bin Nasser bin Ali Al-Jasser in the post. The King also appointed Dr. Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al-Assaf as minister of state and mem-ber of the cabinet.

Dr Abdullah bin Sharaf bin Jamaan Al-Ghamdi has been appointed chairman of the Saudi Commission for Data and Artificial In-telligence with the rank of minister. Dr Essam bin

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Faisal.

Abdullah bin Khalaf Al-Waq-it was appointed director of

the National Information Centre. Dr Tariq Abdullah Al-Sheddi was appointed as the head of the National Data Management Office.

Prior to his appointment as foreign minister, Prince Faisal served as Saudi am-bassador to Germany. Before that, he was adviser at the ministry of foreign affairs and senior adviser at the Saudi embassy in Wash-

ington. He had served in various capacity in both

private and public sectors from 2001 to 2019, includ-ing as representative of Boeing Industrial Technol-ogy Group, vice chairman of and later as board chair-man of Alsalam Aero-space Company. Faisal was also a member of the board of Saudi Military In-dustries Corporation and chairman of the Executive Committee.

DUBAI: There will be no more paper forms to fill as applying, renewing or can-celling family visa -- it can now be done at the touch of a button, according to the General Directorate of Resi-dency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA).

The GDRFA sent out an SMS advisory to residents saying: “You can now get, re-new or cancel your spouse’s and children’s residency on DubaiNow app. To down-load, bit.ly/31lPYwV.” The DubaiNow app is the first unified Dubai government services smart app offering a total of 88 Dubai govern-ment services. By using the app, one can check the visa status or enquire about the status of any GDRFA service. The app also allows a user to view and manage family visa application or get a new resi-dency visa to bring a family

Renew or cancel UAE family visa on your phone now

member to Dubai.Previously, a sponsor

could only cancel a visa through an accredited typ-ing centre or by going to any GDRFA branch.Cancel-lation must be processed through the GDRFA centre that stamped the residence visa. The typing centre will fill the cancellation form on behalf of the sponsor and process it online through the GDRFA website. The paper transaction is now elimi-nated and the announce-ment by the GDRFA comes on the heels of the recent directive by Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bi n Rashid Al Maktoum to all government departments on Monday to make their services paper-less in the next two years.Paperless method

In a series of tweets, Sheikh Hamdan praised

the success of the Dubai Paperless Strategy and said that more can still be done in curbing paper waste by 2021. The Dubai Paperless Strategy was launched by Sheikh Hamdan in Feb 2018 to digitise all internal and external government to con-sumer transactions, ensuring all transactions are 100pc paperless. Sheikh Hamdan said: “I have overseen the progress of the Dubai Paper-less Strategy over the past two years and have now directed all government entities to work with Smart Dubai and ensure all digital Government to Consumer services are delivered via DubaiNow, gradually elimi-nating all individual entity applications.”

In line with the Dubai Pa-perless Strategy, after 2021, government entities will no longer issue or request paper

documents from customers for any transaction, while government employees will also stop issuing or process-ing paper in key or support-ing internal operations. Ac-cording to the government, the implementation of the strategy will eliminate the use of over one billion pieces of paper per year, saving 1.3 lakh trees on top of saving Dh900 million that would have been spent in paper transactions.

Expatriate residents, both employers and em-ployees, may sponsor their families in the UAE provided they have a valid residency permit. Male residents who are employed in the UAE can sponsor their immedi-ate family members, such as wife and children, subject to conditions which include minimum salary of Dh4,000 or Dh3,000 (Contd. on page 2)

JEDDAH: A new visa, which allows citizens and expatri-ates to host people under their personal sponsorship for up to 90 days, will be available within the coming days.

The Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat) and the Ministry of Haj and Um-rah are carrying out studies about the introduction of the “host visa” service through the ministry of interior’s portal of Absher.

Under this visa system, a citizen or expatriate can host from three to five Umrah pil-grims. As for citizens, they can host anyone whom he wants to bring in. However, as far as expatriates are con-cerned, they can only bring close relatives, according to sources. The Jawazat and the ministry will soon come out with a working mechanism

Saudi offers ‘host visa’for the host visa, which would costs SR500 per per-son for a year. The same person can be brought to the Kingdom at least three times in a year after issuance of separate visa for each travel through Absher.

The visa allows the hosts to entertain their guests with full of freedom for travel and stay either in hotels, furnished apartments or along with them in their residential apartments. The visa holders can travel freely throughout the Kingdom and participate in tourist activities. The data of the guests will be recorded in the Civil Status registry of citizens and Absher portal of expatriates. It will be the responsibility of the host citizens and expatriates to take care of their guests and

serve them until their depar-ture from the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia threw open its doors to foreign tourists from Sept 27, launching a new visa regime benefit-ing citizens of 49 countries. According to the new visa regime, visitors from some countries are eligible to obtain a visa on arrival while others need to apply at one of the Saudi diplomatic missions in advance. The total cost for a multiple re-entry tourist visa is SR440 ($118) for a period of one year, and this includes SR300 government fee plus charges for health insurance, tax and transaction fee. Tour-ists will be allowed to stay in the Kingdom for a maximum period of 90 days during the year during which they can enter the Kingdom multiple times.

Caution to Indians visiting TurkeyNEW DELHI: India has is-sued a travel advisory for its citizens visiting Turkey advising them to exercise “utmost caution” during their journey to the trans-continental nation follow-ing tensions with the US. The government, however, clarified there have been no reports of untoward incident in Turkey so far involving Indian nationals.

“Government of India has been receiving queries from Indian nationals trav-elling to Turkey in view of the situation in the region. Although there have been no reports of untoward in-cidents in the country so far involving Indian nationals, travellers are requested to exercise utmost caution while travelling to Turkey,” the advisory said. In the advisory, the government almost mentioned that those requiring assistance may get in touch with the Indian mission/posts through the helpline (Contd. on page 2)

DUBAI: TransferWise, the global low-cost online mon-ey transfer service founded in the UK, is capitalising on this lucrative market by expanding to the MidEast after receiving a licence this week from the Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Ser-vices Regulatory Authority to operate in the Emirates. It is expected to be available

Low cost money service TransferWise to enter UAE

early next year.“The MidEast was always

on our map because of the significant volumes that flow here, but also the costs of sending money,” Matt Briers, chief financial officer of TransferWise, said. Trans-ferWise brings a paradigm shift to the money transfer service in the country and in the region.

The high costs, incon-venience and time wasted are a few of the pain points that come with international money transfers. The UAE has seen increased focus on these issues with the recent explosion of FinTech com-panies in the payments and remittances space. Industry analysts say TransferWise’s entry in (Contd. on page 2)

BJP-Sena alliance retains Maharashtra,Haryana heading for hung assemblyMUMBAI: The BJP has re-tained the strategically im-portant Maharashtra with ally Shiv Sena but its per-formance has been a downer at the face of a resurgent Congress-NCP opposition.

As per the Election Com-mission website, the BJP was leading in 99 seats, which is below the 122 it secured in 2014. The Shiv Sena bagged 57 seats, Congress 44 and the National Congress Party 54. But as per leads, the BJP-Sena alliance is leading in nearly 160 seats while the Congress-

NCP is leading in around 105 seats. Bickering has starrted between Sena and BJP over the chief ministership. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has won from his hometown Nagpur while Shiv Sena debutant Aaditya Thackeray wrested the Worli seat.

In Haryana, it is a neck and neck fight between BJP and Congress, with BJP lead-ing in 40 seats and Congress in 30 seats. But the half-way mark is 46 and hence no party can form a government without the support of the

Jat-dominated JJP. In Kerala by-polls, Congress bagged three seats while the CPM won in two seats while in Odisha, the lone seat was captured by the ruling BJD with a massive majority. In Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK bagged the two assembly seats with comfort-able majority, making the government’s position stron-ger. In MP, Congress leader Kantilal Bhuria wrested the Jhabua (ST) from the BJP.

According political ana-lysts, the Maratha /Jat reserva-

tion issues badly mauled the BJP in Maharashtra and Hary-ana respectively. In the politi-cally crucial UP, the bypolls to 11 assembly seats, which were being seen as a litmus test for the Yogi Adityanath government, the BJP has won five of the six seats for which results have been declared.

In Punjab, the Capt Ama-rinder Singh-led Congress has won three out of the four assembly seats while in Puducherry, the Congress retained the Kamaraj Nagar constituency in by-poll.

2 EMIGRATION Friday, October 25, 2019

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

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LIPSYNCH “Every morning, we are born again --- what we do today is what matters most”.

— Gautam Buddha.

NRIs in dilemmaGone are the days when “Banking on banks” was a

pouplar pharase and literally people had great faith in our banks. The money in the bank was regarded

as a safe investment which can be called back whenever necessary. While the recent bank scams have badly affected the credibility of our banking sector, NRIs, particularly from the Gulf , are in a dilemma --- where to put their hardearned money. While banks have become suspect and suceptible to bankruptcy, the other field of investment , the real east-ate sector, is in a worse situation. In fact , banking and real estate are linked to scams.

In the last three years, the Indian banking system has lost Rs 1.76 trillion (about $24.4 billion) on account of non-performing loans of 416 defaulters — each owing Rs 1 billion or more — being written off. A total of Rs 2.75 trillion (about $39 billion) has been written off for entities that borrowed Rs 1 billion or more from scheduled commercial banks. As many as 980 borrowers have been enlisted by RBI whose debts of more than Rs1 billion each had to be written off by banks. As per a recent information furnished under the RTI Act, SBI, India’s largest bank, wrote off bad loans worth Rs 766 billion of defaulters who owed more than Rs 1 billion each.

The Indian banking sector, currently plagued with an unprecedented spike in non-performing assessts (NPAs) due to sticky loans, have raised questions on the safety of deposits while the yields on deposit products have been on a steady decline as RBI continues to cut interest rates to boost the flagging loan growth in the country. As if in sympathy, the real estate sec-tor, another major area where Gulf NRIs park their money, too have been going through a slump, resulting in severe erosion in property values and cash crunch for NRI investors. The issues faced by Gulf NRIs are peculiar as they have no permanent residency in their host countries. Thus, they are forced to invest some portion of their savings in real estate and the rest in liquid asset classes such as term deposits and gold. Many are not savvy with financial market investments.

Liquidity is a major concern for Gulf NRIs, most of whose jobs don’t offer retirement benefits when they return home. That is probably the reason many keep their savings in bank deposits or in retirement schemes sold by banks and insur-ance companies. The recent failure of PMC Bank has high-lighted the risks depositors face when it comes to safety and liquidity. The PMC episode has highlighted bank deposits are no longer the safest option as the maximum deposit insurance offered in India is a meagre Rs 1 lakh. Prior to this, South Indian Co-operative Bank had gone burst. The number and value of NPAs of Indian banks have skyrocketed in recent years. At its peak, the gross NPA to advances ratio exceeded 11pc. RBI should wake up from its deep slumber and act now.

Editorial

DUBAI: Dhanteras, an In-dian festival, is considered the most auspicious day in the year to buy gold and it falls on Oct 25 (subject to change) this year. Di-wali, which falls a day later, also marks an auspicious time for gold purchase for Indians who observe the festival.

Nevertheless, this year, gold prices made a jump of more than 20pc from prices in 2018. In Aug, suggested retail rates for selling gold in the UAE touched Dh173.75 a gm for 22K gold --- the highest in six years. 22K gold is the one most com-monly used in retail jewel-lery while some jewellery brands also sell cheaper 18K gold jewellery pieces.

Gold pr ices are a t Dh169.25 for 22K gold. Pric-es have dropped by almost five dirhams (Dh4.50 to be exact) from its highest levels per gram of the precious metal, though the rates have been stable for the past couple of weeks hov-

Dubai ready for Dhanteras gold dealsering around Dh170. Even after a drop of 2.7pc over the last couple of months, the price of Dh169.25 for a gm is a drastic increase

from last year. The price of 24K gold was only around Dh149.25 per gm ahead of Diwali in 2018, compared with the rate of Dh179.75 for a gm of 24K gold - a dif-ference of more than Dh30

for one gm. For jewellery purchases, the difference in prices then and now is eas-ily over Dh200, for example a couple of small-earrings

that weigh eight grams in total.

For buyers set on buy-ing gold for Diwali, jewel-lery brands in the UAE have special offers running. For example, buyers can

book purchases ahead of Dhanteras at the day’s rate --- which means you will be able to block the day’s price. In this case, the buyer

will not be affected by an increase in price on the day of purchase, but still can take benefit in case the price drops below the blocked rate. For example, if you block your gold purchase

today at Dh169.25, you will only have to pay that even if the price is higher on the day of purchase. Most brands ask for 10pc of the total expected purchase amount to book the deal.

Some stores are also offering free gold coins based on amounts pur-chased -- usually a one or half-gm 22K gold coins for purchases above Dh3,000.

Gold exchange is also be-ing encouraged by brands, with an offer of zero per cent deduction on value of old gold exchanged for new items. Bargains are to be made on making charges as well --- these are the design charges added to the gold rate when buying an item of jewellery. This charge is calculated a percentage of the weight price of gold and can go as high as 18pc on pieces with a lot of de-sign work. Smaller stores are offering discounts on this charge to make gold purchases more affordable ahead of Diwali.

JALANDHAR: As many as 20 Indian origin politicians have scripted history by making it to Canadian par-liament — House of Com-mons — in this year’s gen-eral election. Of these, 19 are Punjabis. As many as 19 Indians, including 18 Punjabis, had got elected in the 2015 elections.

Ontario alone has sent as many as 12 Indo-Canadian leaders to parliament, while British Columbia (BC) has elected four, Alberta three and Quebec one (Liberal Party’s Anju Dhillon). Like last time, Liberal Chander-kanth Arya of Karnataka is the lone non-Punjabi Indian to make it from Napean (Ontario). While Barna-la-origin Jagmeet Singh, whose National Democratic Party (NDP) won 24 seats and may turn out to be the kingmaker, won from BC’s Burnaby South, no other Punjab-origin candidate of the party could win a seat.

As expected, the Punjabi

Record 19 Punjabi MPs in Canada

Jagmeet Singh

community has clearly gone with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, re-peating the 1993 scenario. As many as 14 of the 18 Punjabi candidates fielded by the party registered wins. These include three minis-ters — Hoshiarpur’s Harjit Sajjan (Vancouver South), Ludhiana’s Bardish Chag-ger (Waterloo) and Navdeep Bains (Mississauga Malton) — Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey Newton), hockey legend Baljit Sikand’s son Ga-

gan Sikand (Mississauga Streetsville), Jalandhar’s Ra-meshwar Sangha (Bramp-ton Centre), Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre), Maninder Sidhu (Brampton East), Kamal Khera (Brampton East), Ruby Sahota (Bramp-ton North), Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South), Anju Dhillon (Lachine Lassalle) and Raj Saini (Kitchener Centre) and Anita Anand (Oakville).

Conservatives fielded 19 Punjabi candidates, but only four sailed through — former MP Tim Uppal (Ed-monton Mill Woods), third-timer Bob Saroya (Markham Unionville), first-timer Jas-raj Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn) and Jagdeep Sahota (Calgary Skyview). The most prominent candidate to lose is former minister Amarjit Sohi, who lost to Uppal, a native of Raikot’s Bassian village in Ludhiana and the brother-in-law of Jalandhar Cantt Congress MLA Pargat Singh.

Indian-origin lawyer Rik Mehta to run for US Senate seatNEW JERSEY: Indian-American attorney Rik Mehta plans to run for the US Senate seat in New Jersey. Mehta will be chal-lenging US Senator Cory

Booker, a Democrat who is also vying for the party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential race.

A YouTube post put up by Mehta said: “While Cory Booker campaigns around the country for his doomed presidential bid, the New Jersey economy continues to tank and our beautiful

towns are becoming des-titute.” Mehta’s parents came to the US from India before he was born and the lawyer highlighted his parents’ story of immigrat-ing in the video, vowing to support other immigrants like himself.

“For too long our state has been failed by socialist politicos like Cory, who con-tinue to build their careers off the backs of our proud immigrant communities — while real New Jerseyans continue to struggle. No more. I spent my life fight-ing for communities and that’s what I’ll do in Wash-ington,” he said. Mehta is a first-time candidate and will be running as a Repub-lican under the campaign slogan “Jersey Proud”. He is a vice president at Aques-tive Therapeutics and an adviser of Licentiam Inc., a firm focused on reducing regulation in the healthcare industry.

Rik Mehta

NEW DELHI: Indian-Cana-dian star Lilly Singh says her journey from being a You-Tube sensation to becoming the first woman to host a late night TV show in the US has been a “complete shock” but it has also given her a bigger platform to tell authentic stories about her upbring-ing and culture. Lilly admits hosting a late night show is quite a shift for her, some-thing she is learning about along the way.

“Everything in my life and career has been a com-plete shock to me. I’m just rolling with the punches. If things I do build a com-munity, I’ll consider it a success,” she says about her

I want people in my show whocan talk well, says Lilly Singh

Lilly Singh

new gig, “A Little Late with Lilly Singh”. The offer for the NBC show, which airs

in India exclusively on Star World, came as a surprise to the star, who says she was initially “confused” as she didn’t believe that the network wanted her as a

host. “But I was also ner-vous and excited because it was unlike anything I had done before. It was really big in terms of schedule and how much time it would take from my life,” she told A TV channel. Lilly, who made a flying visit to India to promote the show , says her fans in the country ral-lied behind her like never before.

“I was blown away by how positive everyone’s response was in India. I have never felt this amount of support with anything else I’ve done before in my career. India was over-whelmingly supportive and positive. I felt like every-

body was rallying behind me.”The late night TV show scene has traditionally been a boy’s club but Lilly has already declared that she will be a disrupter.

She is taking the “bi-sexual woman of colour” tag given to her by the me-dia in her stride by joking about being the one with the “melanin” when people are used to seeing Jimmys, a reference to popular show hosts -- Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. “I know you’re used to only Jimmys in your spotlight/ but I’m gonna throw some melanin in your late night,” she had declared in her rap in the first episode.

How to change address, mobile number, photo in Aadhaar cardMUMBAI: If you are look-ing to update six kinds of details into the Aadhaar database, you just need to visit an Aadhaar centre near your house to get it done.

For any update or cor-rection in details such as Aadhaar enrolment, ad-dress update, photo/bio-metric update, name/gen-

der/ date of birth, mobile number/email id update, Aadhaar download and coloured print, just walk into the nearest Aadhaar Seva Kendra (ASK) with the valid documents and get the details updated. Aadhaar enrolees are re-quired to visit any Aadhaar centre with valid support-

ing documents in original, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said. The UIDAI charges a fee of Rs 50 for any such update at its centres.

Of these 6 services, you can update or change ad-dress online. In order to change or update address in your Aadhaar card online,

mobile number is mandatoy as you will receive the OTP on your registered mobile number. You can use any of the 44 documents listed on the UIDAI website to change your address. Aad-haar card is mandatory for various purposes like filing income tax return or getting a PAN card. It is also manda-

tory to avail benefits of vari-ous government schemes.

Recently, Aadhaar Seva Kendras were opened in Hisar, Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Bhopal, Agra, Vi-jayawada and Patna. These ASKs have the capacity to handle up to 1000 Aad-haar enrolment or update requests per day.

Renew or cancel UAE...(Contd. from page 1)plus accommodation. Since March 2019, the type of profession is no longer a condition for an expatriate worker to be able to sponsor his family visas.

The UAE government amended its previous pro-vision under which only listed professions could apply for family sponsor-ship visa.

Now, a foreign worker can bring over his fam-ily members to the UAE and sponsor their resi-dence visas regardless of his profession as long as he maintains the “income criteria” -- the minimum wage requirement.

Caution to Indians visiting...(Contd. from page 1)numbers ---embassy of India, Ankara 90 312 4408259 and 90 312 4382195 Ext 111 and consulate general of Istanbul 90 212 2962131 and 90 212 2962132. This comes amid tensions escalating between the US and Turkey after President Trump decided earlier this month to withdraw all 1,000 US troops from Syria, a move widely criticised as a betrayal of Kurdish allies who had fought for years alongside US forces against Islamic State.

Low cost money transfer...(Contd. from page 1)the region could mean good news for customers. “TransferWise brings a paradigm shift to the money transfer service in the coun-try and in the region because it solves very important pain points that the customer has been facing,” says Mirna Sleiman, founder and chief executive of FinTech Galaxy, a virtual accelerator in the Mena region.She says the move will also allow local FinTechs to “piggyback on this new development” by either offering their own digital services or potentially partnering with TransferWise.

A total of Dh169.2 billion was sent from the UAE last year, the Central Bank’s 2018 annual report shows. Global remit-tances totalled $689 billion in 2018, according to World Bank figures. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were the second and third top remittance countries after the US in 2017. The global average cost for sending money in the second quarter of this year was 6.84pc and the average from the MidEast and North Africa was 6.91pc, according to a June World Bank report. That is more than double the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of decreasing the cost to three per cent by 2030.

“The average cost and length of time it can take to transfer money across borders is a significant challenge that continues to this day,” says Jackson Mueller, associate director of the FinTech programme at the Milken Institute Centre for Financial Markets in Washington.

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Friday, October 25, 2019

FOR CIRCULATIONcirculation@newsandnri.com

Readers are requested to verify and make appropriate enquiries to satisfy them-selves about the veracity of an advertise-ment before responding to any published advertisements in this newspaper. NEWS AND NRI CONNECT, its publisher and owner IPEPCIL Publications do NOT vouch for the authenticity of any adver-tisement or advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s products and /or services. In no event can the owner, publisher, printer, editor, director, employees of this newspaper/company be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any claims and /or damages for advertise-ments in this newspaper.

D I S C L A I M E R

The Mangalore Refinery and Pet-rochemicals Limited (MRPL), an ONGC subsidiary, has invited ap-

plications for a total of 233 posts across positions. Interested candidates can ap-ply at the official website, mrpl.co.in. Submission of online applications is currently underway and will continue till November 9. The cutoff date for deciding the maximum permissible age and post qualification work experience shall be November 9.

Candidates need to pass the written test followed by skill test, physical test and document verification process to

MRPL notifies vacancy for 233 posts

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow has com-

pleted the Summer Place-ments for the class of 2019-21 of the two-year Post Graduate Programme.

The mean stipend of selected students is Rs 1.09 lakh per month while median stipend is Rs 1.20 lakh per month, claimed IIM Lucknow in a press statement. This year, IIM Lucknow has recorded 100pc placements for its 35th batch of 481 students in a record time.

Top segments based on the roles offered were sales and marketing (25pc), consulting (24pc), finance (17pc), operations, IT/Sys-tems (17pc), general man-agement (9pc) and e-com-merce (8pc). The remaining offers were from domains such as market research, analytics, business devel-opment, digital marketing and supply chain amongst others.

The recruitment drive saw participation from more than 140 domestic and international recruit-ers. The participation of

IIM Lucknow summer placement report for batch 2019-21these firms also marked the ascent of IIM Lucknow as a preferred recruitment destination for marketing, consulting and finance roles in the country.

Prof Rajesh Aithal, chairman Students’ Af-

fairs and Placement at-tributes this to pedagogy, competencies and values students acquire at IIM Lucknow. “With this year’s placements, IIM Lucknow has yet again reinforced its presence among the top Business schools in the country and has proven to be a preferred destination for organisations which se-lect very limited B-schools to recruit.”

“This performance has once again stamped the

authority of IIM Lucknow as the premier B-School in the country. IIM Lucknow has yet again reinforced its presence as a premier B-school with 100pc Sum-mer Placements,” he said.

Some of the top recruit-

ers across different sectors were Accenture Strategy, Aditya Birla Group, Ama-zon, A.T. Kearney, Avendus Capital, Bain and Co, Citi, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, JP Morgan Chase and Co, McKinsey and Co., Microsoft, Mul-tiples Alternate Asset Man-agement, P&G, TAS, The Boston Consulting Group, Uber, and Udaan.

First-time recruiters in-clude companies like Ap-

parel Group, Beam Suntory, Hindustan Coca-Cola Bev-erages, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Ola, Paragon Partners, Pioneer-ing Ventures among others. Companies such as Apparel Group, Cipla, Deutsche Bank, Hindustan Unilever and Landmark Group of-fered international profiles, IIM Lucknow official said in a press statement.Sector-Wise SummaryFMCG/Consumer Goods/Telecom/Digital Media Sec-tors

In the FMCG/Consumer Goods/Telecom/Digital Me-dia sectors, a total number of 139 offers were made. In addition to the traditional sales and marketing roles, these firms offered roles in supply chain manage-ment, IT, corporate finance and analytics with some of them being exclusive roles for IIM Lucknow.BFSI sector

Banking, financial ser-vices and insurance (BFSI) sector saw participation of companies such as Aven-dus Capital, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Multiples Alternate

Asset Management that hired for their private eq-uity, front end investment banking, and global mar-kets roles.

In addition to this, the sector saw a total of 68 offers by firms such as American Express, Axis Capital, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Edelweiss, Gold-man Sachs, HSBC, ICICI, JP Morgan Chase and Co., Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Paragon Part-ners, Pioneering Ventures, Royal Bank of Scotland among others. The major roles were in investment research, corporate/whole-sale/retail banking, market research, trading and op-erations.Consulting and General Management Sector

In the consulting do-main a total of 121 of-fers were made. Accen-ture Strategy, AT Kearney, Auctus Advisors, Bain & Co., Deloitte, MasterCard Advisors, McKinsey & Co. and The Boston Consulting Group were among the top recruiting firms. The Gen-eral Management domain saw participation from

companies such as Aditya Birla Group, Reliance In-dustries, RPG, RPSG and TAS among others.IT/E-Commerce/Technol-ogy sector

Some of the firms in the IT/E-commerce/Technology sectors were Adobe, Ama-zon, Byju’s, Capgemini, Cloudtail, Ekart, Flipkart, Google, Media.net, Micro-soft, Ola, Samsung, Swiggy, Uber and Wipro. In addi-tion to roles in IT/Systems, these firms opened roles in category management, sales enablement, business development, supply chain management, product mar-keting, strategic alliances, program management and analytics.

HIGHLIGHTSPlacements 100pcNo. of students 481No. of offers: 481Mean Stipend: 1.09 L per monthMedian Stipend: 1.20 L per monthSales/Marketing 25pcStrategy/Consult 24pcFinance 17pcOperations/IT 17pcGeneral Mgmt 9pcE-commerce 8pc

Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s biggest util-ity vehicles maker,

has opened country’s first all-women-run automobile service workshop in Jaipur to promote recruitment of women in core productive roles across the company’s automobile workshops.

Run by a team of nine women, the facility, called Compact Qwik (CQ) outlet, is a Mahindra authorised two-bay workshop.

Owned and operated by Kalyan Motors, Mahindra’s channel partner in Jaipur, the CQ outlet is now run by a team of women in roles such as technicians, service advis-ers, drivers, part managers and security guards.

“At Mahindra, we are de-lighted to inaugurate India’s first ever automobile work-shop powered entirely by women,” Veejay Ram Nakra, Chief of Sales and Market-ing, Automotive Division at Mahindra & Mahindra, said.

Terming the initiative “Pink Collars”, he said the company aims to skill and empower more women, which will result in a gender-diverse and inclusive workforce.

Mahindra opens all-women workshop

(Exp. in Sewage Treat.Plant)• STP Operator-10 Nos.

be eligible for final selection. The writ-ten test will be conducted at centres in Karnataka. The dates of the test are yet to be announced.Eligibility

For the post of security inspector, the upper age limit is 45 years. For the post of a junior officer and trainee assistant, the upper age is capped at 38 and 41 years, respectively. For all other posts, the upper age limit is 26 years. There is also provision for age relaxation for reserved category candidates.

Coming to educational qualification, candidates need to have a graduate or

diploma level of education with at least 60pc marks. There is a relaxation for minimum marks for candidates belong-ing to reserved category. Each post also has specific educational qualification. Candidates are advised to check the detailed advertisement before submitting the application.Selection process

The Written Test will comprise of 120 Multiple Choice Questions, consisting of two sections – part I will consist of general awareness of 40 marks, consisting of 40 objective questions) and part-II will consist of discipline or subject-based questions

for 80 marks. Each question will have one mark and no negative marking will be there. The exam will be conducted at centres in Karnataka only. Candidates need to score at least 60pc marks in the exam, for reserved category candidates the same is 50pc.How to apply

Step 1: Visit the official website, mrpl.co.in/careers

Step 2: On the homepage, click on ‘human resource’, select ‘careers’ in the drop-down menu

Step 3: Click on the link ‘recruitment in non-management cadre’

Step 4: You will be redirected to a new page, click on ‘apply online’

Step 5: Read instructions, check the box and click continue

Step 6: Fill the form, upload docu-ments, check the box and submitPay Scale and Salary

Candidates selected in JM3 grade will be placed on probation for a period of one year in scale of pay of Rs 13,800 – 38,500. For all other posts, the selected candidates will be placed as Trainees on consolidated monthly stipend of Rs 30,000/- during training period of one year. These salaries are as per pre-revised pay matrix.

GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Friday, October 25, 2019

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Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 106 Answer

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Sudoku Puzzle

Your wellness

Union health min-istry will launch the second phase of

nationwide immunisation drive in the second week of December to vaccinate children in 271 districts with an immunisation cov-erage of less than 70pc. Only 16 districts currently have routine immunisation coverage of 90pc or more.

About 87pc children are covered under the govern-ment’s universal immuni-sation programme (UIP), which is a significant jump from the national average of 70pc in 2014. At least 40 million children have been immunised since 2014.

Intensif ied Mission Indradhanush 2.0, being

Health ministry’s intensifi ed immunisation drive to reach 90 per cent children

launched in December, aims to achieve at least 90pc Pan-India immunisa-tion coverage by 2022.

For the first time, dis-tricts were identified us-ing a composite index of

low immunisation cover-age, disease outbreak data, vaccine-preventable dis-ease data, and aspirational

districts data across the country.

In 2017, the government

launched Intensified Mis-sion Indradhanush (IMI) to reach out to children who were not immunised at all or may had received partial immunisation. In one year, around 5 million children were immunised against 12 vaccine preventable diseases.

The ministry will con-tinue the intensified im-munisation drive as latest government data shows that only 16 districts in the country have achieved 90pc coverage so far.

“The districts chosen for the current drive have immunisation coverage of 70pc or below, which is less than the national average. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,

the drive will be conducted at the block-level, for which 652 blocks have been iden-tified in 109 districts,” said Vandana Gurnani, addi-tional secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.

The drive will take place for a week for four con-secutive months beginning December.

“We will not stop until every single child is im-munized in the country. I am not satisfied with the 90pc target, I am aim-ing for 100pc coverage,” said health minister Harsh Vardhan.

India this year is com-memorating 25 years of its successful Pulse Polio Programme.

Enjoying juicy oranges under the sweet win-ter sunshine sounds

like the perfect leisure plan.

Winter is an ideal time to enjoy most citrus fruits as they become sweeter and juicier. Oranges, besides being good for your taste

Here’s why you should eat oranges during winters

buds, also help boost immu-nity levels in cold weather. Right from dry and dull skin to weak digestive systems,

citrus fruits are a one-stop home remedy for all these problems.

The rich vitamin C con-tent present in oranges

may reduce the risk of heart disease, kidney stones and infections of all kinds. Moreover, it also helps boost digestion and comprises alkalising and detoxifying properties that help keep one healthy.Here is why you should consume oranges in win-ters.Weight loss

The soluble fibre in or-anges keeps you fuller for long, thus preventing hun-ger pangs and overeating. This may also lead to less calorie intake, further help-ing in weight loss. Fibre also tends to add bulk to the stool, helping promote good digestive health.Vitamin C for the skin

Vitamin C in oranges ups the resistance against certain pathogens while giv-

ing a boost to the immunity system. Topical application and intake of orange is said to nourish your skin, mak-ing it look healthier.Prevent common flu

According to research, published in the Harvard Health Pub-lishing by H a r v a r d M e d i c a l School, vitamin C is ben-eficial when it comes to the common cold.Boosts heart health

According to research, published in Science Daily sourced by the American Heart Association, eating citrus fruits, especially or-anges and grapefruits, may help lower stroke risk. It is believed that the flavonoids in oranges provide protec-tion against heart diseases.

Researchers have devel-oped a simple, low-cost way to predict

pre-eclampsia, one of the leading causes of maternal-foetal mortality worldwide.

Pre-eclampsia can cause devastating complications for women and babies,

i n c l u d i n g brain and liver injury in mothers

and premature birth.“In developing nations,

pre-eclampsia is a leading cause of death for both mothers and babies. In Ghana, it’s responsible for 18pc of maternal deaths,” said Enoch Anto, the study researcher from Edith Cow-an University in Australia.

“But it can be treated us-ing medication that lowers blood pressure once diag-nosed,” Anto added.

New method to predict pregnancy disorder developed

For the study published in the EPMA Journal, re-searchers assessed the health status of over 500 pregnant Ghanaian women using Suboptimal Health Questionnaire. Combining scores for fatigue, heart

health, digestion, immu-nity and mental health, the questionnaire provides an overall “suboptimal health score” that can help predict chronic diseases.

The researchers found that 61pc of women who scored high on the question-naire went on to develop pre-eclampsia, compared with just 17pc of women who scored low.

When these results were

combined with blood tests that measured women’s cal-cium and magnesium levels, the researchers were able to accurately predict the devel-opment of pre-eclampsia in almost 80pc of cases.

According to the re-

searchers, pre-eclampsia was very treatable once identified, so providing an early warning could save thousands of lives.

“Both blood tests for magnesium and calcium and the Suboptimal Health Questionnaire are inexpen-sive, making this ideally suited to the developing world where pre-eclampsia causes the most suffering,” Anto said.

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) has topped the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) In-

dia University Rankings 2020. This is the second time QS has published separate ranking for top institutions in India. The first edi-tion was released in 2019, and IITB had clinched the top place on the list even then.

Six other IITs have found a place among the top ten institutions in the QS list of top Indian institutions. They are Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) at number 3, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) at number 4, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT-KGP)

IIT-Bombay again tops this year’s QS India University

at number 5, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) at number 6, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR) at number 9 and

Indian Institute of Technology Gu-wahati (IITG) at number 10.

Indian Institute of Science Ban-galore (at number 2), University of Hyderabad (at number 8) and Uni-

versity of Delhi (at number 7) are the other three Indian institutes in the top 10 list.

Compared to last year, IITD has gained one posi-tion to acquire the third rank, while the IIT Madras has fallen one place to stand at fourth place on the QS India Rankings list this year. Similarly, University of Delhi has gained one place to stand at number 7, while University of Hyderabad has lost one place to stand at number 8.

The British higher education analysts QS has ranked the higher education institutions in India on the basis eight parameters which have different weightage. The eight parameters with their weight-

age are academic reputation (30pc), employer reputation (20pc), faculty student ratio (20pc), staff with PhD (10pc), Papers per faculty (10pc), ci-tation per paper (5pc), international faculty (2.5pc) and international students (2.5pc).

In the National Institutional Rankings Framework list 2019, re-leased by the Ministry of Human Resource Development earlier this year, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras had topped the list of higher education institutes in the overall category. IISc Bengaluru bagged the second place in the list, while IIT Delhi stood at the third place. The fourth, fifth and sixth spot was clinched by IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur. JNU, New Delhi, IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati and Banaras Hindu Uni-versity (BHU) Varanasi bagged the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth spot respectively.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has met a delegation of

the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Northern Re-gion at the Delhi Secretariat to discuss issues of Delhi’s development and economic progress.

The CII shared its in-terest in working with the Delhi government in creat-ing a Knowledge Centre in Delhi, and Kejriwal said he would be happy to support such a program.

Delhi CM discusses employment ideas with CII

“Kejriwal expressed his concern over the grow-ing unemployment in the

country and asked the CII to support the government in developing programs to boost employment and generate jobs for Delhi’s youth. The CII expressed its interest in collaborating with the new Skills and En-trepreneurship University announced by the Delhi government last week,” the statement added.

The Chief Minister said that the CII can help the government identify key in-dustries that the new uni-

versity can design course for. The CII will work with the government to develop and design courses for the new university to ensure that all students graduating from the university will be employable.

The CII delegation also shared with the Chief Min-ister that their industry body was keen on col-laborating with the Delhi government towards im-proving Delhi’s cleanliness.

“The Chief Minister

urged them to present him with a plan for cleaning the city with timelines for the execution,” the government said in a statement.

He said that the gov-ernment was very keen on developing a cleaner city for the residents for which the government is looking for ideas. He told the delegation that his government would imple-ment a workable solution that the CII presents to the government.

In a first, the O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) launched a three-year

B.A. (honours) programme in legal studies which is interdisciplinary in nature with a focus on the social, economic and political context of law in society.

The programme at Jindal Global Law School has been rolled out in a bid to democratise the study of law and make it acces-sible to all stu-dents regardless of whichever academic stream they have been part of in their high school, said the university.

“ This new undergraduate programme in law will fulfil a much needed gap in Indian high-er education. It builds on the efforts of the Indian high school education sys-tem, which has introduced ‘legal studies’ as a course in recent years,” JGU Vice Chancellor C. Raj Kumar, said in a statement.

After the undergradu-ate degree in legal studies, students may choose to pursue the three-year LLB, which will empower them to become a lawyer.

“The students of BA Le-gal Studies being part of the Jindal Global Law School will have the opportunities to experience short term study abroad programmes in law that are held at Har-vard University, University

Jindal varsity launches 3-year BA prog in law

of Oxford, Fletcher School-Tufts University and also exchange programmes at many universities around the world including at the University of Arizona,” the JGU Vice-Chancellor said.

“This programme en-ables students to have a deep and substantive introduction to legal stud-ies within the context of humanities and social sci-ences,” he said.

The programme is de-signed to familiarise stu-dents with major legal and political discourses, while imparting skills essential for the performance of pre-legal and paralegal work as well as preparing them for careers in law, judiciary, academia, research and public service.

Its holistic training seeks to develop, in students, a strong legal and social sci-ences research foundation, the university said.

The launch of the first multi-disciplinary under-graduate programme in legal studies was preceded by a lecture on “Chang-ing the World Through Law” by Stephen P Marks, Professor at Harvard Uni-versity.

IN FOCUS6 Friday, October 25, 2019

GULF FAQs

I have been working in a construction com-pany based in Abu Dhabi for over seven years. My employer has not been providing me with remuneration on a timely basis since two years and the employees who resigned from the company did not receive their pending salaries and end-of-service benefits. My employment contract and employment card expired in Aug 2018. My employer has not renewed my employment card and the medical insurance. However, my residence visa is valid till Aug 2020. Who is responsible to bear the medical insurance costs of an employee?

We assume that you are employed in a company based in the mainland of emirate of Abu Dhabi and ,therefore, the applicable laws are Federal Law No. (8) of 1980 regulating employment relations in the UAE (the “Employment Law”) related to employment and Law No. (23) of 2005 regarding the health insurance scheme for the emirate of Abu Dhabi (the “Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law”) related to health insurance. As per the Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law, the employer may be re-sponsible for providing health insurance for all his employees and their family members (employee’s wife and three children under 18 years of age). This is in accordance with Article 5 of the Abu Dhabi Health Insur-ance Law which states: “Every employer shall provide health insurance coverage for all his employees/workers and their family members covering the employee’s/worker’s wife and three children under 18 years of age. Every sponsor shall subscribe to the scheme for any person under his sponsorship from the date of his arrival to the state unless such person is entitled for health insurance coverage by an employer. Expatriates may not be employed, issued residence permits nor have their existing permits renewed unless they are subscribed to the health insurance scheme.”

Further, it may be noted that it is illegal to work in the UAE without a valid work permit issued by Ministry of HR & Emirati-sation (MoHRE). This is in accordance with Article 13 of the Employment Law which states: “No non-national may be recruited for work in the UAE without the prior approval of the ministry and without first obtaining a work permit in accordance with the pro-cedures and regulations laid down by the MoHRE. Such permit shall not be granted unless the following conditions are fulfilled:

1) That the employee possesses the pro-fessional competence or educational quali-fication which the country is in need of;

2) That the employee has lawfully entered the country and satisfies the con-ditions prescribed in the residence regula-tions in force in the state.”

Therefore, it may be noted that upon the expiry of your employment contract and work permit, if your employer is eager to continue with your employment, then he should renew them by following the draft of the Standard Employment Contract. This is in accordance with Article 3 of Ministerial Decree (764) of 2015 on MoHRE approved Standard Employment Contracts which states: “The Standard Employment Contracts referenced in Article 1 must be used upon renewing contracts that are in force prior to the issuance of this decree.”

Since your employer has not terminated your employment contract, you may still con-tinue to work for him without the execution of a new job contract. In this scenario, the terms and conditions of your expired em-ployment contract is deemed to be extended. This is in accordance with Article 40 of the Employment Law which states: “Where the parties to the contract continue -- after expiry of its initial term or completion of the work agreed upon -- to perform the contract without explicit agreement, the original contract shall be deemed to have been extended on the same conditions except for the term.” Based on the aforementioned provision of the Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law, the employer is under an obligation to provide medical insurance to his employees and his family members as mentioned above until such employee’s residence visa in the UAE is sponsored by his employer. Furthermore, based on the afore-mentioned provisions of the Employment Law and Ministerial Decree, upon expiry of your employment contract you may approach the MoHRE and lodge a complaint against your employer for non-renewal of employment contract and medical insurance.Allowance not paid

I am currently employed in an electri-cal and contracting company under an unlimited contract. My remuneration is

UAE employer should provide medical insurance

split into two parts --- basic salary and cash allowance. I have been receiving my basic salary on time. However, my employer has not been paying my cash al-lowance regularly -- which has now been due for four months. How do I recover the cash component of the salary due to me by our employer?

Pursuant to your query, we assume that you are employed by a company based in the mainland of UAE and therefore, the provisions of Federal Law No. (8) of 1980 regulating employment relations in the UAE (the “Employment Law”) and Ministerial Decree No. 739 of 2016 concerning the protection of wages (the “Ministerial Decree No. 739 of 2016”) are applicable. Article-1 of the Employment Law defines remunera-tion as: “Any consideration, in cash or in kind, given to an employee, in return for his service under an employment contract, whether on yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, piecemeal, output or commission basis. The remuneration shall include the cost of living allowance. It shall also include any grant given to an employee as a reward for his honesty or efficiency, provided such amounts are stipulated in the employment contract or in the firm’s internal regula-tions or are being so customarily granted that the employees regard them as part of their remuneration and not as donations.”

As per the provisions of the Employment Law, it may be noted that an employee shall be remunerated at least once a month. This is in accordance with Article-56 of the Employment Law which states: “Employees engaged on yearly or monthly salary shall be paid remuneration at least once a month; all other workers shall be paid at least once every two weeks.” Therefore, if your employer only remunerates you partially, it may be considered as a non-payment of salary by an employer which is a violation of the Employment Law. If an employer does not remunerate an employee within one month of the salary becoming due, it shall be considered as a refusal of the employer to remunerate the staff. This is in accordance with Article 1(b) of Ministerial Decree No. 739 of 2016, which states: “The employer shall be deemed late in remunerating his employee unless he pays the salary within the first 10 days as of maturity date, and shall be deemed as refusing to pay the sal-ary unless he pays it within one month as of the maturity date, unless a less term is set/provided in the contract.” In view of the foregoing, you may file a complaint against your employer with the Ministry of HR and Emiratisation (MoHRE) concerning the non-payment of salary for the last four months. Further, while complaining, you may inform MoHRE that you intend to continue with the current employment and your demands are only related to settlement of outstanding salaries which are not paid to you.Health insurance

I work for an Abu Dhabi-based entity which has branches in Dubai and Ajman. My employment visa is issued from Abu Dhabi and my health insurance coverage is limited within Abu Dhabi. I am currently working at the Dubai branch of my em-ployer and, therefore, I had requested the company to provide an insurance policy that covers health costs in Dubai, to which they have not agreed. What are my rights for getting a health insurance in Dubai?

In view of your facts it may be noted that, in Abu Dhabi, employers and spon-sors are responsible for providing health insurance coverage for their employees and their families (one spouse and three chil-dren under 18 years). The Health Authority Abu Dhabi (HAAD) is the regulator of the healthcare sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. And the matters related to health insurance in Abu Dhabi are regulated by “Law No. (23) of 2005 and the executive regulations regarding the health insurance scheme for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi” (hereinafter called the “Insurance Law”).

Article 5 of the Insurance Law states: “Every employer shall provide health insurance coverage for all his employees/workers and their family members cover-ing the employee’s/worker’s wife and three children under 18 years of age. Every sponsor shall subscribe to the scheme for any person under his sponsorship from the date of his arrival in the state unless such person is entitled for health insurance coverage by an employer. Expatriates may not be employed, issued residence permits nor have their existing permits renewed unless they are subscribed to the health insurance scheme.”

Economics Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

Centre relaxes gift policy for employeesNEW DELHI: The central government has increased the monetary limits for accepting gifts for all its employees, relaxing the ceiling by more than three-fold. All officials under Groups-A and B categories shall not accept any gift without the sanction of the government if the value exceeds Rs 5,000. The limit to accept gifts for these groups of employees was Rs 1,500 earlier. Similarly, Group-C em-ployees will be able to accept gifts up to Rs 2,000 instead of Rs 500 without taking government approval.

Government employees under Group-A are senior officials. Govern-ment employees under Group- B could either be gazetted or non-gazetted officials. Most clerical posts and multi-tasking staff fall under Group-C.Officials said the ceiling limits were revised to bring them on par with those for the three all India services -- Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service.

Gifts include free transport, board-ing, lodging or other pecuniary advan-tage when provided by any person other than a near relative or personal friend having no official dealings with the government servant. A casual meal, lift or other social hospitality is not considered a gift, according to existing rules. The government has also removed the limit of Rs 1,000 for government employees to receive and retain gifts from foreign dignitar-ies. “A government servant, being a member of the Indian delegation or otherwise, may receive and retain gifts from foreign dignitaries in accordance with the provisions of The Foreign Contribution (Acceptance or Retention of Gifts or Presentation) Rules, 2012, as amended from time to time,” a Personnel Ministry order said, without citing further details. Existing rules bar a government servant from accepting any gifts from a foreign firm which is either contracting with the govern-

ment of India or is one with which the government servant had, has or is likely to have official dealings.

Gifts received from foreign dig-nitaries, from known or unknown sources are usually deposited with the “toshakhana” -- a repository of such articles. A government servant shall avoid accepting lavish hospital-ity or frequent hospitality from any individual, industrial or commercial firms, organisations, etc., having offi-cial dealings with him, the rules state.

On occasions such as weddings, anniversaries, funerals or religious functions, when the making of the gift is in conformity with prevailing religious and social practice, a govern-ment servant may accept gifts from his near relatives or from his personal friends having no official dealings with him, but shall make a report to the government, if the value of such gift exceeds prescribed threshold limits, the rules state.

UAE based Indian couple Faizal and Shabana Kottikolon, co-founders the Nadakkavu Govern-ment Vocational Higher Secondary School (GVHSS) for Girls in Kozhikode.

UAE-based couple creates top ranking school in IndiaKOZHIKODE: A UAE-based Indian couple’s efforts to elevate the standard of a girl’s government school in Kozhikode in Kerala has paid rich dividends, with the lo-cal government now set to implement its exemplary model across 141 government schools in the state benefit-ting lakhs of students.

The Nadakkavu Govern-ment Vocational Higher Sec-ondary School (GVHSS) for Girls, now a flagbearer of ex-cellence in education in India with a focus on the holistic development of students, has also been ranked as the No. 2 government school in the country in the Education World (EW) India School Rankings in 2019-2020. EW, India, is the world’s largest survey of primary-secondary schools with scores based on interviews with parents, senior school students, prin-cipals and teachers. The schools are evaluated on 14 different categories.

A once-crumbling school, the 120-year-old GVHSS underwent an infrastruc-tural transformation in 2015 with funds from UAE based Faizal and Shabana Founda-tion, the philanthropy arm of KEF holdings, a Dubai-based company. The school is run by Faizal and Shabana Kottikolon, co-founders of the foundation.

Faizal, founder and chair-

man of KEF Holdings, said: “The top ranking for Nadak-kavu school is a true testa-ment to the success of our foundation’s vision, “Giv-ing to Create Impact”. Our

goal is to drive the positive transformation of govern-ment – and private – schools through an integrated and participatory approach. We are honoured to have created this benchmark of excel-lence for education in India. We will continue to drive our education engagement initiatives across the country as well as in other nations.”How it all began

As Faizal said: “It all started with an interview where someone asked me what I thought India needed to do to change the face of

public education. I realised dilapidated infrastructure was the first thing that needed change. Poor con-ditions not only lowered self-esteem of children but

was the main cause of ab-senteeism and high dropout rate. So in collaboration with Pradeep Kumar, a lo-cal legislator, we began our work. When we arrived at this school the first time in 2014, we saw the structure was dilapidated. The build-ing housed classes for 2,400 girls, but had only eight toilets. The mid-day meals were not providing enough nutrition and teachers were qualified but had no upgrad-ing of skills programme.”

Pradeep Kumar, who had founded Prism (Promoting

Regionals Schools to Inter-national Standards through Multiple Interventions) was planning to utilise a portion of the development funds granted to local legislators

–- in this case around Rs10 million -- to repair the crum-bling school.

Faizal said: “We did not want to disrupt the school for a single day and under-took the project during the summer vacations, complet-ing it in 95 days, old walls were pulled down, new ones designed, toilets built and teachers imparted training through IIM Calicut. Sud-denly the self-confidence of students and teachers went up manifold when the school reopened for the new academic year in 2015.

Two-kid norm for Assam jobsGUWAHATI: The Assam cabinet has decided that from 2021, it will not give government jobs to people having more than two children. The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting held late on Monday evening that also adopted a New Land Policy, which will give three bighas of agricultural land to landless indigenous people and

half-a-bigha for constructing a house.“New Land Policy was adopted. Three bighas of land

will be given to landless indigenous people. Landless people will be offered half-a-bigha to construct their houses. These cannot be sold for 15 years,” the CMO statement said’

CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, October 25, 2019

ICICI Bank has opened 33 new branches in Ut-tar Pradesh in 2019-20,

including some branches in unbanked areas, a top company official said.

The bank now has a net-work of nearly 300 branch-es and extension counters in UP along with over 1,260 ATMs. Pan India, it has a wide retail network of 5,250 branches, ICICI Bank Executive Director Anup Bagchi said.

“While expanding our network in the state, we have laid emphasis on un-banked areas and opened 33 new branches,” he said.

The new branches have been opened in hitherto unbanked remote villages

ICICI Bank opens 33 new branches in UP this fiscal

in Fatehpur Kalan, Kasahai, Kathula Gospur, Malawan, Mundia Ahmed Nagar, Sarai Gulharia and Sidki, he said.

Other branches have been opened in locations like Lucknow, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Aligarh, Gorakhpur among others, he said.

The bank aims to open 450 new branches across the country in 2019-20, of which more than 375 have already been opened.

Bagchi, however, did not specify the number of branches proposed to be opened in UP.

“We believe that a wide branch network continues to be important for retail

banking. It helps deepen the relationship with the customer by serving them a wide range of products and offerings,” he said.

The bank’s strategy is to set up branches wherever business activity emerges.

“We will continue to follow this strategy and

add more branches in the state wherever required in the future as well,” he said.

Bagchi said that the na-ture of business at branches

has evolved in the last few years. Customers are now more keen on seek-ing advice and guidance from branches for complex

transactions, loans and in-vestments.

For simple transactions, they prefer doing it over digital channels like inter-net and mobile banking.

“Our new branches too have been aligned to meet these evolving require-ments…The design prin-ciple focuses on enhanc-ing digital transactions by introducing 24×7 e-lobby at many branches, simpli-fying customer navigation with demarcated spaces for transactions as well as elevating customer engage-ment levels with exclusive engagement pods for loans and investments at promi-nent catchment areas,” he said.

Kotak Mahindra Bank said that its profit after tax totalled

Rs 1,724 crore during the second quarter of the cur-rent financial year, up 51pc from Rs 1,142 crore in Q2 FY19.

Net interest income for Q2 FY20 increased to Rs 3,350 crore from Rs 2,676 crore in Q2 FY19, up by 25pc while net interest margin improved to 4.61pc from 4.19pc.

However, asset quality weakened in September quarter with gross non-performing assets (as a per-centage of gross advances) rising 13 basis points se-quentially to 2.32pc and net NPA climbing 12 basis points quarter-on-quarter to

Kotak Mahindra Bank Q2 net up

0.85pc in Q2.CASA (current account

savings account) ratio as on September 30 stood at 53.6pc compared to 50.2pc as on September 30 last year.

Average savings depos-its grew by 20pc to Rs 80,425 crore compared to Rs 66,892 crore for Q2 as average current account deposits grew by 22pc to Rs 33,216 crore for Q2 FY20 compared to Rs 27,231 crore for Q2 FY19.

Advances as on Septem-ber 30 were up 15pc to Rs 2.13 lakh crore (Rs 1.84 lakh crore as on September 30, 2018). Capital adequacy ratio of the bank as per Basel III norms is 18.2pc and tier I ratio is 17.6pc.

Amazon India has announced that it has partnered with

the Indian Railways for a pilot programme to carry out inter-city transport of e-commerce packages.

Amazon India would transport customer pack-ages with the Railways on three routes from New Delhi to Mumbai, Mumbai to New Delhi and New Delhi to Kolkata, the com-pany said.

The partnership is the first in the e-commerce industry to enable the Rail-ways to build an e-com-merce product for freight transport via rail, the re-lease said.

The company has seen improvement in speed for

Amazon tie up with Rlys for e-comm packagesground transportation of its packages and increased reliability for packages transported through the railways’ network, it said.

With the initial learn-ings, Amazon India is working with the Railways to build an e-commerce transportation product that would enhance capacity planning, contract payment methods, infrastructure

and security of freight movement virtue rail net-work, the release said.

“The reach and speed of the Indian Railways

will further help us fulfil customer orders faster and reliably across the coun-try,” Amazon India director (Middle Mile Transporta-tion) Abhinav Singh said.

“We are committed to a long-term partnership

with the Indian Railways, and are excited to partner with them to build freight movement solutions for the e-commerce industry,

leveraging the vast railways’ network, based on the learn-ings from our pi-lot programme,” he said.

Amazon India would continue to partner and create more opportunities to leverage the in-

frastructure built by the Railways, the release said.

Last month, Indian Railwayshad partnered with Amazon India for a pilot project to set up pick-up kiosks in four railway stations across Mumbai.

IT major Wipro Ltd said that it has been selected as a member of the

global Dow Jones Sustain-ability World Index (DJSI) 2019 for the tenth year in succession.

More than 2,000 com-panies were assessed from around the world and only 319 made it to the final DJSI World index for 2019-2020. Globally, Wipro ranks second in the IT services sector while it continues to be the leader in India.

Launched in 2009, the S and P DJSI World is the gold standard for corporate sustainability. Inclusion in the index is based on rig-

Wipro selected as DJSI member for 10th consecutive year

orous analysis of a compa-ny’s performance on more than 20 primary indicators and 120 secondary indica-

tors across a spectrum of economic, environmental, social and governance pa-rameters.

“We appreciate the com-prehensive nature of as-sessment as it helps us con-stantly improve our stan-

dards in our sustainability journey,” said Chief Execu-tive Officer and Managing Di-rector Abidali Neemuchwala.

“The recog-nition is a re-affirmation of Wipro’s values and our com-

mitment to being a sus-tainable and responsible corporation,” he said in a statement.

IIM Kozhikode and the oil PSU Mangalore Re-fineries and Petrochemi-

cals Ltd has introduced a particular drive to sup-port women entrepreneurs within the nation.

The initiative, labelled as La Eve (which means The Woman), goals to deter-mine revolutionary, promis-ing women based start-ups so as to present a complete support programme.

The initiative will prob-ably be steered by IIMK Live, the institute’s entre-preneurship growth centre known as Laboratory for Innovation, Venturing and Entrepreneurship, with the support of the start-up fund of MRPL. Last year MRPL had entered into an MoU with the institute and since then it has supplied seed

IIMK, MRPL join hands to support women entrepreneursfunds to over 11 start-ups incubated at IIMK Live.

Debashis Chatterjee, Di-rector, IIMK mentioned: “No economic system can develop at its full potential if a bit of human useful resource isn’t actively con-

tributing to it. Promotion and support of women entrepreneurship can con-tribute considerably to the nation’s financial targets”.

Keyoor Purani, Execu-tive Director, IIMK Live mentioned, “Given the big-

ger socio-economic context, numerous educated and expert women want to work on their very own phrases in contrast to the normal jobs. Technological devel-opments have additional facilitated location and time neutrality favouring a lot of them to start-up and lead ventures that create financial worth and make social impression. This development, if channelled effectively can contribute considerably to the innova-tion-led entrepreneurship.”

A spokesperson from MRPL mentioned, “The start-up India web site notes that feminine led ven-tures carry out 63pc higher than male led corporations by way of return on fund-ing with women displaying unparalleled willingness

and capability to organise, develop, and handle an enterprise.”

New ventures that match the definition of start-ups, are registered underneath the Companies’ Act of India and are based by majority of women founders are eligible to apply.

Early stage start-ups with the minimal viable product or a minimum of a proof of idea can be thought-about.

Selected start-ups can be supplied seed support funds of up to Rs 25 lakh, structured incubation pro-gram with task-based men-toring, entry to skilled com-panies, co-working house, subsidised coaching and workshops and a number of different advantages on campus.

Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goy-al said that the online

food delivery platform aims to serve 20 crore people in India over the next few years who will order food at least five times a month.

Admit t ing that his thoughts may be “labelled as stupid for saying out loud,” Goyal said that out of the 20 crore future Zomato users, nearly 2 crore will or-der food once a day, 24X7.

“These 20 crore people (and in some time, many more than that) are the real India. And that India is coming of age. Domestic consumption in India is what it is - and it is going to grow as it is,” Goyal said in a blog post.

Zomato is delivering 1.3 million orders a day from

Zomato eyes 20 crore users in India150,000 restaurants across India at more than 10 or-ders per restaurant per day.

Stressing upon Cloud kitchens, Goyal said the food aggregator platform is committed to develop cloud kitchens to bridge the sup-ply gap.

“I want to re-emphasise that we will never compete with our restaurateur part-ners - we will only build the kitchens - but they will be operated by restaurant brands,” said Goyal.

Zomato’s kitchens are operational in 50 cities across India, with 110 kitchen hubs (either com-pleted or under construc-tion). In total, there are 663 kitchen units and kiosks.

Zomato’s revenue for the first half of the finan-

cial year 2019-20 saw a massive three-fold jump - from $63 million in the same period in 2018-2019 to $205 million.

The Zomato CEO also touched upon how the company is helping us-ers understand what food delivery means and how they can use the Zomato app for their family in over 400 cities in India.

Zomato is currently present in 556 cities.

Trivandrum was Zoma-to’s 50th city in November 2018 and Leh was the 500th in July this year.

Zomato is also unin-terruptedly active in 10 cities (Guwahati, Nagaon, Jorhat, Agartala, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Tezpur, Shil-long, Tinsukia and Aizawl) in the North East region.

Capital market regu-lator Sebi plans to rope in an indepen-

dent agency to provide contract staff, including re-ceptionist and supervisor, for its office.

In addition, the regulator is also planning to hire an agency that will provide security guards.

In two separate notices inviting expression of in-terest (EoI) from the inter-ested parties, Sebi said the services would be required at the regulator’s office in Kochi.

Spelling out the eligibil-ity criteria, Sebi said the

SEBI may hire agency to provide contract staff

Muthoot Finance, the largest gold loan company in

India, raised 450 million dollars by selling foreign currency bonds to inter-national investors in its maiden issue of such an instrument. The company plans to use proceeds for both refinancing and other business purposes. The initiative is in accordance with the Reserve Bank of India’s external commer-cial borrowing guidelines and other applicable laws. The Microfinance Insti-tutions Network (MFIN) bond transaction marks the first international bond by an Indian non-banking fi-nance company to debut in 144A/Reg S market, allow-

Muthoot Fin raises $450m from Intl bond markets

ing it to tap the US investor base in addition to Asia and Europe, Muthoot Fi-nance said in a statement. The company engaged with investors during an exten-sive deal roadshow across Singapore, Hong Kong, London and the United States. Backed by strong in-vestor feedback, the trans-action was launched with an initial price guidance of 6.375pc area. Follow-ing a strong order book momentum supported by high-quality real money investors, the company was able to tighten pricing by 25 basis points to 6.125pc. The final order book was in excess of 1.2 billion dollars with an oversubscription of more than 2.5x.

E-pharmacies are likely to grow seven times to $ 3.7 billion by

CY22 as they aim to grab a large pie of the highly fragmented Indian market, according to a research note by foreign brokerage, CLSA.

The brick and mortar chemists have been protest-ing against the business models of online pharma-cies and have gone on strike several times.

The Indian pharma mar-ket is valued at $20 billion and has been growing at 10-12pc. Continuation of current growth trends could propel the market to $35 billion by 2025, the report noted.

However, the distribu-

Online pharmacies to grow to $3.7b by 2022: CLSA

tion channel of the pharma-cy market in India is highly unorganised and fragment-ed with over 80,000 distrib-utors and more than 0.85 million brick and mortar retail outlets allowing room for organised and online pharmacies.

According to CLSA, there are several e-phar-macies operating currently but Netmeds, Pharmeasy, Medlife and 1mg have emerged as the key play-ers with a Pan-India reach. Apollo Pharmacy with 3,500 stores is the largest offline pharmacy and is also piloting an e-pharma portal. These companies have cumulatively raised close to $400 million since

starting out.As per Frost and Sul-

livan, e-pharmacy is a na-scent market worth $0.5 billion, but it is expected to grow nearly 7 times at 63pc compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) to $3.7 billion by 2022, riding higher internet penetration.

At present, e-pharmacies largely cater to subset of the chronic market (car-diac, diabetes where drugs purchases can be planned) and their penetration of the acute market has been tough.

Deep discounting and large promotional spends have been drivers of cus-tomer acquisition and sales growth.

agency would be respon-sible for providing the services of the outsourced staff such as receptionist,

data entry opera-tor, office assistant and housekeeper.

For providing security guards, S e b i s a i d t h e agency should be registered with the appropriate

authorities for providing services of security guards and should have at least five years of experience in providing such service to various office premises.

Interested agencies will have to send an applica-tion to Sebi by November 11, 2019.

8 Travel / Entertainment Friday, October 25, 2019

EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

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

As on 24th October, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 47.00 50.00Bahraini Dinar 183.00 194.00British Pound 90.00 93.00Canadian Dollar 52.85 55.80Emirati Dirham 18.85 20.00Euro 77.50 80.50 Kuwaiti Dinar 228.00 239.00Omani Rial 180.00 190.00Qatari Riyal 18.00 20.50Saudi Riyal 18.50 19.60 Singapore Dollar 50.60 53.60 Swiss Franc 70.20 73.20 US Dollar 69.75 72.25

Source:

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Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri with the members of a delegation of around 90 heads of foreign missions in India during celebration of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, at Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Foreign envoys visit Golden TempleA total of 85 foreign en-

voys and high-level functionaries paid

obeisance at the Golden Tem-ple at Amritsar, the holiest of Sikh shrines, as they at-tended celebrations to mark the upcoming 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, the first Sikh Guru.

They were accompa-nied by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Indian Council for Cultural Relations President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe. After pay-ing obeisance, the delega-tion partook “langar” in the shrine complex.

The diplomats include ambassadors of Australia, Mongolia, Morocco, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Mal-dives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The deputy chief of the US mission was also part of the delegation.

The visit was organised by the ICCR in collaboration with the Punjab government and the Shiromani Gurud-wara Parbandhak Commit-tee. “During my visit with

the resident foreign heads of missions to Guru Di Nagri, I

was delighted to meet some of my old friends and promi-nent citizens of the holy city,” Puri tweeted.

Shriomani Gurdwara

Parbandhak Committee chief Gobind Singh Lon-

gowal received them and presented them with a “siro-pa,” the robe of honour. The SGPC, considered a mini Parliament of Sikh religious

affairs, controls Sikh reli-gious affairs and manages

gurdwaras in Punjab, Hary-ana and Himachal Pradesh, including the Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple.

Indian origin Zubin Mehta saysgoodbye to Israel Philharmonic

Zubin Mehta

Star conductor Zu-bin Mehta took the stage in Tel Aviv for

an emotional final perfor-mance as music director of the Israel Philharmon-ic, retiring after 50 years with the orchestra.

The 83-year-old, who underwent treatment for a cancerous tumour last year and walked with a cane, earned a long standing ovation from the packed house as he said “goodbye to my family,” as he put it in an inter-view beforehand. The fi-nal performance included Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mahler’s Sym-phony No. 2, known as Resurrection, at the Medi-terranean city’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium.

India-born Mehta was joined by pianist Yefim Bronfman, soprano Chen

Reiss and mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau. “From my heart, what this orchestra has given me .. not only this one but all the gen-erations before them. I cannot

begin to even describe what I have learned with these mu-sicians,” he told the audience during the intermission. At the end of the performance, flower garlands were placed around the necks of Mehta and his wife, who watched from the audience.

Mehta, who will be suc-

ceeded by 30-year-old Lahav Shani, was also named the orchestra’s musical director emeritus. The charismatic maestro has famously conducted

in poignant settings, in-cluding when he led a group of Israeli and German musi-cians near the site of the Na-zis’ Buchen-wald concen-tration camp in 1999, where he

also conducted Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. He also famously rushed to Israel to perform in sup-port of the country during the 1967 Six-Day War, though he would later say he opposed the settlement building that followed in the occupied West Bank.

NRI wins Diwali Dubai raffl e

Saudi Arabia welcomed over 24,000 tourists to the kingdom within the

first 10 days of a new visa sys-tem being unveiled to encour-age foreign visitors as part of a plan to expand its economy. The Saudi foreign ministry published a list of the top 10 countries that applied for a tourist visa since the system went into effect on Sept 27.

Topping the list was China with 7,391 visitors, followed by UK with 6,159 and the US with 2,132. The kingdom also hosted tour-ists from Canada, Malaysia,

Over 24,000 tourists visit Saudi after launch of tourist visas

France, Germany, Russia, Australia and Kazakhstan. A vibrant tourism sector is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 re-form programme to prepare the largest Arab economy for a post-oil era. Visas can be obtained online or upon arrival. Tourists can visit the kingdom several times within a one-year period, with a 90-day limit per visit.

The new system also al-lows Muslim visitors to per-form Umrah without the need for a Saudi sponsor. Pilgrim-age is the backbone of Prince

Mohammed’s economic re-form plan as it attracts a huge number of visitors to the kingdom year-round. Before the new regulations were brought about, pilgrimage vi-sas used to bar travel outside the holy cities of Makkah and Madina. The kingdom hopes that tourism will contribute up to 10pc of the nation’s GDP by 2030, compared with the three per cent it currently generates. By 2030 the coun-try aims to attract up to 100 million annual visits.

The kingdom is also set to stage its first interna-

tional tennis tournament in De. Three-time Grand Slam winner Stanislas Wawrinka and rising star Daniil Med-vedev are two big names al-ready signed up to appear in the eight-player hard-court event. “Hosting world-class international tennis in Saudi Arabia for the very first time is another watershed mo-ment for the kingdom,” said Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki, chairman of the General Sports Authority of Saudi Arabia. The tournament will be staged in Diriyah, on the outskirts of Riyadh.

Diwali celebration came early for 56-year-old NRI

businessman Kamalasan-an Nadar Vasu, who won $1 million in the Dubai Duty Free (DDF) Millen-nium Millionaire series 314 draw. Kamalasanan, a Dubai resident for 33 years and owner of a steel fabrication company, said the timing of the winning was perfect as he will now be able to clear his debts to his suppliers. The DDF draw was part of Dubai Airport’s celebration of Diwali.

“I feel very blessed and lucky. I have been living in Dubai for a long time but I had accrued a massive debt after my business went down in Jan 2018. But now, I will have the money to settle my debts and the rest will

be saved for future,” he said. He will be splitting the prize money with a friend. He has been a regular client of the DDF draw for eight years and he purchased his winning ticket last month when he travelled home to Kerala.

He also said that all good things in his life happened in Sept. “I bought a winning ticket number in Sept 2019; I put up my own business in Sept 2003; I got married in Sept 1994; I came to Dubai in Sept 1986 and I received my degree in en-gineering in Sept 1984,” Kamalasanan shared with glee. This weekend, he will go home to Kerala to celebrate Diwali. He will be accompanied by his eldest daughter, who is preparing for her wedding next year.

Oman is consider-ing setting up a new regional airline that

could take over domestic operations from state carrier Oman Air. A request for pro-posal was issued this month by state entity Oman Avia-tion Group for a feasibility study into operating the new airline, “Oman Link,”. Set-ting up a new airline for domestic flights would al-low Oman Air to focus on its international network where it competes with large Gulf carriers Emirates, Qatar Air-ways and Etihad Airways.

The new airline could partner with Oman Air with both carriers connecting passengers to each other

Oman plans new regional airlinebut would have its own independent management, the sources said on the con-

dition of anonymity because the details are private. Pro-posals are to be submitted by Nov 11.

The new airline would use regional jets for domes-tic flights and potentially later to other cities in the region where there is not enough demand to fill the larger single aisle jets used by other airlines in Oman.

Oman Air operates flights to four airports in the country, including the main Muscat International. The airline uses 166-seat Boeing 737 jets and 71-

seat Embraer E175 aircraft on domestic and regional flights. Both aircraft types

are too costly to consistently operate domestic routes at a profit. Oman has been restructuring its aviation sector in recent years. Oman Aviation Group was formed in 2018 and includes Oman Air, Oman Airports and Oman Aviation Services. A budget, second airline, Salam Air, was launched in 2017. It is owned by Omani government pension funds and the Muscat municipal-ity. Last week, Eithad and Air Arabia said they were jointly setting up a low cost carrier in Abu Dhabi.

Budget carrier SpiceJet plans to open a hub in Ras Al Khaimah, making the northern emirate its first international hub, where it is also seeking to set up

a new airline. Operations from the UAE will begin with a flight between New Delhi and Ras Al Khaimah in Dec using Boeing 737 Next-Generation aircraft, Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet, said at press conference in Ras Al Khaimah.

The low-cost airline will later place up to five aircraft in its Ras Al Khaimah base to connect passengers from India to Europe via the UAE hub using Boeing 737 Max jets once the ban lifts on the grounded narrowbody aircraft. Boeing has told SpiceJet, which has about 200 of the grounded 737 Max jets on order, that it expects to receive US certification for the Max to resume flights by the end of 2019 or the beginning of next year, Singh said. The financial impact from the grounding of its 737 Max fleet has “been very bad, no question about it,” Singh said.

SpiceJet to open hub in UAE

Emirates offers special Diwali treatIn celebration of India’s

national festival Diwali, Dubai-based Emirates

(airline) will be offering cus-tomers a variety of special treats that are synonymous with the festival of lights. During the Diwali festive period from Oct 25 to Oct 31, the airline will serve a colourful and aromatic array of traditional sweets on all flights to and from India and savoury meals in selected airport lounges worldwide.

Economy Class custom-ers will be served motichoor laddu, a traditional dessert made from boondis (very small flour balls) which are deep-fried in ghee and then simmered in cardamom and saffron-flavoured sugar syrup. They are later shaped into sumptuous laddus and then garnished with silver leaf and pistachio. Passen-gers travelling on First and Business Class will be able to enjoy the motichoor laddu

along with dryfruit tribhuj, a festive special of ground cashew and pistachio fudge filled with dried fruit and topped with silver leaf.

In Emirates ’ airport lounges in Dubai, Delhi, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur, Emirates will offer frequent flyers as well as First and Business Class passengers special dishes that include tradi-tional sweets and savoury options on Oct 27. At the Emirates lounge at Delhi International Airport, cus-tomers can look forward to an assortment of Indian cashew sweets, along with motichoor rabri -- a tradi-tional Indian dessert made of flour roasted to consistency in ghee and milk, layered with cardamom-flavoured sweet condensed milk and topped with pistachio nuts.

Meanwhile, the Emirates lounge at Dubai International Airport will serve mini dal kachori and mini Punjabi

samosa, which are snacks made from crispy deep-fried breads with spicy stuffing.

For dessert, the lounge will serve angoori rabdi, a sweet and succulent milky pud-ding, paired with motichoor

laddu.Passengers at the

Emirates lounge in Cape Town and Jo-hannesburg can en-joy barfi, a sweet and dense milk-based confectionery, jale-bi, an Indian sweet made from deep-fried batter in pretzel or coil shapes steeped in sugar syrup, and nankhatai, shortbread biscuits. At the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the Emirates lounge will serve biry-ani, chapati that is paired with sweet and

sour spicy roasted pumpkin, and flavourful chicken curry with sweet potato.