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Visitors to Dubai grow at start of 2019DUBAI: Some 3.14 million foreign tourists visited Dubai in Jan to Feb this year com-pared with 3.05 million in the same period last year. The total number of international guests who visited Dubai dur-ing first two months of 2019 grew by 90,000 compared with same period of 2018, according to data published by the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Mar-keting on its website.

Some 3.14 million for-eign tourists visited Dubai in Jan to Feb this year compared with 3.05 million in the same period last year, 3.01 million in 2017 and 2.68 million in 2016, respectively. Western Europe topped the source of foreign visitors at 22pc of the total, with the GCC next at 18pc and South East Asia at 17pc. Of individual coun-tries, India was the primary source of guests at 3.86 lakh a drop of nine per cent over

the same period last year, while the number of visitors from the UK rose four per cent, those from Germany

increased 11pc and from the US the number was up four per cent.

Oman led the way in terms of percentage increase with 25pc more visitors

from the country in Jan to Feb (1.75 lakh ) compared with the corresponding pe-riod last year. The average

occupancy rate for hotel establishments in the period came in at 84pc, compared with 87pc last year. Rev-enue per available room was Dh432 in the Jan to Feb

period, down from Dh501m last year, while the average daily room rate was Dh513 compared with Dh574 in

2018.Latest fi gures

The tourism depart-ment’s latest figures come after the Global Wealth Mi-gration Report for 2019,

developed by AfrAsia Bank and New World Wealth, last week revealed that Dubai attracted more than 1,000 millionaires from outside the country last year, sur-passing major cities like Los Angeles, Melbourne, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Sydney.

The report described Dubai as the most promi-nent financial centre in the MidEast and one of the safest cities in the region as well as a popular desti-nation for high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and wealthy expatriates. The report also said that Dubai is an example of the power that business incentives have in encouraging busi-ness formation. About 2,000 HNWIs, each with at least $1 million worth of net as-sets, moved into the UAE in 2018, boosting the local economy.

BENGALURU: A Bengaluru native and CEO of a Saudi-Arabia-based construction firm Gold Tower Group has claimed to be able to get Jet Airways up and fly-ing within just 10 days through Gulf-based NRIs if the shares held by former Chairman Naresh Goyal were sold to the group.

At a briefing for the me-dia, Mohammed Nagaman Lateef claimed that three individuals, two of them Indians who have now be-come Saudi Arabian citizens and an Indian tycoon, were willing to keep Jet Airways afloat. “They are willing to invest anywhere between Rs 8,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore, provided that 24pc of Jet’s shares held by Goyal are sold to them,” Lateef said.

Lateef said he was in town to set up his own ce-lebrity firm, International

Gulf NRIs ready to save Jet Airways

Iconic Federation. His tweet to the Jet Airways official handle read: “Hai Jet Air-ways, whomsoever it may concern. I wanna speak to the CEO and Naresh Goyal regarding the emergency funding if possible send me contact details.” He also claimed that he contacted SBI officials and expressed his keenness to fund the airways. But when he was asked who he contacted, he spoke of an official familiar to him at the Murudeshwara branch of SBI.

“The official told me that only those with an aviation background are permitted to invest in the company,” he claimed. Asked about the turnover of his present firm Gold Tower Group, Lateef said it was not right on his part to share it. A press re-lease shared on the occasion said: “I (Contd. on page 2)

WASHINGTON: A merit-based immigration pro-posal being put together by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner could lead to an increase in US visas for highly skilled workers. Kushner is expected to pres-ent the comprehensive plan to President Donald Trump, who will decide whether to adopt it as his official position or send it back for changes.

The plan does not pro-pose ways to address young people who came to the US illegally as children who were protected by former President Barack Obama in the 2014 programme known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or those people who have Temporary Protected Status. Democrats, whose support the White House would need to advance any kind of immigration legisla-tion through Congress, have insisted that the DACA re-cipients be protected.

More US visas for highly skilled workers likely

Kushner has held about 50 listening sessions with conservative groups on im-migration, a senior adminis-tration official said. He has been working with White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and policy adviser Stephen Miller on the plan and the sources said there has been some intense behind-the-scenes jockeying about the plan. At a Time magazine forum in New York, Kushner said he was working well with Miller, an immigra-tion hawk, on the topic. The two men are both long-time Trump advisers. “Stephen and I haven’t had any fights,” he said with a smile.

That drew skepticism from immigration advocate Marshall Fitz of the Emer-son Collective, who gave Kushner credit for advanc-ing criminal justice reform but said immigration was a dramatically different issue that Miller was dominating at the White House. “It’s im-possible to see how Kushner

could navigate an issue this freighted with history and central to the president’s re-election strategy in a way that would actually move the ball forward,” Fitz said.Hardline policy

As a White House candi-date in 2016 and throughout his presidency, Trump has advocated a hard-line policy on immigration, pushing for a wall to be built on the US-Mexico border and using bruising rhetoric to describe people who have fled Cen-tral American countries to enter the US. Republicans have largely supported his immigration proposals, but the latest White House plan aims to bring them together on a broader basis. Some in the US business community have asked that the number of highly skilled visas be raised to attract more em-ployees from abroad for spe-cialised jobs amid a boom-ing US economy. Trump himself has talked of the need to bring in more skilled

workers. The immigration plan would either leave the number of highly skilled visas each year at the same level or raise it slightly.

The overall goal is to reshape the visa programme into a more merit-based system, a key Trump goal. Officials working on the plan have been reviewing the systems used by Canada and Australia as possible models for the Trump effort.

The group has been working on a guest-worker programme as part of the proposal to address the US agriculture community’s need for seasonal labour while not hurting American workers, but nothing has been finalised, the sources said. Trump has sought to court farmers in key battle-ground states to boost his chances of re-election in 2020. The proposal will include recommendations for modernising ports of entry along the US border to ensure (Contd. on page 2)

About 200 US cos ready to shift production to IndiaWASHINGTON: About 200 American companies are seeking to move their manu-facturing base from China to India post the general elections, a top US-based advocacy group has said, observing that there is a fantastic opportunity with firms looking at alternatives to the Communist giant.

The US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum’s (USISPF) President Mukesh Aghi said that the compa-nies are talking to them about how to set up an alternative to China by in-vesting in India. Aghi said that USISPF’s recommenda-tion to the new government would be to accelerate the reforms and bring transpar-ency in the decision-mak-ing process.”I think that’s critical. We would advise to bring more transparency in the process and to make it more consultative because in the last 12 to 18 months, we are seeing US companies look at some of the decisions

being made, either e-com-merce or data localisation, as more domestic-oriented than global,” he told in an interview.Transparency needed

In his reply to what the agenda of the new Indian government should be to at-tract investment, Aghi sug-gested that New Delhi needs to accelerate reforms, be more transparent in the pro-cess and engage more.”We need to understand how we can attract those com-panies. And that means all the way from land issues to customs issues to being part of the global supply chain. Those are critical issues. There’s a whole plethora of reforms that need to go further down, and I think that is also going to create a lot of jobs,” he said.

He said that Mark Lin-scott, the former Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asian Affairs, is working with USISPF member companies

to come up with a recom-mendation as to what India needs to do to enhance its exports and work up from that perspective. “One recommendation, which I strongly believe is going to help India is that we should now start thinking of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the US,” Aghi said.

“I think if India is con-cerned about cheap goods coming from China, an FTA will eliminate that need. You can put barriers to Chi-nese goods and still have the US providing access to the Indian market and Indian companies having more access to the US market and issues like GSP would diminish,” he said.

Aghi said that they have formed a high-level manu-facturing council within the member companies, led by John Kern, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Operations at Cisco who are putting a (Contd. on page 2)

MUMBAI: Foreign inves-tors were net buyers on the Indian capital markets for the third straight month in April, pouring in Rs 17,219 crore on favourable macroeconomic condi-tions and ample liquidity. India has been one of the top recipients of foreign fund flows among emerg-ing markets since Feb 2019 on the back of positive global sentiment, improv-ing growth outlook, sup-portive macros and dovish stance taken by the RBI.

Overseas investors had put in a net sum of Rs 45,981 crore in March and Rs 11,182 crore in Feb in the capital markets (both equity and debt). According to the latest depositories data, foreign portfolio investors (FPI)

Foreign investors pump in Rs 17,219cr in April

pumped in a net sum of Rs 21,032.04 crore into equities but pulled out a net amount of Rs 3,812.94 crore from the debt market during April 1-26, taking the total net investment to Rs 17,219.10 crore.

“Expectation of a slow-down in the global econ-omy led several central banks to adopt a dovish stance towards interest rates in order to provide a boost to their dwindling economies. This augured well for the emerging mar-kets as it improved global liquidity which has been making its way into the emerging markets and India is getting its share from that,” said Himanshu Srivastava, senior research analyst, manager research at Morningstar.

Indian economy gets boost from tourismNEW DELHI: Travel and tourism industry contrib-uted a tenth of India’s GDP in 2018 and accounts for 42 million jobs in the country.

In India, over Rs 16 tril-lion were created by this sector alone. The same is expected to double by 2029, reaching Rs 35 trillion-mark. Also, the industry has given a major boost to the global

economy as well with it contributing over 10pc to the global GDP.

India’s phenomenal suc-cess in travel and tourism

was pushed by several mea-sures that the government undertook. One of these was the launch of the e-visa facility. “The introduction of e-visa has led to a strong surge in foreign tourist arriv-

als since its launch in Sept 2014,” the joint report from FICCI-Yes bank said.

Benefiting the natives of over 166 countries, the

scheme has helped a healthy growth of almost 40pc in-crease in tourists in 2018 compared with the previous year. In 2018, about 2.37 mil-lion foreign tourists availed the e-visa facility,” the report

said. It has also helped in improving India’s position in the World Economic Fo-rum Travel and Tourism competitiveness index. “e-

visa initiative has helped India climb up 14 places in the International Openness parameter to 55th position,” the report said.

Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD scheme have also

contributed significantly to India’s tourism and travel growth. Also, Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme connecting regional airlines has been another govern-ment initiative to boost the sector. Incredible India , Ad-venture Tourism guidelines, India Tourism mart, Swacch Prayatan mobile applica-tion are other government endeavours in travel and tourism direction.

It is not just the foreign tourists that have backed India’s tourism industry. In fact, the domestic tourists have also been a strength of the sector, with them surpassing the domestic inbound tourists in oth-er countries. Availability of disposable income, the growing love for travel and tourism across age groups, and springing up of new travel destinations will drive the sector growth in the future.

2 EMIGRATION Tuesday, April 30, 2019

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

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Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Suri at the inauguration of the Indian Pavilion at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2019.

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s travel and tourism sector is expected to contribute $70.9 billion to the Kingdom’s GDP in 2019, according to the World Travel and Tour-ism Council.

International arrivals to the Kingdom are also expected to increase 5.6pc per year from 17.7 million in 2018 to 23.3 million by 2023, according to re-search by Colliers in part-nership with the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), which opened at the Dubai World Trade Center on Sunday.

Religious tourism will continue to be the largest contributor to these num-bers over the next decade,

Tourism to contribute $70b to Saudi economy

according to the research, with a goal of 30 million pilgrims to the Kingdom by 2030, an increase of 11 million from the 19 million Haj and Umrah pilgrims that visited the country in 2017.

“More relaxed access to visas and the growth of the Umrah market are ex-pected to be key drivers in the growth of international tourism in the Kingdom,” Danielle Curtis, MidEast exhibition director at the ATM, said in a statement.

But leisure tourism is also gaining traction in Saudi Ara-bia, with various projects and initiatives under the Vision 2030 reform plan already in progress. “Saudi Arabia

will see a vast expansion of its hotel and resort inven-tory during 2019 with over 9,000 keys of three, four and five-star international supply expected to enter the mar-ket,” Curtis said. This will drive up competition in the country’s hotel scene, with projected growth in domestic and international visitors set to boost occupancy levels throughout 2019, according to Curtis. A significant num-ber of local tourist trips also adds to the upbeat forecast for the country’s tourism sector, with the number of domestic tourists exceeding 47 million in 2018, which Colliers said will increase to 70.5 million by 2023.

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court provided relief to an Indian born in Singa-pore over three decades ago who has remained a state-less individual for over 20 years, directing the central government to grant him a special resident permit within three months.

The petitioner, who is living in this country for as many as 32 years as of now, cannot be made to suffer statelessness despite being of Indian descent and his father being an Indian national and citizen of this country,” Justice V Part-hiban said in his judgment

Petitioner Philip Mam-men Kozhy, who is living in this country for as many as 32 years, cannot be made to suffer statelessness despite

HC directs govt to grant Singaporeimmigrant permanent resident status

being of Indian descent and his father being an Indian national and citizen of this country,” Justice V Part-hiban said in his judgment. Kozhy can hope to become an Indian citizen as well af-ter the court has directed the union home ministry to also consider granting citizen-ship under the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 as a special case by relaxing procedural requirements.

“In spite of all action that was initiated at some level, unfortunately, the claim of the petitioner for citizenship has not been either rejected or considered favourably. Somewhere the procedure for grant of such citizenship has blocked the efforts of the administration to take the claim of the petitioner to its

logical end. The petitioner, who is living in this country for as many as 32 years as of now, cannot be made to suffer statelessness despite being of Indian descent and his father being an Indian national and citizen of this country,” Justice Parthiban said in his judgment.

The judge was allowing a writ petition from Kozhy, who prayed for a direction to the union home ministry to regularise his stay in India and to the Immigra-tion Officer in Chennai to grant him long-term visa/resident permit. The judge said that unfortunately, the claim of the petition-er has been caught up in procedural wrangles and rigmarole, resulting in an abject negation of right of

the petitioner to be a citizen of this country. If a person, who is admittedly of Indian descent and whose Singa-pore passport had already been revoked in 1997/1998, cannot be reduced to the level of a refugee in his own country and cannot remain a stateless person having no rights whatsoever for his lifetime.

Despite his stay in India for over three decades, the petitioner’s status has not been defined or regularised and if his stay is not regu-larised in India, where can he go without any passport? the judge asked. Kozhy, who migrated to India from Sin-gapore when he was three months old in 1986, had been struggling to get Indian citizenship since then.

Singapore Airlines to introduceAirbus A350 in Kolkata fl ightsKOLKATA: Singapore Airlines (SIA) is going to introduce its Airbus A350-900 medium haul aircraft from June 3 on the Kolkata to Singapore sector, replacing the existing Airbus A330-300 aircraft. It stated it would also be the first interna-tional airline to bring Airbus A350-900 medium haul aircraft to Kolkata. The in-augural service SQ517 will depart from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Interna-tional Airport at 11.50 pm on June 3.

The new aircraft will initially oper-ate a daily service from June 3 to June 8. From June 10, the SIA will operate four weekly scheduled services on the Airbus A350 aircraft type. Combined with its regional wing - SilkAir, it of-fers a daily evening departure service from Kolkata to Singapore. SIA Gen-

eral Manager India David Lim said, “With the commencement of Airbus A350 services, Kolkata becomes our third, Indian point to receive this aircraft type. Singapore Airlines’ lat-est regional cabin products combined with our award-winning inflight ser-vice will provide our Eastern India travellers enhanced comfort and an unparalleled travel experience.”

The A350-900 features higher ceil-ings, larger windows, an extra wide body delivering more space and comfort as well as lighting designed to reduce jetlag. Fitted with the new regional Business Class and Economy Class cabin products, the A350-900 medium haul Business Class cabin has 40 seats in a 1-2-1 arrangement that ensures

direct aisle access for every customer, while the Economy Class cabin has 263 seats arranged in a comfortable 3-3-3 configuration, according to the SIA. The new medium-haul Business Class seats have been manufactured by Stelia Aerospace. With each seat able to recline directly into a 76” fully-flat bed, customers can rest in more com-fort, even on the shortest flights. Each seat measures up to 26” in width with retractable armrests that can be raised and lowered. Other features include ample stowage space for personal items, a business panel with in-seat power supply and USB ports, an integrated reading light unit with adjustable light-ing intensity and a personal 17” full high-definition touchscreen monitor.

ABU DHABI: Etihad Airways unveiled a major economy class revamp featuring cabin upgrade and refurbishment of 23 narrow-body Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft.

The retrofit programme, which includes new person-alised wireless streaming entertainment to smartphone and tablet devices, will re-move entertainment screens from its Airbus A320 narrow-body fleet, and is scheduled for completion in August this year. Nevertheless, inflight entertainment via personal seat back screens will remain standard in the Economy cabins on the airline’s fleet of wide-body Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

The removal of screens would save the airline 18 tonnes in weight a year. The weight reduction will mean

Etihad Airways unveils economy class revampaircraft use less fuel, a major operating cost for all carri-ers. The A320s are mainly used on short-haul regional flights but also to cities within five hours’ flying of Abu Dhabi, Etihad said at the Arabian Travel Market. Tony Douglas, group CEO, said as a leading full-service airline, Etihad is adapting to meet the specific needs and requirements of all travel-lers, providing more of what they really want to enjoy inflight. “This not only de-livers greater choice and personalisation, it also en-sures we continue to provide a superior, commercially wise and sustainable service offering.”

“As part of our Choose Well promise, we are em-powering our guests with more control of their travel

experiences, through on-board digital transformation, improved choice and rede-signed cabins and products,” said Douglas. The airline said after the retrofit, guests on narrow-body aircraft would be able to simply log on and connect via browser to wirelessly stream more than 300 hours of free in-flight entertainment through Etihad’s onboard Panasonic eXW system directly to their own devices.

“To view a wider range of exciting entertainment pro-gramming, including more Hollywood blockbusters, international movies and premium TV programming such as HBO and Universal shows, guests can simply download the new E-BOX STREAM app prior to trav-el,” the airline said. The

airline is also introducing a new and improved Economy dining concept on all its flights as part of a wider programme of enhance-ments to its inflight catering. On journeys of over three hours, the main course of the core complimentary dining service is now a larger, con-temporary bistro-style meal which is higher in quality, with a focus on fresh sea-sonal ingredients and more destination focused choices, the airline said.

New cutlery is 85pc light-er, reducing aircraft weight and fuel burn. Each year, the airline will also remove 27 million plastic lids and other containers, support-ing its drive towards greater sustainability and to reduce the use of single-use plastics by 80pc by 2022.

Gulf NRIs ready to...(Contd. from page 1)request Naresh Goyal and the CEO Vinay Dubey to have a board meeting with all employees and me so that we can speak to the Gulf countries Qatar and Dubai to invest in India’s leading airlines.

More US visas for...(Contd. from page 1)safe trade while preventing illegal activity. It also aims to decrease the number of immigrants able to enter the US based on their family ties. Trump has already taken steps to address those immigrants who overstay their visas.

Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law, is also a main architect of a MidEast peace proposal that the president is expected to unveil this summer. His objective on the im-migration plan at the very least is to have a document that represents the president’s immigration policy and provide something that Republicans can rally around.

About 200 US cos ready to...(Contd. from page 1)document together detailing what India needs to do to turn it into a manufacturing hub. “We plan to have the document ready by the time elections are over as part of recommenda-tion,” he said. “What they’re saying is we want a backup strat-egy to start manufacturing in India. There are small-small issues, which can slow them down. And at the moment most of them are waiting for elections to be over. But there’s a large deluge of companies keen to not only manufacture in India but also who want to go after the domestic market,” he said.

SINGAPORE: Singapore continues to see a low in-cidence of corruption, the Corrupt Practices Investiga-tion Bureau (CPIB) has said. The number of new cases registered for investigation by the CPIB remained low. This is consistent with the trends in previous years.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau is a government agency in Sin-gapore which investigates and prosecutes corruption in the public and private sectors. The agency works closely with partners from various industry sectors and the community to combat corruption.

On an annual basis, the percentage of new cases registered for investiga-tion relative to the num-ber of corruption-related

Singapore one of least corrupt countriesreports received has been consistent. In 2018, the CPIB received 358 corrup-tion-related reports, a three per cent dip from the 368 corruption-related reports received in 2017. The CPIB registered 107 new cases for investigation in 2018, a four per cent increase compared with the year before. Singa-pore remains well-regarded internationally for our anti-corruption efforts. In 2018,

Transparency International ranked Singapore in joint third position (alongside Finland, Sweden and Swit-zerland) out of 180 countries and territories. This was Singapore’s best ranking since 2010. With a Corrup-tion Perceptions Index (CPI) score of 85, this was also the country’s best score since 2015. Singapore remained the only Asian country in the top 10 ranking, CPIB added.

Sri Lanka bans veilCOLOMBO: Sri Lanka has banned any sort of face-covering. President Sirisena said he was using emergen-cy powers to ban any form of face-covering in public. The restriction took effect immediatety, he said in a statement.

“The ban is to ensure national security... No one should obscure their faces to make identification dif-ficult,” the statement said. It

came days after local Islamic clerics urged Muslim wom-en not to cover their faces amid fears of a backlash after the bombings carried out by jihadists affiliated to ISIS. Muslims in the major-ity Buddhist nation account for about 10pc of its 21 mil-lion population. Most Sri Lankan Muslims practise a liberal form of the religion and only a small number of women wear the niqab.

US-Indians contribute more money to Tulsi Gabbard over HarrisWASHINGTON: Much to the surprise of the purveyors of the fundraising data of the Democratic presidential candidates, Republican Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii — the first Hindu-American US Con-gresswoman, but of non-Indi-an ethnicity — who is hardly a blip in the polls — has raised three times more from the Indian-American community than US Senator Kamala Devi Harris of California – of Indian -Jamaican parentage.

Harris has consistently been one of the top five con-tenders in the race thus far, since her impressive roll-out launch in January before a crowd of over 20,000 in her hometown of Oakland that had even President Trump, with his penchant for crowd sizes, clearly exhibiting rally envy.

According to AAPI Data, based out of the University of California, Riverside, that publishes data and policy research on the Asian Amer-ican and Pacific Islander community, in the first quar-ter that ended March 31, Gabbard, an Iraq War vet-eran, had raised more than $237,000 from the Indian American community and Indian green card holders in the US--who are also eligible to contribute to US political campaigns—compared with Harris’s paltry $76,300 from the community.

Harris’s haul from the Indian community was even less than US Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who had received more than $131,000 from the Indian American and Indian com-

munity that constitutes a population of 3.7 lakh in his state. Harris’s home state of California where she was born and raised and where she went on to be elected District Attorney of San Francisco, then Attorney General and in 2016, a US Senator, boasts of an Indian population of over 7.12 lakh.

But in overall fund-rais-ing, Gabbard and Booker, have been no match for Har-ris, who was number two in terms of fundraising in the first quarter, pulling down more than any other first-time presidential candidate in the field with $12 million. She was second only to US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who pulled down $18 million. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke came

in third with $9.3 million, followed by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete But-tigieg, who capitalised on a flurry of publicity, includ-ing a much-watched CNN

town hall, raised $7 million. Gabbard and Booker since launching their campaigns in January had raised $1.95 million and $5 million re-spectively.

3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIESTuesday, April 30, 2019

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FINAL SELECTIONS ON 30th APRIL 2019

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Tuesday, April 30, 2019

MUMBAI: RRB ALP tech-nician revised results are declared for the second computer based test. Can-didates can download score card from the official web-site of RRBs. The link will be live from April 27 to May 10.

The RRB ALP techni-cian CBT exams were con-ducted on January 21, 22, 23 and February 8.

“The 2nd Stage Com-puter Based Test (CBT) conducted on 21-01-19, 22-01-19, 23-01-19 and 08- 02-19 by Railway Recruitment

RRB ALP Technician revised results

BENGALURU: The number of foreign nationals with expired visas staying in Bengaluru has come down to 842 as compared to over 1,000 last years. A majority of the people in the list hail from Nigeria, Congo, Sudan, Yemen and South Sudan. Over 60 per cent of them are on student visa while most of the oth-ers hold entry or medical visa, according to figures from Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO).

“We frequent update the local police stations and they have been taking immediate action,” Labhu Ram, Foreigners Regional Registration Officer, said, adding Students make up over half of overstaying foreigners in Bengaluru that the police impose a fine on them and the immigration department gives them an exit visa to deport them. “Those who have genuine reasons and

Students make up over half of overstaying foreigners in B’luruwant to extend their visa can provide their docu-ments online and an exten-sion is provided within 24 hours if they go through

the process correctly,” Ram added.

The Karnataka High Court on last Friday asked the government to deport a Pakistani couple overstay-ing in the city, saying, oth-erwise, it would amount to spending taxpayers’ money on illegal entry. The court ordered FRRO and home

ministry to deport Kasiff Shamshuddin and Kiran Gulam Ali, who have com-pleted their sentence for illegally staying in India,

by May 5. The Karachi natives had obtained Aad-haar cards by providing forged documents.

The total number of for-eign nationals in the state comprises about 26,000 persons registered with FRRO, besides those who visit the country on short-term visas, including busi-

ness and tourist visas, who need not enrol themselves with the registration office.

However, there contin-ues to be a grey spot in the issue. A foreigner with a pending case cannot leave until the case is disposed. While the other detained foreign nationals are de-ported on priority, those facing criminal cases are allowed to stay until the case is closed, which may take months, and some-times years, depending on the severity of the case.

The offender remains in the country while the case is on trial, B S Mohan Kumar, Assistant Commis-sioner of Police (Women and Narcotics), Central Crime Branch, said. “So local police stations need to keep a close watch and prevent further illegal ac-tivities,” he said. Seven foreigners were under ar-rest for drug possession as on March 31.

NEW DELHI: This August, undergraduate medical stu-dents across India will come into class to study a syllabus that has been revised after over two de-cades. Touted as a unique curriculum patented by the Medical Council of India (MCI), this “living document”, which means that it is open to review and revision as required, is currently in its final lap of preparation before it is implemented.

Hectic preparation is on with the core group of 40,000 medical teachers — previously trained by the MCI — ensuring the “last group” training for teach-ers in individual colleges. “This is a massive exercise in itself,” said a senior MCI official.

The group has been trained to teach the new components, including eth-ics, clinical exposure, inter-

New MBBS syllabus to roll out in Augustdepartment co-ordination (teaching the same topic simultaneously), skill en-hancement modules and a new foundation bridge course for graduates . “Teachers also have to be alert to the annual revision, which will include chang-ing laws, new diseases, discoveries and updated research information,” said Dr Vanish N Super, member of the expert group of the MCI’s academic cell.

But not all teachers are happy with the updated syllabus, pointing to several critical omissions.

“The syllabus isn’t wholesome and inclusive,” said Dr Satendra Singh, disability activist and medi-cal doctor at the University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, Delhi.

“Disability competen-cies for health profession-als are missing from the

document. The importance of empathetic non-verbal communication and unique medical problems associ-ated with patients with disabilities has to be part of the new syllabus. De-spite our submissions, after extensive consultation with

stakeholders, we are taken aback by the fact that there is no mention of it in the actual document,” he said.Outdated, dangerous

Adds Dr Zakirhusain Shaikh, Assistant Professor,

Department of Community Medicine, Hamdard Insti-tute of Medical Sciences and Research, Jamia Ham-dard, Delhi: “Having an outdated medical curricu-lum is not just dangerous and life-threatening but also illegal when it doesn’t con-

form to the legislation and judicial orders of the land.” He added that the new syl-labus was gender-sensitive.

Dr. Shaikh said that, recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has

changed the term Gender Identity Disorder (GID) to Gender Incongruence, and removed it from the catego-ry of mental disorders, but, “This hasn’t been catered to in this new syllabus. Simi-larly, the American Psychi-atric Association has also discarded the term GID and adopted Gender Dysphoria. Why then is the MCI still stuck with GID is baffling.”

He added, “The entire document doesn’t mention the word transgender even once, forget about including any other guidelines for transgender health. It still has in the curriculum, un-der the heading of ‘sexual offences’. Transvestism is described as sexual perver-sion. All this when Section 377 regarding unnatural sexual offences and Sec-tion 497 regarding adultery have been termed uncon-stitutional by the Supreme Court.”

MUMBAI: Amazon Pay, the digital payments arm of ecommerce major Amazon, is now foraying into peer-to-peer transactions through

Unified Payments Interface, the real-time inter-bank settlement mechanism.

Amazon went live on UPI with Axis Bank in Feb-ruary this year. Now with peer-to-peer payments, the company intends to offer the entire suite of payment products to its UPI users.

Earlier it was reported

Amazon P2P pay rides on United Payments Interface

that Amazon had started testing its UPI-based pay-ment solution, after it got stuck last year due to data localisation mandate from

the central bank. Now, having ad-hered to all the regulatory re -quirements, Am-azon Pay wants to go full throttle into consumer payments.

“We have a highly engaged set of consumers

on the Amazon application. Since our payment prod-ucts are embedded within the existing app, it can help rapid scale of adoption,” said Vikas Bansal, director for Amazon Pay, India.

He further said that besides using Amazon Pay for online shopping, con-sumers are using it for bill

payments, recharges, scan and pay for offline trans-actions as well. More than 80% of the transactions are originating from beyond the tier-one cities in India, he said.

“Now with bank trans-fers, we are bringing in more features. One can transfer through the virtual ID, through bank account details as well,” Bansal said. “We will store the recently-done transactions which will make it easier for the user to make recur-ring payments.”

Amazon further claims to have a 2 to 3 percent-age points higher payment success rate than industry standards.

“We will be improv-ing and strengthening our bank and NPCI integrations further to aim for a 100pc success rate,” he said.

BENGALURU: The innova-tion and entrepreneurship hub of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), NSRCEL, will be host-ing ‘Social Start-up Santhe’ on May 10. This event would include workshops, panel discussions by eminent lead-ers, peer-to-peer sessions and other activities.

The events is aimed at bringing together entrepre-neurs and change-makers in the social sector to create op-portunities for cross-learning and visibility.

The Chief Guest for the event would be Sameer Garde, President, Cisco India and SAARC.

IIMB would also pro-vide a dedicated space for stalls by social ventures like ‘Suite of Services’ which will offer services relevant to legal, technological, hu-man resources HR and more to other organizations in the

IIMB’s NSRCEL to host Social Start-up Santhe on May 10

social sector.First batch graduation

The NSRCEL Social Ven-tures Incubation Programme, in collaboration with Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, will be celebrating the graduation of its first batch of eight social ventures at the event.

Initially funded at Rs 18 lakhs, the programme fostered cross-learning and sharing of the best practices through a mix of programmes and other incubatees under its fold.

The programme saw its inception in September 15, 2017. Each social venture had an incubation period of upto 18 months.

Professor Suresh Bhaga-vatula, faculty and Chair of the Entrepreneurship area at IIMB, said, “IIMB has always been helping start-ups and encouraging them to grow and become successful busi-nesses. Events such as this would further IIMB’s cause.”

DUBAI: Indians looking for employment in Qatar must be wary of fake job recruit-ing agents, the Indian em-bassy in Doha has warned, advising the job-seekers to ask for a copy of the agent’s ID proof to ensure authenticity.

“Please do not trust any recruiting agent who prom-ises you a job in Qatar on a business/visit visa,” the embassy said in a Twitter.

The embassy advised the

Indian embassy warns job-seekers of fake job recruiting agents

job-seekers to “always ask” for a copy of the agent’s Qatar ID to be sure of the authenticity of the job being offered.

“Always ask for a copy of the agent’s Qatar ID and save it carefully, so that the Embassy can help you better, in the event of any fraud,” the embassy said.

“Before an Indian worker accepts employment from a Foreign Employer/Company, it would be safer to check

their credentials on the e-Migrate portal, POE Offices or by emailing the Indian Embassy in the country concerned,” it said.

Indian nationals com-prise the largest expatriate community in Qatar num-bering around 691,000.

They are engaged in a wide spectrum of profes-sionals, including medicine, engineering, education, fi-nance, banking, business, media and labour.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu visits National Museum of Indian Cinema, in Mumbai.

Boards for the posts of As-sistant Loco Pilot (ALP) and Technicians against CEN 01/2018 has been evaluated again duly considering the representations received from candidates after the publication of the result on 05-04-19. As RRBs have addressed the representa-tions on questions, answer key etc. received from the candidates post publication of result on 05-04-19, RRB regrets inability to entertain any further correspondence from the candidates on the same,” an official RRB no-

tice reads.The RRB aptitude tests

will be released on sched-uled on May 10, 2019

i n t h r e e s h i f t s . The dura-tion of the Computer Based Ap-titude Test

will be 71 minutes.“The Computer Based

Aptitude Test will have a Test Battery comprising of five tests and candidates will have to secure a mini-mum T-Score of 42 in each

test of the test battery to qualify for the post of As-sistant Loco Pilot. This is applicable to all candidates and no relaxation is permis-sible on any ground. There will be no negative marking in Computer Based Apti-tude Test. The guidelines and sample Mock link for Computer Based Aptitude Test will be available on the official websites of RRBs and RDSO (www.rdso.indianrailways.gov.in>Directorates>Psycho-Technical) from 02-05-19 to 10-05-19,” the notice reads.

GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Tuesday, April 30, 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 # 58 will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 57 Answer

Your wellness

The first international guidelines for pri-oritising, integrating

and regulating digital health tools, released, underline the benefits of 10 digital ap-proaches to improve public health and essential services but warn that technology cannot and should not re-place traditional health services.

With 51pc of the world’s population having access to broadband internet service, the World Health Organiza-tion’s (WHO) guidelines on digital interventions use evidence to identify how tools that use smartphones, tablets and computers can make health systems more efficient, responsive and resilient to resource con-straints.

“Safe and secure digital health technologies can significantly improve the quality, accessibility and sustainability of health ser-vices. New digital health technologies can help con-nect health professionals to patients in hard-to-reach areas, improve detection, diagnosis and treatment of health problems, and support management and monitoring of public health

First guideline on digital health interventionsprogrammes so decision-makers know whether their policies are working,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director of the World Health Organisation South East Asia Region (SEARO), of which India is a part.

Several countries, in-cluding India, have inte-grated digital technologies into public health systems to improve outreach and fill gaps in traditional health services.

“There are many good examples from the region. India’s electronic vaccine in-telligence network — eVJN — is providing the country’s immunisation programme with real-time information on vaccine stocks and flows through a simple mobile application. India has also launched a path-breaking integrated health informa-tion platform, a country-wide information system for managing disease outbreaks in the first instance but with potential for many others uses,” Dr Khetrapal Singh said.

Among the initiatives that have worked are digital tools for training and public health communication such

as text reminders to preg-nant women to attend an-tenatal care appointments, reminders to get children vaccinated, and decision-support tools to guide health workers provide care.

“Other countries in the region (SEARO), which is home to 26pc of the world’s population, are increasingly using SMS messages, voice messaging and other digital tools to provide large-scale prevention services for non-communicable diseases to people at all levels of lit-

eracy through the BeHe@lthyBeMobile Initiative. Countries are also intro-ducing electronic medical records, which should help improve continuity of care for people with long term health conditions,” said Dr Khetrapal Singh. The

BeHe@lthyBeMobile is a joint WHO-International Telecommunications Union initiative that assists nation-al governments to develop mHealth services to prevent and manage non-commu-nicable dis-eases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancers, and their risk fac-tors, such as high blood pressure and high blood glucose.

Digital technology adds value, but it is not a silver

bullet, warns the WHO guidelines. While there is some evidence on the ef-fectiveness of telemedicine, commodity management, health worker decision-support and education, con-tent and digital tracking of patients’ health status,

improving governance, and digital support for vaccina-tions, birth and death notifi-cations for support; gaps in the available evidence make it difficult to assess whether tools are effective in every

context.“ T h e

WHO sounds a mixed note

of welcome and caution, just as Louis Pasteur advised his research fellows, ‘keep your enthusiasm but let strict verification be its constant companion’,” said Dr K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India.

The guidelines are pri-marily meant for public health delivery, it can also serve as a playbook for de-velopers and manufacturers of digital health devices, who need to generate more evidence to show their prod-ucts improve on established healthcare practices. “They come at a time when sev-eral applications of innova-tive digital technologies are claiming to transform the outreach, effectiveness and affordability of healthcare. While there is great promise of such benefits, especially in primary health care,

disease surveillance, patient tracking, counselling, tele-medicine and supply chain management, the perfor-mance of new technologies needs to be carefully evalu-ated,” said Dr Reddy.

“India is emerging as a crucible of innovation in digital technologies and can become the world leader, as in the case of generic drugs. As it sets out to do so, the WHO guidelines will point the direction. In a rapidly emerging and expanding field, WHO will also need to frequently update and

revise the guidelines to keep pace with the innova-tions and evidence,” said Dr Reddy.

It’s imperative to ensure patient safety, privacy, trace-ability, accountability and security. “This is a very fast-moving area. To take greatest advantage of the potential of digital tech-nologies, people must be confident that information is secure and confidential. With that assurance, the benefits stand to be im-mense,” said Dr Khetrapal Singh.

State-run Air India Lim-ited has invited applica-tions for the recruitment

to several posts of Senior Trainee Flight Dispatcher. The candidates will be selected after a face-to-face interview which will be conducted on May 6 and 9. The selected candidates will be offered a fixed-term contract of five years. For more information, the applicants are advised to visit the official website of the state-run airline.Here are some important details

Senior Trainee Flight Dis-patcher: 70 posts (Scheduled Caste- 10, Scheduled Tribe- 5, OBC- 18, Economic Weaker Section- 7, General- 30)Important Dates and Venues for Interview

May 6, 2019: Executive Director (Operations), Air India Limited, headquarters near Jorbagh Metro Station,

Air India Recruitment: check for more detailsSafdarjung Airport New Del-hi-110003

May 9, 2019: In-Charge Flight Dispatch Operations Department, Air India Lim-

ited Corporate Building- 4 Old Airport, Santa Cruz-East Mumbai-400029Educational Qualification

The applicants must have passed 10+2 or its equiva-lent with Physics and Math-ematics from any recognised Board.Technical/ License qualifica-tions

Sr Trainee Flight Dispatch-er (Category 1) and Trainee Flight Dispatcher (Category 2)- Candidates holding Cur-rent/Lapsed DGCA (India).

Flight Dispatcher’s Approval on Jet Aircraft.

Junior Trainee Flight Dis-patcher (Category 3)- Candi-dates who have passed Flight Dispatcher’s Course from an approved institute and have undergone “On the Job Train-ing” and are yet to obtain the approval of DGCA.Posting

On appointment, an ap-plicant will get a posting in Delhi or Mumbai. However, they may be transferred to any location based on op-erational requirements of the airline.Stipend

Sr Trainee Flight Dis-patcher: Rs 40,000

Trainee Flight Dispatch-er: Rs 25,000

Junior Trainee Flight Dis-patcher: Rs 20,000Salary

On the completion of training and acquiring DGCA Flight Dispatcher’s Approval on the fleet of Air India Lim-ited, the candidates will get monthly gross emolument of Rs 70,000.

The candidates will also receive a loyalty bonus of Rs 60,000 per year after the completion of each year of the fixed term contract period.

Union Bank of India has released the admit card for its Specialist

Officer (SO) recruitment exam on www.unionbanko-findia.co.in.

T e n t a t i v e exam date for UBI SO Exam 2019 is May 17, 2019. There are a to-tal 181 vacancies that will be filled through this re-cruitment drive.How to download

Visi t Union Bank of India website - union-bankofindia.co.in

Click on the recruitment link available at the bottom of page

You will have redirected to a new page

Click on ’current open-

Union Bank of India releases admit card for SO recruitment exam 2019

ings’ linkClick on the link that

reads ‘Download hall ticket’Key in your registration

number/roll number and

password/ DOB and submitYour admit card will be

displayed on the screenDownload and take its

print out.Direct link is provided to

download UBI SO admit cardThe UBI SO onl ine

exam 2019 will be held at Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Patna,

Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Ben-galuru, Chennai, Bhopal, Mumbai/ Navi Mumbai/ Greater Mum-bai/ Thane and Ahmedabad.Details of va-cancyFire officer - 1 postEconomist- 6 postSecurity officer - 19 post

Integrated treasury officer- 15 postCredit officer- 122 postForex officer- 18 postThen click to check official notification.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) will declare the result for

Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main 2019 by April 30 at its official website, jee-main.nic.in. The JEE Main is the qualifying exam for JEE Advanced which is the entrance exam for admis-sion to the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs). But not everyone who clears the JEE Main is eligible for JEE Advanced.

The JEE Main which concluded on April 12 is an entrance exam for admis-sions to both engineering and architecture related undergraduate courses. The JEE Main score is accepted by the private and govern-ment colleges alike. So all those who clear the JEE Main are eligible to admis-sion to the UG courses. For each college, there is a different cut-off.

For JEE Advanced, only the candidates who secure a rank in top 2,45,000 are eli-gible to appear for the exam, according to official noti-fication. The ranks scored in JEE Main 2019 will be

Min marks needed to qualify for JEE Advanced 2019

announced along with JEE Main 2019 result by the NTA. Thereafter, based on the score secured in JEE Advanced, candidates are given admission to IIT and those who do not qualify can apply.

The percentages of vari-ous categories of candidates

to be shortlisted are: 4pc for EWS category, 27pc for OBC-NCL, 15pc for SC, 7.5pc for ST and the re-maining 46.5pc is open for all. Within each of these four categories, 5pc hori-zontal reservation is avail-able for PwD candidates, as per the official notification by the IIT Roorkee.

Also, to be eligible for the exam, candidates should match the eligibility criteria

Number of attempts: A candidate should have ap-peared for the class 12 (or

equivalent) exam for the first time in either 2018 or 2019. No candidate is al-lowed to take the exam for more than two consecutive years.

Age limit: Candidates should have been born on before October 1, 1994. Further relaxation of five

years is allowed for SC, ST, PwD candidates.

The JEE Ad-vanced will be conducted by the IIT-Roorkee in two papers. The paper -1 will be-

gin at 9 am to be concluded at noon and paper 2 will be held from 2 pm to 5 pm.Who are considered for-eign nationals?

Candidates who are not citizens of India (by birth or naturalized), do not be-long to OCI/PIO category, and whose parents are not citizens of India and do not come under OCI/PIO category at the time of reg-istering for JEE (Advanced) 2019 are treated as foreign nationals, as per the official notice.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in its latest recruit-

ment notification has invited candidates to apply for the Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandants) at upsc.gov.in. Interested can-didates can visit the official website of UPSC to apply for the vacant posts now. The Commission has invited ap-plications as it intends to fill 323 Assistant Commandants posts (Group A) in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), namely- Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Indus-trial Security Force(CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). The last date to fill the application is May 20, 2019; 6 PM. Important dates:Last date to fill online appli-cation: May 20, 2019; 6 PMOnline Applications can be withdrawn: May 27, 2019 to June 3, 2019; 6 PMWritten exam for CAPF re-cruitment: August 18, 2019The exam for the recruit-ment of Central Armed Police Forces will be conducted to fill the below mentioned vacancies-Border Security Force (BSF)

UPSC invites applications for CAPF posts– 100Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) – 108Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) – 28Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) – 21Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) – 66Eligibility Criteria: The Com-mission has invited applica-tions from both male and female candidatesAge limit: 20 to 25 years as on August 1, 2019Candidates must meet the

prescribed Physical and Med-ical Standards for admission to CAPFA bachelor’s degree from a recognised educational in-stitution in the country is a must for the above mentioned posts.How to apply:

Step 1: Visit the official

website of UPSC at upsc.gov.in / upsconline.nic.in

Step 2: Click on ‘ONLINE APPLICATION FOR VARIOUS EXAMINATIONS OF UPSC’

Step 3: Now fill the two part of the ‘Registration’ for which the links will be avail-able on the page

Step 4: Enter all the neces-sary details

Step 5: Once completed, take a print out of the finished form for future use

Selection process: Can-didates will be selected for

Central Armed Police Forces only when they clear the Written Examination, which will be followed by a Physical Standards/Physical Efficiency Tests and Medical Standards Tests and lastly an Interview/Personality Test

Written Examination: The written test CAPF will be con-

ducted on August 18, 2019. There will be two papers for the same, wherein, the Paper I will be held from 10 a.m. to 12.00 Noon and Paper II will be held from 2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. Paper- I will be a: Gen-eral Ability and Intelligence test for 250 marks whereas the Paper II will be a General Studies, Essay and Compre-hension for 200 marks.

Physical Standards/Physi-cal Efficiency Tests and Medi-cal Standards Tests: Candi-dates who qualify the written exam will be called for a Physical Standards/ Physical Efficiency Tests and Medical Standards Tests once they clear this, they will then have to face an interview panel.

Interview/Personality Test: This round will be for 150 Marks and candidates who qualify the Medical Standards Tests, will be called for Inter-view/Personality Test. They will be issued ‘a Detailed Ap-plication Form (DAF) in which among other things, they will be required to indicate their preference of Forces.’

Final Selection / Merit: The final merit list will be drawn on the basis of marks obtained by the candidates in the Written Examination and Interview/Personality Test.

6 IN FOCUS Tuesday, April 30, 2019

As per the UAE Labour Law, what are the employers’ rights to take disciplinary action against employee misconduct? Our employer used to cut 15 to 20 days wages from the salary. Does an employer have the right to do this and what is the maximum period for which salary can be cut?

According to the UAE Federal Law No. 8 of 1980, as amended, the Labour Law provides clear provisions to employers to take disciplinary action against their em-ployees. This is covered in detail in the chapter six of the UAE Labour Law from the Article no. 102 until Article no. 112. “There are certain cases where an employer may fine or even dismiss an employee for misconduct and breach of duties and it is important for all employees to understand the circumstances when these penalties can be imposed. According to Article 102 of the UAE Labour Law, there are disci-plinary rules that an employee should be aware of. Nevertheless, Article 102 states that disciplinary rules may be imposed by the employer or their representative in the following forms: disciplinary penalties which may imposed by the employer or its agent upon its employees are as follows: a warning, fine, suspension from work with reduced pay for a period not exceeding 10 days, forfeiture or deferment of periodic increment, forfeiture or deferment of promo-tion, dismissal from service but reserving right to end-of-service benefits, dismissal from service together with forfeiture of all or part of the benefits, provided that the penalties shall not be imposed for reasons other than those specifically prescribed in Article no. 120 of this law.

How to sell my shares?I am a partner in an LLC Company. I am planning to sell my share to my son and my wife and get out from the company as a partner. My question is what is the procedure as per the law to sell my share?

The Company Commercial Federal Law no. 2 for the year 2015, Article no. 80 “Pro-cedures of Assignment of the Partner’s Share in the Company” mentions the following: 1. If a partner wishes to assign his share to a person who is not a partner, with or without consideration, such partner shall notify the other partners through the manager of the company of the assignee or the purchaser and the terms of the assignment or the sale. The manager shall notify the partners as soon as he receives the notice. 2. Every partner may demand to pre-empt the share as set forth in clause one of this article within 30 days from the date of notifying the manager of the agreed price. In the event of dispute on the price, such share shall be assessed by one or more experts with technical and financial experience in the subject matter of the share, as nominated by the competent authority on demand by the applicant for pre-emption and at his expenses. 3. If the right of pre-emption is used by more than one partner, the share(s) offered for sale shall be divided among such partners pro rata to their respective shareholdings, subject to the provisions of Article (76) of this law. 4. If the period as set forth in clause two of this Article has lapsed without use of the pre-emption right by a partner, the relevant partner shall be free to dispose of his share.

Working on holidaysI’ve worked in a company for more than three years. My employer used to give me work on a public holiday, but didn’t pay me any extra money for it. He only gives compensatory leave in exchange for such days. My question is, does the UAE labour law entitle the employer to not pay a worker any extra for working on a public holiday and only compensate them with a lieu day?

Federal Law No. 08 of 1980, Article no. 81, mentions the following: “Where the circumstances of the worker to work on public holidays or rest day in respect of which he is entitled to full or partial pay, he shall be granted compensatory leave in respect of such days, together with a bonus equal to 50pc of his remuneration. If he is not compensated for such days by leave, his employer shall pay him a bonus equal to 150pc of his basic remuneration in respect of the days worked.”

Salary cutI am an employer, in what cases does the UAE labour law allow me to reduce the employee salary legally and what is the maximum percentage allowed to cut from their salary as per the UAE labour law?

I refer you to UAE Federal Law No. 08

Salary cut for indiscipline can’t exceed 10 daysof 1980, Article no. 60, which mentions the following: “No amount of money may be deducted from a worker’s remuneration in respect of private claims, except in the following cases:

a) The recovery of advances or amounts of money paid to the worker in excess of their entitlements, on condition that the amount deducted in this case does not ex-ceed 10pc of his periodic remuneration. b) Contributions which the worker is required by law to pay from his remuneration, e.g. towards social security and insurance schemes. c) The worker’s contributions to savings fund or repayment of advances repayable thereto. d) Contributions towards any welfare scheme or in respect of any other privileges or services provided by the employer and approved by the Labour Department. e) Fines imposed upon the worker for any offence he has committed. f) Any debt payable in execution of the judgment of a court of law.

The deduction shall not exceed one-quarter of the worker’s remuneration. Where two or more debts are payable, the maximum shall be half the worker’s remuneration and the sums of money at-tached shall be divided pro rata among the beneficiaries, after payment of any legal alimony at the rate of one-quarter of the workers remuneration.”

Frozen accountWe are two managers in an LLC company. We get paid a salary in addition to other allowances. Since three months, we have not received our salary as the company’s bank account is under a freeze by a court order. What legal recourse do we have to claim our pending salary and other allowances?

Labour cases in the UAE are governed by Federal Law No. 8 of 1980. However, Article (1) of the mentioned law defines the employment contract as “any agreement, whether for a limited or for an unlimited period, concluded between an employer and an employee under which the latter undertakes to work in the service of the employer and under his management or control against a remuneration payable to him by the employer.” Article (3) of the same law says the law applies to all em-ployees and workers in the UAE, including Emiratis and expatriates.

Therefore, it should be noted that the partners in a business are not considered as employees--- instead they are treated as investors in their businesses. However, if you hold an employee position, additional to your status as a manager, you will be considered as an employee working in the company. For example, if the company sets your salary and other allowances, car expenses and annual leave for one month, based on this you will be entitled to your labour rights including an end-of-service gratuity. So for the parties in a business relationship, it is sufficient for the juris-diction of the Dubai Civil Court, not the Labour Court, to hear the case.

Severance packageI have been working in a company based in Dubai for five years. The company is a free zone company. In my labour con-tract, it is mentioned that my salary is on a commission basis only. It is also men-tioned that the employer is not entitled to pay end-of-service rights as long as I am working on a commission basis. As per the UAE Labour Law, do I have the right to get the end-of-service benefits in case I resign and leave the company? Do I have the right to request the court to force my employer to provide me with the end-of-service certificate because my employer is refusing to do so?

As per the UAE Labour Law, an em-ployee who works on a commission basis has the right to get paid for end- of- service. Anything to the contrary is considered against the law. As per the UAE’s Labour Law, Federal Law No (8) of 1980, Article No. 125, “An employer shall provide a worker at the latter’s request and on the termina-tion of his contract, with a certificate of termination of service, which shall be free of charge, it shall specify the dates of his entering and leaving the employer’s service, his total period of service, the nature of the work he has performed, his last remu-neration and any bonuses he has received.” Therefore, as per the above-mentioned ar-ticle, the employee has the right to request the labour court to force the employer to provide the employee with end- of-service certificate in case the employer refuses to provide the employee with such a letter.

GULF FAQs

Emirates has unveiled future of aviation pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai. The 26 slanted architectural fins that cover the entirety of the pavilion will hold over 800-metre of LED lights.

DUBAI: Ramadan will begin on May 6 in most Islamic nations, accord-ing to the International Astronomical Centre. The new crescent moon will be impossible to spot with the eye in most Arab nations, across East and South East Asia and in southern Eu-rope on Sunday, May 5.

Because it will only be possible to see the moon with a telescope that day, the first day of the holy month will fall on Mon-day, May 6, according to Mohamed Shawkat, the director of the centre. Eye sighting of the moon will also be difficult in west-ern and southern African countries and most of the

Ramadan begins on May 6 in Gulf nationsUS on May 5, although it should be relatively easy in Central America. The prediction is in line with many other astronomers, who have predicted Rama-dan will begin on May 6. The job of officially calling the start – as well as the end of Ramadan – will be down to the Moon Sight-ing Committee.

Why is a moon sight-ing committee used to announce the start of the holy month? The Islamic calendar is determined by moon phases, which are either 29 or 30 days long. So the presence of a new moon signals the start of a new month in the Islamic calendar. The committee

will begin looking for the new crescent moon after Maghrib prayers on the 29th day of Sha’ban, the Islamic month preceding Ramadan. If it cannot be seen or is known using calculations to not be in the sky, it is consid-ered to be the 30th day of the month. But if the new crescent is spotted, Ramadan begins the fol-lowing day. The process is repeated again to mark the end of the holy month and the first day of Shawwal, the 10th month. However, searching for the new cres-cent can be a little tricky, because it is usually faint and is only seen for about 20 minutes.

NEW DELHI: An official at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai has cautioned the public against falling prey to in-dividuals and companies peddling fake UAE visas. Brigadier Khalaf Al Gaith, assistant director-general in charge of GRDFA’s Violators and Foreigners Follow-up Section, said those wanting to come to the UAE must obtain visas from legal channels only.

The warning comes close on the heels of a crackdown on a fake UAE visa racket in India. Two men were arrested by Delhi police last week after it emerged that they sold fake UAE employment visas to 17 unsuspecting jobs-eekers from UP.

The suspects had been evading arrests for some time but were finally caught .

Police said that one of the accused used an inge-nious method to attract cus-tomers. Much like a street vendor, he sold visas using a loudspeaker. The suspects

Selling fake UAE visa gang bustedreportedly charged Rs1 lakh from each customer. Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI) Sanjay Bhatia said shortly after the 17 job-seekers who had flown to the UAE on fake visas were deported, immigration officials filed a complaint against the two suspects. A similar racket was busted by Gujarat Police in March this year. “Many people fall prey to the fake visa racket. “Recently, we busted a gang from Bahrain that was of-fering UAE visas on Face-book,” Brig Al Gaith said.

The GDRFA Dubai has long been urging people to use its smart channels — the GDRFA website or app — to apply for visas. “Those who get a company visa should visit our web-site www.dnrd.ae to check if it’s genuine or not. Alter-natively, you could look up the “Visa Inquiry” section on the GDRFA app.How to avoid visa fraud• Don’t fall for social media

adverts promising visit visas to the UAE.

• If you have an entry permit/visa issued from

Dubai, verify its validity at the GDRFA’s website www.dnrd.ae

• Tourist visas can be is-sued through UAE-based airlines such as Emirates, Etihad, flydubai and Air Arabia. They are also issued through UAE-based hotels and travel agencies.

• Get help on visas and entry permits issued from Dubai through Amer’s chat service by calling 8005111. People out-side the UAE can call 0097143139999.

MUSCAT: The ministry of manpower has extended its visa ban on some oc-cupations in the country, as the Sultanate contin-ues to push its Omanisa-tion policy. This latest decision by the ministry extends the expat visa ban for companies work-ing in construction and cleaning activities. Min-isterial Decision 200/2019 included a “freeze on per-mits for expat workers in

Oman visa ban extended to more sectorsprivate sector institutions which engage in construc-tion and cleaning work.”

This ban will last for six months and excludes some types of companies such as SMEs or compa-nies with more than 100 employees. This decision has also cancels out deci-sion 338/2014, which froze expat work permits for this sector but included different exceptions. The decision excludes “compa-

nies with more than 100 workers, companies that execute government proj-ects, Small and Medium Enterprises that are regis-tered at the Public Author-ity for SME development and which is registered at the Public Authority for Social Insurance, as well as enterprises that are reg-istered as multi-nationals and operate in industrial free trade zones,” accord-ing to the decision.

Kuwait bans expatworkers from 20African countriesKUWAIT CITY: The Kuwaiti General Directorate of Resi-dence Affairs has announced a ban on recruitment of do-mestic workers from five Af-rican countries. The latest ban raises the list to 20 countries.

According local media, the Kuwaiti ministry of for-eign affairs issued a circular mentioning the names of the five countries, which include Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Bhutan, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. Additionally, the other 15 African countries are Djibouti,Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Togo, Senegal, Mala-wi, Chad, Sierra Leone, Niger, Tanzania, the Gambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.

DUBAI: It is a problem of plenty for a Dubai-based Indian girl who has been offered acceptance letters by seven prestigious US-based universities, including Ivy League schools, leav-ing her surprised as she never expected the variety of choices she has been left with. Simone Noorali (17), has been offered acceptance letters from the University of California in Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Emory University, George Town University and George Washington University.

The girl who studied at the Uptown School in Mirdif

Gulf NRI girl gets acceptance letters from US varsitiesin Dubai and has managed to keep straight As since IX has also received accep-

tance letters from Ivy League schools such as Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania. “I honestly think there is no secret to being accepted into this

many universities. The whole process is about discover-ing yourself. Everyone has something unique to offer,” Simone told a TV channel. “While applying to univer-sities, it forced me to look back at my life and try to figure out the reason behind everything I did. I had ex-plained all of that eloquently to universities in my college application essays,” she said.

Simone is also an ac-complished pianist and has written a book on human trafficking in India titled “The Girl in the Pink Room”, is being used in a few schools by teachers and students for

research purposes. When her acceptance letters started pouring in, Simone was sur-prised as she did not expect the variety of choices she is being left with, the report said. Asked which university she would choose, Simone said her decision will be based on which varsity of-fers the best programme in international relations and economics.

“I would advise students to do what they love and not force themselves into doing anything. That’s such a big part of motivating yourself and finding what you love to do,” she said.

CORPORATE NEWS 7Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Public sector lender Canara Bank and its life insurance partner

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance have announced the launch of ’Webassur-ance’

Four life insurance

products of Canara HSBC OBC Life would be made available to customers of Canara Bank, covering the key needs of child future, savings and investments, retirement planning and protection, a release said.

Canara Bank Manag-

Canara Bank, Canara HSBC OBC Life launch Webassurance

ing Director and CEO R A Sankara Narayanan said, “There is a large and rap-idly growing section of our customers who are digitally savvy and prefer to engage online for their banking requirements. This cus-tomer segment also likes

to have control over their purchase process and look for convenient availability of products and services online“.

He said, with Webassur-ance the bank will be able to service the protection needs of its younger and

net-savvy customers. “This initiative inte-

grates together the digital capabilities of the bank and the company to pro-vide a convenient and hassle-free option for the bank customers to fulfil their insurance needs. We are confident that this initiative will help further increase our reach into Canara Bank’s customer base and ensure we reach out with relevant solutions to all customers in the Ca-nara Bank family,” Canara HSBC OBC Life Managing Director and CEO Anuj Mathur said.

Canara HSBC OBC Life is jointly owned by two public sector banks Canara Bank (51pc) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (23pc) and HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings (26pc), the Asian insurance arm of banking and financial services groups HSBC.

Bank of Baroda—the recently created banking behemoth

post its three-way amalga-mation with Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank—is going in for organisation struc-ture revamp to improve

the overall efficiency of operations and have bet-ter control and monitor-ing mechanisms in the combined entity.

For this purpose, this bank—which now in all has 9447 branches—-has decided to introduce a new layer in the organisa-

BoB goes in for new organisational structuretional hierarchy by creat-ing a position of General Manager—-Chief Coordi-nation.

The position of General Manager—Chief Coordina-tion will be a rank above the General Manager and

one level below the Execu-tive Director and will be responsible for and drive multiple areas of operation instead of a single func-tion, P.S.Jayakumar, Man-aging Director, Bank of Baroda said in an internal note to employees.

All the 9447 branches

will now report to an unified Regional Office/Zonal Office structure of the bank and there will not be any separate ROs/ZOs of the individual three entities running in parallel.

The domestic retail network of branches is now being organised under 18 zones and f ive f ie ld heads of Retail Distribution who in turn will have overall responsi-bility for driving business of 2 to 5 business under them.

In the revised structure, apart from the 18 zones, there will now be a total of 108 regions. It is also pro-posed to gradually move to a city vertical structure in 5 cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai, to start with, according to Jayakumar.

L&T Finance Holdings said that its consoli-dated net profit more

than doubled to Rs 552.12 crore during the quarter ended March 2019.

The company had posted a Rs 270 crore net profit in same period a year ago. Total income for the said quarter rose to 3,383.92 crore from Rs 2,762.71 crore a year ago, the company said in a BSE filing.

Total expenses during the quarter stood at Rs 2,634.56 crore as against Rs 2,396.53 crore.

L&T Finance Holdings net jumps 2-fold

L&T, along with its joint venture partner, BESIX, has finished

building a Sewage Treat-ment Plant (STP) in the United Arab Emirates.

The 3,75,000 cubic me-

tres per day STP has come up in Jebel Ali (Phase 2) and is claimed to be the biggest in the UAE. L&T in a statement added that the plant was finished ahead of schedule, maintaining the highest standards of

L&T finishes STP project in UAEquality and safety.

The Jebel Ali Sewage Treatment Plant Phase-2 Expansion is Dubai Munic-ipality’s strategic project of 3,75,000 cubic metres per day, to meet current and

future demand generated from the surrounding area that will see major new developments, including Expo 2020. The Jebel Ali facilities have a total treat-ment capacity of 675 mil-lion litres per day (MLD),

which includes the exist-ing 300 MLD of Phase–1.

“This is, perhaps, the first project of this mag-nitude and complexity that has been completed and delivered ahead of

time, with not a single minute lost due to in-cidents of any kind,” said S. N. Subrahman-yan, Chief Ex-ecutive Officer & Managing Di-rector, Larsen & Toubro. “With water becom-ing such a pre-cious commod-ity the world over, projects like these make a huge differ-ence to the

ecology and it is always good to be associated with such projects,” he added. The STP has been built on a build, test, commis-sion, operate and maintain mode, company officials said.

HDFC Standard Life Insurance has re-ported a five per

cent rise in standalone net profit to Rs 364.01 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31. It had registered a net profit of Rs 346.84 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2017-18.

The company’s total income increased to Rs 14,374.56 crore during the quarter, from Rs 8,134.61 crore a year ago. “In line with our stated strategy, we continue to focus on profit-able growth and providing the best value proposition to our customers, partners and shareholders,” HDFC Life Insurance Managing Director and Chief Execu-tive Officer Vibha Padalkar said.

Net premium collec-tion grew to Rs 10,247.50 crore, compared with Rs 8,900.02 crore in the year-ago quarter.

For the entire fiscal, the standalone net profit in-

HDFC Life Insurance net profit rises

creased 15pc to Rs 1,276.79 crore, from Rs 1,109 crore a year ago.

The company’s embed-ded value (EV) increased 20pc to Rs 18,301 crore at the end of March 2019, it said.

The EV is similar to the book value of companies in other sectors. It is sum of the company’s net worth and the present value of all future profits to sharehold-ers from the existing book of the company, including new business written in the year.

Value of new business (VNB) rose 20pc to Rs 1,537 crore, against Rs 1,282 crore in the cor-responding period of the previous fiscal.

VNB is used to mea-sure profitability of the new business written in a period. It is the current value of all future profits to shareholders measured at the time of writing of the new business contract.

Toonz Media Group, leader in the anima-tion industry has

come up with what it claims as the first ever ‘Cocoon’ Concept Lab for budding animators.

The initiative is de-signed to support authentic storytelling and ideas by facilitating individualised concept development for emerging budding creators and writers with a ready TV/ digital series idea or screenplay.

Creators of selected unique concepts will be mentored by experts in the field and the idea will be developed for further execution, a spokesman for

Toonz Media launches ‘Cocoon’ concept lab

the animation house said.Individual mentors will

track, advise and inspire them to create pitches for being presented at the Ani-mation Masters that Toonz Media Group will host on May 3 and 4 as also for future pitches worldwide.

Toonz Media aims to represent such concepts received from various do-mestic and international markets and provide a plat-form for industry aspirants, the spokesman said.

P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group, said that the Concept Lab will be a perfect launching pad for prospective creators. Selected concepts will be presented in the pertinent markets.

“Toonz has a distin-guished history of pitching concepts in various markets in the world. Its global footprint will enhance the prospects for upcoming talents in the industry,” he added.

Petronet LNG Ltd plans to set up a floating LNG terminal in An-

daman and Nicobar Islands which will be utilised to feed city gas distribution business of selling CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in the island.

Petronet has made an application to sector regu-lator, Petroleum and Natural Gas Regula-tory Board (PNGRB) for a city gas licence.

In its application it said, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd is looking at setting up a 50 MW gas-based power plant in Hope Town in South An-daman and plans to appoint a gas supplier for the same.

“Petronet (has) proposed to set up a Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) to regasify LNG to supply gas to the power plant. This would (also) be the source for the supply of gas to city gas distribu-tion (CGD) network at Port Blair,” the company said in the application.

Gas will be imported in its liquid form (LNG or

Petronet plans mini LNG terminal in Andamanliquefied natural gas) from international suppliers. It will be converted back into its gaseous state at an FSRU at the high-sea. “Gas shall be sourced from long term or spot LNG market,” Petronet said.

The company current-ly operates a 15 million tonnes a year LNG import terminal at Dahej in Gujarat

and has another 5 million tonnes a year unit at Kochi in Kerala.

Petronet said Port Blair has a population of around 1.5 lakh made up to some 39,000 households. Port Blair has 1.2 lakh vehicles with majority 86,402 being two-wheelers.

Petronet assessed the city’s gas demand by 2027 at 0.077 million standard cubic meters per day, more than half of which will come from the use of CNG in transport.

Household demand was put at 0.015 mmscmd and an almost similar con-sumption from commercial establishments.

The geographical area for its city gas network at Port Blair will span some 50 square kilometers, ac-cording to the application. PNGRB has sought com-ments on the application made by Petronet by June 6.

It may allot the city gas licence to the company

if there is no competitive offer for setting up a CGD network on the Islands. In case there are offers, the applicants as also Petronet would be asked to make a bid for the licence. Accord-ing to Petronet, the FSRU will have the capacity to import 0.15 million tonnes per annum.

Andaman & Nicobar i s lands current ly meets its power needs mainly from Govern-ment owned diesel generation units with balance power pur-chased from indepen-dent power producers such as Surya Chakra Power Corporation Ltd at Bamboo flats and other Hired Power plants at Phoenix Bay.

Gas being environ-ment-friendly fuel will help the ecology of the Island.

The planned 50 MW power plant by NTPC will be sufficient to meet current as well as future electricity needs of Anda-man and Nicobar Islands.

The proposed LNG ter-minal will cost about Rs 496 crores while the power plant may cost about Rs 215 crore.

Alibaba-backed com-pany BigBaske t is pumping in $

100 million (about Rs 698 crore) to strengthen its supply chain by setting up vending machines and smaller distribution cen-tres across various cities it operates in. The online grocery platform -- which is registered as Supermarket Grocery Supplies -- had recently raised $ 150 mil-lion in funding, led by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, CDC Group and Alibaba Group.

Founded in 2011, Big-Basket operates in 25 Indi-an cities. It plans to utilise the proceeds of this fund-raising - which has placed the Bengaluru-based com-pany in the unicorn club (companies with valuation of $ 1 billion and above) - to further penetrate into existing markets with more investments in the first mile, scaling-up of its sup-ply chain and for develop-ing new reseller channels.

“We want to enable two-hour delivery in top 10 cities that we operate in by July this year. For that, we have been investing in strengthening our distribu-tion centres. We have 18

BigBasket to invest $100mlarge and 80 smaller dis-tribution centres together with our resellers and this will be ramped to 20 large and 100 smaller ones by June this year,” BigBasket co-founder Vipul Parekh said.

This move will help BigBasket reduce delivery time and ensure quality of dairy and fresh produce, he added.

The company expects its capital expenditure to-wards these initiatives to be about $ 100 million this year.

“We are ramping up our milk subscription business - BB Daily - under which we have built the supply chain to deliver milk and other items in the morning. The service was started around September last year and our sellers already carry out 90,000-100,000 orders a day. We are aim-ing to take this to a million orders a day and a stronger supply chain infrastructure will play a key role in this,” he said.

Another area where the company is investing is in towards setting up un-manned vending machines - BB Instant - in office and apartment complexes.

“We see a huge potential of these machines. Custom-ers can use their app to access the machine and buy products. The only hu-man intervention is in re-stocking. We have already placed such machines at 200 sites in Bengaluru and over the next one year, we want to have 2,000 such sites across the 10 large cities where we operate,” Parekh said.

Also, given that these machines are placed within apartment and office com-plexes, the risk of vandal-ism is lower.

Parekh said with these investments, BigBasket - which competes with SoftBank-backed Grofers as well as Amazon.in and Walmart-owned Flipkart - will continue to build further on its leadership in the grocery business.

“We have been re-engi-neering our supply chain to allow for faster delivery to our resellers and 0to reduce the time from farm to our customers. This coupled with an expansion in our range of private label products will create a solid foundation for growth in both revenue and profit-ability,” Parekh said.

8 Travel / Entertainment

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

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EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

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

As on 29th April, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 48.00 50.50Bahraini Dinar 180.80 190.80British Pound 88.90 91.90Canadian Dollar 50.65 53.15 Emirati Dirham 18.50 19.50Euro 76.45 79.45Kuwaiti Dinar 224.50 234.50Omani Rial 176.70 186.70Qatari Riyal 18.70 19.70Saudi Riyal 18.15 19.15Singapore Dollar 50.05 52.55Swiss Franc 67.00 70.00US Dollar 68.85 70.85

Source:

An IPEPCIL initiative to help Gulf job-seekers

Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council (IPEPCIL)

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

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

particularly to the Gulf nations.

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

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

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

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

INDIAN WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION FESTIVE BAZAAR: Besides celebrating India’s rich culture industries, the Bazaar is also a platform to showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of female Indian entrepreneurs who bring exotic merchandise from India to Singapore.

Jet Airways crisis: windfall for foreign carriersThe grounding of Jet

Airways is turning into a quick windfall

and long-term opportunity for international airlines keen to scoop up nearly a million outbound passen-gers from what was once the nation’s largest airline. Jet, which previously had a fleet of around 120 largely Boeing planes, was forced to indefinitely halt all flight operations on April 17 after its banks rejected the car-rier’s plea for emergency funds. The carrier’s descent into crisis has benefited international airlines in

the form of rising fares and demand.

Fares from India to cities such as Dubai, London, New York, Singapore and Bali in the first quarter of 2019 rose between four per cent and 32pc from a year ago, according to travel portal MakeMyTrip.

In the peak t r ave l months of May and June, fares to London have spiked as much as 36pc and tick-ets to San Francisco are up nearly 20pc from a year ago, according to data from travel portal Yatra.com. “For the next three months it’s

actually bonanza time for international players,” said Ashish Nainan, a research analyst at CARE Ratings. “At least until the middle of June, the fares are not going to come down.”

Due to rising demand, even before Jet’s lessors grounded planes, carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and United Air-lines saw an upto a 27pc increase in passenger num-bers from India in the last quarter of 2018, data from India’s aviation regulator showed.

Faiz Alam Ansari thinks it is a great time to be a hotelier in India. He is

the complex general manger of the Sheraton Grand Ben-galuru and Whitefield Hotel in Bangalore. Business is brisk at the property.

“There is a huge increase in demand and also the lim-ited supply of hotels helps,” says Ansari. The hotel only opened one year ago – the 100th property in India un-der Marriott International’s portfolio of hotel brands, which include Sheraton, Aloft and Le Meridien.

The data for the industry supports Ansari’s optimism. Average hotel room rates in 2018 rose by 6.25pc to over the previous year to Rs 5,950 while occupancy

Indian hotel sector fares well Air India ticket cancellation changes done for freelevels increased to 66pc last

year compared with 64pc in 2017, according to a report released this month by the consultancy HVS Anarock. It forecast that revenue per available room, an indicator that takes both occupancy levels and room rates into account, will grow by 9.5pc this year. “The hotel indus-try is currently at the cusp of an up-cycle,” says Pratik Tholiya, the associate vice president for institutional equity research at Elara Capital, an investment bank based in Mumbai. “The oc-cupancy is at the decade high and the average room rates are the highest since 2012.”

A steady flow of for-eign tourists, an increase

in discretional spending due to a rise in disposable incomes and the country’s expanding middle-class population, plus increasing business travel, are all fac-tors driving this trend, he explains.Changing tide

There are some short-term headwinds, though. “The ongoing general elec-tions could dampen some of the sector’s otherwise up-beat performance in 2019,” says Mandeep Lamba, presi-dent for south Asia at HVS Anarock. During the six weeks of the general elec-tion, which runs until May 23, companies are cautious and may hold off on ex-pansion plans that would involve business travel.

Also, an increased supply of nearly 8,574 rooms set to open in India this year could have an impact, he adds.

“However, the tide is set to change this year as market sentiments can re-cover with the aid of a stable government, post-elections, to support the required economic growth,” Lamba adds. “Banking on this important factor and also considering the limited new supply in 2020, the hotel industry can record its highest-ever occupancy.”

Business tourists make up 60pc and leisure tourists 40pc of guests for India’s hospitality industry, ac-cording to Elara Capital, an investment bank.

Indian origin actors making waves in global showbizFrom Priyanka Chopra

to Lilly Singh, many actors of Indian origin

are featuring on American TV shows. Get set to know more about the brilliant ac-tors who are making their mark in international show-biz. Here’s a few of them for you:Priyanka Chopra

Her journey is just so remarkable. She came from Bareilly to Mumbai to par-ticipate in the Miss India contest and later won the Miss World crown! Not only in India, but she gained pop-ularity in the US for her role as Alex Parrish on the ABC show Quantico. In 2016, she was named in Time’s new 100 Most Influential People issue alongside the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Leon-ardo DiCaprio.

Priyanka recently got married to Nick Jonas in a fairytale wedding. Their adorable pictures continue to regale and thrill their fans

She was appointed In-dia’s official UNICEF Good-will Ambassador for child rights in 2010. The global

star also started The Pri-yanka Chopra Foundation for Health and Education, which currently covers edu-cational and medical ex-penses for children in India.Lilly Singh

The show — A Little Late With Lilly Singh — will start in Sept. It will air in Carson Daly’s slot on weeknights at 1.35am. Indian origin YouTube sensation and a Canadian born to Indian parents, Singh gained fame for her YouTube channel

Superwoman, launched in 2010, which today boasts 14.5 million subscribers. Lilly Singh is also set to become the only woman

and LGBTQ person to host a late night show on a ma-jor US network. According to Forbes, she was among the top paid YouTubers in 2017. Her book How to be a Bawse: A Guide to Con-quering Life was a New York Times No 1 best-seller.Kunal Nayyar

We have been watching long-loved astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali for years on The Big Bang Theory. Kunal was born in Hounslow, Lon-don and he belongs to Pun-jabi origin, though, he was brought up and completed his schooling in New Delhi.

He was also seen in shows like Prison Break and The Mindy Project. In 2015, Forbes magazine listed him third among the world’s highest-paid TV actors with earnings of $20 million after the success of The Big Bang Theory.Padma Lakshmi

She is an author, activ-ist, chef, model and TV host. Born in Chennai, Lak-shmi has been the host of the US cooking competi-

tion programme Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 2009 for Outstanding Reality Host.

Her first cookbook Easy Exotic won her the Best First Book award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America and is a recipient of NECO Ellis Island Medal of honour. Recently, the UNDP announced her as its newest Goodwill Ambas-sador.Mindy Kaling

An actress, comedian, writer and producer, Mindy played Kelly Kapoor in The Office sitcom from 2005 to 2013. She also received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a

Comedy Series in 2010. She gained much attention for creating, writing, producing and starring in The Mindy Project comedy series.

Her new movie Late Night hits theatres in June and she just announced that she’s working on a comedy for Netflix.After starring in the all-woman heist film Ocean’s eight last year alongside Hollywood stars Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett, her public presence and profile was raised considerably. Her new movie Late Night hits theatres in June and she just announced that she’s work-ing on a comedy for Netflix. According to some media reports, Priyanka Chopra may be working with Mindy Kaling in her next Holly-wood project.

Air India has decided that from May 1, if a customer wants

to cancel his air ticket or make changes in it within 24 hours of booking, he/she will not be charged any fee. However, this facility will be available only if the flight is scheduled at least seven days after the booking date.

Indian aviation regulator DGCA had issued a “passen-ger charter” which specified the rights of air travellers. One of the provisions in the passenger charter has been implemented by the national carrier through the aforementioned decision that will come into effect from May 1. A circular is-sued by Air India’s Chair-man on April 24 said: “It has been decided that for sale and travel, effective May 1, 2019, all domestic tickets will have the free look-in option for change and can-

cellation as prescribed by the DGCA.”

“The passenger has an option of cancelling or amending the ticket without any additional charges, that is cancellation or change fee is not applicable, when the same is done within 24 hours of ticketing,” it added. However, according to the circular, the normal prevail-ing fare and the related fare conditions on a particular flight — for which the ticket is being sought — will be applicable.

Moreover, the circular stated that the facility “shall not be available for a flight whose departure is sched-uled less than seven days from the booking date”. “Beyond 24 hours of initial booking time, this option is not available and the passen-ger has to pay the relevant cancellation/change fees for amendment,” it added.

LuLu openshypermarket

Retail chain LuLu has launched a new hypermarket

in the suburb of Amerat in Muscat. Housed within the premises of Nujum al Amerat Mall, the inaugu-ral ceremony was held in the presence of Dr Yahya Suleiman Abdullah Al Nadabi, Wali of Al Am-erat and Yusuff Ali MA, chairman and managing director of LuLu Group. The new hypermarket, Lulu’s 24th branch in Oman and 167th world-wide, is spread over an area of about 1.4 lakh sq feet and designed with a well-planned floor lay-out, and liberal parking space.

Lankan resorts face closure

Tourist cancellations started before the dust had settled on the hotels and churches hit by suicide bombers in Sri Lanka as tourists and operators pressed the

panic button. Sanath Ukwatte, chairman of the colonial-era Mount Lavinia hotel in Colombo, said he lost about 30pc of his bookings within days of the Easter Sunday attacks that killed 253 people. Many holidaymakers got the first plane out of Colombo after the blasts — at least 40 foreigners were among the dead — raising fears for a tourism indus-try that had managed to move on from the shadows of a decades-long civil war. The US , Britain, Australia, India and Israel have all warned their nationals against visiting, while the Netherlands is organising a special flight to evacu-ate hundreds of Dutch tourists. European travel giant TUI announced it had stopped taking bookings for the South Asian country. And the crisis could get worse before it gets better for the island nation, whose palm-fringed beaches and mountain tea plantations were recently named the best place to visit in 2019 by the Lonely Planet guide.

Invalid visa: Indian held in Lanka

An Indian is among the 13 foreign nationals arrested by police in Colombo for violating Sri Lankan im-migration laws. The 20-year-old Indian national

was arrested from Mount Lavinia without a valid visa, police spokesman S P Ruwan Gunasekara said, adding that he would be produced before the magistrate’s court on Tuesday. The others arrested for the crime include 10 Nigerians, an Iraqi and a Thai national staying in different parts of the Lankan capital. The arrests have come after the Lankan government beefed up security measures following the country’s worst terror attacks on Easter Sunday. A total of 106 suspects, including a Tamil teacher and a school principal, have been arrested in connection with the blasts.