Registration WITH THE RNI UNDER No.: MAHENG14443 Day of Publishing: Every Tuesday and Friday Mumbai GP www.newsandnriconnect.com EXCHANGE RATES EXCHANGE RATES As on 6th December, 2018 (In rupees) Currency Buying Selling Australian Dollar 49.70 52.25 Bahraini Dinar 183.30 193.30 British Pound 88.60 91.65 Canadian Dollar 51.45 53.95 Emirati Dirham 18.80 19.80 Euro 78.75 81.75 Kuwaiti Dinar 227.65 237.65 Omani Rial 179.15 189.15 Qatari Riyal 18.70 20.20 Saudi Arabian Riyal 18.40 19.40 Singapore Dollar 50.35 52.85 Swiss Franc 69.45 72.45 US Dollar 69.60 72.10 Rates are subect to change without notice. Errors & omissions excepted Source: MUMBAI: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2018 • VOL. No. 1 • Issue No. 17 • IPEPCIL PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. • 8 PAGES • PRICE: ₹ 8 Rlys to serve choicest cuisines to PBD delegates Gulf-India airfares set to soar MUMBAI/DUBAI: Airfares for direct flights to major destinations like Thiru- vananthapuram and Kochi from Gulf region are set to surge, causing hassle to Indian families planning summer trav- el. This comes after two major Indian flight operators cancelled as many as 39 services per week to Doha, Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Dubai from cities in India. Once a key market for Jet Airways, the lower demand and high competition have made a good number of routes in the Gulf economically unviable, forcing the airline to withdraw operations from seven Gulf routes. “Jet Airways has decided to with- draw its services to Doha from Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram as well as to Abu Dhabi from Lucknow and Mangalore. Besides, the airline will also not operate on Mangalore-Dubai route. All these services were taken out of op- erations on Dec 5, the start of the busy Christmas and New Year season. Travel agents working in the Sultan- ate said that Jet Airways scrapped its di- rect flights to Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi a while budget airline IndiGo has also cancelled its flights to Kozhikode and Chennai. IndiGo now only operates flights to the Indian cities of Mumbai, Kochi and Ahmedabad. They also re- vealed that Jet Airways’ direct flights from Oman to Mumbai and New Delhi are also likely to be cancelled. “In these sectors, there will be fewer inventories for sale due to the cancel- lation of all these flights and there is a possibility of an increase in ticket pric- es,” CEO of a leading travel agency said. This will adversely affect people look- ing to fly to these destinations as they might have to pay more money for direct flight tickets, as other airlines responded to the decrease in competition by in- flating their own fares. Besides, people might also have to face long transit times awaiting for connecting flights. “The decision to terminate the opera- tions to Oman is a sad decision made under surging fuel prices and the weak- er rupee that is affecting India’s lead- ing carrier Jet Airways,” said Sudeep Joseph, Head of Travel for Travel Point. He added, “Jet Airways’ withdrawal will cut competition and thus reduce the scope for travellers to enjoy competi- tive ticket fares. Indian families will face challenges while booking their summer vacation tickets during Feb, March and April. This will affect traffic to Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram.” While a senior official of the airline in- dustry refuted claims that the fares have been hiked because of fewer flights. “Peo- ple are only getting higher class econo- my fares, which sometimes reach 500pc, “the official said. (Contd. on page 2) Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the UAE-India Joint Commission Meeting in Abu Dhabi. UAE-India currency swap accord signed ABU DHABI: In a landmark move, the UAE and India have inked a currency swap agreement which allows rupee and dirham for busi- nesses, instead of US dollar. With nearly $50 bil- lion bilateral trade, the two countries are one of the larg- est trade partners and have made robust investments bilaterally. The latest devel- opment will be a big boost to import and export trade. The agreement to this effect was inked during the two- day visit by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The minister co-chaired the 12th session of the UAE-In- dia Joint Commission Meet- ing with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interna- tional Co-operation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Na- hyan held at the ministry’s headquarters here. Both leaders agreed to boost co-operation in trade, security and defence. The leaders also decided to strengthen their resolve to combat extremism and ter- rorism in all its forms, re- gardless of the perpetrators and their intent. Sheikh Abdullah said the UAE (Contd. on page 2) `Don’t allow misuse of women’s job visas’ ABU DHABI: India has asked the UAE to prevent In- dian women workers com- ing on visit visa from get- ting employment visa here. Workers migrating through illegal channels end up with many troubles. “Women among them are the worst affected,” Minister for Exter- nal Affairs Sushma Swaraj has said. She was addressing the Indian community at the Indian Social and Cultural Centre (ISC) in the capital. Swaraj said women workers migrating on tour- ist/visit visa are often ex- ploited by unscrupulous agents (in India) and em- ployers abroad. Therefore, Indian government is try- ing to prevent such women from travelling on tourist/ visit visa and requested the UAE not to permit them to get employment visa if they reach here. “I have asked all chief ministers to arrest such unscrupulous agents who exploit job-seekers and put them behind bars,” she said. She said India has res- cued around 2.33 lakh work- ers who were going through hardships across the globe during the past four years (with the (Contd. on page 2) VARANASI: Delegates to the Pravasi Bharatiya Di- vas (PBD) jamboree, being held this time in Varanasi, will get to participate in the Ardh Kumbh Mela with In- dian Railways drawing up plans for a special train that will also give participants a chance to relish the best of local cuisine. These include Kachori Sabzi, Aloo Puree and sweets like Patisha spe- cially prepared for the del- egates . Good quality tea and coffee will be served as also continental, Chinese and Tandoori food on offer for dinner. The PBD event, which culminates every year on Jan 9 - marking the day Ma- hatma Gandhi arrived from South Africa in 1915 - has been shifted to Jan 21-23 this time to give delegates a chance to participate in the Ardh Kumbh (beginning on Jan 15) and Republic Day (Jan 26). The Railways is making elaborate arrange- ments to carry the delegates to the Kumbh at Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and Republic Day in Delhi from Varanasi by special trains. The visit of the delegates to the Sangam from Vara- nasi for a holy dip assumes significance as the annual convention of overseas In- dians is being held in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency in an election year. The Railways has ear- marked at least four spe- cial AC trains for the 3,000 to 4,000 delegates who are expected to participate in the 15th edition of three- day global meet that is be- ing held for the first time in the holy city of Varanasi. Comprising mostly NRIs and people of Indian ori- gin (PIOs), the participants will take a dip at the conflu- ence of the Ganga-Yamuna and the mythical Sarswati rivers -- a first-of-its-kind holy treat for the Indian di- aspora. They will also see bare-bodied Naga Sadhus smeared with ash, the joy- ous evening prayer (Aarti) and experience the massive crowds the Kumbh attracts. The Kumbh, which runs from Jan 15 to March 4, is expected to attract close to 120 million people this time - the equivalent of twice the population of Britain. The national transporter on its part is making ready four AC specials to ferry PBD delegates on the eve- ning of Jan 24, each leaving at intervals of 30 minutes to an hour. According to the Railways, keeping the VIP guests’ food habits in mind, IRCTC, the Railways’ catering arm, will offer spe- cially-made dishes onboard to make the train journey a pleasant experience for visi- tors. Illegals with bank cases should go for amnesty DUBAI: If a bounced cheque or bank case is keeping you from availing of the amnesty in the UAE, this is your chance to settle it to avail of the newly ex- tended leniency so you can go home before Christmas or for the new year. Philippine Consul- General Paul Raymund Cortes said the UAE am- nesty programme, which was extended for the sec- ond time this month, will give illegal residents the chance they very much need in order to start anew in their home country. The amnesty period began on Aug 1 and ran until Oct 31 but was extended for the whole month of November. The leniency was again extended until the end of December to accommodate illegal residents who were not able to avail of the four- month amnesty earlier. Cortes said the consul- ate is willing and able to assist and guide amnesty seekers with bounced cheque cases or rental dis- putes. “We’ve had 10 suc- cess stories of our legal retainer helping out our compatriots with bank or cheque cases by negotiat- ing with financial institu- tions to work out a settle- ment amount to resolve these issues. It makes it easier for the ones in ques- tion to resolve their bank cases thereby making them eligible to avail of the UAE amnesty programme,” Cor- tes remarked. Cortes clarified, howev- er, that the Philippine gov- ernment cannot pay for the outstanding personal loans or credit cards of amnesty seekers but only provide le- gal assistance. Indians held for fake marriages BANGKOK: As many as 10 Indian men and 24 Thai women have been arrested here on charges of forging documents and filing falsi- fied papers to authorities about their marriages. About 20 Indian suspects are still at large. They had allegedly pro- duced the falsified marriage certificates to district offi- cials so that they could be legally allowed to reside and take care of their fake spous- es, the police alleged. The police arrested the 10 un- identified Indian nationals who had allegedly manipu- lated fake marriages with the 24 Thai women who had been hired as alleged accom- plices in such bogus scams. Over six unidentified Thai women were also yet to be located and arrested. They had been hired at a price of 500 to 5,000 baht to pretend as the Indians’ spouses. India-UN Development Fund holds first board meeting NEW YORK: India-UN De- velopment Partnership Fund has held its first Annual Board Meeting to take stock of progress in the projects undertaken within the last one year. The Board members shared the key accomplish- ments and challenges faced during the implementation of the Fund projects. The Government of India estab- lished the India-UN Devel- opment Partnership Fund in June 2017 to work with developing countries in a spirit of South-South co- operation, by providing as- sistance to projects towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). The UN Office for South- South Cooperation (UN- OSSC) is the designated fund manager. A sum of US$100 million over the next decade has been com- mitted by the Government of India for this fund to sup- port demands from develop- ing countries. An additional sum of US$50 million over the next five years has been committed by the govern- ment for partnerships with developing country mem- bers of the Commonwealth. “Triangular co-operation has proven to be a construc- tive exercise for us as we build on expertise of UN Agencies on the ground,” Lal, Deputy Permanent Rep- resentative of India to the UN, said. Over the last year, as many as 27 projects have been approved in 29 part- ner countries and $16 mil- lion has been contributed. Expressing optimism in South-South cooperation, Chauhan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said: “The India UN Devel- opment Partnership Fund is a unique exercise. We did not visualise that the Fund would come this far so soon. The Fund follows the true spirit of South-South Coop- eration and is based on the principle of non-condition- ality.” Chediek, Director of UN- OSSC and Envoy of the Sec- retary-General for South- South Cooperation assured that the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary Gen- eral were committed to make the Fund a success. “This is a strategic partner- ship for the UN,” he said. RBI wants NRIs to participate in rupee interest rate derivatives MUMBAI: RBI has proposed to allow NRIs to access ru- pee interest rate derivatives market and participate in overnight indexed swap market. This will provide hedging facility to NRIs and broad-base participation in the financial markets. An NRI can participate in rupee interest rate deriva- tives for hedge exposure to rupee interest rate risk. For this, non-resident may un- dertake any over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate deriva- tive contract that is based on a domestic rupee benchmark interest rate administered by Financial Benchmarks India. He can contract any inter- est rate derivative on a rec- ognised stock exchange and market makers shall ensure that transactions are being carried out for hedging. NRIs can also use it for non-hedging purposes. The foreign portfolio investors may take net long position in interest rate futures up to the limit of Rs 5,000 crore. A non-resident may also un- dertake overnight indexed swaps (OIS) for any purpose other than hedging. For this, the gross price value of basis point of all outstanding OIS transactions undertaken by all NRIs for purposes other than hedging shall not ex- ceed the rupee equivalent amount of $50 million. They should not under- take any further swaps after PVBP exceeds $50 million and the PVBP of outstand- ing OIS contracts for any non-resident shall not ex- ceed 20pc of the PVBP cap.
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Registration WITH THE RNI UNDER No.: MAHENG14443
Day of Publishing: Every Tuesday and Friday
Mumbai GP
www.newsandnriconnect.com
EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATESAs on 6th December, 2018 (In rupees)
Currency Buying Selling
Australian Dollar 49.70 52.25Bahraini Dinar 183.30 193.30British Pound 88.60 91.65Canadian Dollar 51.45 53.95Emirati Dirham 18.80 19.80Euro 78.75 81.75Kuwaiti Dinar 227.65 237.65Omani Rial 179.15 189.15Qatari Riyal 18.70 20.20Saudi Arabian Riyal 18.40 19.40Singapore Dollar 50.35 52.85Swiss Franc 69.45 72.45US Dollar 69.60 72.10Rates are subect to change without notice. Errors &omissions excepted
Source:
MUMBAI: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2018 • VOL. No. 1 • Issue No. 17 • IPEPCIL PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. • 8 PAGES • PRICE: ₹ 8
Rlys to serve choicest cuisines to PBD delegates
Gulf-India airfares set to soarMUMBAI/DUBAI: Airfares for direct flights to major destinations like Thiru-vananthapuram and Kochi from Gulf region are set to surge, causing hassle to Indian families planning summer trav-el. This comes after two major Indian flight operators cancelled as many as 39 services per week to Doha, Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Dubai from cities in India.
Once a key market for Jet Airways, the lower demand and high competition have made a good number of routes in the Gulf economically unviable, forcing the airline to withdraw operations from seven Gulf routes.
“Jet Airways has decided to with-draw its services to Doha from Kochi,
Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram as well as to Abu Dhabi from Lucknow and Mangalore. Besides, the airline will also not operate on Mangalore-Dubai route. All these services were taken out of op-erations on Dec 5, the start of the busy Christmas and New Year season.
Travel agents working in the Sultan-ate said that Jet Airways scrapped its di-rect flights to Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi a while budget airline IndiGo has also cancelled its flights to Kozhikode and Chennai. IndiGo now only operates flights to the Indian cities of Mumbai, Kochi and Ahmedabad. They also re-vealed that Jet Airways’ direct flights from Oman to Mumbai and New Delhi
are also likely to be cancelled.“In these sectors, there will be fewer
inventories for sale due to the cancel-lation of all these flights and there is a possibility of an increase in ticket pric-es,” CEO of a leading travel agency said. This will adversely affect people look-ing to fly to these destinations as they might have to pay more money for direct flight tickets, as other airlines responded to the decrease in competition by in-flating their own fares. Besides, people might also have to face long transit times awaiting for connecting flights.
“The decision to terminate the opera-tions to Oman is a sad decision made under surging fuel prices and the weak-
er rupee that is affecting India’s lead-ing carrier Jet Airways,” said Sudeep Joseph, Head of Travel for Travel Point. He added, “Jet Airways’ withdrawal will cut competition and thus reduce the scope for travellers to enjoy competi-tive ticket fares. Indian families will face challenges while booking their summer vacation tickets during Feb, March and April. This will affect traffic to Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram.”
While a senior official of the airline in-dustry refuted claims that the fares have been hiked because of fewer flights. “Peo-ple are only getting higher class econo-my fares, which sometimes reach 500pc, “the official said. (Contd. on page 2)
Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the UAE-India Joint Commission Meeting in Abu Dhabi.
UAE-India currency swap accord signedABU DHABI: In a landmark move, the UAE and India have inked a currency swap agreement which allows rupee and dirham for busi-nesses, instead of US dollar.
With nearly $50 bil-lion bilateral trade, the two countries are one of the larg-est trade partners and have made robust investments bilaterally. The latest devel-opment will be a big boost to import and export trade. The agreement to this effect was inked during the two-day visit by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The minister co-chaired the
12th session of the UAE-In-dia Joint Commission Meet-ing with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interna-tional Co-operation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Na-hyan held at the ministry’s headquarters here.
Both leaders agreed to boost co-operation in trade, security and defence. The leaders also decided to strengthen their resolve to combat extremism and ter-rorism in all its forms, re-gardless of the perpetrators and their intent.
Sheikh Abdullah said the UAE (Contd. on page 2)
`Don’t allow misuse ofwomen’s job visas’ABU DHABI: India has asked the UAE to prevent In-dian women workers com-ing on visit visa from get-ting employment visa here. Workers migrating through illegal channels end up with many troubles. “Women among them are the worst affected,” Minister for Exter-nal Affairs Sushma Swaraj has said. She was addressing the Indian community at the Indian Social and Cultural Centre (ISC) in the capital.
Swaraj said women workers migrating on tour-ist/visit visa are often ex-ploited by unscrupulous
agents (in India) and em-ployers abroad. Therefore, Indian government is try-ing to prevent such women from travelling on tourist/visit visa and requested the UAE not to permit them to get employment visa if they reach here. “I have asked all chief ministers to arrest such unscrupulous agents who exploit job-seekers and put them behind bars,” she said.
She said India has res-cued around 2.33 lakh work-ers who were going through hardships across the globe during the past four years (with the (Contd. on page 2)
VARANASI: Delegates to the Pravasi Bharatiya Di-vas (PBD) jamboree, being held this time in Varanasi, will get to participate in the Ardh Kumbh Mela with In-dian Railways drawing up plans for a special train that will also give participants a chance to relish the best of local cuisine. These include Kachori Sabzi, Aloo Puree and sweets like Patisha spe-cially prepared for the del-egates . Good quality tea and coffee will be served as also continental, Chinese and Tandoori food on offer for dinner.
The PBD event, which culminates every year on Jan 9 - marking the day Ma-hatma Gandhi arrived from South Africa in 1915 - has been shifted to Jan 21-23
this time to give delegates a chance to participate in the Ardh Kumbh (beginning on Jan 15) and Republic Day (Jan 26). The Railways is making elaborate arrange-ments to carry the delegates to the Kumbh at Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) and Republic Day in Delhi from Varanasi by special trains. The visit of the delegates to the Sangam from Vara-nasi for a holy dip assumes significance as the annual convention of overseas In-dians is being held in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency in an election year.
The Railways has ear-marked at least four spe-cial AC trains for the 3,000 to 4,000 delegates who are expected to participate in
the 15th edition of three-day global meet that is be-
ing held for the first time in the holy city of Varanasi. Comprising mostly NRIs and people of Indian ori-gin (PIOs), the participants will take a dip at the conflu-ence of the Ganga-Yamuna and the mythical Sarswati rivers -- a first-of-its-kind holy treat for the Indian di-aspora. They will also see bare-bodied Naga Sadhus
smeared with ash, the joy-ous evening prayer (Aarti) and experience the massive crowds the Kumbh attracts. The Kumbh, which runs from Jan 15 to March 4, is expected to attract close to 120 million people this time - the equivalent of twice the population of Britain.
The national transporter on its part is making ready four AC specials to ferry PBD delegates on the eve-ning of Jan 24, each leaving at intervals of 30 minutes to an hour. According to the Railways, keeping the VIP guests’ food habits in mind, IRCTC, the Railways’ catering arm, will offer spe-cially-made dishes onboard to make the train journey a pleasant experience for visi-tors.
Illegals with bank cases should go for amnestyDUBAI: If a bounced cheque or bank case is keeping you from availing of the amnesty in the UAE, this is your chance to settle it to avail of the newly ex-tended leniency so you can go home before Christmas or for the new year.
Philippine Consul-General Paul Raymund Cortes said the UAE am-nesty programme, which was extended for the sec-ond time this month, will give illegal residents the chance they very much need in order to start anew in their home country. The amnesty period began on Aug 1 and ran until Oct 31 but was extended for the whole month of November. The leniency was again extended until the end of December to accommodate illegal residents who were not able to avail of the four-
month amnesty earlier.Cortes said the consul-
ate is willing and able to assist and guide amnesty seekers with bounced cheque cases or rental dis-putes. “We’ve had 10 suc-cess stories of our legal retainer helping out our compatriots with bank or cheque cases by negotiat-ing with financial institu-tions to work out a settle-ment amount to resolve these issues. It makes it easier for the ones in ques-tion to resolve their bank cases thereby making them eligible to avail of the UAE amnesty programme,” Cor-tes remarked.
Cortes clarified, howev-er, that the Philippine gov-ernment cannot pay for the outstanding personal loans or credit cards of amnesty seekers but only provide le-gal assistance.
Indians held for fake marriagesBANGKOK: As many as 10 Indian men and 24 Thai women have been arrested here on charges of forging documents and filing falsi-fied papers to authorities about their marriages. About 20 Indian suspects are still at large.
They had allegedly pro-duced the falsified marriage certificates to district offi-cials so that they could be legally allowed to reside and take care of their fake spous-es, the police alleged. The police arrested the 10 un-identified Indian nationals who had allegedly manipu-lated fake marriages with the 24 Thai women who had been hired as alleged accom-plices in such bogus scams.
Over six unidentified Thai women were also yet to be located and arrested. They had been hired at a price of 500 to 5,000 baht to pretend as the Indians’ spouses.
India-UN Development Fund holds fi rst board meetingNEW YORK: India-UN De-velopment Partnership Fund has held its first Annual Board Meeting to take stock of progress in the projects undertaken within the last one year.
The Board members shared the key accomplish-ments and challenges faced during the implementation of the Fund projects. The Government of India estab-lished the India-UN Devel-opment Partnership Fund in June 2017 to work with developing countries in a spirit of South-South co-operation, by providing as-
sistance to projects towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).
The UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UN-OSSC) is the designated fund manager. A sum of US$100 million over the next decade has been com-mitted by the Government of India for this fund to sup-port demands from develop-ing countries. An additional sum of US$50 million over the next five years has been committed by the govern-ment for partnerships with developing country mem-
bers of the Commonwealth.“Triangular co-operation
has proven to be a construc-tive exercise for us as we build on expertise of UN Agencies on the ground,” Lal, Deputy Permanent Rep-resentative of India to the UN, said.
Over the last year, as many as 27 projects have been approved in 29 part-ner countries and $16 mil-lion has been contributed. Expressing optimism in South-South cooperation, Chauhan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said: “The India UN Devel-
opment Partnership Fund is a unique exercise. We did not visualise that the Fund would come this far so soon. The Fund follows the true spirit of South-South Coop-eration and is based on the principle of non-condition-ality.”
Chediek, Director of UN-OSSC and Envoy of the Sec-retary-General for South-South Cooperation assured that the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary Gen-eral were committed to make the Fund a success. “This is a strategic partner-ship for the UN,” he said.
RBI wants NRIs to participate inrupee interest rate derivativesMUMBAI: RBI has proposed to allow NRIs to access ru-pee interest rate derivatives market and participate in overnight indexed swap market. This will provide hedging facility to NRIs and broad-base participation in the financial markets.
An NRI can participate in rupee interest rate deriva-tives for hedge exposure to rupee interest rate risk. For this, non-resident may un-dertake any over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate deriva-tive contract that is based on a domestic rupee benchmark interest rate administered by Financial Benchmarks India.
He can contract any inter-est rate derivative on a rec-ognised stock exchange and market makers shall ensure
that transactions are being carried out for hedging.
NRIs can also use it for non-hedging purposes. The foreign portfolio investors may take net long position
in interest rate futures up to the limit of Rs 5,000 crore. A non-resident may also un-dertake overnight indexed swaps (OIS) for any purpose other than hedging. For this, the gross price value of basis point of all outstanding OIS transactions undertaken by all NRIs for purposes other than hedging shall not ex-ceed the rupee equivalent amount of $50 million.
They should not under-take any further swaps after PVBP exceeds $50 million and the PVBP of outstand-ing OIS contracts for any non-resident shall not ex-ceed 20pc of the PVBP cap.
2 EMIGRATION Friday, December 07, 2018
Published by IPEPCIL Publications LtdTitle Code: MAHENG14443Registered with the RNI No.:
Publisher: Supreet M.J.Editor : E.L. VaidyanathanVolume No. I , Issue: 17
Published at: Office No. 1001, 10th Floor,Navjivan Commercial Premises Co-op. Society Ltd.,Lamington Road, (Dr.D.B.Marg), Mumbai Central,
Mumbai - 400 008. Ph.: 022 - 23001102 / 23001103.Printed at: Inquilab Off set Printers Ltd.,
156, D J Dadaji Road, Tardeo, Mumbai-400 034,Maharashtra, India.
UAE’s sensible decisionsTwo recent decisions taken by the progressive and be-
nevolent government of the United Arab Emirates are very pragmatic and most welcome. The first one is
the move to issue a 10-year visa for professionals and the second one is the extension of the amnesty period of illegal residents. Both will help, among others, Indians the most. This also shows the changing priorities of the government.
The decision to grant long-term visas for various cat-egories of investors, entrepreneurs, specialised talents and researchers in science, medicine, knowledge-based profes-sions and outstanding students is expected to boost capi-tal and talent inflows. The move comes at a time when the country is diversifying its economy away from oil and focus-ing on talent-driven sectors such as financial services, travel, tourism, healthcare, higher education, aviation scientific re-search and space technology. The proof that the long-term visa for highly educated immigrants contribute significantly to economic growth comes from the United States itself. The US is attracting the most talented persons and this helps the country in its economic progress. In the UAE, the move comes at a time when the country is diversifying its econo-my away from oil and focusing on talent-driven sectors such as financial services, travel, tourism, healthcare, higher edu-cation, IT, aviation scientific research and space technology. No doubt, this will boost capital and talent inflows.
Nobody can work in un-certainty and legal assurance on the number of years one can stay in a place is seen as a catalyst in committing talent on creative pursuits, savings and investments. Historically, the transient nature, dictated by shorter term visas, restricted expatriates from taking decisions on their long-term investment plans such as buying a home, building a local stock market investment portfolio, investments in local mutual funds and or committing money in business ventures and starting a family in the case of youngsters.
The extension of amnesty is a reason to cheer. Sometimes bringing residents into compliance with the law through a carrot and stick policy is more important than punishing them severely for past offences. There is good response to the scheme and the on-going campaign to create awareness is paying rich dividends. It gives yet another chance to widows unable to cope financially, families that had been abandoned or living under duress, entrepreneurs whose ventures went bust, people who had lost their jobs etc. Ex-patriates have been able to go back to their home countries with a lot more respect and admiration for the leadership and the humane approach to governance. There are people still in the waiting. Some are biding their time and some still unsure of how to come forward. Presence of scores of applicants at the camps even as the scheme was drawing to a close, therefore, necessitated another extension.
The Arab world in general and the UAE in particular has been more than a sanctuary for its migrant population and with a little more support from embassies and NGOs, they should be able to find redressal to their problems even with-out amnesty.
Editorial
LIPSYNCH “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
— George Eliot
‘Proud to be holders of No. 1 passport’ABU DHABI: Emiratis are proud to be holders of the world number 1 passport as they say the achieve-ment will open up new av-enues for them across the world. The UAE passport has jumped to Number 1 as the world’s most powerful passport on Saturday, Dec 1, 2018 — on the eve of the country’s 47th National Day celebrations.
With this historic achieve-ment, UAE passport holders are now able to gain visa-free entry to 167 countries world-wide, according to Passport Index. Many Emiratis said that it would open up new opportunities for them in dif-ferent sectors like education, healthcare and trade and at the same time it would al-
low them to travel visa-free around the world.
Mouza Awad, a 50-year-old Emirati woman from Al Ain of Abu Dhabi emirate, said: “First and most impor-tant benefit of the UAE pass-port being number one is that it will allow us visa-free travel around the world but it would also bring many other benefits as well. Suppose, if a person wants to travel for treatment he has to shuttle between embassies and offic-es to obtain a visa and it takes sometimes couple of weeks. But now we only need to get the ticket and travel. For ex-ample, if my mother is sick and I have to take her out-side the country for emer-gency treatment — earlier due to visa issues it would
take time but now it will be easy.” Education, healthcare and trade, in every sphere of life it would open up oppor-tunities and facilitate travel visa-free. I would like to thank the wise leadership of the country for this achieve-ment,” Awad said.
Obaid Al Kindi (44) from Sharjah, said: “This is a big achievement for the UAE and a proud of moment for each Emirati in the country. Now the travel document which each Emirati has in his pocket allows him to trav-el throughout the world. It is a great achievement for each of us. Now we can travel for tourism, trade and education as well as the healthcare ser-vices. The country has been striving for this for long and
Film star Shah Rukh Khan and Paralympian Deepa Malik at the send-off ceremony of the Indian Paralympics Contingent for Asian Para Games 2018 in New Delhi. Khan has been actively lending his support to those in need and long with his non-profit organization Meer Foundation.
we have achieved it. Many locals travel overseas for education and healthcare service, it will be beneficial to all of them.”
Abdullah Al Nuwaimi, 31-year-old from Sharjah, said: “Top ranking of the Emirati passport is due to continued efforts of the leadership of the country who regard its citizens and their needs as the top prior-ity. Now it will give more freedom to locals to travel around the world for any purpose. This is the result of Shaikh Zayed’s vision to put the UAE in the forefront and the noble leadership of the country has done it. This is a great achievement it will help the country and its citi-zens to further develop and
establish a prominent place in the world arena in differ-ent spheres.”
Eid Al Muhairi, 41-year-old from Ras Al Khaimah, said, “We thank the UAE’s leadership for this achieve-ment — the grand success of the Emirati passport. This is the wise leadership of the country who have seen the Emirati passport take top position and now it would open up avenues for every Emirati in the country and government will develop more people-to-people con-tacts with different national-ities of the world and further develop bonding with them. Benefits are at par and peo-ple will gradually realise it when they would start doing trade and business abroad.
At 82 this expat doesn’t want to leave UAEABU DHABI: An 82-year-old British expatriate who has been living in Abu Dhabi for 50 years, except for a short interval, says he cannot think of leaving the UAE. David Spearing has been en-joying his retired life in the capital since he sold off his own engineering consultan-cy firm in 2002.
The single man has been living with a caregiver in his apartment but he never felt lonely in the city that of-fered him many friends and professional opportunities. “I will continue to live here as long as possible,” Spear-ing told a TV channel.
He says Abu Dhabi is a calm and quiet city and he fell in love with its serene life since he landed here in July 1968. A civil engineer, Spearing started working with a British architectur-al firm that was assigned to construct some of the landmark buildings in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain in the 1960s and 1970s. He heard through the grapevine that the then Trucial States ruled by the British would become
a federation of states under the leadership of the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. “We heard about
the negotiations involving various parties [different shaikhdoms].”
However, he could not witness the formation of the UAE on Dec 2, 1971 as he was in Britain for profes-sional reasons. “I was away from the UAE during 1971 to 1975 but frequently visited here those days.” In 1968, he stayed at the Beach Hotel in Abu Dhabi for 18 months. The hotel was where Cor-niche Hospital stands now. I was the first DJ in the emir-ate ... After 50 years, the UAE is more home to me than the
UK. I have many friends here. I am happy here.
He used to travel to Al Ain from Abu Dhabi as part of a prominent construction project there. His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE, who was then Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, or-dered to build a hotel in Al Ain, he said. “It was the first luxury hotel in the Gulf re-gion [which became Hilton Al Ain).
Al Ain did not have a land phone network then. “We used to communi-cate with our Abu Dhabi office through walkie-talkie.”Spearing was a fre-quent visitor to the Hilton Hotel in Al Ain where he had the fortune to meet promi-nent people from around the globe. Even during the visits of heads of state, security ar-rangements were not very strict those days.
“Once I was able to take a photo of the late Shaikh Zayed and the Indonesian leader Suharto in 1977,” he said, showing that picture. He had also worked with
Shaikh Khalifa buildings overlooking the office of Brit-ish Political Agency in Abu Dhabi [which later became the British embassy]. “They were prominent structures in 1970s and 1980S, which do not exist now.”He loved the simple life in those days. Telephone was not used widely. “I wrote letters to my family members in the UK.”
He was active in The Club, the oldest expatriates’ club in the capital, and led many entertainment pro-grammes there. “I was the first DJ in the emirate.”
Spearing became chair-man of the Club in 1980s. He also occupied leader-ship positions of several other organisations such as Royal Society of St George, the UAE branch of Institute of Civil Engineers and the British Business Group. In 2005, he established Oxford and Cambridge Society UAE, alumni association of both universities. Some of his friends passed away but their children are still living here. They are in their 50s and 60s, occupying senior positions.
David Spearing
JOHANNESBURG: Prominent Indian-origin lawyer Shamila Batohi has been appointed to head South Africa’s prosecut-ing authority, the first woman to head the agency facing criti-cism for its handling of the investigations against former president Jacob Zuma over corruption charges. Batohi will start her new role as the National Director of Public Prosecu-tions (NDPP) in February next. South African President Cyr-il Ramaphosa announced the appointment of Batohi, during a nationally-televised address at the government headquar-ters, the Union Buildings. During his maiden address, Ra-maphosa gave the commitment that government would ur-gently attend to the leadership crisis at the NPA to ensure the institution is and able to perform its mandate without any outside interference. And 11 months later, the prosecuting body now has a new head. Batohi, who shot to fame as the evidence leader during the King Commission that probed the Hansie Cronje match-fixing saga of 2000, was selected from a shortlist of 11 candidates who were interviewed for the high-profile position. She will replace the previous prosecutor, Shaun Abrahams who has been accused by the opposition and rights groups of shielding former president Jacob Zuma from corruption charges during his nine years in office.
Indian-origin woman heads S Africa’s prosecuting authority
UAE blocks 5,000 fake social media accountsDUBAI: Some 5,000 fake social media accounts were blocked in the UAE through a smart system, the Dubai Police claimed as they launched their new aware-ness campaign against on-line fraud.
Brig Jamal Salem Al Jal-laf, director of the General Department of Criminal Investigation and Investiga-tion, said at the campaign’s launch that the Dubai Po-lice have partnered with telecom firm Etisalat to closely monitor suspicious social media activity and block bogus accounts. Mo-hammed Al Zarouni, di-rector of policies and pro-grammes at Etisalat, said: “Five thousand fictitious
accounts have been with-held since the beginning of the second-half of 2017. There is an automated sys-tem that monitors this type of account. We hope to spread awareness on a larg-er scale among the users of the sites, as awareness is the most important factor in curbing this crime.”
The Dubai Police’s new awareness drive called “Be-ware of False Accounts” was introduced under the pa-tronage of Maj-Gen Abdul-lah Khalifa Al Marri, Com-mander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, and the supervision of Brigadier-General Jamal Salem Al Jallaf, director of the General Department of Criminal Investigation. Al
Jallaf said the awareness drive seeks to expose the methods through which cybercriminals victimise people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among oth-er platforms. Since major-ity of the UAE’s population are active on social media, the country has become an attractive target for cyber-criminals, the police said.
In fact, the Dubai Police have recorded 128 online fraud cases in 2015, 292 in 2016, 133 in 2017 and 126 cases so far this year. Major-ity of the criminals, aged 30 to 35, were based outside the country. A significant portion of the cybercrimes were busted with the help of the public, Al Jallaf said.
UAE-India currency swap accord signed
Don’t allow...(Contd. from page 1) assistance of Indian missions abroad.) Swaraj urged Indian workers to go through legal channel (India’s eMigrate sys-tem that controls migration of vulnerable workers) for foreign employment. “Those who use illegal channels often do not know where are they heading to. They don’t know their rights and protective measures available for them,” she warned. Swaraj said In-dian community members are the permanent ambassadors of India to the UAE. The relations between India and UAE have been elevated to unprecedent-ed heights during Prime Min-ister Modi’s tenure, she said adding both countries have made a road map for future. Navdeep Sigh Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, MA Yousuf Ali, chairman of the ISC who is also the managing director of Lulu and Ramesh Panicker, president of the ISC, attended the meeting.
Gulf-India airfares set...(Contd. from page 1)For example, passengers flying to New Delhi might have to pay as much as OMR227 for a one-way ticket and face flying and transit times of up to 20 hours on one airline. Flights to Mumbai on the same airline are priced at OMR217, with the total journey taking upwards of 17 hours. In addition, flights to Thiruvananthapuram are being sold for OMR200, and tickets to Chennai will set passengers back by some OMR140. The cost of a regular ticket to Kolkata was OMR222.
(Contd. from page 1)had always shared strong historical ties with India and the bilateral ties are based on mutual respect and trust, which are aimed at enhancing mutual benefit of the people. Swaraj congratulated the leadership, government and the people of the UAE on the occasion of the celebration of the National Day. The ministers also oversaw memoranda of understanding signed for development of co-operation in Africa between both the ministries and the currency swap agreement inked between Central Bank on UAE and RBI. Mohammed Ali bin Zayed Al Falasi, Deputy Governor of Central Bank of UAE and Navdeep Singh Suri, UAE Ambas-sador to India, signed the agreement.
Separately, Mohamed Sharaf, Assistant Minister for Economic and Commercial Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and TS Tirumurti, Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, led the
Senior Officials Meeting which saw a series of discussions held under eight sub-committees. The topics included bi-lateral matters, consular field, space, education, agriculture and livestock and development co-operation, civil aviation and economic and trade, investments, banking and finance co-operation.
3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIESFriday, December 07, 2018
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4 GULF / NATIONAL JOBS Friday, December 07, 2018
NEW DELHI: OnePlus will open its first research and development (R&D) centre in India with a unit in Hyderabad. This centre will help the Chi-nese smartphone maker develop Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence capabilities for OnePlus products. The company confirmed these plans, along with details of an upcoming OnePlus Experi-ence zone in the IT-based city.
OnePlus CEO Pete Lau confirmed the nature of work to be expected from the new R&D centre. “We plan to re-focus our R&D efforts on a large scale and drive innovations in India for the global product,
OnePlus to open R&D centre in H’ybadespecially on the software side with special emphasis
on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning”, Lau said. He also added that the OnePlus Hyder-abad centre could become its largest R&D centre glob-ally by 2022.
This centre will aid the local manufacture of One-Plus phones, and bring the
BENGALURU: Students looking to pursue man-agement courses under Bangalore University will have to study a foreign lan-guage compulsorily from the coming academic year. Considering the numer-ous job opportunities for the ones knowing at least one foreign language, the Board of Studies (BOS) for management courses has decided to introduce one foreign language at the
Bangalore University makes foreign language mandatory in mgmt coursespostgraduate level.
According to senior pro-fessors, there are plenty of job opportunities in coun-tries like Germany, Japan and France for management graduates. “The only reason our students are getting rejected from international companies, is their lack of communication skills in the official language of that particular country,” said Prof K Janardhanam, head of Canara Bank School of
Management.As per the decision, stu-
dents will be provided with
options to choose anyone in three foreign languages. “It has been decided to in-
troduce German, Japanese and French. Of the three, students must choose one,” said Janardhanam. Even now, the university offers foreign languages, but it is optional. Whereas, from next academic year, stu-dents will have to choose a language for 1st and 3rd semesters. However, this will not carry any credit.
“Several students had got rejected in their final level during campus place-
ments. Majority of the companies that take part in our placement process are based in Germany, France and Japan. These companies expect students to have basic communica-tion skills in the language of their country,” he said. According to authorities, the foreign language will be part of their compulsory paper on “Employability skills and Language Learn-ing”, which is going to be
introduced for 1st and 3rd semester from 2019-20 academic year.
Meanwhile, the univer-sity is planning to approach authorities to recruit teach-ers. “We are thinking of approaching Alliance Fran-caise and other manage-ment institutes to hire foreign language faculties. The university also has a foreign languages depart-ment and we will approach them as well,” he added.
BENGALURU: Indian Insti-tute of Management Banga-lore (IIMB) has been ranked among the top 10 in the list of Financial Times Asia-Pacific Business schools 2018.
It takes 8th position in the overall ranking, alongside schools like Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni-versity (China); CEIBS (China), National Uni-versity of Singapore Business School (Sin-gapore), among others. IIMB is one among the only two Indian B-schools to be featured in the Top 10.
IIMB Director Professor G Raghuram said, “It is a proud moment for IIMB to be recognised as one of the top management schools in the Asia-Pacific region. The FT ranking strengthens our
IIMB top 10 in FT Asia-Pacifi c Business schoolsbelief in our methodology and commits us further to provide high quality management education. Through our programmes, we give our students a competitive and challeng-
ing environment. Our cur-riculum provides a unique blend of strategic thinking, theoretical knowledge and experiential learning.”
IIMB’s two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) takes the 4th position under the Master in Management
(MiM) category. The insti-tute’s Executive Post Gradu-ate Programme (Global MBA), Open Executive Education (Open ExecEd) and Custom Executive Edu-cation (Custom ExecEd)
programmes were also ranked at 9th, 7th and 8th position, respec-tively.
The top-25 ranking is based on the quality diverse course offerings at business schools. This is the second time that
FT has ranked top schools in Asia Pacific. The other management schools across the globe that have been listed in the Top 25 are Nanyang Business School, NTU Singapore, University of Hong Kong, Melbourne Business School among others.
NEW DELHI: Garima Singh Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), which recently received a letter of intent (LoI) for deemed to be university status under the ‘de novo’ category, is in the process of expanding its curriculum in a bid to meet the University Grants Commission (UGC) conditions.
The institute will intro-duce five new post-graduate departments in the emerging areas of knowledge within three years of issuance of theLoI. They are Masters in Folk and Traditional Media, Masters in Communication Governance, Masters in New Media, Masters in Public Health Communication, and Masters in Community Me-dia.
IIMC to set up 5 media study depts“The reason for choosing
these five departments is because we think we have basic expertise in them,” said KG Suresh, Director-General,
IIMC. He added that the cur-rent courses would also be upgraded in a later stage, but the focus is on creating the new departments.
The ‘de novo’ category refers to an institute which focuses on teaching and re-
search in unique and emerg-ing areas of knowledge.
Creating infrastructureThe LoI stipulates that
the institution has to cre-
ate infrastructure such as academic buildings, central library, teachers’ residences, sports areas, etc., in its main as well as regional campuses.
“There are some infra-structural issues and the institute is working on them.
We have built permanent campuses in Kottayam and Aizwal. However, permanent campuses are yet to come up in Amravati and Jammu,” he said.
Once the institute gets the deemed university sta-tus, it will be able to grant degrees. Currently, it offers diploma courses. “If IIMC becomes a university, it will be able to set a benchmark for media education in the country,” Suresh said.
The journalism school is also planning to increase the number of seats in its five regional campuses. “On the Delhi campus we have reached the saturation point, but our aim is to encourage more students to go to our regional campuses,” Suresh said.
MUMBAI: With digital transactions growing expo-nentially in India, so have the complexities and chal-lenges such as fraudulent transactions.
Hence, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to set up an ombudsman scheme for digital transac-tions to address these is-sues and promote customer confidence.
The banking regulator, in its bi-monthly policy announcement, said that there is an emerging need for a dedicated, cost-free and expeditious grievance redressal mechanism for strengthening consumer confidence, and that the guidelines and details of the scheme would be notified
RBI plans digital payments ombudsmanby the end of January 2019.
“The Reserve Bank’s en-deavour to build a less-cash society has facilitated a significant rise in volumes, value and channels for
conducting digital transac-tions. For promoting the level of trust and customer confidence in this powerful channel that has wide and deep reach, a dedicated
and empowered grievance redressal mechanism is a prerequisite,” said Mahesh Kumar Jain, Deputy Gover-nor, RBI, during the confer-ence. He further added that
the scheme will be ad-ministered and funded by the RBI. It will not only cover entities fall-ing under t h e c e n -tral bank’s regulatory
jurisdiction, but also firms that provide related ser-vices.
The members of the Pay-ment Council of India (PCI), an apex body representing
companies in payments and settlement system, have welcomed RBI’s decision. Its chairman, Vishwas Pa-tel, said that “India has the highest number of payment options in the world. An RBI-monitored system to handle the customer com-plaints that is not addressed by the payment service provider, the escalation matrix, and turnaround time for complaint resolution will certainly go a long way in boosting consumer confidence in digital trans-actions.”
Ever since demonetisa-tion, digital transactions, in-cluding mobile wallets and UPI, have growth three-fold as of August 2018, according to a recent data by MeiTY.
flagship devices in a more affordable price bracket.
Previously, OnePlus had also hinted at expanding to smart TV production, which would be accelerat-ed through this centre. The company believes that the Telangana capital’s pres-ence as an Indian start-up hub will help expand its future plans.
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JOBS & CAREERS 5Friday, December 07, 2018
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Sudoku PuzzleRules: To solve a Sudoku
puzzle, every digit from 1
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in each of the nine hori-
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Solution for Puzzle # 17
will be in next issue.
Fun Corner
Sudoku Puzzle 16 Answer
Your wellness
The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and min-
istry of health and fam-ily welfare have released guidelines on HIV and TB intervention in prisons. The programme aims to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, a very common
NACO release guidelines on HIV, TB intervention in jails
sexually transmitted dis-ease which spreads through vaginal, anal or oral sex, by 2020.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan, a complete an-tenatal check-up facility is provided to all pregnant women across the coun-try, including HIV testing.
In 2017-18, more than two c ro re H I V t e s t s among preg-nant women were under-taken, said health min-is t ry o f f i -cials.
“The gov-ernment is n o t o n l y fully fund-ing the HIV/AIDS pro-gramme but also increas-ing the re-source en-v e l o p e i n
accordance with the pro-gramme needs,” said Anu-priya Patel, minister of state (health & family welfare).
Sanjeeva Kumar, ad-ditional secretary and di-rector general of national AIDs control organisation, informed that the HIV/AIDS programme had around one million people under the high-risk group and was keeping HIV infection under control through inclusive and targeted interventions.
“This programme will focus on eliminating mother-to-child transmis-sion of HIV and syphilis by 2020. In 2017-18, over 2 crore HIV tests among pregnant women were undertaken,” he said.
The nat ional pro -gramme focuses on coun-selling and testing among general clients and NACO has initiated community-based screening of HIV to reach the first 90 out of the target 90:90:90 by 2020.
A new study has now found that the aver-age mobile phone
i s a l m o s t seven times dirtier than a toilet seat.
T h e study added that while t h o s e i n leather cases harbour the most bac-teria, even smartphones in wipe-clean plastic cases have more than six times the germs found on a lavatory seat.
Notably, despite this, the survey found, two in five office workers take their smartphones into the bathroom at their workplace
The survey, conducted by Initial Washroom Hy-giene, took swab samples from smartphones using a handheld device which lights up live microbes where they appear on a surface.
A toilet seat scanned this way shows up 220 bright spots where bacteria lurk but the average mobile
Mobile phones more dirtier than toilet seatsphone had 1,479.
Speaking about it, pro-fessor Hugh Pennington,
emeritus professor of bacte-riology at the University of Aberdeen, said that swab-bing a smartphone is almost like checking a handkerchief for germs – one is likely to find them because of the close physical contact they have with this device sev-eral times a day.
He added, “There will be norovirus on phones at this time of year but the bugs on smartphones will probably be people’s own bacteria so the likelihood of passing on disease is low.”
In 2011 scientists at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine found one in six mobile phones
were contaminated with fae-cal matter, including the E. coli bugs which can cause
food poisoning and stomach bugs.
The latest study looked at 50 phones, recording the highest bacte-ria reading for a smartphone in a leather
case, which was also a wallet, and showed up al-most 17 times the amount of bacteria on a toilet seat.
The average for a plas-tic case was 1,454, which is almost seven times the reading for toilet seat germs.
Experts believe phones become so dirty because they are taken into the bathroom, so are exposed to the same germs as lavatory handles and seats.
Artificial, outdoor light exposure at night is linked to
insomnia in older adults, according to a study.
Results show that in-creasing night-time levels of artificial, outdoor light exposure, stratified by quar-tile, were associated with an increased prevalence of hypnotic prescriptions and daily dose intake. Further-more, older adults exposed to higher levels of artificial, outdoor light at night were more likely to use hypnotic drugs for longer periods or higher daily dosages.
“This study observed
Exposure to artificial light could cause insomniaa significant association between the intensity of outdoor, artificial, night time lighting and the preva-lence of insomnia as indi-cated by hypnotic agent prescriptions for older adults in South Korea,” said Kyoung-bok Min. “Our results are supportive data that outdoor, artificial, night time light could be linked to sleep deprivation among those while inside the house.”
According to the Ameri-can Academy of Sleep Med-icine, insomnia can involve struggling to fall asleep, having trouble maintaining
sleep, or waking up too early. A variety of environ-mental factors, including excessive noise or light and
extreme temperatures, will disrupt the sleep of most individuals.
The authors reported that the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial, outdoor light at night, re-ferred to as “light pollu-tion,” has emerged as a novel environmental factor linked to human health.
Research has shown that artificial night-time lighting, whether indoor or outdoor, induces disruption of circa-
dian rhythms, potentially leading to metabolic and chronic diseases, includ-ing cancer, diabetes, obe-sity and depression.Light exposure was
based on satellite data provided by the National Centers for Environmental Information. The estimated light pollution level in each administrative district was matched with individu-als’ residential districts to determine an individual exposure level.
Usage data for two hyp-notic drugs, zolpidem and triazolam, were extracted from health insurance re-cords. About 22 percent
of study participants had prescriptions for hypnotic drugs.
Min added that public health officials seem to
be less concerned with light pollution than with other environmental pollut-ants. However, this study strengthens the potential
l ink between light pollution a n d a d v e r s e health conse-quences.
“Given the recent scientific evidence includ-ing our results, bright outdoor lighting may be a novel risk factor for prescribing hypnotic drugs,” Min said.
Bank of Baroda has noti-fied 913 vacancies of Specialist Officers in
scale I, II and III in differ-ent disciplines including legal, wealth manage-ment services, sales and wealth management ser-vices- operations.
Online application will begin on December 5 and will conclude on December 26. Candidates will have to deposit the fee before December 26.Selection Procedure:
Online test will be con-ducted, followed by Psycho-metric Test/Group Discus-sion/ Personal Interview of the shortlisted candidates.
Details of age limit, eligi-
Bank of Baroda to fill 913 specialist cadre officers
bility criteria and pay scale:Age limit
Legal Officer MMG/S-III:
28 to 35 yearsLegal Officer MMG/S-II:
25 to 32 yearsWealth Management Ser-
vices - Sales MMG/S-II: 25 to 35 years
Wealth Management Ser-vices - Sales JMG/S-I: 21 to 30 years
Wealth Management Ser-vices - Operations MMG/S-II: 21 to 35 years
Wealth Management Services - Operations JMG/S-I: 21 to 30 years
Online Test pattern1. Reasoning- 50 ques-
tions- 50 marks- 2 hours2. English Language-
50 questions- 25 marks- 2 hours
3. Quantitative Ap-titude -50 questions- 50 marks- 2 hours
4. Professional Knowl-edge- 50 questions- 75 marks- 2 hours
The tests except the Test of English Language will be available bilingually, i.e. English and Hindi
As part of its latest recruitment pro-cess, the North
Western Railway has in-vited candidates to apply for a fresh batch of posts at nwr.indianrailways.gov.in. This railway zone that is located in the city of Jai-pur is offering 2,090 ACT Apprentice posts: This notification is important for all those candidates who have been waiting to secure an ITI job in the railways. These jobs have been announced for the different Workshops and Divisions under the North Western Railway: Interested candidates can visit the official website now to apply for the posts
RRB recruitment 2018
North Western Rly offers 2,090 fresh postson offer. The last date to apply online is December 30, 2018. Mentioned below are the details that will come in handy for eligible candidates who wish to
apply.RRB recruitment 2018:
Important dates-Online Application
starts- November 30, 2018Online Application
ends- December 30, 2018
RRB recruitment 2018: Post details-
Total posts on offer- 2090
Division/ Workshop wise-
Bikaner Division-412Ajmer Division-420Jodhpur Division-410Jodhpur Division-410B.T.C LOCO Ajmer-57B . T . C C a r r i a g e .
Ajmer-166
Carriage Works Shop Jodhpur-85
Carriage Workshop Bi-kaner-37
RRB recruitment 2018: Eligibility Criteria-
* The age of the candi-date should be between 15-24 (Should not have com-pleted 24) as on 30.12.2018
* Upper age relaxation is 5 years in case of SC/St candidates and 3 years in case of OBC candidates
* Candidates should have passed their class 10th examination with at least 50 per cent marks from a recognised board
For more details, candi-dates should visit the offi-cial website of the board at nwr.indianrailways.gov.in.
The South Indian Bank has released an of-ficial notification in-
viting all the interested, eligible candidates for the posts of Probationary Of-fice (PO).
The last date to submit the application form is De-cember 16.
Meanwhile, the online registration process for the same will begin from De-cember 10 on the official website of South Indian Bank, the link for which is www.southindianbank.com
Eligibility criteria:All the candidates inter-
South Indian Bank issues notifi cation for PO posts ested in applying need to be class 10th, Class 12th and graduation in any stream with minimum 60 per cent marks from a recognised university or in-stitute.
Age limit:The applicants
should not exceed the maximum age limit of 25 years as on November 30, 2018. The up-per age limit will be relaxed by 5 years for SC/ST candidates.
How to applyLog on to the official
website, southindianbank
Click on the recruit-ment link
Enter all the required
details in the prescribed format
Upload all the relevant documents and pay the applica-tion fee
Click on submitNote: All the
candidates are ad-vised to take print out of the online submitted applica-tion form for future use.
A p p l i c a t i o n process:
General cate-gory candidates: Rs 800
SC/ST category candi-dates: Rs 200
Selection procedure:All the candidates will
be selected on the basis of online test followed by group discussion for qualified candidates and personal interview round.
Also , the se lec ted candidates will undergo 8-months residential cam-pus programme at the Ma-nipal Global Education Services Pvt. Ltd, Ban-galore (MaGE) and four-months’ internship at a bank branch. Once the course is completed, the
candidates may be awarded Post Graduate Diploma in Banking and Finance by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE)
They will then be hired to the services of the bank as the probationary officer in Scale I cadre
The fees for this pro-gramme will be Rs 3.50 lakh
Important datesStart of application pro-
cess: December 10Last date to apply: De-
cember 16Online test: December
29
6 IN FOCUS Friday, December 07, 2018
I worked in Abu Dhabi for three years and left in 2014 purely on account of a family illness. I have recently had an interview, which went very well with a view to return. I am confident I will pass any medical but I have just turned 74 and would like to know if I will qualify for a work visa? With the change in Labour Law Is it the employer’s discretion?
Until Jan 2011, there was a nominal retire-ment age for expats working in the private sector of 60 and that was then increased to 65. It is possible however, for people to be employed above the age of 65 at the time of application. This is dependent on the indi-vidual’s occupation, expertise, qualifications and experience, which should be relevant to the company offering the position. The visa must be approved by the Ministry of HR and Emiratisation. For an employee of this age, a visa is issued annually and, as per the standard law, the employer must bear this cost as well the cost of providing medical insurance for anyone on a Dubai or Abu Dhabi visa. In this case, I assume the company that interviewed you is aware of his age and want to employ him precisely for his unique skillset. It is not common for individuals over the age of 60 to be offered positions, but there are options for employers looking to hire an older individual if they are an expert in a field and the employer is willing to pay additional costs to do so.
Can I drive with Omani licence?I live in Abu Dhabi and have just received my visa and Emirates Identity card. My company has also given me a car. I have a valid driving licence from Oman, so is it possible to drive the car for a few days until I change to a UAE licence? Is there any option available to change the licence without a test? Do I have to get some kind of special permission or can I just go ahead?
Anyone with a UAE residency visa must only drive a private vehicle on a UAE driving licence. This includes any company owned vehicles. You cannot drive the company car on your Oman driving licence and that now includes any rental vehicles as the law states that once a residency visa application is underway, an individual can only drive in the UAE on a UAE driving licence. If an individual is an Omani national, they can easily convert the Oman licence. Any non-GCC national who has a licence issued in Oman, will need to take lessons and a test before they can obtain a UAE driving licence and must not drive here without it. The ex-ception is for people with certain passports and original driving licences from one of the countries that permits quick conversion of their original licence, (Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Fin-land, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Por-tugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States). In all cases the sponsor must provide a letter of no objection for an individual to apply for a test or licence.
Compensating employerI moved to the UAE from Europe and signed a limited contract at the time. Within four months of signing, however, I realised I needed to leave due to the company being unprofes-sional. The employer tried to make me pay back the visa costs, medical costs, agency recruitment costs, apartment and vehicle costs, which were included in the package for coming to work in Dubai. I now know that the employer must absorb these costs, not the employee. I’m also now aware that I could have potentially had to compensate the previous employer for 45 days’ salary. However, it never reached that stage and my previous employer decided to cancel my visa to allow my new employer to sponsor me. Lastly, my previous employer suggested I stay in the current apartment until the tenancy contract was up for renewal and pay them the remaining balance on the tenancy agreement, but the tenancy agreement and Ejari are not in my name and nor is the apartment. Can I leave anytime (obviously paying the bills accrued before leaving), as I don’t want my previous employer in my life? Or am I legally required to pay him back for the remaining months on the tenancy agreement? Can my previous employer do anything to me if he has cancelled my visa? Am I bound to him in any way or do I have any legal obligations?
You are correct in saying the cost of employing someone must be borne by the employer. This has been made clear by the
I am 74, can I work in Abu Dhabi ?UAE Authorities and Ministerial Decrees have been issued to this effect. It is also true that if an employee breaks a limited contract, he/she is liable to pay a penalty to the employer. This is as per Article 116 of UAE Labour Law, which states: “Should the contract be rescinded by the worker … the worker shall be bound to compensate the employer for the loss incurred thereto by reason of the rescission of the contract, provided that the amount of compensation does not exceed the wage of half-a-month for the period of three months or for the remaining period of the contract, whichever is shorter, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract.” Under UAE Labour Law, where an employee is in accommodation provided by their employer, the standard guidance is that the employee should move out no later than 30 days after their visa is cancelled as clarified in Article 131 which states: “In the event where the employer provides the worker with accom-modation, the worker shall vacate the ac-commodation within 30 days from the date of termination of the employment thereof.” It is unusual to permit an ex-employee to stay in accommodation provided by the employer but it seems that in this case ES is paying his way. In such a situation I recommend having the terms set out in writing so there is no ambiguity over liabilities. If there is no written agreement, and the tenancy and utilities are in the employer’s name, I see no reason why you cannot vacate the property. Once an employment visa has been cancelled with his former employer, there is no further liability or obligation to the employer, assum-ing all dues have been paid in full.
Separate bank A/CsI have a question about a husband and wife having individual separate accounts in the same bank. What happens in the event of the husband’s death? If the wife is sponsored by her husband, is her bank account also frozen? Would she be able to operate her account?
In the event of the death of any individu-al, all assets in the UAE are frozen and that includes all banks accounts. Where there are accounts in joint names, they will be frozen in the event of the death of either of the ac-countholders. Where a wife has an account in her own name with the same bank as her husband, whether her account will be frozen in the event of his death depends on how the account was set up. Banks often note that the accounts are “linked”, especially if the wife does not have her own salary and/or the account was set up as a subsidiary of the husband’s account. This is a concern as it is likely that her account could also be frozen. My advice is for all women is to have their own, entirely separate bank accounts. This should be with a different bank so there is no confusion or doubt as to whether a bank has linked accounts in some way. A number of banks offer accounts that do not require a regular salary to be paid in; these come with cheque books, an ATM card and online banking.
Can I sell homemade items?Many residents offer homemade items for sale, but they do not seem to have a proper business or a shop. They advertise on Facebook and ask people to collect from their homes. Do they have some kind of exemption? When I asked about selling my paintings I was told I had to have a proper licence. Am I not allowed to sell from my villa?
The law regarding selling of goods and indeed operating any kind of business, in the UAE is clear: it is illegal to operate any business without the proper documentation and licence. Small home businesses without their own trade licence are permitted to sell via specific markets, whether in person or via a website, provided the organisation behind it is properly licenced. This allows some small businesses to sell under the licence of an online store or market, but only via those routes. While they can pro-mote themselves online, they can only sell via online platforms or markets that have the kind of licence that includes vendors -- but this is for the specific market days only. Expats are not permitted to sell from their homes, although there is a special licence available for UAE and GCC nation-als to do so. Any business, even small hobby businesses, that operate without the proper permissions, could incur fines of up to Dh50,000 or even imprisonment, for operating a business illegally including from a residential property.
ABU DHABI: The Gandhi-Zayed Digital Exhibition, the first joint digital initiative between the UAE and India, was opened by External Af-fairs Minister Sushma Swaraj along with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Min-ister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The leaders, along with Noura Mohammed Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE, Dr Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al Banna, UAE Ambassador to India and other senior government officials toured
Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi during her visit to the India Social Centre in Abu Dhabi.
the exhibition at Manarat Al Sadiyaat, where 20 LCD screens displayed the mes-sages, teachings and philoso-phies of both leaders.
Sheikh Abdullah said the exhibition would contribute towards conveying the phi-losophy of the two great lead-ers to the future generations, enabling them to learn about their lives, achievements and deeds. Swaraj said both the visionary leaders, with their love for humanity and indomitable spirit, continue to inspire everyone.
“The enunciation of peace tolerance and sustainable liv-ing by Mahatma Gandhi and the UAE’s founder Sheikh Zayed has been portrayed beautifully at the exhibition. I am delighted to jointly at-tend the launch of this exhi-
bition with Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as we celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and 100th year of Sheikh Zayed,” she said. The exhibition is organised by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Develop-ment in co-operation with the Mahatma Gandhi Digital Museum.
Noura Al Kaabi said the exhibition is designed in a way that goes beyond the concept of a traditional exhi-bition. “It is a cultural forum that promotes cultural ex-changes and dialogue among peoples and takes visitors on a journey entitled love, the nation and wise leadership, through the values of peace, tolerance and fraternity,” she said. Birad Rajaram Yajnik,
who has curated the museum in Abu Dhabi, told a TV channel the facility is still in its initial phase and will be reopened in a full-fledged manner with more elements by March.
“Both the visionary lead-ers had dedicated their lives for the people. Mahatma Gandhi got India indepen-dence and Sheikh Zayed unified all the emirates. It is the most important com-mon factor between them. We have encompassed both leaders in different fields themed: Dedicated Custo-dians, Inspirational Ora-tors, Devoted Peacemakers, Visionary Changemakers, Passionate Humanitarians and Resilient Leaders. These six qualities bind both the leaders.”
NEW DELHI: Bahrain is positioning itself as hub for Fintech innovation and wants Indian tech companies to set up their base at FinTech Bay and take advantage of grow-ing economy of the Gulf region.
Development of the Fintech ecosystem has been a top priority and this builds upon Bahrain’s position as a leading and established financial ser-vices hub, Bahrain Eco-nomic Development Board (EDB) Chief Executive Khalid Al Rumaihi said.
“Bahrain has been com-mitted to introduced and improve both the regulato-ry framework and support-ive environment needed by startups and existing companies to grow and succeed. Bahrain FinTech Bay, the region’s largest and first Fintech accelera-tor was launched earlier
Bahrain woos Indian Fintech firmsthis year and a perfect example of what we call our Team Bahrain ap-proach -- a successful economic model of public-private sector collabora-tion,” he said. “Our main aim during the roadshow is to boost bilateral trade relations and promote the investment opportu-nities available to Indian companies in the $1.5 trillion GCC market and across multiple sectors in Bahrain-like Financial Services, FinTech and Real Estate,” he said.
Rumaihi further said that the collaborative ap-proach between the gov-ernment and private sector as illustrated by Bahrain FinTech Bay, has been instrumental to the ad-vancement of the Fintech activities in Bahrain, he said. With a dedicated Fintech unit, Central Bank of Bahrain, has shaped
a pro-innovation regula-tory framework, including the region’s only onshore Regulatory Sandbox, es-tablished last year, which has become a test bed for Fintech startups, he said. “This year, we have seen the introduction of multiple laws that ben-efit the digital economy, including a nationwide standalone Personal Data Protection law, which is modelled after the global code of best practice. A Cloud-First policy to move government entities to the cloud, enabling them to deliver additional services more efficiently and at a lower cost,” he said.
Ultimately up to 90pc of costs can be reduced by integrating cloud technol-ogy. And finally, an updat-ed Bankruptcy law which aims to allows individuals or organisations to fail and start again, he said.
SINGAPORE: An Indian-origin man in Singapore was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison for molesting a woman on a bus. Kajayen-dran Krishnan, a 50-year-old permanent resident pleaded guilty to one charge of using criminal force intending to outrage the victim’s modesty and another of insulting her modesty.
A third charge was taken into consideration for sen-tencing. The court heard that Kajayendran boarded shuttle bus service CW6 from Singapore’s Boon Lay estate heading towards Tuas Checkpoint and onwards to the Southern Malaysian state of Johore on the evening of May 7. The victim, a 44-year-old Malaysian, was sitting on the left-most seat in the last row with an empty seat beside her. Kajayendran, who was drunk, sat beside
Indian-origin jailed for molesting woman in Singaporeher and used his hand to caress her right arm with the intention to molest her. The victim quickly moved away and shifted her body towards the window, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mark Yeo told the court.
She asked Kajayendran to stop touching her but he persisted, calling her “sara-kku” or “hot chick” in Tamil. He also uttered expletives in Tamil and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). The vic-tim tried to leave, standing up in order to cross to the accused’s right. However, Kajayendran extended his legs, trapping the woman in the corner of the bus and grabbing her arm, caressing it, the report said. The victim approached an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officer to report the matter once the bus arrived at Tuas Checkpoint.
The prosecutor asked for a custodial sentence, leaving the exact term up to the judge. He pointed out that the accused had previous convictions for disorderly be-haviour and that the current incident occurred on public transport and with wrongful restraint. Kajayendran, who was unrepresented, told the court at first that he was not sitting down on the bus, but standing up instead. How-ever, after the prosecutor said he had video footage, Kajayendran told District Judge Mathew Joseph that he intended to go ahead with his plea of guilt. Telling the court about his problems of being unemployed, divorce and supporting elderly moth-er in Malaysia, Kajayendran said he was sorry and wished to apologise to the victim. Asked by the judge if he had been drunk, he admitted that
he had indeed drunk alcohol as he had “some personal problems”.
District Judge Mathew Joseph said: “Far from show-ing remorse, you are trying to wriggle your way out of responsibility of this by saying that you were stand-ing up, then later when the prosecutor said there was video footage, you said it was accidental. To me it shows you are not remorse-ful.” The Judge added that no female passenger should have to look and see if she was about to be molested or harassed on public transport. “Let me suggest to you that the next time you are drunk, you don’t take the bus. You walk home. Lest you get into any mischief,” the judge added. The sentence was backdated to September 27 this year, when the accused was remanded.
MUMBAI: RBI has low-ered retail inflation projec-tion in the range of 2.7 to 3.2pc for the second-half of the current fiscal, cit-ing normal monsoon and moderate food prices. The broad-based weakening of food prices imparts down-ward bias to the headline inflation trajectory going forward, RBI said in its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy announced here.
Meanwhile, the central bank maintained status quo in monetary policy announcement, leaving the key interest rate un-changed at 6.5pc. In its previous policy review in Oct, the apex bank had projected the retail infla-tion to be around 3.9-4.5pc in the Oct-March period of 2018-19. In contrast to the food prices, there has been a broad-based increase in inflation in non-food groups.
RBI lowers infl ation
Gandhi-Zayed digital museum opened in Abu Dhabi
CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, December 07, 2018
The high-level expert committee appointed by market regulator
Sebi has recommended di-rect listing of Indian firms on overseas stock bourses and foreign firms on the domestic bourses.
Currently, the only available route for do-mestic firms to access overseas equity market is through the American Depository Route (ADR) and Global Depository Route (GDR) while for-eign firms can access India through the In-dian Depository Receipts (IDR). However, firms planning to use these channels should have prior listing on any domestic bourses.
The committee noted that several companies incorporated in India across various industries especially in the technol-ogy and internet sectors are increasingly facing
Sebi wants India Inc to list overseas directlycompetition from foreign multinational companies in India as well as globally as they expand into for-eign markets. “Listing on a foreign stock exchange
will increase the relative competitiveness of such companies incorporated in India vis-a-vis their global competitors by en-abling them to derive the same benefits currently en-joyed by their international counterparts, whether in terms of access to capi-
tal (including at reduced costs) or in terms of other strategic advantages, thus benefiting the health of the Indian economy,” the committee said.
The committee said that several leading Indian tech-nology and internet compa-nies are domiciled overseas and are not currently able to list their securities on Indian stock exchanges.
Permitting these firms to list on Indian bourses will facilitate the development
of specialised investor and analyst clusters with indus-try specific knowledge and valuation expertise.
This according to the expert committee will make
Indian bourses more at-tractive to the technology and internet sectors.
“Given inherent infla-tion and relatively small-er domestic institutional and non-institutional pools of capital, the cost of capital in India is still higher vis-a-vis that for a foreign corporate thereby putting the Indian com-pany at a disadvantage in the marketplace. Thus, a simple and principle
based international listing regime which enables all companies incorporated in India to raise capital in the market which optimises cost and provides the great-est benefits in terms of value, quantum, quality and branding is the need of the hour,” the committee added.
IT major Infosys has inaugurated yet another tech hub in Hartford,
United States, as part of its localisation process amid Trump administration’s proposal for tightening H-1B norms. The Hartford Hub, which will be creating over 1,000 jobs locally, is expected help Infosys work more closely with its cli-ents in the region and will serve as the global Hub for Infosys’ InsurTech and HealthTech ef-forts. The Hub will feature Living Labs for the Future of Insurance, the Fu-ture of Healthcare and the Future of Manufacturing amongst others, according to the company. “The Liv-ing Labs help organizations learn through making. They bring together expertise in business and technologies such as blockchain, extend-
Infosys opens new tech hub in USed reality and cognitive ca-pabilities with techniques like design thinking, agile and devops. The Living Labs enable rapid experi-mentation and exploration of innovation efforts,” the company said.
Bengaluru-based IT ma-jor has hired more than 7,000 American workers in the last 18 months as part its localisation efforts. In-dian IT services companies have been historically very dependent on H-1B visa to carry their on-shore opera-tions in US. After the issue became part of public dis-
course, the US government seems to have been taking a tough stance on immigrant workers. A recent proposal by the Trump administra-tion seeks to further tweak rules for the H-1B visas and that’s a worrying develop-
ment for Indians, who typically gar-ner more than 60% of these visas. “The inauguration of our Hartford Technol-ogy and Innovation Hub is an impor-tant milestone in our ongoing efforts to help American enterprises revital-
ize their core businesses,” said Infosys COO U.B. Pravin Rao. Infosys had previously announced a partnership with Trinity College to create new edu-cational programs that will prepare liberal arts students and Infosys employees for the digital workplace of the future.
Amazon said that its push into Machine Learning (ML) has
already started yielding results and reconfirmed its plans to increase its kirana footprint in India.
Addressing a gathering of Amazon executives as a part of its Women In Technology conference, Amit Agarwal, Senior Vice-President - India Consumer Business, Amazon, said the company is using ML to identify defects in its products. “We use it to check for defects in pages that list these products,” he said.
Home delivery in 4 hrs: AmazonEarlier, this was done
manually as humans would scour through pages of information to search for defects. Now, thousands of data scientists in Amazon are using ML, said Doug Herrington, Senior Vice-President, North America Consumer, Amazon. This development comes in the backdrop of the American tech giant launching a microchip aimed at ML, thereby getting into the seg-ment dominated by Intel, Nvidia and AMD.
Agarwal along with Her-rington reiterated the com-pany’s commitment to put
customer expectations at the heart of every trans-
action, something which founder, Chairman and
CEO Jeff Bezos is very particular about.
Grocery seg-ment
This is evi-dent from Ama-zon’s recent for-ay into the gro-cery segment in India, something that it has not tried in its home turf (US) or other geographies. “We will increase our engagement with k i rana s tores from where a shopper can get food and other
essentials delivered from nearby stores within 2-4 hours of placing an order,” Agarwal said. However, the Amazon executives did not get into specifics. Agarwal pointed to the company’s delivery network which en-abled it to deliver products to 99.3pc of pincodes dur-ing the recent festival sale.
This service is available currently in Bengaluru. Through its new delivery service, the owners of ki-rana shops can upload their inventories onto the Ama-zon website for local shop-pers to see what’s available in nearby stores. This will
be delivered either through the company’s delivery ser-vice or through third-party logistics companies.
“The customer push is evident, and in achieving scale, technology will play a pivotal role. “Innovate at scale using technology is our mantra,” said Agarwal.
Despite making losses in India, Amazon, along with private equity com-pany Samara Capital, has co-invested in supermarket chain More. Amazon holds 49 per cent and the re-maining is held by Samara Capital. It also has a small stake in Shopper’s Stop.
Yes Bank said its wholly-owned sub-sidiary Yes Asset
Management has received market regulator SEBI’s approval to launch two
mutual fund schemes.Yes Asset Management
(India) is the latest In-dian company to enter the mutual fund segment. At present, there are over 40 mutual fund houses operat-
Yes AMC gets SEBI nod to launch MF schemes
ing in the country. The as-set management company will launch two schemes -- Yes Liquid Fund and Yes Ultra Short Term Fund, the bank said in a statement.
This ap-p r o v a l i s subsequent to Rese rve Bank of In-dia’s approval granted to Yes Bank to spon-sor a mutual fund followed
by SEBI’s in-principle ap-proval received subse-quently. Yes Asset Man-agement, in July, received the approval from SEBI to commence mutual fund business.
The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) will
cease to be a fund manager of retirement fund body EPFO by March-end, as a bank cannot function as an asset management company under the RBI norms.
“We have been told that SBI cannot work (as fund man-ager of the EPFO). We have not engaged (its arm) SBI Mutual Fund (as fund manager) because it was not there (as an appli-cant at the time of bidding) earlier,” Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said.
He was addressing re-
SBI cease to be EPFO fund manager from March-end
porters after a meeting of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) apex decision-making body Central Board of Trustees (CBT), chaired by him.
The minister also said:
“We have given them (all five fund managers) time till March. We will discuss and take a call as to whom we can engage as a fund man-ager. We had engaged SBI. But its job is banking and not this job (fund manag-
ing). SBI Mutual (Fund) was not enrolled with us as a fund manager. After March, if they (SBI’s fund managing arm) come for this then we can engage them.”
Currently, SBI, ICICI Securities Primary Deal-ership, Reliance Capital, HSBC AMC and UTI AMC are fund managers of the EPFO.
The EPFO has sepa-rately engaged SBI Capital
and UTI Mutual Funds as exchange-traded fund (ETF) managers. The SBI Capital manages 75 per cent of ETF investment of the EPFO, while the UTI Mutual Funds takes care of the remaining 25pc.
Power Finance Cor-poration has sought to raise $500 mil-
lion through medium-term notes maturing in Decem-
ber 2028.The proceeds from the
issue will be used by PFC to finance power projects and for general corpo-rate purposes in line with guidelines on external com-mercial borrowings.
PFC to mop up $500m through 10-year notes
In a statement to the BSE, PFC said these notes carry an annual coupon rate of 6.15pc that will be paid semi-annually,
in arrears. These notes will mature on Decem-ber 6, 2028, and all ru-pee princi-pal and in-terest pay-ments will
be made in US dollars.The notes will be listed
on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd, In-dia International Exchange Ltd (IFSC — India-INX), and NSE-IFSC Ltd, the company said.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) said its construction arm has bagged orders
worth Rs 2,106 crore across various business segments in the domestic market. The water and effluent treatment business have secured orders worth Rs 1,954 crore while L&T Geo-Structure business has secured orders worth Rs 152 crore, the engineering and construction major said in a regulatory filing. L&T said water and effluent treat-ment business has received a design and build order from the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Author-ity (AP CRDA).
“This order will be joint-ly executed by water efflu-ent treatment business and
L&T Construction bags orders worth Rs 2,106cr
transportation infrastructure business of L&T Construc-tion,” it added. The business has also secured a turnkey order from the Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure De-velopment Company Lim-ited (JUIDCO) for execution of drinking water supply projects in the Hazarib-agh and Ranchi districts of Jharkhand, the company said.
L&T GeoStructure busi-ness has secured an order from BHEL for the execution of pile caps, pedestals, piers, deep foundation-supported bridges and gallery, for a coal handling and ash han-dling plant of the 2×660 MW STTP at Ennore, Chen-nai.
Future Generali India Life Insurance Com-pany Limited (FGILI)
has launched Big Dreams In-surance Plan, a unit-linked investment policy (ULIP), which aims to provide higher returns to people of all age groups by mini-mising applicable charges and providing additional allocations.
According to the com-pany, the plan provides ad-ditional allocation on every premium payment made by the customer to encourage customers to stay invest-ed for long term and get maximum value. Moreover, there will be no charges applicable under this plan, except fund management and mortality charges.
The plan offers 3 life-
Future Generali launches Big Dreams Insurance Planstage based solutions to help customer fulfill their big dreams:
Option 1: Wealth Cre-ation: To save for a specific
milestoneOption 2: Retire Smart:
To build a retirement corpus and get monthly income
Option 3: Dream Protect: To secure a child’s educa-tion or protect family’s life-style in case of unfortunate demise of the life assured.
The plan offers six di-
verse funds having portfolio allocation across money market, debt securities and equities, which can be opted or switched by the customer
depending upon their risk appetite and the prevailing market scenario. For further diversification, ‘Future Mid-cap fund’ has been launched to meet the needs of custom-ers seeking long term capital appreciation by investing into mid cap stocks.
According to the com-
pany, the key highlights of Future Generali Big Dreams Insurance Plan include:
Extra allocation, from 1 to 7 per cent on each install-
ment premium.Zero Allocation and
Zero Admin charge for faster wealth creation.
Options to fulfill life’s goals by choos-ing from 3 available options – Wealth Cre-ation, Retire Smart and Dream Protect.
Flexibility to invest one-time, limited period or over the entire policy term.
A new opportuni ty through ‘Future Midcap Fund’ which invests in at least 50 per cent of midcap stocks (out of total equity investment)
Option of systematic
partial withdrawal (under Option 1 and 2) to meet spe-cific financial requirements through monthly receipts.
Systematic transfer op-tion to allow weekly transfer units from one fund to an-other, in order to reduce risk exposure in volatile markets.
Greater control with flex-ibility to change your funds.
Convenience of increas-ing policy term or premium payment term would allow policy benefits for longer term.
Options of riders that cover accidental death, acci-dental total and permanent disability.
Tax benefits under Sec-tion 80C and Sec 10(10D) of the Income Tax Act of 1961.
Option is there to buy the plan online.
8 Travel / Entertainment
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The additional rights to airlines for flying to Kannur is expected to
be sanctioned, based on a spe-cial request made by the Kan-nur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) authorities to India’s civil aviation ministry. Gulf airlines are likely to get spe-cial permission from the In-dian civil aviation authorities to operate two daily flights to Kannur International Airport, the new international airport in the southern state of Kerala that starts operations from Sunday next.
The flights, if allowed, will be outside the ambit of the bilateral rights on maxi-mum number of airline seats currently agreed upon be-tween India and countries in
the Gulf region. A similar spe-cial permission is expected to be granted for some of the Indian carriers proposing to operate to various airports in the MidEast.The additional rights to airlines for flying to Kannur is expected to be sanctioned, based on a special request made by the Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) authorities to India’s civil aviation ministry.
Flights to Kannur Interna-tional Airport will be outside the ambit of the bilateral rights on maximum number of air-line seats currently agreed upon between India and coun-tries in the Gulf region.
“We have written to the civil aviation ministry and DGCA (Directorate General
of Civil Aviation) for special permission for allowing two daily flights each by airlines from Gulf countries which plan to operate their flights to KIAL in the initial phase,” V Thulasidas, managing direc-tor of KIAL, told s TV chan-nel. “We have also sought permission for a matching number of flights by domes-tic airlines which want to fly to various Gulf destinations from KIAL.”
KIAL asked for a special dispensation on allowing flights to and from the Mid-East region as “KIAL was not part of the present bilateral rights by India on airline seats sharing pact with the region when it was negotiated and finalised”. Thulasidas said
KIAL has proposed that the additional flights to MidEast destinations should be in-cluded in the bilateral rights between India and the coun-tries in the MidEast as and when the new seat sharing agreements are finalised. A similar special dispensation on additional flights to and from the Gulf countries was also extended to the Cochin International Airport in the initial period of its operation, Thulasidas added.
Local carriers Air India Ex-press and Go Air will operate flights to the Gulf in the initial phase of KIAL’s operations. Air India Express will operate its first flight to Abu Dhabi on Dec 9, and will offer services to Sharjah and Riyadh.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with US Defence Secretary James N Mattis at the Pentagon. On her first visit to the US, the Pentagon rolled out the red carpet for Nirmala with administration sources saying that Defence Secretary Jim Mattis per-sonally choreographing much of her five-day official visit.
Gulf airlines plan two daily fl ights to Kannur
Air passengers may be allowed to make mobile calls and surf
the internet during flights in the Indian airspace, possibly from next month, once the law ministry gives its views and approval to the proposal, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has said. The tele-com ministry is awaiting the views of the law ministry on in-flight connectivity rules and is hopeful of notifying the norms soon thereafter, Sinha said.
“We have sought the per-mission of law ministry, once that comes through... I be-lieve that it will come in a week or 10 days...then we can start it,” Sinha told reporters in Delhi. Asked if the minis-try expects to notify the rules at the beginning of the New Year, the minister said he is
You can make on fl ight mobile calls soon
hopeful of doing so. On May 1, the Telecom Commission — the highest policy-making body of the Department of Telecom — had cleared a proposal for allowing wider in-flight connectivity that is now available in most of the developed markets.
Asked whether the cov-erage should extend to ter-ritorial waters or exclusive economic zones (EEZ), a senior DoT official said the communications ministry is of the view that international best practices should be fol-lowed. Territorial waters ex-tend up to 12 nautical miles (around 22 km) from coastal line of the country, while EEZ covers up to 200 nautical miles. “We have said...and the notification hopefully will say that we are aligned on international law on this,
which is synced with EEZ. We are trying to fine tune the language,” the official said.
The government has, in the past, said that it is committed to ensuring the earliest implementation of the in-flight connectivity framework. Full-service car-riers, including Air India and Vistara, have welcomed the decision on permitting in-flight connectivity. A sepa-rate category of licensees — in-flight service providers — will be created for offering such services, and licence fee for such niche providers will be pegged at Rs 1.
The successful launch of India’s heaviest satellite GSAT-11 from French Gui-ana, would provide a big boost to data connectivity, especially in the north east-ern and hilly states.
Prime Minister Modi congratulating newlywed Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas in Delhi.
Yacht crews, jet-skiers and speed boat pas-sengers will be able
to shop from a store or “Aqua Pod” anchored out to sea of-fering hundreds of items. On sale will be fresh and dried foods, hot and cold snacks, beverages, cosmetics and medicines.
A skiff will also deliver orders to beach-goers on nearby Kite beach, Jumeirah public beach and Al Sufouh beach.
Miguel Povedano, COO of Carrefour UAE at Majid Al Futtaim Retail said: “With Dubai’s stunning coastline being enjoyed by millions of people each year, it is a natural next step to cater to our customers with relevant products in a locale where they are not currently being served. “It’s exciting to know that we can reach our cus-
First sail-through supermarket in Dubai
tomers anywhere whether it be land or sea and we can’t wait to delight them with this world-first service.”
The custom-built, sail-through store will be op-erational six days a week from 10am to 6pm, subject to weather conditions. Plac-ing an order is simple. Jet skiers and passengers in small sailing craft can sail up to the Aqua Pod and or-der at the window counter. Customers on larger sailing vessels or those on selected beaches, can phone through their order and a skiff will deliver their items within 45 minutes. The Aqua Pod was designed and created by Aquatic Architects Design Studio (AADS) in Dubai.The system was built with an eco-friendly focus and is powered by rechargeable batteries.
Etihad, Jet Airways in talks on rescue plan
Etihad Airways is hold-ing talks with Jet Air-ways and its bankers
on a rescue plan for the debt-laden domestic carrier. Ex-ecutives from Etihad and Jet have met some of the airline’s bankers in Mumbai to dis-cuss ways to address its cash flow issues and evaluate the carrier’s future business plan.
Etihad, which owns 24pc stake in Jet Airways, is also considering investing fresh funds in the airline if it can agree on the structure, one of the sources said, adding that no deal has been finalised. Jet Airways, which is the country’s biggest full service
carrier by market share, is in desperate need of cash.
The 25-year-old airline, founded by Naresh Goyal, owes money to lessors and vendors, has delayed sal-ary payments to pilots and senior executives and is cut-ting flights on non-profitable routes to save money. India has one of the world’s fastest-growing domestic aviation markets but high fuel prices, a weak rupee and intense price wars in the country, which is dominated by no-frills airlines like Interglobe Aviation’s IndiGo, has exac-erbated Jet’s woes in recent months. Etihad has already
come to Jet’s rescue once when it picked up a 24pc stake in the carrier in 2013 but the situation is different this time.
While the Abu Dhabi-
based carrier is invested in Jet, it has lost money in other airline ventures such as Alitalia and Air Berlin and may be wary of loosening the purse strings again.
Yousuffali aims to revive Air Kerala plansAbu Dhabi-based busi-
nessman Yousuffali MA, who owns the
Lulu supermarket chain, is seeking backing to launch a new private airline based out of Kerala. Managing di-rector of EMKE G r o u p , Yo u -suffali stepped down as a direc-tor of Air India at the week-end, clearing the way for him to focus on rejuvenating plans for an air-line based out of the south Indian state.
“Since my induction into Air India board I have tried my level best to change the way the national airline has been working. But there has been no improvement,” Yu-suffali was quoted as saying by a TV channel. Air Kerala
was registered as a company in India four years ago and one of its key stakeholders is believed to be the govern-ment of Kerala.
Yousuffali told report-ers at the weekend he is
looking to attract backing for the Ke r a l a - b a s e d private carrier at an investment event later this year. “This pro-posal is going to be showcased in Emerging Kera-la - a business
meeting to be held in Kochi in September,” Yousuffali was quoted as saying by a TV channel.
The carrier, will be aimed at the three million plus NRIs who are based in the Gulf and is likely to operated from Kochi.
Vibrant Goa summit next yearFor the first time, a Vi-
brant Goa summit will be held in Panaji from
Oct 17 to Oct 19, 2019, simi-lar to the Vibrant summit series conducted in several states.
The three-day summit organised on the lines of an international expo-cum trade fair, is projected to showcase Goa’s potential to international community of investors. It will focus on op-portunities across industries in the state and expected to bring together local import-ers, exporters, manufactur-ers, service providers, trad-ers, customers, etc.
Goan industry is taken on task of hosting the Vibrant Goa summit with support from the government. To make the summit success-
ful, Global Network (GN), a Gujarat based company is roped in. GN is the co-organiser for Vibrant Kutch, Vibrant Saurashtra, Vibrant Tamil Nadu etc. across India.
Announcing the summit, Nitin Kunkolienkar, chair-man, Vibrant Goa Founda-tion, said that, the state is not getting the attention it deserves. “Western and southern states have become more visible and proac-tive but Goa is not getting adequate attention at the national level,” he added. He further said that, export thrust will be a main focus of the summit which will help Goan industrialists and unit owners to connect with foreign countries.
Raj Kumar Kamat, ex-ecutive director Business
Networking International (BNI) said that, the sum-mit model is found to have worked in other states in attracting investment and “will also work for Goa.” Ja-gat Shah, founder, GN, said that, the event will create employment opportunities and give a boost to MSMEs and companies in the state. He added that, marketing of the “game-changing sum-mit” will be through road shows in 16 countries and 20 states within India. Local companies are expected to participate in the road shows and Goan diaspora will be enlisted for help.
“In each of the country that we visit we will tie-up with the Goan association to popularise the summit,” said Shah.
Yousuffali MA
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