RNI No.: MAHENG/2018/76663 Day of Publishing: Every Tuesday and Friday www.newsandnriconnect.com MUMBAI: FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2019 • VOL. No. 1 • Issue No. 73 • IPEPCIL PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. • 8 PAGES • PRICE: ₹ 8 Postal Registration No.: MCW/346/2019-21 Posting: Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, Saturday FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2019 PC Sorting Office Logon on to www.newsandnriconnect.com for free ePaper , download without user id and password. Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council (IPEPCIL) General Secretary Dr. Sureshkumar Mad- husudhanan, its President Mr Abdul Rehman C H and Treasurer Mr Kalimulla Sheriff presented a memorandum to Mr Amrit Lugun, Additional Secretary and Protector General of Emigrants (Min- istry of External Affairs) in Delhi seeking redressals to the grievances of the recruitment fraternity. IPEPCIL’s plea on MRW, new Emigration Bill NEW DELHI: The Indian Personnel Export Promo- tion Council (IPEPCIL) has requested Mr Amrit Lugun, Protector General of Emi- grants (PGE) and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, to look into the apprehensions regarding the enforcement of Mini- mum Referral Wages (MRW) and its negative outcome on the overseas recruitments. In a memorandum sub- mitted to Mr Amrit Lugun, by IPEPCIL General Secre- tary Dr. Sureshkumar Mad- husudhanan, its president Mr Abdul Rehman CH and treasurer Mr Kalimulla Sher- iff in Delhi, IPEPCIL has sought another round of dis- cussion with stakeholders to avoid misinterpretation. Minimum wages It was pointed out that the suggested minimum wages is way above the prevalent wages for the cat- egories in the local markets. The migrant worker is will- ing to accept the wages dic- tated by the market, since it is way above what he would receive for similar vocation in India and also enables him to save and repatriate to his family. This anomaly runs contrary to the dictum of market forces. It is strange that while an ECR passport holder is barred from accepting a job because the salary does not match the figures in MRW, an ECNR passport holder can take up the job as he bypasses eMigrate. “The moot point here is not about ECR or ECNR passport hold- ers, but about the validity of MRW, since it seems to have been drafted in a vacuum, ignoring ground realities”, the memorandum said. Basically, the MRW should be in conformity with the structure of wages at the host country and as per the labour law and practically it should be on acceptance of the emigrant. These are the negative fall- out since its implementation: ● The unemployment figures have been negatively impacted. ● Ethical RAs (recruit- ment agents) have lost busi- ness to illegal recruiters and to neighbouring countries. Business over the last few years has fallen drastically. ● Our country has experi- enced reduced inflow of for- eign exchange remittances. “As per consultative meeting held on Dec 21, 2018, with the Ministry of External Affairs officials and representatives of recruit- ment fraternity under your chairmanship, as the minis- try has asked the recruiting fraternity to suggest the ideal minimum wages, we already furnished the following min- imum salary benchmark for skilled and unskilled work- ers seeking employment in the 17 ECR countries”, the memorandum recalled. The Minimum Referral Wages, for the 17 ECR coun- tries should be dollar de- nominated or equivalent in the local currency as follows: ● Unskilled workers a minimum salary of US$200. ● Semi-skilled & skilled workers a minimum salary of US $250. The salary mentioned above is for 08 hours per day / 48 hours per week. Apart from the above mentioned salary, the immigrant should be eligible for all other ben- efits including free food, accommodation, medical, insurance, transportation etc provided as per Labour laws of the host country, includ- ing adequate compensation for working overtime. Glitches in eMigrate The introduction of the eMigrate system, though well intentioned, is adverse- ly impacting overseas de- ployment of workers. The RAs had fully supported the government’s initiative with regard to eMigrate when it was introduced in 2015. But, the experience of the past four years shows that this new system is having an adverse impact in many areas. The Association has sent several representations to the ministry and the PGE, many of them have resolved, but still the system is run- ning slow, which is affect- ing uploading of documents and clearance of emigration by respective POEs. “Your immediate intervention will be highly appreciated”, the memorandum said. The memorandum voiced concern about the recruited emigrants who are violating the contract and coming back to India with vague excuses. “This has reference to our letter dated May 27, 2019, many of our members are facing problem from recruited emi- grants who are violating the contract and coming back to India with vague excuses. The foreign employers (FEs) are spending huge amount for their recruitment in- cluding the visa and other charges. The RAs are held responsible and have to pay heavy penalty to their cli- ents to continue their busi- ness. Due to these reasons, many of the FEs are asking deposit and bank guarantee to safeguard this issues, the memorandum regretted. New insurance policy In this regard, the As- sociation had many meeting with the Mr. M.C. Luther, former PGE and Gen. V.K. Singh, the then MOS, MEA and requested to introduce Insurance policies with more features covering loss of pay, termination, violation of con- tract, medical treatment, death, war, natural calami- ties etc, which doesn’t cover the present insurance policy. Hence we suggest in addition to the current insurance pol- icy, please introduce a new policy with more features and make optional to emigrants and should be renewed after the contractual period to safe- guard the emigrants. A single page registration should be made available in the eMi- grate portal for candidates to upload the policy. Emigration Bill 2019 Proposed Emigration Bill 2019 speaks about a major anomaly in the existing and the proposed legislation is the immediate action on RA in case an emigrant or a random individual lodges a complaint on eMigrate. The initial effort should be veri- fication of the genuineness, thereafter identify whether it involves RA, medical test centre or FE. Complaints should only be entertained from the emigrant, his spouse or immediate blood relative. (Contd. on page 2) ABU DHABI: UAE residents can now renew the residen- cy visas of their 18-year-old dependent sons -- whether they are secondary school or university graduates -- for up to two consecutive years, the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship has announced. The residence permit, therefore, will be valid for a year and can be renewed for an additional year. This ben- efit can be availed from the date of completion of second- ary education of dependent sons or those who have just graduated university or those reaching the age of 18 years. The authority said guardians will no longer be required to apply under humanitarian appeals, which required a deposit of Dh5,000. Daughters Daughters remain on their parents visa with no age UAE visas for dependent sons over 18 can now be renewed limit until they get married. Applicants can apply through all the residency and naturalisation offices or other government-approved outlets for a fee of Dh100 for residency permits or their renewal for a year. Resi- dents can submit support- ing documents that include attaching the certificate of general secondary education or graduation certificate or the information from the university where the son studied, whether inside or outside the UAE, duly certi- fied by his alma mater. Tourist visa fees Furthermore, no tourist visa fees will be charged for children below 18 years of age who are accompanying their parents to the UAE, the authority announced. Tourists can benefit from the latest tourist visa fee waiver rules between July 15 and Sept 15 each year. The authority said that these fa- cilities include those below 18 provided that they are accompanied by a parent, re- gardless of the length of the validity of the parent’s visa. The authority announced that it will launch a cam- paign next week to define the exemptions granted to tourists and how to ob- tain them during the period mentioned, including the distribution of explanato- ry leaflets at the country’s airports and border ports and through the concerned bodies such as the state’s tourism agencies, national carriers, travel and tourism offices. The authority also explained that those wishing to benefit from these facili- ties can apply through the authority’s electronic chan- nels or via its smart applica- tion (ica) uae echannels. WASHINGTON: The popu- lation of Indian-origin peo- ple in America grew by 38pc in seven years between 2010 and 2017, a South Asian ad- vocacy group has said in its latest demographic report. There are at least 6.3 lakh Indians who are un- documented, a 72pc in- crease since 2010, the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said in its snapshot. The increase in illegal Indian-Americans can be attributed to Indian immigrants overstaying vi- sas, it said. Nearly 2.5 lakh Indians overstayed their visa in 2016, therefore, becoming undocumented, it said. In general, the population of American residents tracing their roots to South Asia grew by 40pc. In real terms, it increased from 3.5 million in 2010 to 5.4 million in 2017, SAALT said. The Nepali community US-Indian population up 38pc grew by 206.6pc since 2010, followed by Indian (38pc), Bhutanese (38pc), Pakistani (33pc), Bangladeshi (26pc) and Sri Lankan populations (15pc). There are currently at least 4,300 active South Asian Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. As of Aug 2018, there are approximately 2,550 active Indian DACA recipients. Only 13pc of the overall 20,000 DACA eligible Indians have applied and received DACA. SAALT said that as far as DACA recipi- ents from other countries are concerned, there are 1,300 from Pakistan, 470 from Ban- gladesh, 120 from Sri Lanka and 60 from Nepal. The immigrant popula- tion density of the country shows that undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants live in New York (19,000), Michi- gan (4,000), Virginia (3,000) and California (2,000). The demographic snapshot is based primarily on Census 2010 and the 2017 American Community Survey. According to the report, income inequality has been reported to be the greatest among Asian Americans. Nearly one per cent of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty. SAALT said there has been a rise in the number of South Asians seeking asylum in the US over the last 10 years. The US Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement (ICE) has detained 3,013 South Asians since 2017. US Customs and Border Patrol arrested 17,119 South Asians between Oct 2014 and April 2018 through border and interior enforce- ment, it said. According to SAALT, since 1997, more than 1.7 million dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders have re- ceived H-4 visas. In 2017,as many as 1.36 lakh individu- als received H-4 status. Near- ly 86pc of H-4 visa holders are from South Asian coun- tries. In 2015, DHS granted work authorisation to certain H-4 visa holders. As of Dec 2017, approximately 1.27 lakh visa holders were ap- proved for H-4 EAD, the report said. Nearly 4.72 lakh or 10pc of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty, the report said. Among South Asian Americans, Pakistanis (15.8pc), Nepalis (23.9pc), Bangladeshis (24.2pc) and Bhutanese (33.3pc) had the highest poverty rates, it said.Bangladeshi and Ne- pali communities have the lowest median household incomes out of all Asian American groups, earning US$49,800 and US$43,500 respectively, it said. ADIA hopes 20pc return from Indian real estate fund ABU DHABI: India is con- sidering allowing foreign investment funds to buy stressed loan portfolios of banks, a move which is ex- pected to see billions of dol- lars invested by institutional investors from the MidEast and other regions. The pro- posed relaxation in norms for selling of stressed loan portfolios of banks is aimed at enabling banks to clean up their mounting non-perform- ing assets (NPAs), according to government sources. Currently, banks are al- lowed to sell their stressed loan portfolios only to asset reconstruction companies. “The finance ministry has mooted some suggestions to relax norms related to in- vestments by foreign funds in India’s stressed assets and one of the suggestions is to allow them (foreign funds) to acquire stressed loans from banks,” a senior federal corporate affairs ministry official told a TV channel. “Our ministry is cur- rently examining these sug- gestions,” the official added. The stressed asset portfolios of banks in India are es- timated to be about $143 billion, the official said. The mounting NPAs have been choking lending by banks in the recent years, adversely affecting economic growth. Industry sources said if the government relaxes norms related to selling of stressed loan portfolios by banks, leading “There is a lot of appetite among foreign funds, including institu- tional investors from the MidEast region for investing in stressed portfolio assets in India, and if this (allow- ing foreign funds to acquire stressed loans from banks) is allowed, we will see large scale (Contd. on page 2) India tops tech visa applications to UK LONDON: India, along with the US, has the highest number of visa applications for the UK’s technology sector, according to the lat- est data from a UK Home Office-sanctioned report on digital tech entrepreneurs. Tech Nation, a body des- ignated to promote and highlight Tier-1 Exceptional Talent Visas (also known as tech visas), stated that almost a quarter of Asia- Pacific (APAC) countries’ applications were from In- dia. In fact, there was a 45pc overall increase in applica- tions in 2018-19, up to 650 from 450 the previous year. “The countries with the highest amount of visa ap- plications continue to be India and the US, from Soft- ware Engineers and Busi- ness Developers in Software Development, AI & Machine Learning, FinTech and En- terprise/Cloud sectors,” the report said. Tech Nation is one of just five designated competent bodies (DCB) appointed by the UK Home Office for the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa, in the fields of digital technology, engineering, medicine, science, the arts and media. The increase in visa ap- plicants follows the UK government’s stated strategy to develop closer ties with India post-Brexit, as was evidenced by their exempt- ing doctors and nurses from the Tier-2 visa cap last year. “The UK continues to at- tract talent from all around the world. This is thanks to our world-leading academic institutions, strong access to finance and long-standing reputation for innovation,” said UK Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries Margot Jame. “Making sure we have the talent and skills so the tech sector can continue its incred- ible growth, is a priority of our modern Industrial Strategy,” she added. The Tech Nation Visa, valid for up to five years and four months, is for founders and employees with technical or business backgrounds, including all tech sub-sectors like fintech, AI, cyber, and games. Matt Jeffs-Watts, Head of Visas at Tech Nation, said: “The UK tech sector is an incredibly attractive place to work, with its unparal- leled connectivity, access to exceptional talent and sig- nificant levels of innovation and investment. The Tech Nation Visa has received over 1,650 applicants, with over 900 endorsed from more than 50 countries worldwide since 2014.
Logon on to www.newsandnriconnect.com for free ePaper, download without user id and password.
Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council (IPEPCIL) General Secretary Dr. Sureshkumar Mad-husudhanan, its President Mr Abdul Rehman C H and Treasurer Mr Kalimulla Sheriff presented a memorandum to Mr Amrit Lugun, Additional Secretary and Protector General of Emigrants (Min-istry of External Affairs) in Delhi seeking redressals to the grievances of the recruitment fraternity.
IPEPCIL’s plea on MRW, new Emigration BillNEW DELHI: The Indian Personnel Export Promo-tion Council (IPEPCIL) has requested Mr Amrit Lugun, Protector General of Emi-grants (PGE) and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, to look into the apprehensions regarding the enforcement of Mini-mum Referral Wages (MRW) and its negative outcome on the overseas recruitments.
In a memorandum sub-mitted to Mr Amrit Lugun, by IPEPCIL General Secre-tary Dr. Sureshkumar Mad-husudhanan, its president Mr Abdul Rehman CH and treasurer Mr Kalimulla Sher-iff in Delhi, IPEPCIL has sought another round of dis-cussion with stakeholders to avoid misinterpretation.Minimum wages
It was pointed out that the suggested minimum wages is way above the prevalent wages for the cat-egories in the local markets. The migrant worker is will-ing to accept the wages dic-tated by the market, since it is way above what he would receive for similar vocation in India and also enables him to save and repatriate to his family. This anomaly runs contrary to the dictum of market forces.
It is strange that while an ECR passport holder is barred from accepting a job because the salary does not match the figures in MRW, an ECNR passport holder can take up the job as he bypasses eMigrate. “The moot point here is not about ECR or ECNR passport hold-ers, but about the validity of MRW, since it seems to have been drafted in a vacuum, ignoring ground realities”, the memorandum said.
Basically, the MRW should be in conformity with the structure of wages at the host country and as per the labour law and practically it should be on acceptance of the emigrant.
These are the negative fall-out since its implementation:
● The unemployment figures have been negatively impacted.
● Ethical RAs (recruit-ment agents) have lost busi-ness to illegal recruiters and to neighbouring countries. Business over the last few years has fallen drastically.
● Our country has experi-enced reduced inflow of for-eign exchange remittances.
“As per consultative meeting held on Dec 21, 2018, with the Ministry of External Affairs officials and
representatives of recruit-ment fraternity under your chairmanship, as the minis-try has asked the recruiting fraternity to suggest the ideal minimum wages, we already furnished the following min-
imum salary benchmark for skilled and unskilled work-ers seeking employment in the 17 ECR countries”, the memorandum recalled.
The Minimum Referral Wages, for the 17 ECR coun-tries should be dollar de-nominated or equivalent in the local currency as follows:
● Unskilled workers a minimum salary of US$200.
● Semi-skilled & skilled workers a minimum salary of US $250.
The salary mentioned above is for 08 hours per day
/ 48 hours per week. Apart from the above mentioned salary, the immigrant should be eligible for all other ben-efits including free food, accommodation, medical, insurance, transportation etc provided as per Labour laws of the host country, includ-ing adequate compensation
for working overtime.Glitches in eMigrate
The introduction of the eMigrate system, though well intentioned, is adverse-ly impacting overseas de-ployment of workers. The
RAs had fully supported the government’s initiative with regard to eMigrate when it was introduced in 2015. But, the experience of the past four years shows that this new system is having an adverse impact in many areas. The Association has sent several representations
to the ministry and the PGE, many of them have resolved, but still the system is run-ning slow, which is affect-ing uploading of documents and clearance of emigration by respective POEs. “Your immediate intervention will be highly appreciated”, the memorandum said.
T h e m e m o r a n d u m voiced concern about the recruited emigrants who are violating the contract and coming back to India with vague excuses. “This has reference to our letter dated May 27, 2019, many of our members are facing problem from recruited emi-grants who are violating the contract and coming back to India with vague excuses. The foreign employers (FEs) are spending huge amount for their recruitment in-cluding the visa and other charges. The RAs are held responsible and have to pay heavy penalty to their cli-ents to continue their busi-ness. Due to these reasons, many of the FEs are asking deposit and bank guarantee to safeguard this issues, the memorandum regretted.New insurance policy
In this regard, the As-sociation had many meeting with the Mr. M.C. Luther,
former PGE and Gen. V.K. Singh, the then MOS, MEA and requested to introduce Insurance policies with more features covering loss of pay, termination, violation of con-tract, medical treatment, death, war, natural calami-ties etc, which doesn’t cover the present insurance policy. Hence we suggest in addition to the current insurance pol-icy, please introduce a new policy with more features and make optional to emigrants and should be renewed after the contractual period to safe-guard the emigrants. A single page registration should be made available in the eMi-grate portal for candidates to upload the policy.Emigration Bill 2019
Proposed Emigration Bill 2019 speaks about a major anomaly in the existing and the proposed legislation is the immediate action on RA in case an emigrant or a random individual lodges a complaint on eMigrate. The initial effort should be veri-fication of the genuineness, thereafter identify whether it involves RA, medical test centre or FE. Complaints should only be entertained from the emigrant, his spouse or immediate blood relative. (Contd. on page 2)
ABU DHABI: UAE residents can now renew the residen-cy visas of their 18-year-old dependent sons -- whether they are secondary school or university graduates -- for up to two consecutive years, the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship has announced.
The residence permit, therefore, will be valid for a year and can be renewed for an additional year. This ben-efit can be availed from the date of completion of second-ary education of dependent sons or those who have just graduated university or those reaching the age of 18 years. The authority said guardians will no longer be required to apply under humanitarian appeals, which required a deposit of Dh5,000.Daughters
Daughters remain on their parents visa with no age
UAE visas for dependent sonsover 18 can now be renewed
limit until they get married.Applicants can apply
through all the residency and naturalisation offices or other government-approved outlets for a fee of Dh100 for residency permits or their renewal for a year. Resi-dents can submit support-ing documents that include attaching the certificate of general secondary education or graduation certificate or the information from the university where the son studied, whether inside or outside the UAE, duly certi-fied by his alma mater.Tourist visa fees
Furthermore, no tourist visa fees will be charged for children below 18 years of age who are accompanying their parents to the UAE, the authority announced. Tourists can benefit from the latest tourist visa fee waiver rules between July 15
and Sept 15 each year. The authority said that these fa-cilities include those below 18 provided that they are accompanied by a parent, re-gardless of the length of the validity of the parent’s visa.
The authority announced that it will launch a cam-paign next week to define the exemptions granted to tourists and how to ob-tain them during the period mentioned, including the distribution of explanato-ry leaflets at the country’s airports and border ports and through the concerned bodies such as the state’s tourism agencies, national carriers, travel and tourism offices. The authority also explained that those wishing to benefit from these facili-ties can apply through the authority’s electronic chan-nels or via its smart applica-tion (ica) uae echannels.
WASHINGTON: The popu-lation of Indian-origin peo-ple in America grew by 38pc in seven years between 2010 and 2017, a South Asian ad-vocacy group has said in its latest demographic report.
There are at least 6.3 lakh Indians who are un-documented, a 72pc in-crease since 2010, the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said in its snapshot. The increase in illegal Indian-Americans can be attributed to Indian immigrants overstaying vi-sas, it said. Nearly 2.5 lakh Indians overstayed their visa in 2016, therefore, becoming undocumented, it said. In general, the population of American residents tracing their roots to South Asia grew by 40pc. In real terms, it increased from 3.5 million in 2010 to 5.4 million in 2017, SAALT said.
The Nepali community
US-Indian population up 38pcgrew by 206.6pc since 2010, followed by Indian (38pc), Bhutanese (38pc), Pakistani (33pc), Bangladeshi (26pc) and Sri Lankan populations (15pc). There are currently at least 4,300 active South Asian Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. As of Aug 2018, there are approximately 2,550 active Indian DACA recipients. Only 13pc of the overall 20,000 DACA eligible Indians have applied and received DACA. SAALT said that as far as DACA recipi-ents from other countries are concerned, there are 1,300 from Pakistan, 470 from Ban-gladesh, 120 from Sri Lanka and 60 from Nepal.
The immigrant popula-tion density of the country shows that undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants live in New York (19,000), Michi-gan (4,000), Virginia (3,000) and California (2,000). The
demographic snapshot is based primarily on Census 2010 and the 2017 American Community Survey.
According to the report, income inequality has been reported to be the greatest among Asian Americans. Nearly one per cent of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty. SAALT said there has been a rise in the number of South Asians seeking asylum in the US over the last 10 years. The US Immigration and Cus-toms Enforcement (ICE) has detained 3,013 South Asians since 2017. US Customs and Border Patrol arrested 17,119 South Asians between Oct 2014 and April 2018 through border and interior enforce-ment, it said.
According to SAALT, since 1997, more than 1.7 million dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders have re-
ceived H-4 visas. In 2017,as many as 1.36 lakh individu-als received H-4 status. Near-ly 86pc of H-4 visa holders are from South Asian coun-tries. In 2015, DHS granted work authorisation to certain H-4 visa holders. As of Dec 2017, approximately 1.27 lakh visa holders were ap-proved for H-4 EAD, the report said. Nearly 4.72 lakh or 10pc of the approximately five million South Asians in the US live in poverty, the report said.
Among South Asian Americans, Pakistanis (15.8pc), Nepalis (23.9pc), Bangladeshis (24.2pc) and Bhutanese (33.3pc) had the highest poverty rates, it said.Bangladeshi and Ne-pali communities have the lowest median household incomes out of all Asian American groups, earning US$49,800 and US$43,500 respectively, it said.
ADIA hopes 20pc return from Indian real estate fundABU DHABI: India is con-sidering allowing foreign investment funds to buy stressed loan portfolios of banks, a move which is ex-pected to see billions of dol-lars invested by institutional investors from the MidEast and other regions. The pro-posed relaxation in norms for selling of stressed loan portfolios of banks is aimed at enabling banks to clean up their mounting non-perform-ing assets (NPAs), according to government sources.
Currently, banks are al-lowed to sell their stressed loan portfolios only to asset
reconstruction companies. “The finance ministry has mooted some suggestions to relax norms related to in-vestments by foreign funds in India’s stressed assets and one of the suggestions is to allow them (foreign funds) to acquire stressed loans from banks,” a senior federal corporate affairs ministry official told a TV channel.
“Our ministry is cur-rently examining these sug-gestions,” the official added. The stressed asset portfolios of banks in India are es-timated to be about $143 billion, the official said. The
mounting NPAs have been choking lending by banks in the recent years, adversely affecting economic growth. Industry sources said if the government relaxes norms related to selling of stressed loan portfolios by banks, leading “There is a lot of appetite among foreign funds, including institu-tional investors from the MidEast region for investing in stressed portfolio assets in India, and if this (allow-ing foreign funds to acquire stressed loans from banks) is allowed, we will see large scale (Contd. on page 2)
India tops tech visa applications to UKLONDON: India, along with the US, has the highest number of visa applications for the UK’s technology sector, according to the lat-est data from a UK Home Office-sanctioned report on digital tech entrepreneurs.
Tech Nation, a body des-ignated to promote and highlight Tier-1 Exceptional Talent Visas (also known as tech visas), stated that almost a quarter of Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries’ applications were from In-dia. In fact, there was a 45pc overall increase in applica-tions in 2018-19, up to 650 from 450 the previous year.
“The countries with the
highest amount of visa ap-plications continue to be India and the US, from Soft-ware Engineers and Busi-ness Developers in Software Development, AI & Machine Learning, FinTech and En-terprise/Cloud sectors,” the report said.
Tech Nation is one of just five designated competent bodies (DCB) appointed by the UK Home Office for the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa, in the fields of digital technology, engineering, medicine, science, the arts and media.
The increase in visa ap-plicants follows the UK government’s stated strategy
to develop closer ties with India post-Brexit, as was evidenced by their exempt-ing doctors and nurses from the Tier-2 visa cap last year. “The UK continues to at-tract talent from all around the world. This is thanks to our world-leading academic institutions, strong access to finance and long-standing reputation for innovation,” said UK Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries Margot Jame.
“Making sure we have the talent and skills so the tech sector can continue its incred-ible growth, is a priority of our modern Industrial Strategy,” she added. The Tech Nation
Visa, valid for up to five years and four months, is for founders and employees with technical or business backgrounds, including all tech sub-sectors like fintech, AI, cyber, and games.
Matt Jeffs-Watts, Head of Visas at Tech Nation, said: “The UK tech sector is an incredibly attractive place to work, with its unparal-leled connectivity, access to exceptional talent and sig-nificant levels of innovation and investment. The Tech Nation Visa has received over 1,650 applicants, with over 900 endorsed from more than 50 countries worldwide since 2014.
2 EMIGRATION Friday, June 21, 2019
Published by IPEPCIL Publications LtdRNI No.: MAHENG/2018/76663
LIPSYNCH “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
— Will Rogers.
Budget blues
With only a few days left for the presentation of a full-fledged Union budget, hopes are flying high on its implications. The last budget presented by
Arun Jaitley was only a vote-on account exercise. Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget can be a good initiative to
bring the economy back to its tracks. With NDA returning to power, no radical shift in policies and programmes is ex-pected, which makes the task of the finance minister easier. Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar is fully justified in saying that that private investment has to lead the way for the next phase of growth. But the private investment needs to come from entrepreneurs who believe in the virtues of com-petition, innovation, value creation and smart risk taking.
Nowadays, the budget is simply not the government’s statement of expected revenues and expenditures for the year ahead. Budget allocations are reflective of government’s priorities in keeping with its vision and goals. Even though budget making is a balancing and optimisation exercise in the midst of several competing interests, a good budget is one that pays heed to certain organising principles. According to independent economists, this budget needs to be growth and employment-oriented. It should be a right balance between supporting current consumption (such as welfare measures) and making public investments (such as investing in skills and training of the youth and in creation of other public and semi-public goods). The necessity of a growth-oriented budget will preclude any major social programme that makes a heavy demand on public funds in the near term. Keeping the ongoing welfare measures afloat while redirecting public investments towards boosting investment and growth should be the guiding principle of this budget.
Sectors such as tourism and IT, including IT-enabled services, are known to have higher growth and employ-ment potential. So, this budget needs to focus on sectors with such attributes. Often, sectors that offer higher growth multiplier are lower on employment multiplier. For example, the automobile sector.
Promotion of large capital-intensive manufacturing in-dustries generates concentrated growth while supporting small industries generates employment. The budget needs to strike a balance between investing in urban centres that serve as engines of growth and investing in rural areas for shared growth. The budget needs to intensify programmes such as the Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) etc. Simultane-ously, the budget needs to promote investment and growth of agriculture and allied areas, including giving a boost to food processing industries, for which there is a sound case and an urgent need.
Nirmala has to ensure that ongoing programmes that are in a “surge” phase are not deprived of adequate funding while also not shying away from initiating investments in new programmes. For example, the national health insur-ance programme for the poor that was introduced last year is currently in a surge phase. Similarly, the budget need not shy away from introducing new initiatives aimed at boosting tech-revolution in the country in which India could harness its comparative advantage.
Editorial
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an all-party meeting in Delhi.
GENEVA: The number of people fleeing violence, persecution and conflict in 2018 has exceeded 70 million globally -- the highest number in the UN refugee agency’s almost 70 years of operations.
The UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report shows that almost 70.8 million people are now forcibly displaced. This is double the level recorded 20 years ago and 2.3 million people more than the previous year. The report said that the figure of 70.8 million is conservative, in particular, as the crisis in Ven-ezuela is still only partly reflected in this number.
In all, some four million Venezuelans have left their country, according to data from the governments receiving them, mak-ing this among the world’s largest recent displacement crisis. Although the majority need international refugee protection, as of today, only around half-a-million have taken the step of formally applying for asylum. “What we are seeing in these fig-ures is further confirmation of a longer-term rising trend in the number of people needing safety from war, conflict and persecu-tion,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
“While language around refugees and migrants is often di-visive, we are also witnessing an outpouring of generosity and solidarity, especially by communities who are themselves host-ing large numbers of refugees. Within the 70.8 million figure in the Global Trends report, there are three main groups. The first is refugees or people forced to flee their country because of conflict, war or persecution. In 2018, the number of refu-gees reached 25.9 million worldwide, five lakh more than in 2017. Included in this total are 5.5 million Palestine refugees.
Over 70m migrated worldwide
US-Indian Ashish Alfred named ‘Maryland Chef of the Year’MARYLAND: Popular In-dian American chef Ashish Alfred has been named Maryland “2019 Chef of the Year” by the Restaurant As-sociation of Maryland. The prestigious honour, voted on by the dining public, rec-ognises overall excellence in the food service industry and “chef Alfred’s commit-ment” to the community, stated a news release.
The association awards chef of the year to “an execu-tive chef who demonstrates consistent standards of excel-lence, serves as an inspiration to other foodservice profes-sionals, displays dedication to the artistry of food and ex-hibits ongoing commitment to the community.”
“It is a real honor for my team and I to be recognised for all the hard work we put in,” said the 33-year-old, whose parents are from Rajasthan but emigrated to the US in the ‘80s. “I’m truly grateful for our team that shows up everyday and works toward making my
visions a reality and mak-ing our clients as happy as possible. It’s really a proud moment when all the hard work, the long hours, and teamwork by our staff is recognised by such an im-portant organisation.”
The award reflects an honour-filled season for Al-fred, chef and owner of the Alfred Restaurant Group, as he continues to earn rave reviews at his three Mary-land-Washington area res-taurants: Duck Duck Goose Bethesda, George’s Chop-house in Bethesda and Duck Duck Goose Baltimore. Al-fred was classically trained at the French Culinary In-stitute in Manhattan, New York, and honed his skills in some of Manhattan’s best kitchens, added the release. “Grounded by his classical French discipline, he isn’t afraid to go beyond tradi-tion, take risks and experi-ment with his offerings. He delivers contemporary din-ing concepts that are rooted in soulful cooking,” it said.
(Contd. from page 1)It also speaks about pen-
alties for vaguely mentioned offences, we strongly sug-gest that the offences are first identified and codified and thereafter penalties within reasonable limits, commensurate with level of offence is arrived at.
● The onus of the well-being of emigrant is unfairly and solely placed on the RAs after the RA has fol-lowed all the legal processes as required by the ministry.
● The FE is registered on eMigrate after being screened by the local Indian mission. Hence it means the RA is engaging in good faith, on an entity approved by the government of India. There-fore, once the emigrant has reached the host nation it is the responsibility of the Indian mission to ensure the emigrant’s well being, as the RA does not have any control on the FE once the transaction is complete.
● The emigrant travels through an RA on a visa issued based on a contract which specifies a period of between one to three years. After the contract expires, the emigrant renews the contract without the inter-diction of the RA, however the RA is unfairly held re-sponsible in case of dispute that arises in a period where the RA does not have any role. These lacunae need to be ironed out at an inte-rgovernmental forum, in the respective kingdoms, countries or emirates.
● It is pertinent to note sadly that in the event of an emigrant absconding with-out informing the FE or oth-erwise unilaterally breaking a legal contract signed be-tween the emigrant and FE, it is the RA who is unfairly
ADIA hopes 20pc...(Contd. from page 1)participation by these funds in such investments,” Srini Sriniwasan, managing director of Kotak Investment Ad-visors, said.
IPEPCIL’s plea on MRW, new Emigration...targeted by ministry.New name
In our earlier meetings with the then External Af-fairs Minister Mrs Sushma Swaraj, the madam had ini-tiated a suggestion that the fraternity should identify al-ternate names to replace the term “Recruitment Agents.” Please find three of the op-tions from our fraternity:● Global H. R. Consultants ● H. R. Outsourcers ● Recruitment Facilitators.
We request the ministry, since we now have a sub-stantive document-based on which we have made our suggestions, another round of discussion with stake-holders should be convened to avoid misinterpretation.Illegal recruitments
Unlicensed agents are re-cruiting persons in both the ECR and ECNR categories by placing advertisements in In-dian newspapers, social me-dia and online portals. Com-plaints to the police against such operators hardly evoke any response. These illegal operators bring a bad name to the entire industry and they need to be dealt with an iron hand. If necessary, penal laws should be amended to deal harshly with such agents. We suggest that ir-respective of ECR or ECNR passport holders travelling through unregistered agents without any accountability and protection, all the re-cruitments should be routed through Registered RAs only.Visa endorsement
We are facing issues con-nected with visa endorse-ment of emigrants to the UAE, the candidate has the option of just two missions in the whole country i.e. New Delhi and Thiruvanan-thapuram, hence applicants not residents of either of
these two cities have to trav-el long distances and incur unnecessary costs in travel and lodging, apart from the fee of Rs 8750/- charged by these centres for endorse-ment of visa and biometric registration.
Our request to you to in-tervene, with the representa-tives of UAE in India or the government in UAE to in-crease the number centres and streamline the present tedious visa endorsement process, explained in the following para or keep it pending till they come with more centres.
The applicant has to take an online appointment after getting the GAMCA medi-cal certificate and permit from client, he has to present at either of the two afore-mentioned centres, in the unfortunate case of not resid-ing in either of the location, undertake a long journey at personal cost and further expense towards stay at the location till the client in UAE makes the payment to their authorities, which may take more than two working days as the weekends in both our countries aren’t synchronised --- hence if the applicant com-pletes the process on Wednes-day or Thursday, the Client in UAE will make the payment on Sunday or Monday and the SMS is sent to the appli-cant to collect the endorsed visa , which can happen on Monday at the earliest, the applicant generally from a fi-nancially weaker background would have to spend on his stay for at least four days, apart from the earlier men-tioned endorsement fees of Rs 8750/- and travel fare.
In a number of cases, the candidates are required to make repeated visits to the embassy in Delhi / Thiruvan-anthapuram, at considerable
costs from their hometown, on the pretext of incorrect documentation. Once the three- month period, since initial application is over, the candidates are informed that their visa is not ap-proved and their passport is returned without a refund of stamping fees. Since the charges collected are for stamping of visa and if the same has not been complet-ed the charges in all fairness should be refunded. The cumulative fees for stamp-ing the visa for UAE is Rs. 8750/- which is significantly higher than the fees charged by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries.Exemption from GST
It is an injustice and un-fair to levy GST @ 18pc from the poor and unemployed youth, who is managing to take up employment op-portunities abroad for their livelihood with lot of hard-ship without any cost to the country and in turn brings back multiple benefits, so it is against the basic norms.
We request you to kindly take up this issue with the finance ministry to exempt the job seeking emigrants from the purview of GST. For the govt. of India, the revenue loss for this account will be negligible and for the unemployed youth, it will be a big relief. It will be also a big moral booster for the industry facing stiff competition in the overseas job market. “Sir, there was no secretarial team while transforming ST regime to GST regime to take care of this sector, whereas all other
sectors had a sectorial team to hear the grievances”, the memorandum pointed out.Premedical check up
At present, Indian work-ers deployed abroad are being fleeced under the guise of medical checkups. Checkups which should not cost more than Rs 2000 per head are at present offered for Rs.5000+ depending upon the countries. Pre premedical check should be regulated as per the norms of Indian Medical Council. The govt should insist that medical reports from empaneled Indian hospitals should be accepted by the Gulf nations.
Over the four decades the overseas manpower recruitment industry has been doing a yeoman ser-vice by creating millions of well-paid job opportunities abroad for our youngsters. The industry is now facing keen competition in the job markets abroad. Job-seekers from countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lan-ka, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam,African countries etc are entering the job market abroad causing keen competition to our workers. At this crucial juncture the manpower industry has to be given all assistance by the government to face these overseas competition.
Mr Amrit Lugun has promised to look into the matter and take up the is-sues raised by IPEPCIL to concerned ministries for suitable remedial measures. He wanted some time as the new government has just assumed office.
Mauritius no more a tax haven?NEW DELHI: The Mauritius government’s proposal to amend tax residency rules for companies is giving jitters to foreign funds op-erating from the tax haven. Mauritius has recently an-nounced that it is amending rules for determining tax residency for companies so that a company will not be considered tax resident in the country if it is centrally managed and controlled outside Mauritius.
According to experts, this change would hit hundreds of offshore funds operating out of the island nation and invest in India to take advantage of the Indo-Mauritius tax treaty. “It is a significant change and the way they look at it will be different and may have new test to figure out whether these companies are complying with the new norms. It needs to figured out what are the tests they are going to lay out,” said Suresh Swamy, Partner, PwC.
The question now will be
what operations are central-ly managed and controlled. For instance, a company may have its board of direc-tors in Mauritius while it is managed from India. In this case, the authorities could say the company is not eli-gible for tax residency. They
will now look at what is the substance that is there on the ground. In many cases, the board meetings happen in Mauritius, directors are in Mauritius but the control and management is actu-ally not in Mauritius. “If the authorities find that it is not in Mauritius, then the entity is not a tax resident at all, and if it’s not a tax resident, then the treaty benefits it gets with other countries will not be available to it,” experts said. The fallout of
this move will be that many of the structures currently set up in Mauritius and claiming treaty benefits on the basis that they have tax residency certificates may now have to relook at the structures.
Now, a company will have to demonstrate that its entire management is resided in Mauritius and if it is centrally managed and controlled outside, then it may not be en-titled to it. So, many of the Mauritius structures may get challenged in Mauritius itself and sev-
eral existing structures will be forced to increase the sub-stance requirements within Mauritius for them to con-tinue getting the tax benefits, experts said. The proposed amendment announced in the latest budget said that the Partial Exemption Regime under the Income Tax Regu-lations 1996 will be amended to define the detailed sub-stance requirements that must be met in order for a taxpayer to enjoy the partial exemption benefit.
New site forAramco refi neryMUMBAI: Maharashtra has identified a new site for the planned $44 billion oil refinery that state-run firms are building with Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), Chief Minister Fadnavis said . The new site in Maha-rashtra would be in Raigad district, about 100 km from Mumbai. The refinery was initially proposed to be built at Nanar, a village in Ratnagiri district, some 400 km south of Mumbai.
3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIESFriday, June 21, 2019
DISCLAIMERReaders are requested to verify and make ap-propriate enquiries to satisfy themselves about the veracity of an advertisement before re-sponding to any published advertisements in this newspaper. NEWS AND NRI CONNECT, its publisher and owner IPEPCIL Publications do NOT vouch for the authenticity of any advertisement or advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s products and /or services. In no event can the owner, publisher, printer, editor, director, employees of this newspaper/com-pany be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any claims and /or damages for advertisements in this newspaper.
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NEW DELHI: South Indian Bank has invited applica-tions for recruitment of probationary officers and clerks. The application
process has started on June 19 and will conclude till June 30.
Candidates can apply for the posts online at www.southindianbank.com
There are a total of 385 vacancies for probationary
South Indian Bank to recruit for 545 posts of PO, clerkofficer (PO) posts out of which 310 vacancies are for south zone and 75 is for north zone.
Also, there are 160 va-
cancies for the post of clerk.
Educational Qualifica-tion for PO: X/ SSLC, XII/ HSC & Graduation with minimum 60% marks un-der regular course.
Age (as on 30.06.2019):
Not more than 26 years. Candidate should be born not earlier than 01.07.1993 and not later than 30.06.2000 (both days
inclusive). Upper age limit will be relaxed by 5 years in the case of SC/ST candidates.
E d u c a t i o n a l Qualification for Clerk: X/ SSLC, XII/ HSC & Gradua-tion with minimum 60pc marks under regular course.
A g e ( a s o n 30.06.2019): Not m o r e t h a n 2 5
years. Candidate should be born not earlier than 01.07.1994 and not later than 30.06.2000 (both days inclusive). Upper age limit will be relaxed by 5 years in the case of SC/ST can-didates.
Mode of selection for POOnline Test and Per-
sonal Interview• Initial shortlisting will
be done based on the marks scored in the Online Test
• Final Selection will be based on the consoli-dated marks obtained for Online Test and Personal Interview.
• Bank reservesMode of selection for Clerk
Online Test, Group Dis-cussion and Personal In-terview
• Initial shortlisting will be done based on the marks scored in the Online Test
• Final Selection will be based on the consolidated marks obtained for Online Test, Group
Discussion and Personal Interview
Direct link is provided to apply for PO and Clerk posts
MUMBAI: Hiring activ-ity registered 11 per cent jump in May over the year-ago month, largely driven by significant uptick in recruitment activity in the IT-software sector, ac-cording to a report. The Naukri JobSpeak Index for May 2019 stood at 2,346, indicating an 11pc rise as compared to May 2018, when it stood at 2,106.
“The JobSpeak index continues to grow with an 11pc year-on-year growth in May with most sectors and cities showing a posi-tive trend. Looking at the trend reflected in the last six months we can see that hiring continues to grow in a positive direc-tion,” said InfoEdge India Chief Marketing Officer Sumeet Singh. Besides IT-
Hiring activity records 11pc rise in May driven by IT-software sector
software, other industries that showed a healthy upward trend in the re-
cruitment activity were business process outsourc-ing (BPO) (11pc), education (11pc), IT-hardware (11pc), construction & engineering (1pc), and fast-moving con-sumer goods (4pc).
However, hiring activity
in BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) remained stagnant, with
little or no movement. Automobile & ancillary and pharmaceutical industries witnessed a dip of 16pc and 6pc in hiring, respectively. Demand for entry-level job seekers with an experience of 0-3 years grew by 13pc.
Hiring for mid-level ex-ecutives with an experience of 4-7 years grew by 14 pc, while mid-management roles with 8-12 years of experience saw a spike of 8 per cent. On the con-trary, hiring for senior management roles with 13-16 years of experience and leadership roles with an experience of over 16 years remained flat.
Demand for talent grew across all metropolitan cit-ies. Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune recorded posi-tive growth in recruitment activity with 20pc, 19pc and 10pc, respectively. The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index that cal-culates and records hiring activity based on the job listings on Naukri.com month-on-month.
NEW DELHI: Online edu-cation company Vedantu said that it expects to clock strong growth this year as it expands its
presence into smaller cit-ies in the Indian market, offering live tutoring on its platform.
The company, which has raised about $16 mil-
Vedantu to expand in smaller citieslion in funding from in-vestors like China’s TAL Education, Omidyar Net-work and Accel Partners among others, has about
10 million school students accessing Vedantu (app and YouTube channel) monthly from over 1,000 cities.
“Unlike some other on-
line education platforms, we offer live classes. This was more one-to-one, but now we want to offer the same solution to a larger audience,” Vedantu co-founder and CEO Vamsi Krishna said.
He added that this will provide more students with access to quality teachers and also bring down costs for students.
An hour of tutoring on Vedantu will cost about Rs 70-80 per hour, depending on the course and grade of student - which is a frac-tion of what some offline tutoring centres charge, Vedantu co-founder and Product Head Pulkit Jain said.
He added that the new
‘Wave’ platform will allow hundreds of students to at-tend these online tutoring sessions.
It will enable teachers to run live quizzes, clarify doubts and provide par-ents with insights about how their child is doing in the classes.
“This year, we expect to grow by 3X on all core metrics,” he added with-out disclosing revenue details. Founded in 2011, Vedantu has over 400 teachers on its platform. About 55% of its users are from tier II and III cities.
The founders had pre-viously founded Lakshya in 2006, which was ac-quired by BSE-listed MT Educare in 2012.
PATNA: Purnea University (PU) has become the first Uni-versity in Bihar to launch 14 self-financing courses to create opportunities for the youths.
The courses in self-financ-ing mode include- Master of Physical Education, M Sc in Food Science and Technology, M Sc in Molecular breeding, PG Diploma in Green House Technology, M Sc in Fisheries Science, M Sc in Bioinformat-ics, M Sc in GIS and Remote Sensing, M Sc in Horticulture and Landscape, PG Diploma in Astrology and Palmistry, Master of Arts in Gandhian Thought, Master in Library and Information Science, Master in Company Secretary, MBA (Marketing/ Banking and Finance/ HRM and LLM.
These students after com-
Purnea Varsity to launch 14 self-fi nancing coursespleting the course are sure to get jobs in multi-national companies and government sectors besides they can create jobs for others. The demand for self-financed courses has increased in recent years mainly because specialization helps them to get jobs,” said PU VC Prof Rajesh Singh.
“Our purpose is to make our students stand on their feet. The more you offer the better for the students in getting a job.” he added and hoped that the courses will create a vast opportunity for students and will help them hone in their skill and the introduction of self-financing courses will also help the region to grow that has re-mained in backwater since
independence.Online admission forms
and e-prospectus is made available from June 18th and will be concluded on June 30th.
More options would be available for students apply-ing in the session 2019-20 for a master’s degree in three col-leges besides PG department of University.
“Students can do PG courses in 16 subjects in arts besides 5 in science and students pursuing commerce can also do PG in it,” said PU vice-chancellor Prof Rajesh Singh.
The centres for PG courses will be Purnea College Puenea, D S College Katihar and Pur-nea Mahila College besides PG department of University.
NEW DELHI: Today em-ployers look much more than technical skills while hiring. Your field expertise remains primary, but the interview bench also in-cludes a professional who evaluates your personality. She judges what all you bring to the table, apart from hard skills, and this often becomes the deciding factor. So, it’s crucial you also invest time in person-ality development.
A great personality makes you socially-accept-able. There is a difference when you talk to some-one by looking directly into their eyes, compared to speaking with no eye
Self-learning: Personality development is a must for graduatescontact. When recruiters hire, they look at traits that will help you connect to existing team. If you are socially-acceptable, you are half-way there to bag the job.
Work on your soft skills: When you develop your personality, every achievement builds a sense of confidence in you. This new-found confidence can enable you to get over stage fright, make you a better speaker or help you improvise during a tough situation. The experience you gain can be channelled into helping others, which starts building leadership qualities in you. The pro-
cess can continue to the point when you enter an interview hall with a good set of soft skills in your
bag.You also build personal
self during personality development. Your atti-
tude towards situations improves, your perspec-tive changes, and you are almost always goal-orient-
ed. These can help you keep stress-free in the competi-tive corpo-rate world. For instance, if a project demands 14 hours a day w o r t h o f work for a few days, it can become stressful for any random individual . B u t y o u r
goal-oriented personality will look at it as a major opportunity to push your current limits. This will prohibit your mind to build up unnecessary stress and you will find yourself tack-ling the situation better than your peers. It can inspire you to take on more challenges.
Personality develop-ment teaches you to iden-tify your strengths and weaknesses. You become conscious of both your positive and negative emo-tions, and work on them. You may be struggling with anger management issues, and the patience that you will learn from personality
development will help you to curb that toxic emo-tion. Anger clouds logical thinking and you will start identifying the trigger to stay away. You will gel with your colleagues better and your performance will improve.
A positive personality brings along positive emo-tions. Excitement will sub-stitute frustration, passion will replace anxiety. When you start working on your-self, the ultimate outcome is always a better you. The standard of life improves without being dependent on materialistic items and life’s desires become goal-oriented.
Sudoku Puzzle Rules: To solve a Su-doku puzzle, every digit from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine verti-cal columns, in each of the nine horizontal rows and in each of the nine boxes.Solution for Puzzle # 72 will be in next issue.
Fun Corner
Sudoku Puzzle 71 Answer
Your wellness
Personal care products like shampoo, lotion, nail polish and co-
logne may send one child to the hospital every two hours due to poisoning and chemical burns, according to a US study.
Researchers at the Na-tionwide Children’s Hos-pital found that 64,686 children younger than five years of age were treated in US emergency depart-ments for injuries related to personal care products from 2002 through 2016.
The study, published in the journal Clinical Pe-diatrics, found that most injuries from these products occurred when a child swal-lowed the product (75.7pc) or the product made contact
Chemicals in skin care products harmful for childrenwith a child’s skin or eyes (19.3pc).
These ingestions and exposures most often led to poisonings (86.2pc) or chemical burns (13.8pc), researchers said.
“When you think about what young children see when they look at these products, you start to un-derstand how these injuries can happen,” said Rebecca McAdams, a senior research associate at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“Kids this age can’t read, so they don’t know what they are looking at. They see a bottle with a colourful label that looks or smells like something they are allowed to eat or drink, so they try to open it and take
a swallow.“When the bottle turns
out to be nail polish re-mover instead of juice, or lotion instead of yogurt, serious injuries can occur,” McAdams said.
The top three product categories leading to inju-ries were nail care products (28.3pc) hair care products (27.0pc), and skin care prod-ucts (25.0pc), followed by fragrance products (12.7pc).
Nail polish remover was the individual product that led to the most number of visits to the emergency room (17.3pc of all injuries).
Of the more serious injuries that required hos-
pitalisation, more than half were from hair care products (52.4pc) with hair relaxers and per-manent solutions leading to more hos-pitalisations than all other products.
Also of concern, is the ease of access to these products, researchers said.
“Children watch their parents use these items and may try to imitate their behaviour. Since these products are often stored
in easy-to-reach places and are not typically in child-resistant containers, it can be easy for kids to get to and open the bottles,” said McAdams.
“Because these products are currently not required to have child-resistant pack-aging, it is important for parents to put them away immediately after use and store them safely, preferably in a cabinet or closet with a lock or a latch.
“These simple steps can prevent many injuries and trips to the emergency de-partment,” she said.
Researchers also recom-mend that pediatricians discuss these safe storage guidelines with caregivers during well-child visits.
Consuming foods rich in iron does not sig-nificantly increase
the chances of pregnancy in women, a study has found.
The research, published in The Journal of Nutrition,
finds that heme iron, which mostly comes from meat, has no effect on how long it
Iron-rich foods do not increase chance of pregnancytakes a woman to conceive.
Researchers from Bos-ton University in US also found that non-heme iron, which is found mainly in vegetables and dietary supplements, has a mod-est effect only for women
who are more likely to be iron-deficient because of heavy menses or having
previously given birth.“For the average preg-
nancy planner, it is prob-ably wise to take a pre-conception multivitamin, but more for the folic acid than for the iron content,” said Elizabeth Hatch, pro-
fessor at Boston University.
“If you have extremely heavy menstrual cycles, it might be a good idea to have your iron status checked by your healthcare provider,” she said.
The team ana-lysed data from
over 4,600 women, who completed questionnaires every eight weeks for one
year or until they con-ceived.
The researchers esti-mated heme a n d n o n -heme i ron intake from the questionnaire responses about diet and about di-etary supplement use.
They found no asso-ciation between a woman’s intake of heme iron and the number of cycles it took for her to conceive.
However, consuming more non-heme iron — both from dietary sup-plements and from food — was associated with a slightly increased chance of pregnancy in women who had previously given birth.
Poor oral health is as-sociated with a 75pc increased risk of he-
patocellular c a r c i n o m a (HCC), the most com-
mon form of liver cancer, a study suggests.
Published in the United European Gastroenterol-ogy Journal, the study in-vestigated the association between oral health con-ditions and the risk of a number of gastrointestinal cancers, including liver, colon, rectum and pancre-atic cancer.
Models were applied to estimate the relationship between cancer risk and self-reported oral health
Poor oral health may cause liver cancer: Studyconditions, such as painful or bleeding gums, mouth ulcers and loose teeth.
“Poor oral health has been associated with the risk of several chronic
diseases, such as heart dis-ease, stroke and diabetes”, said the study lead author Haydee WT Jordao from Queen’s University Belfast.
According to the re-searchers, of the 469,628 participants from the UK, 4,069 developed gastroin-testinal cancer during the (average) six-year follow up. In 13 pc of these cases, patients reported poor oral health.
Participants with poor
oral health were more likely to be younger, female, living in deprived socioeconomic areas and consumed less than two portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
The biological mecha-nisms by which poor oral health may be more strong-ly associated with liver cancer, rather than other di-gestive cancers, is currently uncertain. One explanation is the potential role of the oral and gut microbiome in disease development.
“The liver contributes to the elimination of bacteria from the human body,” Jordao said.
“When the liver is af-fected by diseases, such as hepatitis, cirrhosis or can-cer, its function will decline and bacteria will survive for longer and therefore have the potential to cause more harm,” he added.
Central Teacher Eli-gibility Test (CTET) Admit card 2019 is
going to be released soon. According to CBSE, the release date has not been
finalised yet for the ad-mit card. As per previous records, CBSE usually re-leases the admit card two weeks before the exams. As the exams are scheduled for July 7, 2019, the admit card may be out by June 23, 2019.
The exam will be con-ducted in two slots -- Pa-
CTET admit card 2019 to be released soon
per1 and Paper 2. The first slot will be in the morning and second in the afternoon on the same date. Those who have applied for the exams can download there
admit card once it is re-leased from the official website ctet.nic.in.
To qualify the examina-tion, a candidate must at least score 60pc or above. A total of 1.78 lakh students qualified for CTET Paper 1 in December 2018, and 1. 26 lakh qualified for Paper 2.
For the second consec-utive year, IIT Bom-bay has emerged the
country’s best university, rising ten places in the 2019 QS World University Ranking.
Twenty-three Indian institutes feature in the sixteenth edition of the QS World University Rank-ing in which IIT Bombay (152), IIT Delhi (182) and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (184) are ranked in the global top 200. Four of the 23 Indian institutes improved their position and seven dropped in rank, compared to last year. OP Jindal Global is the only new entrant from India this year.
IIT Bombay’s rise, ac-cording to the ranking, is attributed to improve-ments in its research per-formance. It now ranks 184 in the world in the Citations per Faculty in-dicator, and its faculty’s
Of the 30 underprivi-leged students from a Dehradun-based
coaching centre who had cracked the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main examination, eleven students have now qualified in the JEE Advanced examina-tion, the result of which was declared on June 14, 2019.
“We are very happy that we are able to play a small role in building a bright career of these students. All the 30 stu-dents, that is, 100 per cent of the centre qualified in the JEE Mains exam out of
IIT-B, IIT-D and IISc among global top 200: QS Rankings
11 students from RailTel’s Akansha Super 30 crack IIT entrance exam
research impact ranks above the global average.
IISc Bangalore, mean-while, has achieved the world’s second-best score for research impact, ad-justed for faculty size. The institute has achieved a perfect score of 100/100 for QS’s Citations per Faculty metric, and is the first Indian institution ever to see its research cited more than 100,000 times in a five-year period.
The ranking has also revealed that on average, an IISc Bangalore faculty member produces research that is cited 261 times in a five- year period – this is nearly five times greater than the global average, which is 50 citations per faculty member over a five-year period.
The key takeaway for India from the QS rank-ings is that its research performance is improv-ing faster than the global
which 11 qualified for JEE Advanced,” CMD Railtel Puneet Chawla said.
Established in 2015, Akansha Super 30, Deh-radun, is being run by
RailTel, in asso-c i a t i o n w i t h C e n t r e
for Social Responsibil-ity and leadership, New Delhi. 30 underprivileged but talented students from different corners of Ut-tarakhand were provided free residential coaching and mentoring in this centre for 11 months for admission in reputed en-
average. While university research increased its av-erage five-year citations impact by 30pc, the global average grew 10pc.
However, IISc Banga-lore which was India’s sec-
ond-best institute ranked last year has been over-taken by IIT Delhi this year. According to a QS statement, it is “…due to a weakening performance in QS’s Academic Reputation indicator, which incorpo-rates the expert insight of 94,000 academics across the world, IISc Bangalore
gineering colleges like IIT, NIT and state engineering colleges.
These students were selected on the basis of a written test which com-prised of questions on Physics, Chemistry, Math-ematics and Aptitude test. The shortlisted students had to undergo a rigor-ous interview which was designed to test their men-tal ability, quick thinking, concepts and career as-piration. The students of this centre come from poor socio-economical back-ground belonging to dif-ferent occupation ranging from labourer to farmer.
is now India’s third-best university. It has fallen behind IIT Delhi, which drops in rank, and now places 182.”
Produced by global higher education con-
sultancy Quacquarelli Symonds, QS ranks the world’s top 1,000 uni-versities, in which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was named the world’s best for a record eighth con-secutive year. Asia’s top universities are National University of Singapore
and Nanyang Techno-logical University (both ranked 11th).
In the overall ranking, Indian universities in 2019 have seen an average de-cline of 12 ranks, attribut-able to two main criteria: Faculty/Student Ratio and International Student Ra-tio. In the Faculty/Student Ratio indicator, which measures teaching capac-ity, only eight out of 23 feature among the top 500.
“While this new edition of the QS World University Rankings shows that the Indian Higher Education system is making prog-ress in some key areas, the sector requires more substantial, sustained and strategic investments both in research and education. Experts deem the current budget inadequate for a country with incredible potential and great ambi-tions,” said Ben Sowter, QS Research Director.
The counselling process for over 7 lakh can-didates who qualified
the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2019 will start soon. The exam was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) this year but the counselling con-tinues to be under the Medi-cal Counselling Committee (MCC), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The students can apply online till 5 pm on June 24.
Earlier, the MCC had in-formed that the registration will begin from the morning of June 19. Then a notifica-tion was released to start the process from 4 pm and a new notice has been released stat-ing that the registration and
NEET counselling 2019: Registration process oncounselling process will begin from 5 pm. Around 6 pm another notice stating that the process will begin from 7 pm was displayed. Prima facia, the delay seems to be caused due to technical issues but the same has been causing anxiety among several aspirants who have been waiting for the same since morning.
Candidates who qualify need to upload their docu-ments, select a preferable course and college. Based on their merit and preference, the result for seat allotment will be announced. If a candidate wishes to take admission, they can do so by paying fee else the seat will move on to next student and hence after three rounds of counselling and
seat allotment the MBBS seats across India will be filled.NEET counselling 2019: Doc-uments needed
– Copy of downloaded NEET admit card
– NEET 2019 mark sheet– Nationality certificate/
valid passport or School leav-ing certificate of HSC/ class 12 indicating the nationality of the candidate as “Indian”
– Latest education cer-tificates
– Permanent/provisional registration certificate of Ma-harashtra Medical Council or other State Medical Councils in India/MCI
– Medical fitness certificate— Copy of receipt of on-
line fee paymentThose who have been
applying for the counselling need to have a look at the top-ranked colleges under the HRD Ministry’s NIRF rank-ing which grant admission through NEET score here.
A total of 7,04,335 can-didates belonging to the un-reserved category secured marks between 701 and 134. The qualifying criteria for this category are 50th percentile or 701 to 134 marks. As many as 63,789 OBC candidates and 20,009 students from SC category and 8,455 candidates from ST category have cleared the NEET 2019. For reserved category candidates, the eligi-bility criterion is to secure 40 percentile of the total marks which comes to 133 to 107 marks.
6 IN FOCUS Friday, June 21, 2019
I have mutual fund investments worth Rs 14 lakh across seven to eight schemes. I am planning to move to US by this year-end. I wish to continue all my sys-tematic investment plans (SIPs). From a tax perspective, what makes more sense? Should I move all my investments in my wife’s name?
So long as you do not plan to exit from these investments, there is no tax implication for you. You can continue to invest in them post your move to a dif-ferent country. Nevertheless, as per RBI regulations, since you no longer plan to stay in India and are moving to another country for good, you must re-designate your accounts to non-resident accounts. This requires intimating your bank or intermediary. Once they are re-designated, you may continue to invest as before and there will be no tax implication on investments.
In case you decide to transfer these investments to your wife, there is no tax implication on transfer for you or for your wife since your wife is a “speci-fied relative” as per the Income Tax Act, 1961 and there is no tax on gifts made to specified relatives. Whenever you decide to sell these investments, there will be a tax incidence. As of now, gains from sale of equity mutual funds which are held for more than 12 months are taxed at 10pc without indexation, if gains exceed Rs 1 lakh. Short-term gains ---- when these mutual funds are sold before 12 months apply at the rate of 15pc. Debt mutual funds are considered long-term when held for more than 36 months and taxed at 20pc after indexation of cost. If gains are short-term, they are taxed according to the tax slabs applicable as per your total income. You’ll have to look at tax to be paid according to the rules in force when you sell them and also your residential status at that time.
Is NOC necessary?I am currently working for a Dubai Airports Free Zone Authority company. I have completed one year of service and am now in my notice period because I got a better job in another company, also within DAFZA. My notice period will end shortly, so will there be any issues with joining the new company? I ask as my new employer is asking me to produce a NOC from my current employer. Will my current employer pay my salary during my notice period?
I understand you are on an unlimited contract, which means you can leave your current position after working the notice period without being penalised for breaking the terms of a contract, provided you give suitable notice. When a person moves from one company to another within the same free zone they do not usually change sponsor as the sponsor is the free zone itself, not the specific em-ployer. The responsibility can usually be transferred from one employer to the next but it is standard practice for the previ-ous employer to be asked to agree to the transfer and to supply a NOC certificate. In some cases, this may be required in Arabic, as well as English. This must be on company letterhead with the company stamp affixed.
An employee is entitled to receive his normal salary during the notice period and should be paid this in full, in respect of all days worked, together with any days of annual leave that have accrued but not been taken. An employee on an unlimited contract who is with an employer for more than a full calendar year including the notice period is also entitled to be paid an end of service gratuity, albeit at a reduced rate. As per Article 132 of UAE Labour Law, this is 21 days per year of service but Article 137 clarifies: “Should the worker bound by an employment contract with undetermined term leave his work by his own choice after a con-tinuous service of one year at least and three years at most, he shall be entitled to one-third of the end of service gratuity”. Any monies owed should be paid at the time of leaving service.
No salary cutI have been working in a private com-pany in Dubai for the last eight years. Due to some financial difficulties, our employer wants to reduce the salaries of all employees by 15pc. I have some doubts: Can the employer reduce sala-
Emigration: No tax on MF transfer to wiferies just like that? How does he need to inform the employees-- - by e-mail or an official letter? What does the law say about this? Once an employee accepts the reduction, should the employer give him end-of-service benefits till date and make a new contract with a revised salary?
It is unlawful for an employer to reduce an employee’s remunerations, except as provided under Article 60 of the Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 Regulat-ing Employment Relations in the UAE (Employment Law). According to the law, one’s salary may be reduced if it has been agreed by both the employer and the employee. Both should enter into a fresh employment contract signed by both parties and it needs to be submitted and registered with the Ministry of HR and Emiratisation (Mohre) for approval. Article 60 of the Employment Law states: “No amount of money may be deducted from an employee’s remuneration in respect of private claims, except in the following cases: 1) The recovery of ad-vances or amount of money paid to the employee in excess of his entitlements on condition that the amount deducted in this case does not exceed 10pc of his periodic remuneration. 2) Contributions which the law requires the employee to pay from his remuneration, eg towards social security, insurance schemes, 3) The employee’s contributions to a savings fund or repayment of advances repay-able thereto. 4) Contributions towards any welfare scheme or in respect of any other privileges or services provided by the employer and approved by the labour department. 5) Fines imposed upon the employee for any offence he has committed 6) Any debt payable in execution of the judgment of a court of law -– provided the deduction shall not exceed one-quarter of the employee’s remuneration. Where two or more debts are payable, the maximum shall be half the employee’s remuneration and the sums of money attached shall be divided pro-rata among the beneficiaries, after the payment of any legal alimony at the rate of one-quarter of the employee’s remuneration.” Based on this provision of the law, even though the employer provides an employee with an official letter or e-mail regarding the reduction in salaries, it will be valid only if the employee agrees and a revised employ-ment contract is signed and submitted to Mohre. Further, an employee is entitled to end-of-service benefits, if he or she completes one continuous year of service under an unlimited-period contract. This is in accordance with Article 132 of the Employment Law. An employee under a limited-period contract is entitled to end-of-service benefits, if he or she completes five years of service. This is in accordance with Article 138 of the Employment Law. Thus, your entitlement to benefits shall depend on the type of your employment contract and the tenure of your service with the employer. If you qualify for the end-of-service benefits, the amount shall be calculated based on your current ba-sic remuneration. In the event that your basic remuneration is reduced due to the reduction in your entire salary, you may request your employer to pay the benefits until the date of reduction of your remuneration.
Overstaying in UAEMy 18-year-old son’s UAE residence visa will expire on Aug 2, 2019. His exams will continue till Aug 18. Can he stay on the expired visa during his exams, considering the fact that there is a one-month grace period? Or will he need to come back on a visit visa?
Even as your son’s residence visa ex-pires on Aug 2, he may still stay in the UAE on one-month grace period (during his exams) without paying any overstay-ing fines. Thereafter, upon completion of his exams and prior to completion of 30 days of grace period of stay in the UAE, he may travel back to his home country or any other country and return to UAE on visit/tourist visa or on any other visa. Further, if your son is willing to enroll at an educational institution based in the UAE for higher studies, the said educational institution may grant him a student visa upon completion of admission procedures. You may contact the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai for any further information in this regard.
GULF FAQs
Newly-elected Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla being greeted by his family members with sweets and flowers in Delhi.
CHANDIGARH: The in-creasing global influence of India and its workforce has meant a sharp rise in overseas travel over the past decade. This also has an un-intended consequence --- it has led to the proliferation of fly-by-night travel agen-cies that were committing visa and immigration fraud.
The fraud has grown exponentially over the years and is starting to create a reputational issue for India and its travellers so there is pressure on the govern-ment at the state and central level to firmly act against unregistered travel agents. The people in Punjab, keen on travel to countries like Canada which has a large immigrant Sikh popula-tion, are one of the largest victims of immigration and visa fraud.
Almost every other day, there are reports of Indian
Visa fraud rampant in Punjabtravellers being held back or deported from foreign countries because their visas or the information provided to secure the visas were found to be fake. Accord-ing to the data released by the Punjab Police on Twit-ter, 900 cheating and fraud cases were registered against travel agents in Punjab be-tween January 1, 2017 and March 15, 2018, with 137 cases (or 15pc) reported in Mohali city. Police in Mohali registered 190 cases of visa fraud in 2018, receiving an average of five complaints a day.
Punjab is also the state which has the most num-ber of illegal immigration consultants, with only 2,880 registered while over 6,000 firms were found to be op-erating without a licence. A CARIM-India paper on irregular migration to the European Union found that
irregular migrants from Punjab constituted 72pc of the cases between 2012 and 2018. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), one of Punjab’s major political parties, last week put pressure on the ruling Congress government in the state and demanded they take action to stop unscrupulous travel agents from defrauding people.
“This has become a se-rious issue. The Congress government should take immediate steps to check frauds being committed in the name of sending youths abroad, ” said SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia. He said that a delegation of the party’s youth wing would also meet the external affairs minister in this regard.Court intervention
In Nov 2018, alarmed by the increasing number of immigration fraud cases, the Punjab and Haryana
High Court had asked the police in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to verify whether all such agencies were registered. The Mohali administration published a list of 288 immigration firms registered with it, but an estimate by the Deputy Commissioner’s office found over 700 immigration firms advertising in the city. In short, there were large num-bers of unregistered immi-gration firms.
A report from the Re-gional Passport Office in Jalandhar revealed that in 2018, they handled over 5,500 cases of deportation of citizens holding passports issued from their office. In a majority of these cases, the removals were a direct consequence of either visa overstay or illegal immigra-tion. On some days, the RPO was handling as many as 30 deportation cases daily.
NEW DELHI: Tax evaders will have to face serious action and be forced to pay penalty, as the new income-tax guidelines, which came into effect from Monday, have made serious offences under black money and benami laws “generally” non-compoundable.The new guidelines will be applicable to all cases for compounding received on or after June 17, 2019.
The department has listed 13 cases where the offences are not to be gen-erally compounded and also grouped the offences into two parts. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has directed its senior officers to circulate the revised guide-lines for compliance among
New income tax rules come into effect
concerned authorities. Of-fences forming “Category A” includes failure to pay Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) under Chapter XVII-B or tax payable under Section 115-0. Failure to pay the tax collected at source also falls under this category.
The “Category B” of-fences include wilful at-tempt to evade tax, failure to produce accounts and documents and making false statements during verification. While the first category offences are open to compounding, offences such as wilful evasion of tax and removal, concealment, transfer or delivery of prop-erty to thwart tax recovery during a search operation are not to be compounded.
NEW DELHI: The govern-ment has decided to do away with the requirement of minimum educational qualification for obtaining driving licence to boost employment opportunities.
At present, under Rule 8 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, a transport vehicle driver needs to have passed class 8. “In a move to benefit skilled persons from eco-nomically underprivileged sections of society, the ministry of road transport and highways has decided to remove the requirement of minimum educational qualification for driving a transport vehicle,” ac-
No minimum qualifi cation for driving licencecording to an official state-ment.
The removal of the requirement will open up employment opportuni-ties for a large number of unemployed persons, especially the youth and the decision will also help meet shortage of nearly 22 lakh drivers in transport and logistics sector, which is hindering its growth, the statement said. The min-istry has initiated process to amend Rule 8 of Cen-tral Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 and a draft notifica-tion in this regard will be issued soon, it added.
There are large num-bers of unemployed per-
sons especially in rural areas of the country, who may not have a formal education, but are other-wise literate and skilled, it said. “In a recent meeting in the transport ministry, the Haryana government had requested for waiver of the educational qualifi-cation condition for driv-ers from the economically backward Mewat region where the population is dependent for livelihood on low-income earning pursuits including driv-ing,” the statement said.
The state government had submitted that many people in the region pos-sess the required skill but
not the required educa-tional qualification, and were finding it difficult to obtain driving licence, it said, adding hence it was felt that driving being more a matter of skill than of educational ompetence, the condition of minimum educational qualification acts as a hindrance for the otherwise eligible unem-ployed youth. “However, while removing the re-quirement of a minimum educational qualification, the ministry has strongly emphasised upon training and skill testing of drivers so that road safety is not compromised in any way,” the statement said.
BHUBANESWAR: Students graduating from Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) have been absorbed by some of the best corporates.
The university officials said 85pc of the 2019 graduat-ing batch has been placed in different corporates including Microsoft, Amazon, Reliance Industries, BOSCH, Deloitte, IBM.The packages offered range from Rs 10 lakh to Rs70 lakh per annum. As on June 12, Amazon and Kony Labs had already completed their online test processes and in the current month online tests would also be conducted by Microsoft, Sigmoid, Rapyuta Robotics and Nutanix where students will get career opportunities with a starting package of more than Rs10 lakh per annum.
University officials claimed that SOA has facilitated placement of over 25,000 of its students in various compa-nies of repute across the globe since 2000. “SOA is dedi-cated to grooming the students to achieve the competency level where they could make themselves saleable and meet the requirements of the industry,” said Sujit Kumar Dash, SOA’s Head, Training and Placement. Meanwhile, career plans for 2020 graduating batch have already been laid out with the empanelment of companies which would be visiting the institute soon, he said
ITER studentsbag big jobs
CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, June 21, 2019
Aditya Birla Health Insurance recent-ly launched ‘Activ
Care’– a health insurance product for senior citizens. Aditya Birla Health Insur-ance, says with this prod-uct, it is said to give ‘proac-tive care’ to senior citizens instead of ‘reactive care’. Activ Care will be based on proactive care as a priority for senior citizens, instead of ‘reactive care’ which will empower the senior citizens against the various unforeseen uncertainties of life. Aditya Birla Health Insurance Co. Limited. (ABHICL), is the health insurance arm of Aditya Birla Capital Limited.
Reactive care finan-cially equips senior citi-zens during hospitalization whereas ‘proactive care’ provides them with the
Aditya Birla Health Insurance launches ‘Activ Care’ for Senior Citizensessential support system they require in all the three phases of their health journey, i.e. when they are healthy when they are being treated and during recovery. Mayank Bathwal, CEO of Aditya Birla Health Insurance, says, “Activ Care
is conceptualized with a commitment that goes beyond the conventional mode of ‘reactive care’ and acts as an enabler and in-
fluencer of ‘proactive care’ for Senior Citizens. This offering is in-line with our core philosophy of focusing ‘health’ in ‘health insurance’.
He further adds, “With the insights from our re-search we are not only
expanding the category with ‘care solutions’ but with features like personal health coach, nursing at home and cashless hospi-
talisation for home treat-ment, thereby bridging the gap to provide health insurance cover to a sec-tion of society who needs it the most.”Key features of Activ Care health insurance:
1. The insurance policy, ‘Activ Care’ can be availed as an individual or as a family floater policy (self and spouse only) with a sum insured ranging be-tween Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 25 lakhs. One can choose the sum insured, depend-ing on one’s requirement. This policy has a minimum entry age of 55 years and goes up to 80 years.
2. To guide through the policyholder’s health journey the policy also provides personal health coach
3. The policy also of-
fers an additional 100 per cent of the sum insured as reload for an unrelated ill-ness. For instance, 10 lakhs additional reload for Rs 10 lakhs sum insured policy, in case the cover is insuf-ficient for claims
4. The policy provides cover for 586 listed day-care procedures that re-quire hospitalization for less than 24 hours.
5. Post-hospitalization coverage for nursing at home, lifestyle and por-table listed medical equip-ment at home, if required post hospitalization rang-ing from oxygen cylinders to ventilator are also of-fered.
6. The policy also cov-ers treatments given under Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, yoga, naturopathy and ho-meopathy systems.
India’s largest online B2B marketplace IndiaMart InterMesh is set to
launch its initial public of-fering for subscription on June 24, with a price band at Rs 970-973 per share. The public issue will close on June 26
For anchor investors, the offer will be open on June 21.
The IPO o f up to 48,87,862 equity shares is an offer for sale by promot-ers and investors. The com-pany aims to raise around Rs 475 crore through the public issue at the higher end of the price band.
The offer for sale in-cludes up to 25,90,000 shares by Intel Capital (Mauritius), 2,55,753 shares by Amadeus IV DPF Lim-ited and 4,75,000 shares by Accion Frontier Inclusion Mauritius (investor selling
IndiaMart IPO to open on June 24shareholders).
Promoters who are sell-ing shares through the of-fer for sale include Dinesh Chandra Agarwal (selling up to 8,52,453 shares), and Brijesh Kumar Agrawal (5,77,656 shares); while
other shareholders will sell up to 1,37,000 shares.
The offer includes a reservation for subscription by eligible employees of 10,000 equity shares.
IndiaMart InterMesh primarily operates through its product and supplier discovery marketplace, in-diamart.com. Its online marketplace provides a
platform for mostly busi-ness buyers, to discover products and services and contact the suppliers of such business products and services.
As of March 31, 2019, the company had 82.70 mil-lion registered buyers and had 5.55 million supplier storefronts in India. These Indian supplier storefronts had listed 60.73 million products as of March 31, 2019 of which 76pc of goods and 24pc were services.
The company also pro-vides a robust two-way dis-covery marketplace connect-ing buyers and suppliers.
ICICI Securities Limited, Edelweiss Financial Services Limited and Jefferies India Private Limited are the book running lead manager to the offer. Equity shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE.
The country’s top mortgage lender HDFC said it will
buy leading private hospi-tal chain Apollo Hospital’s stake in health insurance company Apollo Munich for Rs 1,336 crore.
Post-acquisition, HDFC plans to merge Apollo Munich with HDFC Ergo, its general insurance sub-sidiary.
HDFC said respective boards approved the deal. HDFC will buy 50.8pc shareholding of Apollo Group in Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company and another 0.4pc stake from few employees for a consideration of Rs 10.84 crore, subject to regulatory approvals.
To support the transac-tion with its material ben-efits for Apollo Munich, Munich Health will pay
HDFC to acquire Apollo Munich for merging with ErgoRs 294 crore to Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd and Apollo Energy Ltd in connection with the termination of their joint venture, the release said.
“We are glad to pass on the baton of Apollo Munich to a reputed group
like HDFC. We are sure that the new shareholder will continue to nurture and scale the business
to greater heights and confident that all stake-holders will be positively impacted. The funds from the divestment will enable us to focus on invest-ing and growing our core healthcare business,” said Shobana Kamineni, chair-
person, Apollo Munich Health Insurance.
HDFC said Apol lo Munch is a strong stra-
tegic fit and the merger of Apollo Munich with HDFC Ergo will make it the second largest private insurer in the accident and health segment with a market share of 8.2pc, and an overall market share of 6.4pc in the non-life insur-ance industry.
HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh said the combined expertise will result in greater product innova-tion, wider distribution and enhanced servicing capabilities, benefitting 1.2 crore policyholders.Quantum of the deal
HDFC Limited will buy 50.8pc shareholding of Apollo Group in Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company and another 0.4pc stake from a few em-ployees for consideration of I10.84 crore, subject to regulatory approvals
E-commerce giant, Amazon India has launched its larg-
est delivery station in
Telangana, which would improve its capabilities to speed up last-mile deliver-ies for customers in the neighbouring Ranga Reddy district.
“The launch of the largest delivery centre in
Smartphone usage is on the rise, and there is hardly a task which
cannot be done using the phone. However, with all the personal data on it, a phone getting stolen or lost puts one in a vulnerable position.
To address this issue, the Telecom Ministry is re-leasing a database of IMEIs which will not only help one track their phone, but also prevent misuse of personal data in event of theft or loss.
The ministry will roll out the Central Equipment Iden-tity Register (CEIR) which makes up the database of International Mobile Equip-ment Identity (IMEIs) having 15-digit numbers uniquely identifying each mobile phone, The Indian Express has reported.How would this work?
Amazon opens Telangana’s largest delivery centreIMEI database to track devices of stolen mobile phoneTelangana expands over 20,000 square feet serving thousands of customers. Over the last two to three
months we are expanding our network in Telangana. We have close to 90 de-livery stations in the state with over 12 in Hyderabad itself. Along with this we also have 2,500 stores which help us deliver to
Once launched, if your mobile phone is lost or sto-len, you can notify the De-partment of Telecom (DoT) through a helpline number after filing a police com-plaint. Following this, the DoT will then blacklist the 15-digit IMEI number, es-sentially blocking anyone from accessing any cellular network from the mobile device in the future. Apart from this, India’s CEIR is fo-cusing on facilitating “IMEI-based lawful interception”, says the report by the Indian Express.
As per TRAI data, India had 1.16 billion wireless subscribers till March 2019.
The DoT had first an-nounced its plan to enforce this project in July 2017 and a rundown was held in Maharashtra.
our customers with the same experience that Ama-zon offers,” Prakash Ro-chlani, Director, Last Mile Transportation, Amazon India told reporters here.
He noted that Amazon has three fulfilment cen-tres in Hyderabad with more than 3.2 million of storage space and two sort centres with one lakh square feet of processing capacity. The E-commerce company also has close to 90 Amazon-owned and Service Partner delivery stations in the State.
Amazon has a direct delivery presence in more than 500 pin codes of the State, with a signifi-cant number of customers now being able to enjoy one-day and two-delivery promises, he added.
The stealing and cloning of mobile phones is a serious issue. Loss of a phone also poses a threat to personal life of the people and na-tional security.
Moreover, the counterfeit phones in the market is another problem for DoT. Many counterfeit mobile phones are active in the mobile networks with fake IMEI numbers, a DoT office memorandum underlining the project, accessed by the publication, stated.
The plan to make a reg-istry of mobile identification numbers first originated in the National Telecom Poli-cy-2012 in India. A trial for the project was structured and held by state-owned BSNL’s IT Project Service unit in Maharashtra’s Pune.
Centre allotted Rs 15
State-owned Canara Bank proposes to raise up to Rs 12,000 crore
through a mix of equity and bonds during the current fiscal to fund its business growth.
The board has approved raising up to Rs 6,000 crore, including premium, by way of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIP) or rights issue or preferential allot-ment or any other approved
Canara Bank plans to raise upto Rs 12,000cr in FY’20
means during 2019-20 sub-ject to market conditions and necessary approvals, Canara
Bank said in a regulatory filing.
Besides, the board has also cleared a proposal to raise funds through addition-al tier-I Basel-III compliant perpetual bonds to the extent of Rs 3,000 crore and Basel-III compliant tier-II bonds to the extent of Rs 3,000 crore during 2019-20, it said.
ONGC Videsh Ltd., along with its Indian and foreign partners,
has announced that it will invest around $20 billion to construct a gas liquefac-tion and export terminal in the African nation of Mozambique. This is an ef-fort to monetise the offshore natural gas reserves that they have discovered in the country.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), Bharat Petro-leum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have filed exchange disclosures that said their subsidiar-ies, along with US-based Anadarko Petroleum, have
Indian oil cos plan LNG terminal in Mozambiquetaken a final investment decision (FID) for Area-1 of the Mozambique LNG project. This will consist of two LNG trains with a total nameplate capacity of 12.88 million tonnes per annum, with feedgas coming from the Golfinho/Atum field in Offshore Area 1.
The project, which will be built on the Afungi pen-insula in Cabo Delgado province, will also involve the construction of associ-ated infrastructure, stor-age tanks, and export jetty facilities. The project is planned to be commissioned by 2024.
“OVL, a wholly owned
subsidiary of ONGC, the national oil company of In-
dia, announces that Rovuma Offshore Area-1 consortium
has taken an FID for the two trains Golfinho/Atum
Mozambique LNG Project,” the company said.
OVL holds a 16 per cent interest in Mozambique Rovuma Area-1 offshore project, while OIL holds 4 per cent stake. Bharat PetroResources Ltd, owned by BPCL, holds a 10pc in-terest and Anadarko holds a 26.5pc interest. Japanese company Mitsui has 20pc and Mozambique’s state en-ergy company ENH has 15pc interest, with the remaining 8.5pc owned by Thailand’s PTT.
Anadarko and its part-ners have locked in long-term sales and purchase agreements (SPAs) for a total of 11.1 million tonnes per year. SPAs include ones
signed with Tokyo Gas, Cen-trica, Shell, China’s CNOOC, France’s EDF and Indone-sia’s Pertamina, among oth-ers. “Additionally, the proj-ect will have a significant domestic gas component for in-country consumption in Mozambique to help fuel the economic development,” the OVL statement said, “The FID signifies that the Golfinho/Atum Mozambique LNG project will now ad-vance to the construction phase.”
Once Anadarko is taken over by US-based Occidental Petroleum, Occidental has agreed to sell Anadarko’s sub-Saharan African up-
stream assets, including the Mozambique LNG project, to French oil giant Total SA in a $8.8 billion deal. The trans-action, which is contingent upon Occidental completing its acquisition of Anadarko, is expected to close in 2020.
Anadarko has awarded TechnipFMC the engineer-ing, procurement, construc-tion and installation (EPCI), worth more than $ 1 billion, of the subsea hardware system for the Golfinho/Atum development. Under the contract, TechnipFMC alongside its consortium partner Van Oord will carry out the offshore installation scope.
crore to the DoT for the CEIR project in the interim budget for 2019-20.
Keeping with interna-tional practices, DoT’s reg-istry will be made up of a database of IMEI numbers which will comprise of three lists – black, white and grey. Mobile devices with IMEI numbers in the white list will be phones that can be used, bought or sold, whereas the ones in the blacklist will consist of stolen or lost devices and will not be permitted to ac-cess the cellular network. However, the grey list has conditions for the users. Mobile phones with IMEI numbers, but not conform-ing to standards, would be put in the grey list and will be allowed to connect to the network under supervision.
8 Travel / Entertainment
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A Singaporean performs Yoga on the eve of the Yoga Day.
All set for International Yoga Day
Lakhs of people all over the world will be hitting their yoga
mats this Friday for the fifth International Day of Yoga celebrations led by the Indian missions in various countries.
The International Day of Yoga was inaugurated on June 21, 2015, with the intention of bringing about a mass movement of yoga. The idea was proposed by Narendra Modi during his speech to the UN General Assembly in Sept 2017, in which he said: “[Yoga] is not about exercise but to dis-cover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in well-being.” Every year since, June 21 is celebrated around the world in the form of large scale yoga ses-sions that attract thousands of people to prominent ven-ues such as Times Square, the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House.
Many UAE residents will be performing yoga
at public places and the Indian mission has received full support from the UAE
authorities. In Abu Dhabi, the event will be held at
Umm Al Emarat Park at 7pm on June 20, one day earlier. Free entry, parking,
yoga mats and yoga T-shirts would be provided to all
the participants on first come basis. UAE Minister Shaikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan would be the chief guest, announced Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri.
During the celebra-tions, Common Yoga Pro-tocol will be followed with other yoga demonstrations by yoga enthusiasts from different countries. The demonstrations will be followed by a cultural programme. The embassy will also be celebrating Yoga Day at the Jahili Public Park in Al Ain. The event is being celebrated in the US, Europe, Japan, Singapore, S Korea etc.
The city state of Singa-pore, with a large Indian origin population, is all set for Yoga Day celebrations on a grand scale. “The aim is to bring yoga into the heartlands, the communi-ties and homes of Singapor-eans, so that they can enjoy the benefits of yoga on a daily basis,” said Jawed Ashraf, High Commissioner of India in Singapore.
Air India to launchMumbai-Nairobi fl ight
Union Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said Air India would start a
direct flight from Mumbai to Ke-nya’s capital Nairobi. At present, Air India has a codeshare part-nership with Kenyan Airways, which operates a daily service between Mumbai and Nairobi.
The national carrier will also launch new flight connecting the seas to the hills. The new flight will connect Dehradun, Mumbai, Varanasi and Kolkata and will be launched on the World Tour-ism Day on Sept 27. The airline will start flights on many other routes, including international ones, as well. It will start a daily flight between Mumbai-Patna-Amritsar.
“I am delighted to announce that on the occasion of World Tourism Day on Sept 27, 2019, Air India will begin a direct Mumbai-Nairobi flight (four days a week) to improve air connectiv-ity between India and Kenya,” Puri tweeted. Air India will also start flying thrice a week to To-ronto from Delhi from Sept 27. In addition, it is reportedly mulling to launch flight services to In-donesian tourist hub Bali from the national capital as well as to Hong Kong from Mumbai during the winter schedule.
Domestic air passenger traffi c grows by 2.96pc
Domestic air passenger traffic saw a rebound in May as it increased by 2.96pc after a slump in April, according to the data released by aviation
regulator DGCA. In April, domestic air passenger traffic had dropped by 4.5pc over the same period last year.
The domestic air traffic in May this year consisted of 12.20 million passengers compared with 11.85 mil-lion passengers in the same month last year, a jump of 2.96pc as per the data. Suspension of operations by Jet Airways on April 17 due to lack of funds was consid-ered to be one of the primary reasons why domestic air traffic saw a fall in that month.
IndiGo maintained its lead position with 49pc share of the domestic passenger market in May, the data showed. SpiceJet’s market share increased from 13.1pc in April to 14.8pc in May, giving it the number two spot, as per the data. The market share of Air India, GoAir, AirAsia and Vistara were 13.5pc, 11.1pc , 6.3pc and 4.7pc respectively, in May this year.
“During May , a total of 746 passenger-related com-plaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passen-gers carried for May 2019 has been around 0.61,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said. Air India topped the list of passenger grievances with 1.7 complaints per 10,000 passengers in May while SpiceJet was on number two position with 0.6 complaints per 10,000 passengers, as per the DGCA data.
This is a feat unparalleled in global aviation industry and a huge milestone for SpiceJet. This record firmly es-tablishes SpiceJet’s standing as country’s most preferred airline,” said Shilpa Bhatia, Chief Sales and Revenue Of-ficer of SpiceJet. For GoAir, IndiGo, Air Asia and Vistara, the passenger load factor stood at 93.3pc, 90.9pc, 87.8pc and 85.6pc respectively in May. Air India’s passenger load factor was at 85pc in May, the DGCA data showed.
UAE, India to renegotiate air service accordUAE Ambassador to
India Dr Ahmad Ab-dulrahman Al Banna
met with newAviation Min-ister Hardeep Singh Puri and discussed pressing issues relating to co-operation be-tween the two countries in civil aviation. This was the first face-to-face interaction from the UAE side with a member of Modi’s council of ministers since its second term started on May 30.
Puri has been given in-dependent charge of civil aviation this time, in addi-tion to his previous charge. The ambassador briefed the minister on the status of a bi-lateral air service agreement and reiterated a request by the UAE’s civil aviation au-thorities on the urgent need to start negotiations on revis-ing the existing agreement since full capacity has been
reached under the present pact. Dr Al Banna said that Puri was “very positive” in his response to issues raised by the UAE during the discussions. The minister stressed that the UAE and India shared an important strategic relationship. Talks on renegotiation of the bi-lateral air service agreement are now expected to begin in two to three months.
Dr Al Banna told Puri that the UAE followed an open-skies policy and has never refused requests by Indian carriers to expand their operations in the emir-ates. He said the current conditions in the civil avia-tion market called for an increase in capacity. Now, 1,068 flights permitted per week between the UAE and India in both directions. UAE airlines operate just
over 400 of these flights and Indian carriers operate over 500 flights. Around 1.38 lakh seats per week are sold by UAE carriers.
Dr Al Banna said UAE carriers are keen on expand-ing their operations to more Tier-2 and Tier-3 Indian cit-ies. There is also scope for more cargo flights between the UAE and India with an increase in demand for such traffic.
Earlier this week, Puri had said airlines from the Gulf and other international carriers should be given the foreign traffic rights of Jet Airways, which is closed now. “I believe that India should not be restrictive in terms of number of flights and so on, because if you have the capacity domesti-cally, utilise it, otherwise don’t deprive ourselves of
the economic opportunity. Because, I think if you have more players, prices come down,” he explained.
Travellers on India-Gulf routes are facing crippling price hikes following the collapse of Jet Airways and the closure of Pakistan’s air space to flights originating in India following recent discord between the two countries. Aircraft flying from airports like Delhi to Gulf countries now have to take a longer route to west-ern region like Mumbai or Ahmadabad and then fly over the sea to destinations in the Gulf. Earlier they used to overfly Pakistan which reduced flying time by more than one hour and saved costly fuel compared with the current route. This ap-plies to reverse traffic from the Gulf to India as well.
Don’t miss Mahabodhi Buddhist temple
The Mahabodhi Tem-ple Complex at Bodh Gaya in Bihar --
which is also known as the place where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment -- is probably one of the top 100 places in the world one should visit. For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is one of the four main pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Bud-dha. The three other sites are Kushinagar, Sarnath (both in UP) and Lumbini (in Nepal).
In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and though the complex is well-maintained, the surrounding town is still under devel-oped.
Next to the temple, to its western side, is the Bodhi tree, the place where the Buddha is said to have medi-tated and attained enlighten-ment. In the Pali Canon, the site is called Bodhimanda and the monastery there the Bodhimanda Vihara. The tallest tower is 55-metre in height. The present day Bihar’s name derived from Vihara, the name for Bud-dhist temples.
In approximately 250
BC, about 200 years after Buddha attained enlighten-ment, Indian Emperor Asoka the Great who was one of the rulers of the Mauryan Empire -- the present day
Bihar and one of the world’s largest empires at its time -- is said to have visited Bodh Gaya with the intention of establishing a monastery and shrine.
As part of the temple, he built the diamond throne, called the Vajrasana, at-tempting to mark the exact spot of Buddha’s enlighten-ment. Asoka is therefore considered the founder of the Mahabodhi Temple. One of the interesting features of the sprawling complex is the
Mucalinda Lake in the cen-tre of which is a sculpture of Buddha is seated under the hood of a cobra. It is said that when Buddha was spending his sixth week of enlighten-
ment here, a cobra and other creatures protected him from severe thunderstorms.
Rajgir, the first capital of the kingdom of Magadha, a state that would eventually evolve into the Mauryan Empire, is not far from the temple and also a must visit. Its date of origin is unknown, although ceram-ics dating to about 1000 BC have been found in the city. This area was one of the fa-vourite places for Gautama Buddha and the well known
“Atanatiya” conference was held atop the mountain called Vulture’s Peak.
Known for the Vishwa Shanti Stupa, located at a considerable height, one of the adventurous aspects of the place is that you can take a ride in a cable car on a ropeway to ascend and de-scend. Rajgir is also famous for its hot water springs, locally known as Brahmak-und, a sacred place for Hin-dus. The Vishwa Shanti Stupa, built in 1969, is one of the 80 peace pagodas in the world built to spread the message of peace and non-violence.
An ancient centre of higher learning --- the Na-landa University -- is also within travelling distance. The university founded by a King Sakraditya flourished in the fifth century BC, sup-ported by patronage from the Hindu Gupta rulers as well as Buddhist emperors. An official guide at the place explained that the complex was built with red bricks and its ruins occupy an area of 14 hectares. At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from as far
away as Tibet, China, Greece and Persia and its architec-tural uniqueness lay in the way the spaces for learning, residence and meditation were clearly demarcated.
The university was ran-sacked and destroyed by an army under Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193. The great library of Nalanda University was so vast that it is reported to have burned for six months after the invaders set fire to it!
Travel time between Mumbai and Delhi is about to take almost
five hours less than what it is now. Travel time on the Delhi to Howrah is also expected to be reduced by five and a half hours in a bid to make high speed trains a reality.
This is hoped to be achieved by infusing nearly Rs 14,000 crore into the railways to improve infrastructure, including replacement of tracks, upgrade of signals systems, bridg-es strengthened, level crossings eliminated and other technical enhancements on the routes over the next four years.
This is a part of the 11-point action plan to mod-ernise train travel. Accord-ing to a circular issued by Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav enhancing the track infrastructure on these two
Mumbai-Delhi train in 10 hrsextremely busy routes is nec-essary because they account for nearly 30pc of passenger and 20pc of total freight traf-fic on rail network. Yadav has also instructed officials
to initiate immediate action to start implementing the plans drawn up by the board for the restructuring by Aug 31 and the ministry has also sent proposals to the PMO.
As of now, the fastest
train on the 1483 km Delhi-Mumbai route takes 15 and a half hours while the 1525 km Delhi-Howrah route takes 17hours. The objective is to bring down travel time
by increasing the speed from 130 kmph to 160 kmph. The new systems will also en-hance line capacity by 46 to 48pc, improve punctuality and provide technological aid to avert accidents.
