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MUMBAI: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018 • VOL. No. 1 • Issue No. 19 • IPEPCIL PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. • 8 PAGES • PRICE: ₹ 8

A farewell function was organised in honour of Mr MC Luther, who recently retired as Joint Sec-retary and Protector General of Emigrants (PGE), Ministry of External Affairs, in Mumbai jointly by Indian Personnel Export Promotion Council ( IPEPCIL) and Federation of Indian Emigrants Management Councils & Associations (FIMCA). Mr Luther was felicitated by IPEPCIL General Secretary Mr Dr Sureshkumar Madhusudhanan, President Mr Abdul Rehman CH, FIMCA Chair-man Mr Deepak Chhabria and Mr JK Sao, Protector of Emigrants, Mumbai. (More pics on page-8)

Non-oil sector performs wellMore jobs open in DubaiDUBAI: Business conditions in Dubai have improved with companies adding new jobs and getting busier than in the previous months. The Emirates NBD’s latest seasonally adjusted Dubai Economy Tracker Index in-dicated that firms in the non-oil private sector improved strongly in November after a slump a month earlier. Businesses in the construc-tion sector emerged as the strongest performer, as they reported a robust increase in headcounts, followed by those in wholesale and re-tail, and travel and tourism.

The index, which is de-signed to give an accurate overview of the health in the non-oil private sector, rose

to a five-month high of 55.3, up from 52.5 in October, the lowest in more than a year. The data suggested that em-

ployment is stabilising, fol-lowing a two-month period of “mild job shredding.”

“This marked the stron-gest reading in five months, and something of a recovery following the October read-ing, which was a slump to the lowest level since March 2016.

Nevertheless, the index re-mains shy of the 2017 average (56.0), and there remain weak points within the data,” said

Khatija Haque, Head of MENA Research at Emirates NBD.

Output across the non-oil private sector climbed from 56.5 to 61.1, while new work rose at a faster rate at 59.9, up from 54.5 in Octo-

ber. The latest index shows an improvement in the non-oil private sector. Other ana-lysts agreed that companies in Dubai are indeed showing more appetite for expansion. Businesses in the construc-tion industry, in particular, are opening up.

Can NRIs vote from their host countries?NEW DELHI: NRIs will fi-nally get to know if they will be able to cast their votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from abroad be-fore February next.

Supreme Court has said it would hear next month petitions related to vot-ing rights for NRIs. The apex court said this after it was informed that a bill to amend the electoral law to allow NRIs to vote is likely to come up before the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, in the on-going winter session.The government informed this to a bench hearing a batch of petitions filed by Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, chair-man and managing director of Abu Dhabi-based VPS Healthcare, and other NRIs like Nagender Chindam,

chairman of London-based Pravasi Bharat organisation.

The bench said it would hear the matter in last week of Jan. “My main agenda is to get the legislation done. Indians want to know if there will be a chance for them to cast vote when they are overseas,” Dr Vayalil told a TV channel.

The bill to amend the Representation of the People Act so that the facility of “proxy voting” is extended to overseas Indians, on the lines of service voters, was passed in the Lok Sabha in August.

Currently, overseas In-dians are free to cast their votes if they are physically present in the constituen-cies where they are regis-tered. The bill seeks to give

them the option of proxy voting, which till now was only available to service personnel. Passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha, the bill proposes that overseas Indians, who are entitled to vote in India, could now ap-point a proxy voter to cast their votes.

It needs to be passed in the Rajya Sabha before get-ting the approval of the pres-ident for it to become a law. Dubai-based Indian lawyer Mohammad Sajid said the Supreme Court hearing will have great significance if the bill doesn’t get passed in the Rajya Sabha.

“The government will not oppose the petitions seeking voting rights for NRIs as it has already got it passed in Lok Sabha.

So whether it gets passed in Rajya Sabha or the Su-preme Court gives a favour-able verdict, we should be able to know by end of Jan”

Ramesh Mannath, Dubai president of Indian People’s Forum (IPF), an overseas so-cio-cultural wing of the rul-ing BJP said the government is hopeful of getting the bill passed in Rajya Sabha. “When IPF members met the External Affairs Minis-ter Sushma Swaraj during her recent visit to Abu Dha-bi, she had assured that the bill will be tabled in Rajya Sabha in the winter session so that it can be passed into a law to enable NRIs to cast their votes in the 2019 gen-eral elections.”

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections (Contd. on page 2)

Indian maids warned against visa misuseABU DHABI: The Indian embassy in Abu Dhabi has warned Indian housemaids not to come to UAE on visit visa, bypassing Indian emi-gration rules, as such wom-en have ended up in deep trouble. India has banned emigration of housemaids under 30 and even eligible women can leave the coun-try on an employment visa only through eMigrate sys-tem that ensures their wel-fare and protection.

Nevertheless, over 400 female domestic workers in distress approached the em-bassy in the capital and the consulate in Dubai during the past two years on visit/ tourist visa and all of them were sent back to India. Ac-cording to local TV channels, some women approached the embassy for help after going through disturbing

experiences at the hands of unscrupulous recruitment agents and employers.

RA (26) from Punjab said she landed in Dubai from Delhi on a one-month visit visa and was kept at an agent’s office in Sharjah for many days without any job. Her childhood friend work-ing as a housemaid in Oman arranged the visa though an agent. She said she was lured by a Dh1,000 month-ly salary as her Rs4,000 (Dh203) monthly earning as a farm worker was not enough to take care of her ailing husband and three children. “The agent did not give me a job with a suit-able employer, when I com-plained, he compelled me to do a bad job and harassed me mentally and physically. Somehow I escaped from there,” she said in tears.

HM (21), from Hyder-abad, who reached Dubai in similar circumstances and was kept at an agent’s office in Al Ain for many days. She was sent to an employer in Abu Dhabi who harassed her mentally and physically. “When they complained, the agent also harassed me,” she said. DK (45) from Punjab said she was witness to the harassment experienced by HM. “I told them not to do so but there was no help.” They both escaped together one day with the help of a taxi driver.

SV (35) from Telangana said she was beaten up by her employer who did not even pay her promised salary. Navdeep Singh Suri, the In-dian Ambassador to the UAE, said the embassy had wit-nessed an increase in number of such (Contd. on page 2)

NEW DELHI: The unabated demand for energy has led the world to look out for re-newable sources of energy and with its growing influ-ence, this is emerging as a job-intensive sector. The re-newable energy sector has a potential to create three mil-lion new jobs by 2030.

Issues like global warm-ing, degradation of the eco system, quality of air are no more only hot topics for dis-cussion but also something that requires serious plan of action. With more and more work that needs to be done in this sector the demand for manpower is enormous. Speaking on manpower re-

Renewable energy sector can create three million jobs

quirement, Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Chief Communica-tion, Sustainability & CSR officer, ReNew Power Ltd. Says: “As the sector is at a nascent stage, jobs here are not limited to a particular stream, but the growth of the industry will mean a rise in both direct and indirect jobs. As more and more en-terprises will emerge it will lead to a demand for operat-ing managers, accountants, legal professionals, techni-cians and many more along with the people directly working on the develop-ment field of the industry.”

India is the first country in the world to set up a min-

istry of non-conventional energy resources. Renew-able energy in India comes under the purview of the Ministry of New and Renew-able Energy (MNRE). Nis-hant Arya, Executive Direc-tor, JBM Group explains the scenario as: “These devel-opments in the industry and the government’s focus on renewable energy mean an upward trend. And accord-ing to industry experts, jobs in the sector will be almost double by 2022.” Vaishali Nigam Sinha elucidates the job market scenario as, “The renewable energy sector has a potential to create three million new jobs by 2030.”

NPS 60pc withdrawal tax-free nowNEW DELHI: The Centre has announced a bonanza for 1.19 crore subscribers of the National Pension Sys-tem (NPS). It has made 60pc of the NPS corpus with-drawal tax-free at the time of withdrawal against 40pc now, raised its contribution to 14pc from 10pc (of basic pay plus dearness allow-ance) for its staff and has given a choice to them to invest up to 50pc of the cor-pus in equities at par with private NPS subscribers.

The latest move on tax-free withdrawals would meet a long-pending de-mand to make NPS at par with EPF in terms of tax treatment. NPS will now be under the exempt-exempt-exempt (EEE) regime mean-

ing no tax on annual contri-butions, annual returns and withdrawals at maturity. The government employees can also opt for private fund

managers instead of public sector managers now.

While the Centre’s move to enhance its NPS con-tribution would cost it Rs 2,816 crore extra annually, the cost could be much more for the states which might follow the Centre’s norms. “The state govern-ments will favourably con-

sider this (higher contribu-tion),” Finance Minister Jaitley said. Since the de-fined contributory pension system was rolled out from

Jan 1, 2004, to contain pension bill, about 18 lakh central govern-ment employees are enrolled in the scheme with assets under man-agement (AUM) of Rs 95,052 crore as on Oct

31, 2018. About 40.6 lakh employees of the state gov-ernments are enrolled in the scheme with an AUM of Rs 1.33-lakh-crore.

The Centre’s decision to streamline NPS comes on the back of agitation by some government employee asso-ciations for the restoration of the old pension scheme

or pay-as-you-go pension scheme (pension was 50pc of the last basic pay). Jait-ley said pension under NPS could be higher at 52-53pc of the last pay if the entire corpus is invested in an an-nuity scheme. The decision to allow the government employees, especially the younger ones, to increase their equity exposure up to 50pc of the corpus would channelise more long-term funds to the stock market. The current equity exposure limit is 15p.

To implement the taxa-tion changes in NPS, the government would bring changes to the Income Tax Act via the Finance Bill in budget session of parlia-ment in Jan-Feb 2019.

India, China Oman’s top export marketMUSCAT: Oman’s exports to China from the start of this year until July amounted to OMR3.7 billion, thus mak-ing China, by and large, the country Oman has been ex-porting to the most this year. These exports were largely by sea. China was followed by India and the UAE in terms of countries importing the most from the Sultanate, although the UAE’s main routes were via land.

A statement by the Na-tional Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) said: “Goods worth OMR3.7 bil-lion were exported to China until July 2018, followed by India with OMR674 million and the UAE with OMR513 million.” Oman’s exports to China mostly consisted of oil and gas at OMR3.5 bil-lion, paraxylene at OMR81 million, methanol at OMR41 million, chrome ores at

OMR8 million and polypro-pylene at OMR6 million.

Some OMR20 million worth of Oman’s exports to China comprised goods be-longing to “other” catego-ries. A list from the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) for this cat-egory included parts for man-ufacture, toilet paper, textiles, shoes, marble and semi-man-ufactured iron goods. During the same period, Oman im-

ported goods worth OMR344 million. Of this sum, OMR23 million was spent on cell phones, followed by air con-ditioners at OMR19 million and piping used in oil drill-ing at OMR12 million. How-ever, most of Oman’s imports from China belonged to the “other” category at OMR275 million. Oil, gas, and chemi-cal derivatives dominated the data when it came to sea exports, and the port of So-

har alone was responsible for most of the Sultanate’s ex-ports at OMR1.4 billion, ac-cording to the NCSI data. As for air-based exports, Oman exported the most to neigh-bouring Qatar at OMR6.4 million, followed by the UAE at OMR5.5 million and Saudi Arabia at OMR2.39 million. “Oman exported gold, jew-ellery, tuna, perfumes, and legumes to these countries,” the data added.

AirAsia to start Chennai-Hyd fl ights CHENNAI: Budget carrier AirAsia would operate flights on the Chennai-Hyderabad sector from Dec 21. Passengers can book tickets via the airliners’ mobile application and avail promotional fares from Rs 1,399 for flights between Chennai and Hyderabad and Rs 1,899 from Hyderabad to Chennai.

The booking of tickets will go on till Dec 23 for travel from Dec 21 to Feb 4, 2020. “We are happy to launch a new route connecting Hyderabad and Chennai and are proud to have created a demand for air travel”, AirAsia India Managing Director Sunil Bhaskaran said.

“A study conducted by us shows that 26pc of flyers are first-time flyers, which goes on to show how we have en-abled a lot more people to experience air travel”, he said.

Luther praisesrecruitingfraternityMUMBAI: The perception about the overseas recruit-ment industry is gradually changing, opined Mr MC Luther, Protector General of Emigrants (PGE-retired). When he took charge as the PGE in November 2015, Mr Luther noticed that a nega-tive perception associated with the overseas recruit-ment industry and he was successful in changing this image. Luther stated that there were a number of oc-casions when he disagreed with Members of Parliament, Ministers, Bureaucrats and supported the recruitment fraternity, going so far as to state that the fraternity is an important pillar who have been instrumental in keep-ing the (Contd. on page 2)

2 EMIGRATION Friday, December 14, 2018

Kerala NRIs’ dream airport

Published by IPEPCIL Publications LtdTitle Code: MAHENG14443Registered with the RNI No.:

Publisher: Supreet M.J.Editor : E.L. VaidyanathanVolume No. I , Issue: 19

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NRIs, particularly from North Kerala, are jubilant over the inauguration of the Kannur International Airport, a long-standing dream which has now become a re-

ality. True, Kerala already has three international airports at Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Kochi, still NRIs from the North Malabar region --- consisting of Kannur, Kasaragod and Wayanad districts --- have been facing hardships for air travel, particularly to the Gulf. The Kannur airport, the fourth international airport in Kerala (the only state to have four international airports) would bolster the development and progress of north Malabar and Kodagu region in south Karna-taka that lies adjacent to it.

One should thank Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for his determination in implementing this project, which was oth-erwise dragging on for years. It can be said that the Kannur airport was completed on a war-footing faster than any other development projects in Kerala. The governments took some special interest in this matter (Kannur is the home district of Vijayan). The CM, who was the chairman of the committee which was formed for the airport project, has shown great enthusiasm in the completion of this project, which became a politically prestigious issue. The state government was able to complete land acquisition for the 2,300 acres with least disturbance to the local population and with an attractive re-habilitation package. The project has fulfilled the promise of compensatory plot for those who had to forgo their homes and jobs in the airport or in ancillary organisations for one member of each affected family. The government did not have to hear much of blame – as it happened in many other development projects – of being anti-people.

There are past experiences of lopsided approaches by the central and state governments in the case of Kozhikode Inter-national Airport. On the other side is the profitable experi-ence of Cochin International Airport which has been func-tioning as a joint venture of the public-private partnership (PPP). Kannur International Airport is also functioning un-der a PPP model like Cochin. Kerala with its huge Gulf NRI population is an attractive destination for foreign airlines. But, one cannot lose sight of the fact that airports are not the only hampering factor for the Kerala NRIs --- there is also that of high and unjustifiable fares that blocks their travel. The fares charged for flights touching the three existing airports of Kerala and the step-motherly attitude suffered by the inter-national airport at Kozhikode are aspects that should figure prominently in the home work for Kannur’s operations.

With Kannur starting operations, the sector getting high-lighted is tourism. Besides tourism, there is also an expecta-tion of revival in the industrial and trade sectors of north Ker-ala. The chief minister’s announcement that projects would be prepared for the development of tourism generates hope. There is little clarity now about the prospects of its practical implementation. If tourism via airport is made attractive and special projects for the industrial development centered on north Malabar are implemented, it is certain to be a turning point in the development of Kerala.

Editorial

LIPSYNCH “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

— George Eliot

Indian-origins among Time Magazine’s ‘Infl uential Teens’

Amika George, Rishab Jain and Kavya Kopparapu

NEW YORK: Three students of Indian origin are among Time magazine’s list of 25 in-fluential teens chosen for the “accolades across numerous fields, global impact through social media and overall ability to drive news.”

Budding scientist and re-searcher Rishab Jain of Port-land, Oregon, Hardvard fresh-man Kavya Kopparapu and British-Indian Amika George join a list of accomplished teen that previously includ-ed singer Lorde to Olympic champion Simone Biles to political activist Joshua Wong.

Jain (14), an eighth grader from Oregon, has de-veloped an algorithm that can possibly be a cure to

pancreatic cancer. The algo-rithm won Jain the $25,000 top prize at the Discovery Education 3M Young Sci-

entist Challenge in October and according to Time, he’s now trying to find hospital and physician partners who could help him run a clini-cal trial to continue testing.

In 2017, Kopparapu (18), now a freshman at Harvard University, was reading a

story about the late Sen. John McCain, who was bat-tling the aggressive brain cancer known as glioblas-

toma. On learning that the survival rate of the disease hasn’t improved from the past 30 years, she set out to change things. She devel-oped “a deep-learning com-puter system that can scan slides of tissue from brain cancer patients looking for

differences in density, color, texture and cellular align-ment that are unique to that particular person’s case,” the magazine says.

The goal, Times says, is “to develop targeted therapies that are also unique to the person.” In addition, she is the founder of the non-profit Girls Computing League, which works this year to bring computing opportuni-ties to girls in the northern Virginia and Washington area.

London teen George (19), launched the FreePeriods campaign to help eradicate period poverty. Last De-cember, George led 2,000 people in a protest outside UK Prime Minister Theresa

May’s home. The goal was to convince policymakers to end “period poverty,” as she calls it, by funding the distribution of menstrual products to girls and women who can’t afford them.

“It really upset me,” she told the magazine, of learn-ing that many girls in the UK were routinely missing school during their periods because they couldn’t afford to buy menstrual products. “The government knew this was happening on their watch, but they were re-fusing to find a solution.” This fall, George received the Goalkeepers Campaign Award from the Bill and Me-linda Gates Foundation.

WASHINGTON: For Con-gresswoman Pramila Jaya-pal, it was an occasion to celebrate as Indian-Ameri-can Sunder Pichai, CEO of Google, appeared before a Congressional committee for a grilling by lawmakers on the search engine’s data privacy.

The two, now holding reputable positions in differ-ent spheres of lives -- one in politics and the other in the corporate world -- were born in the state - Tamil Nadu. Jayapal, the first ever Indian-American Congresswoman highlighted this point dur-ing the Congressional hear-ing. “Let me just take a point of personal privilege to say that I was born in the same state as you in India and I am excited to see you leading a company and continuing to show that immigrants to this country contribute great value, in spite of some of the rhetoric we hear. Thank you Mr Pichai,” she told the Google CEO.

Sundar Pichai (46) was born in Chennai. A graduate from the IIT Kharagpur, he

Google CEO Pichai grilled by Jayapaljoined Google in 2004 and in 2015, was appointed the CEO of the company.

Jayapal (53) too was born in Chennai and came to the US as a student. Both passed through a similar im-migration pathway, involv-ing H-1B visa and Green Card, before becoming US citizens. During the hear-ing, Jayapal asked questions to Pichai on sexual harass-ment and hate speech. “Do you agree with the UN high commissioner for human rights assessment that so-cial media played a role, for example, in perpetuating genocide against the Ro-hingya and what is Google’s response ability to moder-ate hate speech on your platforms?,” she asked.”We feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to moderate hate speech. You know, we have defined hate speech clearly as inciting violence or hatred towards groups of people,” Pichai said.

“It is absolutely some-thing which I think we need to take a very strict line on and we have stated

our policies clearly and we are working hard to make our enforcement better and we have gotten a lot better. But it is not enough and so, we are committed to doing more here,” he added.

In her remarks, Jayapal expressed her deep concerns about employers mandat-ing forced arbitration rather than allowing for people to pursue justice.

“Forcing people into ar-bitration when they have already experienced a vio-lation of their basic rights I think is a deep injustice and it subjects people who have already been victim-ised to further victimisation and we have seen research that shows that it discour-ages people from coming forward to report abuses to begin with,” she said. Pichai said Google’s arbi-tration agreements did not require any confidentiality provisions. “That is how we have done it. But for sexual harassment, we agreed that it should be up to the em-ployees and we give them a choice,” he said.

“We are definitely look-ing into this further. It is an area where I have gotten feedback personally from our employees, so we are definitely reviewing what we could do and you know, I am looking forward to con-sulting and happy to think about more changes here,” Pichai said.

Following Jayapal’s re-marks, Congressman Keith Rothfus said both the Indi-an-Americans were success stories of immigrants.

“I just want to echo what my colleague Jayapal had said. I am glad you are here at the committee but I am glad you are here in our country. You are a success story and I can just think of you sitting as a teenager in India, thinking that this was probably never even on your radar,” he said.

“But you came to this country, because this coun-try had that promise out there and I want to thank you for being here today and encourage you to continue collaborating with this com-mittee,” Rothfus said.

NEW JERSEY: A 38-year-old Indian national has been ar-rested on charges of smug-gling foreign nationals into the US for private financial gain, according to Depart-ment of Justice.

Bhavin Patel is charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to bring in and harbour aliens and six counts of smuggling foreign nationals into the US via commercial airline flights, New Jersey US At-torney Craig Carpenito said. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Dec 18 be-fore US District Judge John Michael Vazquez. Arrested by special agents of the US

Indian arrested for human smuggling

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Home-land Security Investigations (HSI) on Dec 7, at Newark Liberty International Air-port, Patel if convicted faces maximum potential sen-tence of 10 years in prison. Each substantive charge of smuggling carries a maxi-mum potential sentence of five years in prison.

In its court papers, HSI said that its beginning in October 2013, an undercov-er law enforcement officer posing as a smuggler began meeting with Patel in Bang-kok. Patel told the undercov-er law enforcement officer that he wanted to smuggle Indian nationals into the US. On three occasions, Pa-tel or his conspirator trans-ported the Indian nationals to an airport in Thailand, at which point the undercover law enforcement officer would purportedly use his contacts to smuggle them into the US-via commercial airline flights.

Patel agreed to wire down payments for each in-dividual to be smuggled into the US and to pay a balance of tens of thousands of dol-lars for each individual once the foreign nationals arrived in the US , HSI alleged in its court papers. Over the ensu-ing months, Patel arranged for six Indian nationals to be brought to Thailand for smug-gling into the US via Newark Liberty International Airport, HIS alleged.

MoU against corruptionRIYADH: The Council of Ministers has authorised president of the National Anti-Corruption Commis-sion or his deputy to discuss with the UN Development Program (UNDP) about pre-paring a draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two sides in a project for risk manage-ment against corruption in government agencies. The commission is tasked with submitting the MoU to the cabinet for completing the legal procedures.

The Council of Ministers hoped that the King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) proj-ect in the Eastern Province would propel the Kingdom’s position as a regional and

global energy hub by devel-oping a competitive Saudi industries and services sec-tor at the international level.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman chaired the weekly session of the cabinet at Al-Yama-mah Palace in Riyadh. Min-ister of the Media Awwad Al-Awwad said following the session that the Cabinet noted that SPARK would be instrumental in support-ing Saudi Arabia’s strate-gic economic development initiatives, reflecting the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and its opera-tional programmes.Crown Prince inaugurated the King Salman Energy Park in the Eastern Province. The set-

ting up of the first phase of SPARK will bring invest-ment worth $1.6 billion. Al-Awwad said the cabinet lauded the speech of King Salman in the Gulf. In the speech, the King cautioned against the Iranian regime’s aggressive policies in spon-soring terror forces and in-terfering in the internal af-fairs of other countries.

The King expressed con-fidence in the keenness of all members to preserve the integrity of the GCC and en-hance its role at present and in future as well as on main-taining the security and sta-bility of Gulf states and the region from the challenges and threats of extremist and terrorist forces.

Can NRIs vote from...(Contd. from page 1)will be held some time around April and May. The tenure of the Modi-led NDA government will end on May 26, 2019. If NRIs get voting right prior to that and if the Election Commis-sion can make arrangements to facilitate it in time, the Indian diaspora is likely to play a big role in the formation of the country’s next government. According to estimates of Minis-try of External Affairs, there are about 31 million NRIs living in different countries across the world. According to the In-dian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, around 3.3 million Indians live in the UAE, forming more than 10pc of the overseas Indians.

Indian maids warned against...(Contd. from page 1)cases over the last six or seven months. “Many of these people originate from either Hyderabad or Amritsar and we have written to the central authorities and state govern-ments in this regard to book the errant agents.”

He said individuals who don’t have the means to be tour-ists are coming on tourist visa and hope to get converted it into employment visa through one sponsor or another. They are at the mercy of their sponsors or agents and they run into difficulty. “We have come across cases of physical abuse and maltreatment. We want to bring these cases to local authori-ties, but unfortunately [in most cases] women are too trau-matised or too afraid of the social repercussions for them.They may have loss of face within their own families or so-ciety and they would rather quietly go back home without pressing any charges.” The embassy gives emergency travel documents and flight tickets and sends them back safely.

(Contd. from page 1)unemployment figures in control by getting our na-tionals employed overseas and thus earning precious foreign exchange to our ex-chequer.

Mr Luther was speaking at the farewell function ac-corded to him in Mumbai on December 12, organised by the recruitment fraterni-ty represented by the Indi-an Personnel Export Promo-tion Council (IPEPCIL), the country’s oldest association representing nearly 40pc of RAs from across the coun-try licensed by the govern-ment of India and the Fed-eration of Indian Emigrants Management Councils & Associations (FIMCA) rep-

Dubai Duty Free discounts for fl yersDUBAI: Dubai Duty Free (DDF) has confirmed plans to roll out some discounts for travellers passing through the airport terminals in the emirate during its annual sale this month. In what has been billed as a yearly airport shopping bonanza, the retail-er will reduce prices across duty-free shelves at Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Air-port from Dec 18 to Dec 20.

The 72-hour pre-Christ-mas sale is part of the retailer’s 35th anniversary celebrations. It will be available for all de-parting, transiting and arriving passengers at the two airports. According to Colm McLough-lin, executive vice president of Dubai Duty Free, the anni-versary sale has now become a “highly-anticipated event” with many people choosing to travel on the days when duty-free goods are discounted.

“I think the big discount day is going to create a fan-tastic atmosphere at Dubai Duty Free for the entire 72 hours and it would be terrific to break the daily sales re-cord on the anniversary day.”

Luther praises recruiting fraternityresenting associations .

An important obser-vation by Mr. Luther in reference to the intended amendments in the Emi-gration Act of 1983 was the use of the term “Agent” for members of the recruitment fraternity. Noting that the term Agent has attracted negative connotations due to its wide usage, he strong-ly advocated rebranding by terming the business activities as “Promoters or Facilitators”. Stating that though he was designated as Protector General of Emigrants, his impartial at-tempt at doing his job led him to understand the real problems of RAs. Further noting that cumulatively

the RAs have over a thou-sand years of experience, he said the government needs to acknowledge and harness this goldmine.

The fraternity was in full of praise of Mr Luther and acknowledged the ef-forts of Mr.Luther in un-derstanding the challenges faced by the recruitment fraternity and putting in rigorous efforts in solv-ing issues and generally making it possible for the members to conduct their business in a smooth man-ner. The retired PGE, in his tenure of three years, was accessible to any RA who had matters that required his attention.

Mr JK Sao, Protector of

Emigrants, Mumbai felici-tated Mr. Luther at the func-tion. Mr Abdul Rehman CH, President IPEPCIL, Mr. Deepak Chhabria, Chair-man, FIMCA, chaired the meeting. Dr. Sureshkumar Madhusushanan, General Secretary of IPEPCIL & FO-RAI, welcomed the guests and Mr Abdul Rehman CH, Mr. Deepak Chhabria, Mr OP Bharadwaj, Vice Chair-man, FIMCA and Mr. Su-preeth MJ (Sandy), Treasur-er FORAI, were among the speakers. Earlier, Mr VS Abdul Karim, Former Presi-dent of IPEPCIL & Founder Chairman of FORAI, intro-duced Mr Luther. Ms. Jas-seena Chacko anchored the ceremony.

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4 GULF / NATIONAL JOBS Friday, December 14, 2018

BENGALURU: Walmart-controlled Flipkart’s Sin-gapore entity has received an infusion of Rs 2,190.64 crore in the form of equity shares allotted on Decem-ber 4, 2018.

Some 7,45,118 equity shares of a nominal value of Rs1 per share have been allotted to Flipkart Private Ltd, Singapore (formerly Flipkart Ltd) at a premium of Rs 29,399 per share, according to company’s filings accessed by paper.vc, a data intelligence platform.

This is Walmart’s first big infusion of capital into Flipkart after it acquired a majority stake in the latter for $16 billion in May.

The fresh infusion is indication of Walmart’s determination to take on arch rival Amazon outside

In first infusion, Walmart invests Rs 2,190.64 cr in Flipkartof its home turf, where the latter leads.

“This is just the first of many such tranches that

Walmart will infuse into Flipkart to run operations more efficiently as much of the $16 billion that it paid

up for acquiring majority stake in Flipkart would have gone into buying up stakes of other stakehold-

ers,” observed founder of India’s first e-commerce company, K Vaitheeswaran.

The fresh infusion of

capital will go into large-scale technology integra-tion with Flipkart across sourcing, merchandis-

ing, sup-ply chain, log is t ics ; hiring spe-cial talent t o d r i v e b u s i n e s s f o r w a r d and to get the entire in-store in-t eg ra t i on w i t h k i -rana stores across the c o u n t r y to enable hyper- lo -cal grocery

deliveries, according to sources in the company.

India’s largest e-com-merce firm is going through

a make-over with CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy at the helm. While Walmart has begun the process by laying off 60 per cent of Jabong’s 450 employ-ees, uneasiness prevails at Myntra, which is set to see the exit of key talent who are business heads across all functions of the fashion lifestyle e-tailer. It will not be long before the flab and redundancies at Flipkart — especially in functions such as op-erations — is targeted by Walmart, which is known for its cost rationalisation strategy.

While co-founders Sa-chin Bansal exited the company soon after the takeover by Walmart, Bin-ny Bansal resigned from the post of group CEO recently.

NEW DELHI: 1MORE has recently launched the Styl-ish Dual-Dynamic driver earphones in India and the brand has collaborated with internationally ac-claimed Grammy Award Winning producer, mixer, and sound engineer Luca Bignardi to perfect the final tuning to deliver a precise representation of an artist’s intended sound.

The Stylish Dual-Dy-namic driver earphones feature a dual-dynamic driver featuring one tita-nium diaphragm and one graphene diaphragm in a coaxial design with two outer layers of PET which claim to deliver sizzling highs, clear mids, and deep bass. A back-to-back antistrophic coil layout helps to offset the magnetic

1MORE launches Stylish Dual-Dynamic driver earphone in Indiainterference and keep the sensitivity high and also assists in maintaining the consistency of the sound wave propagation from the different diaphragms.

1MORE claims that by

using a streamlined earbud with lightweight materi-als, you get a comfortable wearing experience. The ergonomically designed 45° oblique angled ear

fittings naturally match the curve of your ear ca-nals for a secure fit with improved noise isolation. Additionally, three sets of silicone ear tips in various sizes featuring a soft skin-

line silicone material are included in the device’s packaging.

A conveniently located in-line controller features controls that allow you to

control volume, song selec-tion, and phone calls. A MEMS microphone allows for crystal clear commu-nication that eliminates background static. A soft, silicone wrapped cable can easily be placed in your pocket or bag without get-ting stuck or tangled.

1MORE Stylish Dual-Dynamic driver earphone is available in 2 colours - Midnight Black and Rose Pink. The price of the product is Rs 2,999. The product carry’s a 1-year warranty and is available at Paytm Mall and 1MORE India website and other leading stores across India. The pre-order started 7th and close on 15th Decem-ber 2018 on Paytm Mall at Rs 2749 offering an ad-ditional cashback of 15pc.

KOLKATA: PC- maker HP plans to up the ante in the premium devices segment as it eyes a larger chunk in the ‘thin and light’ and gaming laptop categories.

For entry and mid-level devices, it is eyeing upcom-ing segments such as home-makers, video-bloggers, bloggers and a new genera-tion of content creators.

According to Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, Per-sonal Systems, HP Inc India, the company is eyeing an expanded presence in the premium devices with larger offerings and a set of com-plimenting accessories that are artificial intelligence and virtual reality enabled.

Focus on new form factor and device design is also being looked into. Sources say the premium category

HP eyes larger share of gaming laptop mktlaptops, priced at $800 and above (upwards of Rs 60,000) have seen a 65pc growth over the last 15 months, while the $1,000 and above PC market (up-wards of Rs 75,000) has grown by more than 100pc during this period. HP has expanded its OMEN gam-ing portfolio of laptops and desktops in India. The list includes the OMEN X lap-tops, desktops and a mixed reality headset.

“We will look to focus on the premium and gam-ing laptop segments in the coming days. But, this does not mean we will vacate any price point. The entry and mid-level markets are quite big too,” Bedi told a leading newspaper.

According to research firm IDC, HP continues to

lead the Indian market with a 30.7 share in the overall PC segment.Premium segment

The tech company also has an over 30pc market share in the premium cat-egories that include both the $800 and above, and, $1,000 and above, laptop segments.

Sources attributed the growing demand for gaming devices and premiumisation of portfolio by users to the replacement purchases.

Moreover, an increase in discretionary spending and attractive consumer financing schemes have provided a strong impetus to premium devices such as gaming notebooks.

Incidentally, these two segments are driving the laptop growth story in In-dia.

MUMBAI: Ambuja Cement plans to invest Rs 960 crore to set up a 1.4 mil-lion tonne clinker capacity, grinding facility of 1.8 mt besides a captive power plant and waste heat re-covery system at Marwar Mundwa in Rajasthan even as its Managing Director Ajay Kapur resigned after putting in 26 years of ser-vice in the company.

Kapur has decided to pursue his career outside the cement industry, said the company in a state-ment.

The board accepted his resignation and will relieve him on March 15. The successor to Kapur will be announced in due course, said the company. Kapur joined the company in 1993 as an Executive Assistant to

the then Managing Director and Founder, NS Sekhsaria and moved up the lad-der to head the company. Prior to joining Ambuja Cements, Kapur worked with Citibank’s consumer banking business.Expansion

In February, the compa-ny had announced plans to invest Rs 1,390 crore in the first phase of its greenfield clinkerisation project with annual capacity of 1.71 mt at Marwar Mundwa.

The fresh investment was approved by the board at its meeting taking the overall investment in Mar-war Mundwa to Rs 2,350 crore. To be funded through internal accruals, these project will increase the company’s cement capacity to 31.5 mt.

Ambuja Cement announces Rs 960-cr capex plans

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JOBS & CAREERS 5Friday, December 14, 2018

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puzzle, every digit from 1

to 9 must appear in each of

the nine vertical columns,

in each of the nine hori-

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of the nine boxes.

Solution for Puzzle # 19

will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 18 Answer

Your wellness

New estimates of dis-ability among India’s elderly population

show that the scale of the problem is much larger than suggested by the country’s national census, a study has found.

The estimates are based on the ability to carry out three basic living activities -- walking, dressing, and toileting, said researchers from the International In-stitute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria.

The study found that 17.91 per cent of males and 26.21 per cent of females aged 60 and above, experi-ence disability in these ar-eas, equating to nine million elderly men and 14 million elderly women.

The most recent census, from 2011, suggests that just five per cent of the elderly population suffer from a disability, researchers said.

The prevalence of dis-ability is much higher among widowed women, and among the poor and

Disability among India’s elderly more than estimatedilliterate, they said.

Nandita Saikia from IIA-SA and Mukesh Parmar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi also found a statistically significant con-nection between chronic morbidity, or long-term health con-ditions, and dis-ability.

They studied three such condi-tions - diabetes, high blood pres-sure, and heart disease.

Diabetes had the highest corre-lation to disability, followed by high blood pressure and heart disease.

“We found that the likelihood of disability is always the high-est among diabetes patients, whereas the disability rate is the lowest among elderly persons with heart disease. This may be due to high mortality among heart pa-tients,” said Saikia.

“Diabetes patients, on the other hand, may live for lon-ger periods with disability. These results are helpful for both patients and healthcare providers in terms of taking preventive measures at the

onset of morbidities,” she said.

Previous studies of mor-bidity and disability in In-dia were carried out using primary sample surveys, limiting them to small ar-eas of India with a small

sample size.They can therefore not be

used to gain a generalised picture across the whole nation, as India is so large and varied, researchers said.

In addition, they tend

to focus on the association between a specific type of morbidity and a specific disability, so cannot give a broader picture.

Saikia and Parmar took a different approach to cover the whole country and give

a broad picture for the first time.

They used data from the second round of the Indian Human Development Survey which was carried out by the University of Maryland, US, and the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi.

This was a survey cover-ing over 42,000 households across India, selected using a stratified random sampling technique, and covered vari-ous topics including health, employment, economy, and education.

The second round of the survey also included ques-tions about chronic morbid-ity and disability.

The researchers defined disability as difficulty or inability to perform three specific activities of daily living -- walking one km, going to the toilet without help, and dressing without help -- and looked at the data for people aged over 60.

In the survey, respon-dents could answer “no

difficulty”, “can do with difficulty”, and “unable to do it”.

Each answer was as-signed a score, which al-lowed Saikia and Parmar to calculate what is known as the Katz Index of Indepen-dence, which takes into ac-count multiple disabilities.

As the survey also asked

questions about long-term health conditions, the re-searchers were able to con-nect the disabilities to spe-cific conditions.

The researchers say that acting in a timely way to address chronic morbidity will help to minimise the huge associated burden of disability.

Researchers have cre-ated a 3D-printed glucose biosensor for

use in wearable monitors that may lead to improved glucose monitors for people suffering from diabetes.

According to the re-searchers, people with diabe-tes most commonly monitor their disease with glucose meters that require constant finger pricking. Continuous glucose monitoring systems are an alternative, but they are not cost effective.

“Our 3D-printed glu-cose sensor will be used as wearable sensor for replac-ing painful finger pricking. Since this is a non-invasive, needleless technique for glu-cose monitoring, it will be easier for children’s glucose

Novel 3D-Printed Glucose Biosensors Discoveredmonitoring,” said co-author Yuehe Lin from the School of Mechanical and Materi-als Engineering, Washington State University in the US.

The team has been work-ing to develop wearable, flexible electronics that can conform to patients’ skin and monitor the glucose in body fluids, such as in sweat.

To build such sensors, manufacturers have used traditional manufacturing strategies, such as photoli-thography or screen print-ing. While these methods work, they have several drawbacks, including re-quiring the use of harmful chemicals and expensive cleanroom processing, the team said.

For the study, published in the journal, ‘Analytica Chimica Acta’, the research-ers used a method called direct-ink-writing (DIW), that involves printing “inks” out of nozzles to create in-tricate and precise designs at tiny scales.

The team printed a na-noscale material that is elec-trically conductive to create flexible electrodes.

The finding showed that their 3D-printed sensors did better at picking up glucose signals than the traditionally produced electrodes.

“3D printing can enable manufacturing of biosensors tailored specifically to indi-vidual patients” said Arda Gozen from the varsity.

For large-scale use, the

printed biosensors will need to be integrated with elec-tronic components on a wearable platform, the re-searcher said.

But manufacturers could use the same 3D-printer nozzles used for printing the sensors to print electronics and other components of a wearable medical device, helping to consolidate manufac-turing pro-cesses and reduce costs even more, he added.

The research team is now working to integrate the sensors into a packaged system that can be used as a wearable device for long-term glucose monitoring.

A private hospital in Bengaluru, has launched Apomor-

phine for the first time in India, in association with Britannia Pharmaceuticals, a UK-based pharmaceutical company.

T h e drug has helped in the treat-m e n t o f

Parkinson’s in other coun-tries and now, there is hope for Indians suffering from the disease.

It is available as both injections and infusion pumps, and can provide relief within minutes.

Drug to treat Parkinson’s disease launched in India

Dr Prashant LK, Parkin-son’s Disease and Move-ment Disorders Specialist at Vikram Hospital, ex-plained that currently in India, patients of Parkin-son’s have only two op-tions: either oral treatment for the early stages of the disease, or very expensive Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery for advanced stages.

There was no treatment for the middle stages of the disease. Moreover, most patients in India couldn’t afford DBS.

Introduction of apomor-phine in India has given an important medical option

to doctors in the middle stages of the management of Parkinson’s Disease.

The drug will be dis-tributed in the country by Vikram Hospitals and then made available in selected centres across the country after the approval of the Drug Controller General of India

Parkinson’s is a neu-rological disorder that is mainly characterized by problems with body movements, although other symptoms may also occur.

It is estimated that about 30 million people in India suffer from various forms of neurological diseases.

Microsoft on Thurs-day announced that its enterprise

social network app Kaizala is now helping over 1,000 government and private businesses in India im-prove workplace productiv-ity and streamline growth. The company also said it will expand the reach of Kaizala — launched in India last year and now available in 18 languages across 28 markets in Asia, Middle East, Africa and South America — to Of-fice 365 commercial plans

Kaizala app helps 1,000 Indian fi rms boost workplace productivityworldwide. “Kaizala, with Cloud scale and enterprise security, is enabling organ-isations to achieve more by empowering employees, en-gaging customers and enhancing workplace pro-ductivity. We are delighted with the rapid adop-tion in just over a year,” said An-ant Maheshwari, President, Micro-soft India.

Developed by the Micro-

soft Garage team, Kaizala allows people to be con-nected in a group, create hierarchy-based access to

a group and create groups

within groups. Microsoft also announced new fea-tures in Kaizala, like “Me Chat” and “Persistent Chat”

along with video and voice calling and web app.

“Kaizala is a chat-based com-munication and data management tool. It is an enter-prise ready, com-pliant and secure chat app, offering organisations easy and simple way

to share data for insightful

decision making and gives employees an easy-to-use solution for efficient col-laboration and improved productivity,” explained Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft.

Backed by Microsoft’s Azure platform, organisa-tions like YES Bank, UPL, Alembic Pharmaceuticals, Shopper’s Stop and Eu-reka Forbes are using the Kaizala app. “Microsoft Kaizala serves as an Elec-tronic Medical Record, with no attendant cost, and the patient’s data is shared

As part of the MoU, a five-day residential programme ‘Advanced

leadership programme for Chartered Accountants’ is be-ing organised at IIM Ahmed-abad (IIM-A) from De-cember 24 to 28.

The chartered ac-countants’ apex body ICAI has signed a MoU with the Indian Insti-tute of Management, Ahmedabad for conduct-ing management training programmes for CAs. The objective of the initiative is to establish mutual cooperation between the institutes for offering and co-hosting open enrolment and customized training programs exclusively for Chartered Ac-countants (CAs).

“Mutual collaboration will

IIM-A to provide mgmt training to CAsbring a new dimension to the area of accounting and management education in the country. Courses conducted under the MoU will provide an opportunity for chartered

accountants to enhance their management skill sets re-quired for key positions in business and industry,” said Naveen N D Gupta, President, Institute of Chartered Accoun-

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has invited applications

for the position of man-agement trainee (Telecom Operators). The applica-tions are available on their official website. Aspiring candidate can visit their official website bsnl.co.in and fill in the applications for the recruitment drive. The last date to fill the applications form is 26 January 2019. However, the online registration process shall begin on 26 December 2018.

BSNL has to fill up 300 vacancies of management trainee positions, out of which 150 posts will be filled up from the open market. BSNL has also released an official notifica-

BSNL to recruit 150 management traineestion on their website with all the necessary details of the eligibility criteria.

Important Dates: Online registrations begin on 26

December 2018Last date of registrations

is January 26, 2019 Online assessment pro-

cess begins on March 17, 2019

Fee Structure and Pay-ment: The application fee costs Rs 2200 for OC/OBC candidates and it is Rs 1100 for SC/ST candidates.

T h e a p -plication fee can be paid on-line only. C a n d i -dates can pay online t h r o u g h D e b i t C a r d , C r e d i t C a r d o r v i a N e t

Banking. Age: The aspiring can-

didates shall not exceed the age of 30 years as on August 1, 2019, the year of the examination. However,

the upper age limit is re-laxable as per the standing instructions from the Gov-ernment of India. Upper age relaxations for the various category candidates are as follows: CategoryFor SC/ST category candidates .......................5yrsFor OBC category candidates ..................... 3 yrsFor PWD category OC candidates ............ 10 yrsPWD category SC/ST candidates ....... 15 yrsPWD category OBC candidates .......... 13 yrsEx-Servicemen - As per Govt rulesResidents of J&K - As per Govt rules Direct Links: Official websiteOfficial notification

across the group of treating doctors and nurses,” said Dr Devi Shetty, Founder and Chairman, Narayana Health who is one of the early adopters of Microsoft Kaizala.

“All group members monitor a patient’s treat-ment and make interven-tions in real time,” he added. The customers are using Kaizala to bridge gap between employees, extended workforce and customers; share informa-tion among employees; collect data from the field

through polls or surveys; track movement of first line workers; and get real-time analytics on integration with Office 365, said the company.

Earlier this year, Micro-soft enabled digital pay-ments services on Kaizala in India. The UPI payment integration on Microsoft Kaizala works with all the banks that are already par-ticipating in UPI. Microsoft Kaizala is available as a free mobile app on Android, iOS and Windows plat-forms for individual users.

tants of India (ICAI).“The MoU will benefit

the chartered accountants in acquiring a number of skills required in today’s digitised and fast-changing business

environment. Participants will be exposed to emerging concepts, technology and business practices in achiev-ing operational excellence,” he said.

6 IN FOCUS Friday, December 14, 2018

I am a Christian, so it is important for me to celebrate mass on Christmas day. As this is a religious holiday for me, as well as many others, what does the law say about us having a day off for this. My immediate manager says it is not possible even though there are a lot of staff here who are Christians and my friend works for a business where everyone is given a day off. Can I insist for religious reasons?

Christmas Day is not a registered public holiday in the UAE so there is no legal right for anyone to have the day off work. Only the specific dates and Islamic holidays published by the UAE government are statutory days of leave for employees. If an individual wants to take a day off work at any other time, he/she must apply for annual leave, which is then subject to approval by the employer. While a few companies give staff members an additional holiday for Christmas, this is purely at their individual discretion.

Unpaid billI lived in the UAE for almost two years and had to return home due to a fam-ily emergency. I left behind an unpaid telecoms bill. Until now I have stayed in India, my own country, but I want to go back to the UAE to get another job. My question is whether UAE im-migration can detect my unpaid bills and stop me entering the country? How can I return without a problem?

If someone does not pay a bill with one of the telecom companies and it is outstanding for some time, the company has the right to register a police case against an individual. This could well lead to an immigration ban. If this is the case, you may find you are banned from re-entering the UAE and could be detained at the airport. As you know that there is an outstanding bill, you simply need to contact the company to whom you owe money and arrange to settle this before attempting to return to the UAE. You are legally obliged to pay the bill so the most logical course of action is to repay the debt sooner rather than later, as if you return, you will need to settle the bill anyway.

Changes in contractI am a teacher and our organisation changed our contracts from three-year fixed contracts to unlimited contracts. The new contracts stipulate that em-ployees can only resign in January by giving six months’ notice of their intention to leave. What would happen if an employee did not give notice and did not return after the summer vaca-tion? In this scenario the employee would not have any outstanding debts (rental, utilities etc) and would be paid two months over the summer vacation but would obviously forfeit any end-of-service gratuity. Would this lead to any legal problems or be an obstacle to returning to the UAE and other GCC countries?

I understand that you work for a private school, rather than a govern-ment institution so the provisions of UAE Labour Law will apply. Firstly, an employer cannot make arbitrary changes to an employee’s contract without their agreement, so I assume this change was agreed with all staff. It is common for teachers to be on fixed contracts but unlimited contracts are generally pre-ferred for their flexibility. It is unusual for a teacher to have a six-month notice period and that seems rather excessive considering the role. It is also unusual for anyone to have to give more than three months’ notice but if the contract has been signed and accepted by both parties that will be a valid clause. If a person in this situation did not return, they would be in breach of contract for leaving without having given proper notice. UAE Labour Law makes it clear that an employee can only leave without notice in two specific conditions, per Article 121 which states: “The worker may leave work without notice in the following cases: (a) - should the em-ployer breach his obligations towards the worker, as set forth in the contract or the law (b)- should the employer or the legal representative thereof assault the worker.” Neither of these conditions are the case here. The consequences of leaving without notice would be the forfeiture of the end-of-service gratuity

Can I take off on Christmas as a religious holiday?and an employment ban if the employer requests this. They are not likely to get an immigration ban but they would not be able to work in the UAE for six to 12 months. It is also likely that they would not get a clear police clearance certificate, also known as a good conduct certificate, which may be required to obtain a teaching job in another country.

Who will pay airfare?I have just resigned after working for three years with the same company on an unlimited contact. Does the company have to pay for my plane ticket home?

The subject of whether an employer is liable to pay for a plane ticket to an individual’s home country is covered in Article 131 of UAE Labour Law which states: “Expenses for repatriation of an employee to his place of origin or any other place agreed upon by both parties shall be borne by the employer. If the employee after the end of his contract takes up employment somewhere else, repatriation expenses upon termination of his service shall be paid by the last employer.” It then goes on to say: “If the cause for termination of contract is attributed to the employee, his repatria-tion will be arranged at his own expense if he has the mean to pay.” The final sentence here is relevant as this means that as EW left employment of his own accord and assuming he has the funds to pay for his flight to his home country, it is his personal responsibil-ity. The only exception would be if a contract of employment stated that the employer would bear the cost no matter the circumstances.

Think before signingI work as a safety officer with a private company in UAE on a three-year lim-ited contract. I have completed three years in service but my company has not renewed my visa. The company did not give me a one-month notice period before terminating my service. The management has, however, made me sign a clearance paper and promised to pay my salary, the end-of-service ben-efits, air ticket and one-month salary against notice period. A friend of mine said they are lying, and will give me nothing as I have signed the clearance paper in which I acknowledged that I have received all my entitlements. What should I do?

As long as you have completed your three-year limited contract, you are entitled to the end-of-service ben-efits. According to Article (132) of the Federal Labour Law, an employee, who completes one year or more in uninter-rupted service, is entitled to the end-of-service benefits as long as he has not committed any crime or serious mistake that led to the termination of his service. Regarding your signature, I would say you should not have done it. Your signature means that you have willingly acknowledged that you did receive your entitlements. To claim oth-erwise, you have to prove that you did not. It has become your responsibility to show the evidence.

Notice period must for resigningI have been working as an auditor for a private company since April 2009 under an unlimited contract. Now I’ve got a better job and I’ve given the resignation but the company says that I have to give a minimum of three months’ no-tice as per the offer letter I had signed while joining the firm. There is nothing mentioned about the notice period in the original labour contract which is registered at the Labour Department. Is the 30-day notice period is required in my case ?

Both an employer and employee are entitled, as per Article 117 of the labour law, to terminate the unlimited contract of employment any time, yet with legal and acceptable reasons. However, both parties (employer and employee) are bound to notify each other in writing (notice) at least 30 days before end-ing their labour relationship, either by termination or resignation. Such a notice period is an indispensable term whether it is stipulated in the contract of employment or not. In other words, no matter this condition is mentioned in the contract or not, it is applicable and guaranteed by law to protect the rights of both parties.

Union HR Minister Prakash Javadekar at the “Kala Utsav -2018” (Festival of Arts) at Bal Bhavan in New Delhi.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s headline Purchasing Man-agers’ Index (PM) rose for the second month running to 55.2 from 53.8 , driven by strong output growth in the non-oil private sector. The latest reading was the highest since December last year, although it still signalled a rate of improve-ment in business conditions below the average over the survey’s nine-year history.

Output growth recov-ered in Nov after having slipped to a six-month low in October and was second

Saudi economy fares wellquickest observed in 2018 so far. The main impetus continued to come from the domestic market, with new export orders rising only marginally and at a much slower rate than total new business. “Both output and new orders increased at a faster rate in Nov and while new export order growth was firmer in Nov than it has been in recent months, it remained sluggish,” said Khatija Haque, head of MENA research at Emirates NBD. “The recovery in new orders thus likely reflects

stronger domestic demand.“However, some of the

rebound in new order growth appears to be on the back of price discounting as well as increased market-ing.” Firms surveyed indi-cated that competition for new work was strong and as a result, selling prices were marginally lower on average last month. They also indicated an increasing focused on cost-savings. As a result, expansion in both employment and purchas-ing activity slowed in Nov despite stronger new order

growth.Input costs were broadly

unchanged in November after declining slightly in October. There was little evidence of wage inflation, with the staff costs index at 50.2 in Nov. “Firms re-mained strongly optimistic about their output in the coming year, citing planned new products, increased marketing and more com-petitive prices; however, the future output index slipped two points in Nov from the Oct peak,” said Haque.

DUBAI: More employment opportunities will open up for job-seekers in UAE in the coming new year as corporate heads are feel-ing increasingly confident about their company’s growth prospects. In 2018, the most in demand pro-fessionals will include IT security analysts, systems administrators, personal assistants as well as those with qualifications and experience in accounting and finance professionals, according to recruitment specialist Robert Half.

Other hiring experts said skills that are in de-mand right now and likely to remain so next year are data scientists and analysts, project managers, digital and cyber security experts. There are also opportuni-ties for job-seekers looking to land administration and support roles. Robert Half has recently polled chief financial officers (CFOs) in the UAE and the major-ity (89pc) said they feel positive about where there business is heading. The rise in business confidence

Skills in demand in UAE as business outlook risesis thanks to the UAE’s eco-nomic diversification agen-da and the growing adop-tion of digital technologies in the region. Organisations are investing in new tech-nologies, including artificial intelligence and robotics and this in turn drives the need for employees with specialist or digital skills. The introduction of VAT will also continue to require firms to hire accounting and finance professionals.

Numerous economic indicators show that busi-ness confidence and growth are on the rise in the UAE region, which is creat-ing more opportunities for talented professionals to develop their careers,” said Gareth El Mettouri, associ-ate director of Robert Half UAE. In its latest report, Robert Half identified the top three most in-demand roles in various sectors for 2019, as well as the predicated salaries for each position, and these are as follows:

TECHNOLOGY: IT se-curity analyst: $55,600 - $114,400, Applications

developer: $52,300 - $125,100, Systems admin-istrator: $46,600 - $78,500.

ACCOUNTING: Finance director (large company): $196,200 - $402,800, finan-cial planning and analysis manager (large company): $98,000 - $147,300 and fi-nancial analyst (large com-pany): $65,400 - $98,000.

FINANCIAL SERVIC-ES: Compliance manager: $114,400 - $179,800 and investment banking/M&A associate : $114,600 - $192,100.

FX SALES MANAGER: Sales manager: $98,00 - $124,300

Many companies con-tinue to hire new staff and replacements with annual attrition levels in the UAE pegged at six per cent to eight per cent. “As per research, the market in UAE has attrition levels of six per cent to eight per cent annually. Hence sev-eral companies recruit and hire for replacements too. This continuously creates opportunity for new job-seekers and also for high potential talent,” said Har-

ish Bhatia, regional director for MidEast and Africa at Korn Ferry.

He said newly opened businesses in sectors like food and beverage, services and hospitality are actively recruiting for new staff as well.

“Also, specific skill sets are in higher demand due to changing nature of busi-nesses, these skill sets are: data scientists and analysts, project managers, digital and cyber security experts -- these roles are in demand across a variety of indus-tries and hence hiring for them is in high demand.”

“In terms of adminis-tration and support jobs, organisations are focused on driving efficiencies and hence not fully replacing headcount in functions such as administration, clerical support and ac-counting. More organisa-tions are focused on review-ing their structures and size to build further efficiencies and save costs in support functions. We will see rela-tively subdued hiring for these roles.”

KUWAIT CITY: The Na-tional Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has approved a draft law stipu-lating a mandatory health insurance scheme for expa-triates living and working in the country.

The committee also ap-proved a proposal to impose charges on medical services for expatriates opting to seek treatment at public hospi-tals. At present, expatriates are required to pay KD50 annually on renewal of their residence permits and also pay partial fees for most health services at public hospitals. The opinion of the government, which is crucial for the passage of the bill, was not explained.

Compulsory health insurance for expatsThe new bill comes even

as the government and the assembly had approved a law to establish hospitals for the treatment of expa-triates only. The assembly is expected to debate a draft law calling to impose obligatory health insurance on foreigners who visit the country. The bill stipulates that before issuing a visit visa to a foreigner, the spon-sor must attach a health insurance policy to the application. The committee also approved a draft law granting Kuwaiti employ-ees and pensioners a KD50 monthly allowance for fuel. The move comes a couple of years after the govern-ment raised the prices of

fuel for both expatriates and Kuwaitis.

The assembly is also expected to debate the con-troversial early retirement law amid strong rejection by several lawmakers. The bill was approved by the assembly’s financial and economic affairs committee after consultations with the government and accepting some of the government’s terms. MPs opposed to the new format say that the bill has been totally manipu-lated to be in line with gov-ernment demands. The law, which allows Kuwaiti male and female civil servants to retire early, was passed by the assembly in the last term but was rejected by the govt.

SINGAPORE: A court here has sentenced an Indian origin man to seven years in jail for stabbing his pregnant wife using a knife with a 10-cm long blade. Besides the jail term, Chan-drasegar was also punished with six strokes of the cane.

The incident took place on Dec 30 last year dur-ing which Jayselan Chan-drasegar (30), stabbed his 26-year-old wife Mayuri Krishnakumar twice in her abdomen and twice on her lower back, causing her to suffer puncture wounds. She was taken to hospital and was discharged after a few days. The unborn baby was unhurt in the attack.

Indian-origin jailedfor stabbing wife

CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, December 14, 2018

Axis Bank, the coun-try’s third largest private bank, has

launched ‘QuikPay Home Loan’, a first-of-its-kind home loan offering that will let home buyers save big on the interest amount component of the loan. Essentially, as against the industry norm, QuikPay Home Loan will offer an al-ternative repayment struc-ture, wherein the customer repays an equal amount of principal every month along with interest on the outstanding balance. Thus an equated prin-cipal amount combined with reducing interest amount component will lead to reducing monthly instalments. As a result, there will be an overall reduction in total interest amount component paid over the entire tenure of the home loan, thereby

Axis Bank launches QuikPay Home Loan benefitting the customer.

Instead of EMIs (equat-ed monthly instalments), the customer will pay reducing monthly instal-

ments. While the initial instalments will be higher (than the EMI on the same loan amount for the same tenure), the instalment amount keeps reducing throughout the loan ten-ure.

Speaking at the launch, Rajiv Anand, Executive

Director (Retail Banking), Axis Bank, said, “For the benefit of our customers, we have launched QuikPay Home Loan, which is an

innovative product that will reduce the overall interest burden on the borrower. We are confident that this unique concept of ‘reducing monthly in-stalments’, along with big savings on interest, will be an attractive proposition for home buyers.”

Bandhan Bank has received the RBI’s permission to open

as many as 40 branches by the end of December. The central bank’s approval comes nearly three months after it had imposed restric-tions on the bank’s branch expansion plans.

“We had approached the RBI for opening 40 branches, and they have approved it. We opened five branches in West Ben-gal, and plan to open the remaining by the end of this month, taking the to-tal branch count to 978,” CS Ghosh, MD and CEO, Bandhan Bank, said.

RBI had, in September this year, pulled up the bank for its failure to bring down promoter holding to 40pc as mandated in the licensing norms for universal bank. It had also withdrawn permission to

Bandhan Bank gets RBI nod to open branches open new branches and had put a freeze on the remuneration of CS Ghosh.

Bandhan Financial Holdings (BFHL) – the promoting entity of Band-

han Bank – is owned by Bandhan Financial Ser-vices (BFSL). The promoter holding in the bank cur-rently stands at 82.28pc.

As per the RBI’s li-censing norms, promoter

holding should be brought down to 40pc within three years of starting operations. So Bandhan Bank, which had commenced operations in August 2015, should

have ideally brought down the promoter holding by August 2018.

However, the bank, which floated an IPO in March 2018, could not have pared promoter stake

due to the SEBI mandate of a one-year lock-in on shares held by the promot-er post an issue. In Octo-ber, however, the bank re-ceived an exemption from

SEBI to help it comply with the requirements of RBI’s Licensing Guidelines.

T h e b a n k had, in an an-alyst call after the RBI mea-sure, said that it was exploring the possibility of an open of-fer for sale as one of the op-tions to bring

down BFHL’s holding to the mandated 40pc. It had also indicated that it would explore inorganic opportu-nities by way of acquiring a non-bank lender to pare stake.

Investors pumped in over Rs 1.4 lakh crore into various mutual fund

schemes in November, with liquid schemes accounting for most of the inflows. With the latest inflow, the total infusion in mutual fund (MF) schemes reached about Rs 2.23 crore in the first eight months (April-November) of the current fiscal, latest data with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) showed.

“We appreciate the ma-turity shown by retail inves-tors in staying invested in the markets, in spite of the volatility over the last few months,” Amfi chief execu-tive N S Venkatesh said.

“Overall, both inflows

MF log Rs 1.4L-cr inflows in Nov

and AUM have shown an upward trend. The industry added over 1.5 lakh unique investors last month,” he added.

According to the data,

investors poured in a net Rs 1,42,359 crore in MF schemes last month, com-pared to an investment of Rs 35,529 crore in October.

However, they had pulled out Rs 2.3 lakh crore in September, which market participants attributed to nervousness among corpo-rate investors following the IL&FS default.

IT services firm Larsen & Toubro Infotech has appointed former Cog-

nizant senior executive Na-chiket Deshpande as its Chief Operating Officer (COO).

In his last role as the Senior Vice President & Glob-al Delivery Head for the Banking and Financia l Services unit at Cognizant Tech-nology Solutions, he was respon-sible for global delivery and P&L across all services lines, products, and platforms, as well as driving large-scale skills transformation.

In a career spanning more than two decades, he has held management po-

L&T Infotech ropes in fmr Cognizant executive as COO

sitions in the US, Europe, and Asia across delivery, practice building and client facing roles.

Sanjay Jalona, Chief Ex-ecutive Officer & Managing

Director, LTI, said, “Na-chiket joins us at an exciting phase of LTI’s transforma-tion as customers entrust us with solving their unique challenges. He brings exten-sive experience and diverse

capabilities to continue our growth. On behalf of the en-tire organization, I welcome him to LTI and wish him unprecedented success with scaling operations, globally.”

Speaking about his appointment, Nachiket Deshpande, said, “LTI is at the forefront of build-ing the next generation IT Services company, and I am excited to be part of this outstand-ing team. We will be bolstering the indus-try expertise and deep technology capabilities that have made LTI the

growth leader in the sector.”Nachiket brings more

than 23 years of rich experi-ence and holds a degree in electronics engineering from the College of Engineering, Pune, India.

Suzlon Group has bagged a 50.4 MW order from Bengaluru-

based Atria Power.According to a

regulatory filing, the wind turbine maker will install 24 units of ...wind turbine gen-erators (WTGs) with a hybrid lattice tubular (HLT) tower with a rated capacity of 2.1 MW each. The project is located at Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu.

The company said the project will be commissioned in two phases by the first half of financial year 2019-20. Suzlon will execute the project on a turn-key basis and will also provide comprehensive operation and maintenance services.

Suzlon bags 50.4 MW order from Atria Power

Atria Power has projects in hydro, wind, solar and hybrid segments. The com-

pany has an investment plan of Rs 3,000 crore and aims to scale its projects over the next five years.

It will no longer be man-datory for owner-driv-ers of vehicles to buy

a personal accident cover bundled with the motor cover as stipulated earlier by the insurance regulator. Irdai has relaxed the norms and from January 1, 2019, a standalone personal ac-cident cover will do.

As per Irdai regulations, currently an individual vehicle owner has to buy a compulsory personal ac-cident (CPA) cover of Rs 15 lakh at an additional premium of Rs 750 with his vehicle insurance. This has to be mandatorily taken with every vehicle insurance policy. This was mandated under General Regulation 36 of India Motor Tariff, 2002,

Irdai delinks personal accident cover from 3rd party motor insuranceand on September 20 this year, Irdai had enhanced CPA cover to Rs 15 lakh.

“In case where a cus-tomer has multiple vehicles, he may end-up buying CPA cover for more than one vehicle, which is unneces-sary,” said Animesh Das, head of product strategy, ACKO General Insurance.

Irdai said it has received feedback from various quar-ters wherein it has been pointed out that many owner-drivers already have existing general personal ac-cident covers, which ought to be taken cognisance of. Also, the fact that owner-drivers may own more than one vehicle needs to be taken into consideration in a more rational manner

so that they don’t have to take different policies for

the different vehicles that they own.

Hence Irdai has decided

to unbundle the compulsory personal accident cover and

permit the issuance of a stand-alone CPA cover for owner-drivers. However, if a

policyholder chooses to opt for the CPA cover as part

of the liability only policy or the package policy as it exists today, he/she can

continue to do so.“Irdai has come up with

a solution and introduced standalone personal acci-dent cover where a single PA cover can be taken for multiple vehicles. With the introduction of this option, customers will be able to save additional Rs 750/ve-hicle,” said Das.

Coverage under the standalone CPA will extend to all the vehicles owned by the owner-drivers under the same policy. The duration of the standalone CPA cover would be one year.

“Irdai’s recent circular on the CPA cover has pro-vided clarification in line with the Indian Motor Tariff provisions. From January 1, 2019, an option will be

available to the customer to opt for a CPA cover as part of the package policy or li-ability only policy or to go for standalone CPA policy. The insurers have been asked to file the standalone CPA as a product under the file and use guidelines along with its pricing. Ad-ditionally, if an individual has a personal accident policy covering death and permanent disability, total as well as partial, with sum insured of at least Rs 15 lakh, they need not take separate CPA cover, neither with motor policy nor as standalone,” said Onkar Kothari, compliance officer and company secre-tary, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.

ICICI Bank, has launched a savings account that is focussed especially on

working women.“This account is for

working women, including self-employed women, who are educators, profession-als or into home business, among others,” ICICI Bank said, adding that it provides discounts and benefits across six segments – bank-ing, lifestyle, convenience, investment and tax plan-ning, child education and protection.

“This is specially de-signed keeping in mind

ICICI Bank unveils SB a/c focussing on working women

the requirements of to-day’s working women,” said Pranav Mishra, Head – Retail Liabilities Group, ICICI Bank.

Termed Advantage Woman Aura Savings Ac-count, it offers benefits that include a cashback of Rs 750 per month on usage of debit cards across key segments, 50pc discount on locker rentals and process-ing fees on home, auto and personal loans.

It also offers unlimited free transactions on ICICI Bank as well as non-ICICI Bank ATMs in India, there-

by providing exceptional flexibility.

Additionally, the bank is also offering insurance benefits with the account, including air and personal accident insurance of up to Rs 40 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, respectively, and the option of taking a cancer protect insurance plan at the time of account opening.

The account comes in five variants – regular, silver, gold, magnum and titanium as well as ‘mag-num’ as a variant for the first time in its suite of savings account offerings.

Packaging and process-ing solutions provider Tetra Pak India will

provide smart packaging solutions to its clients by introducing dynamic QR codes.

According to Ashutosh Manohar, MD, South Asia Markets, Tetra Pak India, smart packaging technology will embed every pack with a unique identity, and allow interaction between manu-facturers, brand owners and consumers throughout the life cycle of the pack.

“The dynamic QR code will allow consumers to interact with the pack, and give them information such as the ingredients, recycling

Tetra Pak to provide smart packaging solutionsinitiatives and other things. The end consumer only needs to have an app on his smart phone to scan the code and engage with the brand. We are planning to conduct a pilot of this technology with two of our customers soon, one of which will be in Kolkata,” Manohar said.Growing demand

The company has-tie ups with more than 160 customers for its packaging and processing solutions. It packs nearly 650 million litres of juices, nectars and chilled drinks and around 600 million litres of white milk annually for its cus-tomers from the food and

beverages industry.According to Manohar,

India is among the top five markets for Tetra Pak glob-ally, the others being China, Brazil, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand. Tetra Pak India will close the year with roughly 10 billion packs, a growth of over 10 per cent over last year. This is likely to grow to 11 billion packs in 2019.

“The general awareness about food safety and the need for convenience are increasing rapidly with more women working now and increasing urbanisa-tion. This apart, an ex-panding middle and upper middle class, higher dispos-

able income, e-commerce and modern trade are con-tributing to an increas-ing demand for packaged products in India,” said Manohar.

Tetra Pak has been fac-ing the pressure of rising input costs due to the de-preciating rupee.

However, the company is trying to offset this by improving productivity and driving internal efficiency. “We constantly strive to improve printing speed and technology to try and reduce the impact (of rising costs). We have the lowest losses of our packaging ma-terial in this whole region,” he said.

8 Travel / Entertainment

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Air India building in Mumbai up for saleAir India has floated

tender for the sale of its iconic 23-storey

tower at Nariman Point in Mumbai. Only government entities are allowed to par-ticipate in the bidding for acquiring leasehold rights of the land and building on “as is where is basis.”

“Air India invites sealed bids from government enti-ties for sale of leasehold rights of the land and its iconic Air India building constructed hereon at Nari-man Point, Mumbai, on as is where is basis,” the tender said. As per the tender is-sued in leading newspapers, the interested parties can submit their bids by end of this month. The govern-ment had mooted the sale of the Nariman Point building after its bid to divest major-ity 74pc stake in the carrier flopped with no one coming forward to file the expression of interest.

The national carrier

earned Rs 291 crore as lease rental from the building

between 2012-13 and Jan 2018. In all, it received Rs 543.03 crore by monetising all its fixed assets during the period. Saddled with an unsustainable debt of Rs 50,000 crore, the state-run airline has been surviving on tax-payer money since 2012 when the UPA govern-

ment approved an Rs 30,231 crore bailout over 10 years.

Earlier, the govern-ment had hinted at that state-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) could be a potential buyer for the tower. Later, it appointed consultancy firm Cushman & Wake-field to ascertain the value of the tower. Air India employees, how-ever, have opposed the move and has sought a rethink on the decision.

The Air Corpo-ration Employees Union (ACEU) had earlier urged the company manage-ment, headed by IAS officer Pradeep Singh Kharola, to reconsider the plan. It had suggested raising secured loans against the building to retire high-cost working capital borrowings.

Ginger Hotel plans expansionHospitality player Gin-

ger is expanding in Goa. A new Ginger

is in the pipeline in Margao. Meanwhile, the Panaji Ginger hotel opened on Monday after major renovation work. Post-renovation it is the first prototype hotel with a com-plete new brand identity after an intensive repositioning exercise. The current portfo-lio of the other 45 plus hotels of Ginger brand is on its way to repositioning reflecting the new brand identity and brand promise. The hotel introduced the lean luxe segment, the first of its kind in India.

The new openings in the next two quarters will be in Patna, Sanand, Surat, and Visakhapatnam as well as Margao, Goa.

Puneet Chhatwal, manag-ing director, Indian Hotels Company, said: “The Ginger brand defines a brandscape that addresses diverse cus-tomer segments and price points. It will be an impor-tant growth vehicle for the company and we are look-ing at quickly scaling up the brand to a large number of hotels across India.”

The new identity of the hotel presents a co-existence of contrasts through re-imag-

ined spaces blurring the lines of work and play, bringing about a fusion of global and local and create experiences that are vibrant, quirky, intui-tive and smart, he said.

Deepika Rao, managing director, Ginger said: “The brand is slated to appeal to an on-the-go lifestyle and is anchored in the idea of seam-lessness, facilitating a “never stop” lifestyle. Ginger will now be an aspirational hotel chain that is also surprisingly affordable.”

The redesigned spaces is expected to bring together attractive public areas as well as spots designed for soli-

tude, allowing the smooth transition from one to the other.

The all-day diner offers comfort food and doubles up as a personal workstation. The service style is designed around the on-the-go life-style of the target audience enabling them to do more whether it is on-the-go break-fast, express laundry service or quick munch snack bars. The company has received overwhelming interest from the hotel development com-munity and has signed six new hotels already in this financial year taking the portfolio to 56 hotels.

Phase-2 of tourist VATrefund scheme from Dec 16The Federal Tax Author-

ity (FTA)of UAE has made all preparations

to launch phase-2 of the Tax Refunds for Tourists Scheme from Sunday, Dec 16. The scheme would cover 12 air, land and sea ports across the UAE. The first phase went into effect on Nov 18, 2018, covering the Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah interna-tional airports.

The second phase will cover Al Ain International Airport, Al Maktoum Inter-national Airport and Ras Al Khaimah International Airport as well as two sea ports: Zayed Port in Abu Dhabi and Port Rashid in Dubai; and four land ports:

Al Ghuwaifat Border Post in Abu Dhabi, Hili Border Port and Al Madheef Bor-der Crossing in Al Ain, and Dubai’s Hatta Border Exit. “The FTA co-ordinated with the system operator Planet, running all necessary experi-ments to ensure the scheme is implemented smoothly and accurately,” said Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director-general of FTA.

Al Bustani projects daily refunds of value-added tax (VAT) to grow quickly in the coming period. The number of refund requests processed surpassed 3,800 daily trans-actions.

The FTA asserted that to be refundable, tax in-

voices must be issued by retail stores included in the scheme and registered in the system; these venues can be identified by visibly show-casing “tax-free” stickers on their storefronts. The FTA had outlined conditions for a tourist to be eligible for a tax refund, namely: The tour-ist in question is at least 18 years old; goods eligible for the scheme are supplied to an overseas tourist who was on UAE soil when the purchase was made and who intends to exit the UAE along with the purchased items within 90 days, goods must be ex-ported out of the UAE by the tourist within three months of the date of supply.

Burj Khalifa, one of most visited attractions

Dubai’s Burj Khalifa is one of the world’s most visited attrac-

tions, according to Uber. The company has compiled a list, based on the number of journeys taken by Uber pas-sengers in 2018, to ascertain where its customers were travelling to this year.

According to the collated data, the Empire State Build-ing is the world’s most visited attraction, followed by the Freedom Tower and the CN tower.

EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

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

As on 13th December, 2018 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 50.05 52.90Bahraini Dinar 185.25 195.45British Pound 88.30 92.90Canadian Dollar 52.60 54.85 Emirati Dirham 18.60 20.20Euro 79.15 83.35Kuwaiti Dinar 229.60 239.80Omani Rial 181.60 191.60Qatari Riyal 18.10 20.30Saudi Riyal 18.05 19.80Singapore Dollar 51.10 54.10Swiss Franc 70.10 74.20US Dollar 69.70 73.55

Source:

Visa-on-arrival for Indian tourists in Myanmar

In a bid to boost people-to-people relations with India, Myanmar will

provide visa-on-arrival for Indian tourists, President Ram Nath Kovind said as he began his five-day visit to the country. President Kovind’s visit to Myanmar will contin-ue India’s high-level engage-ments with Myanmar under the rubric of “Act East Policy” and “Neighbourhood First Policy”. “Coinciding with President Kovind’s visit, and to further people-to-people relations, Myanmar has also announced a visa-on-arrival facility for Indian tourists entering the country through the international airports of Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay,” the president’s office tweeted.

At the farewell function, Mr Luther with IPEPCIL members. Mr Gulamali Gheewala felicitating Mr Luther. Mr Kalimulla Sharif , Dr Sureshkumar, Mr Luther, Mr Abdul Rehman and Mr Mohammed Moulana at the function.

Mr Luther with FIMCA members. Mr JK Sao, Protector of Emigrants, Mumbai felicitating Mr Luther. Members with Mr Luther.

Mr Gulamali Gheewala garlanding the new Protector General of Emigrants (PGE) Mr Amrit Lugun. Others with them are Dr Sureshkumar Madhusudhanan, Mr Abdul Rehman CH and Mr Qureshi Athar Salim.