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World business not botheredabout Kashmir developmentsNEW YORK: India drew a line in the sand on a 70-year-old dispute by re-voking a special status given to J&K in a dramatic militaristic-style move that raised eyebrows, but it is still unlikely to have a ma-jor impact on the country’s expected economic surge and its increased engage-ment with the world.

With several nations in the world and some leaders from Indian opposition po-litical parties reacting to the decision with a shrug of the shoulders or even a show of support, India seems to have recorded a diplomatic victory of sorts with its tim-ing of this move.

“There is not a lot of out-rage domestically with even leaders from opposition Congress Party supporting the move internationally there has either been si-lence or an acknowledg-

ment of it being an internal matter,” said Aparna Pande, Director, Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, at the Washington DC-based Hudson Institute

“India has managed to win this round partly due to its economic poten-tial and because Pakistan’s ability to argue its case for Kashmir on moral and ethi-cal grounds has diminished over the years with its se-curity establishment sup-porting terrorist groups for decades.” India revoked Ar-ticle 370 - with the support of a Parliament in which Prime Minister a Modi’s BJP has an absolute major-ity --- that took away the au-tonomy given to J &K when the former princely states joined India in 1947.

India and Pakistan then fought three wars and had many military skirmishes over the full ownership of

J&K which now is rough-ly 55pc owned by India, 30pc by Pakistan and 15pc by China. Article 370 al-lowed people in the Hima-layan valley region to have their own constitution, a flag separate to India and an ability to bar real estate purchases by people from outside those states among others. This week’s Indian government decision to re-scind all those privileges has been part of Modi’s election manifesto since his first stint at the top post in 2014 and it fulfilled a de-mand that is being made by his BJP party’s key allies since the 1950s.

Broadly there is agree-ment about ending the in-dependence of the states, which have been suffering socially and economically as they bore the brunt of the numerous proxy wars be-tween India and Pakistan.

Experts also agree to the government’s move to turn J&K and neighbouring La-dakh into union territories that are federally admin-istered. But the manner in which Modi’s government took charge of the region has raised questions be-cause of its abruptness and its potential to have social ramifications that could es-calate into more terrorism activities within the coun-try and the region.Troop movement

Days before the deci-sion, India had moved some 10,000 troops to the region, cut off the telecom access, shut schools, asked tourists to stay out and put senior opposition leaders on house arrest. Since then the whole region is in a military lock-down in a curfew that car-ries with it a wide range of restrictions for the region’s residents. (Contd. on page 2)

HONG KONG: Empty hotel rooms, struggling shops and even disruption at Disney-land --- months of protests in Hong Kong have taken a major toll on the city’s econ-omy, with no end in sight.City leader Carrie Lam has warned that the internation-al financial hub is facing an economic crisis worse than either the 2003 SARS out-break that paralysed Hong Kong or the 2008 financial crisis. “The situation this time is more severe,” she said. “In other words, the economic recovery will take a very long time.”

The private sector, in par-ticular the tourism industry, has begun counting the cost of more than two months of demonstrations that erupted in opposition to a bill allow-ing extraditions to China but have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement. The figures are stark: hotel occupancy rates are down “double-digit” percentages,

Hong Kong stir hits tourism, economyas were visitor arrivals in July. Group tour bookings from the short-haul market have plunged up to 50pc. “In recent months, what has happened in Hong Kong has indeed put local people’s livelihoods as well as the economy in a worrying or even dangerous situation,” warned Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s secretary for com-merce and economic devel-opment.

The city’s tourism indus-try says it feels under siege. “I think the situation is get-ting more and more serious,” Jason Wong, chairman of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, said. The impact is so bad that travel agents are considering putting staff on unpaid leave as they try to weather the storm, he warned.Disneyland hit

Images of increasingly violent clashes between masked protesters and po-lice firing tear gas in the city’s streets have made

global headlines, with pro-testers announcing new demonstrations throughout August as they press their demands.

A Hong Kong Tourism Board spokesperson re-marked that the number of forward bookings in August and Sept has “dropped sig-nificantly,” suggesting the economic toll will linger throughout the summer season. A string of travel warnings issued by coun-tries including the US, Aus-tralia and Japan is likely to compound the industry’s woes.The fall in arrivals has hurt Hong Kong’s carrier Ca-thay Pacific, which was also forced to cancel flights this week during a general strike that caused chaos in the city.

And even Disneyland Hong Kong has been hit, with CEO Bob Iger telling report-ers: “We have seen an impact from the protests.” “There’s definitely been disruption. That has impacted our visita-

tion there.” The retail sector has also been hit by the drop in arriving visitors hunting for bargains, shops often forced to shutter during the sometimes daily protests.

Experts say the crisis is compounding the economic downturn Hong Kong was already experiencing as a result of being caught up in the US-China trade war.

It’s a “double wham-my,” warned Stephen Innes, Managing Partner of Valour Markets.”

“We always take a view that oh, this too will pass. But so far that view is not holding any water... and now it seems like every weekend we’re dealing with further escalations,” he told TV channel.

The property market, which fell over 20pc during the 2008 financial crash, remains strong. But Innes warned that the deepening crisis could result in capital outflows.

India offers fi ve -year visas for EmiratisABU DHABI: India has start-ed issuing five-year multiple entry business and tour-ist visas for UAE citizens, Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri announced here.

Speaking at the 73rd In-dependence Day celebrations held at the Indian embassy in Abu Dhabi, Suri said the embassy had also started implementing a new bio-metric system for facilitating the five-year multiple entry visa applications. “The new biometric system for visa ap-plicants and the introduction of five years’ multiple entry tourist and business visas for the UAE citizens are aimed at further strengthening trade and investment and people-to-people links between the two countries,” he said dur-ing his speech after hoisting the Indian national flag at the

mission.The ambassador further

said that the infrastructure to issue five-year multiple-entry business and tourist visas for Emiratis had been recently installed at all cen-tres of the service provider in the UAE [BLS International]. Though the embassy had announced plans to imple-ment the five-year multiple-entry business visa scheme for Emiratis in 2017, he explained that the scheme could not be comprehensive-ly implemented due to the lack of infrastructure facili-ties for recording biometric details of the applicants.

“Now it is easier as it is all done over the biometric system. Any Emirati who is willing to provide bio-metrics for the first time for these two visas can apply. This will further boost the

trade, investment and tour-ism links between the two countries.”Bilateral trade between the UAE and India recently crossed $60 billion. The two nations have set $100 billion trade target by 2020.

Earlier, Suri thanked the UAE government for its continued support and their good wishes on India’s Inde-pendence Day. He also sent out his wishes to Indian expats on Rakshabandhan Day and stressed upon the mission’s unwavering efforts in ensuring the welfare of the Indian community in the UAE. In this regard, he informed the community members about the “ Open House” policy of the mis-sion in which any Indian na-tional can meet any official of the embassy without ap-pointment between 9am to 12:30pm every working day.

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said his government will bring a law to reserve 70pc jobs in industrial units for people from the state.

Addressing a gathering at the state’s main Indepen-dence Day function here, he stressed on the need to generate employment for the youth by attracting investments. The state has got investments worth Rs 6,158 crore in last seven months, he said, adding that the government plans to set up industrial areas in every district. He also said that for the first time, the state government was working on setting up 1,000 sheds to provide shelter to stray cows.

“We are going to enact a law to reserve 70pc jobs for people of MP in the state’s industrial units,” Nath said.

Noting that the state was facing a “big challenge” of generating jobs for young

MP to reserve 70pc jobs for localspeople, Nath said his gov-ernment was committed towards skill development of the youth and provid-ing them with respectable employment. “The MP gov-ernment is of the view that without industrial invest-ment, employment avenues can’t be generated,” he said, adding that some renowned industrialists were being invited to the central state.

“We very well know that investment needs to be at-tracted. Investments will only come when indus-trialists have faith in the government and get full support,” he said. The state government was making efforts to build a conducive

atmosphere for attracting in-vestments so that maximum youths get employment, the chief minister said.Magnifi cent MP

To attract investment, a three-day programme, called “ Magnificent Madhya Pradesh” , will be organised from Oct 18 in Indore, he informed. “Successful busi-nessmen from MP would be made brand ambassadors (of the state),” he said, adding that an Industrial Advisory Council will also be formed. Decisions taken to attract investments have started paying, Nath said, adding the “state has got permanent investments worth Rs 6,158 crore in last seven months”.

“In the same period, we got proposals for setting up seven mega industrial units with an investment of Rs 15,208 crore. We have plans to set up an industrial area in each district of MP,” he said.

Nath said there was also a need to uplift the unskilled sector to shed the tag of “Bi-maru” (laggard) state. Nath said the upkeep of stray cows and its prodigy has become a challenge since the last couple of years in the state.

“Our government has tak-en up this issue as a challenge. For the first time in MP, the state government has taken up the work of building of 1,000 cow sheds,” he added.

Oil demand growth at decade lowLONDON: Mounting signs of an economic slowdown and a ratcheting up of the US-China trade war have caused global oil demand to grow at its slowest pace since the financial crisis of 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

The IEA said global oil demand in the first-half of 2019 grew at its slowest pace since 2008 hurt by mounting signs of an economic slowdown and a ramping up of the US-China trade war. Rystad Energy said the oil market was going “from gloomy to gloom-ier,” calling into question the consultancy’s own bullish view for the first part of 2020.

“Economic recession risk and further escalation of the US-China trade war are key concerns in the near term. How long OPEC+ is willing to continue to manage production adds uncertainty,” said Bjørnar Tonhaugen, head of oil market analysis at Rystad Energy. The OPEC , Russia and other producers, an alliance known as OPEC+, agreed in July to extend their supply cuts until March 2020 to boost oil prices. Russia’s energy ministry said IEA’s estimates were largely in line with its own forecasts and that Moscow had taken into account the possibility of a slowdown in oil demand when it (Contd. on page 2)

India’s Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri unveils a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the embassy’s premises in Abu Dhabi on Independence Day.

2 EMIGRATION Friday, August 16, 2019

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

Publisher: Supreet M.J.Editor : E.L. VaidyanathanVolume No.: 1, Issue: 89

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LIPSYNCH “There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear.”

— Jawaharlal Nehru.

Tryst with destinyOn more Independence Day has come and gone. India

celebrated its 73rd independence day which came at a time our government, led by Narendra Modi,

making a momentous decision on the constitutional status of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir. Ever since In-dia and Pakistan became independent, Kashmir has been a running sore with both countries, leading to wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971. A former US president called it “the most dangerous place on earth”, though because of its scenic beauty it has also been described as a “heaven on earth”.

The Kashmir issue always remained a never-ending one. Modi decided to do something drastic: On Aug 5, by a Presidential order, he abolished the semi-autonomous status of the state and integrated it more closely to the rest of the country. At the same time, the state was split into two Union territories --- Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. In Jammu, the majority of the people are Hindus, in the Valley of Kashmir Muslims and in Ladakh Buddhists. He said that not only would this bring in greater economic development but end the bane of terrorism for ever.

About our independence, The Guardian newspaper in 1947 in an article titled “The British Raj is Dead,” wrote: “Today’s celebration is a time for gladness in India — marred though it must be by the shadow of famine over so much of the country and by the rioting in Calcutta and the Punjab — and for dedication to service in the future. The atmosphere, if still electric, is rather that which follows than that which precedes a storm.” On the eve of Indian independence, Nehru, had made an eloquent speech: “At the stroke of the midnight hour India will awake to life and freedom,” he said. He also spoke about his nation “stepping out from the old to the new” and of India’s “tryst with destiny”. In the past 70-odd years since independence, India has done exactly that -- making dreams a reality through ceaseless efforts in almost all areas although many goals still remain to be achieved. As the country celebrates its 73rd Independence Day, new hopes are beginning to crystalise and new dreams being dreamt about even more accomplishments of India in future.

Modi’s Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Thursday was not only a summing up of what his newly re-elected government had accomplished in the last 75 days, but also unveiled a powerful social charter going forward, including raising concerns over population explosion, water conservation along with the key announce-ment of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

The second announcement pertained to the creation of Jal Jeevan Mission for water conservation and revival of water bodies with an allocation of Rs 3.5-lakh-crore. Modi explained the removal of special status of J &K, passage of the Triple Talaq Bill in great detail, stating that his govern-ment believed neither in “creating problems nor prolonging them” rather moving decisively ahead to find solutions.

Editorial

R ow over N R I quota in medical collegesNEW DELHI: What is a scandal in the US seems to be business as usual in India with terms like “management quota” and “NRI seats” being added to medical students’ lexicon in recent years.

The centralised National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical colleges was also extended recently to cover Indians abroad, whether NRIs, PIOs or Overseas Citizens of In-dia (OCIs).

While some top universi-ties in the US were under a cloud recently after evidence surfaced that parents had used money or influence to gain admission for their children in these schools, the same practice and much worse happening in Indian medical institutions has now become the source of much angst and frustration.

Seats reserved for NRIs and, more broadly, Indi-ans living overseas are be-ing misused in the name of generating income for government-owned and private medical colleges. The general perception is that the larger NRI fees will generate more revenue for the colleges which are criti-

cally short of operational funds and running at a loss. However, in reality, the practice has led to a host of problems. Many of these seats are left vacant and not offered to students on the waiting list who narrowly missed out on the general admission cutoff.Money pow er

Some moneyed parents, however, still found seats for their children who per-formed poorly academically by paying a large fee pre-mium to the college under a “management quota”. And some parents were playing it clever with allegations sur-facing of bribing college offi-cials to include NRI children in the general admission category so that they paid much lower fees than that required of overseas Indians.

An Indian applicant is expected to pay around $ 3,000-10,000 (Rs 2 to 7 lakh) per annum to enroll in pri-vate medical colleges while NRIs pay over 10 times more, ranging from around $30,000-75,000 (Rs 20 to 50 lakh). Government medical colleges have fees set as low as $ 500 for Indian ap-plicants, with no reduction in NRI seats’ tuition. An NRI

can also sponsor a relative to take up the seat which in turn has also led to some students manipulating the system by faking eligibility.

These NRI seats are be-ing eyed because a major-ity of them are left vacant each year. In Punjab, only 32 of the total 316 NRI quota MBBS and BDS seats were filled in 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is being ex-horted to take serious action to prevent injustice against worthy candidates for the college seats. The issue has become critical as India is looking to overhaul its healthcare system and the government is projecting a need for more qualified doctors to support a fast-growing population.Den of corruption

A recent Parliament bill suspended the Medical Council of India (MCI), the body which oversees admis-sions to medical colleges across the nation, for two years on corruption charges.

“The Medical Council has miserably failed to de-liver and there is a uni-versal perception in the country that it has become a den of corruption,” said

Union Minister for Health Harsh Vardhan, adding that a panel of reputed doctors have been entrusted with the responsibility to func-tion as interim overseers for medical college admissions.

Though this government move could help resolve some of the problems with corruption, the issue of set-ting aside seats for NRIs remains unresolved. The centralised National Eligibil-ity cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical colleges was also extended recently to cover Indians abroad, wheth-er NRIs, PIOs or Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) to ensure only the deserving candidates were able to get medical seats. Of the total 795,031 candidates in India who cleared NEET in 2019, only 315 were foreign nation-als, 1,209 NRIs, 441 Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) cardholders and 46 Person of Indian Origin cardholders.

And these overseas stu-dents who took the tests scored much lower than lo-cal students and still bagged seats in colleges. While the average NEET score of gen-eral quota students in past years was 472.5, that of NRI candidates in private colleges

was 220.8 and of those in gov-ernment colleges was 339.6.

In short, NRI seats were filled on the basis of who was willing to pay more as opposed to who got a better NEET score, with authorities allegedly selling vacant seats under the man-agement quota or through the backdoor rather than adding them to the general pool. Five states --- Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh-- have offered NRIs admis-sion in government medical colleges in the current aca-demic year, and as various problems have cropped up some - like Rajasthan, Andhra, Karnataka and MP - are scrapping or planning to scrap the NRI seat quota for government medical col-leges this year.

“Government colleges are meant for public wel-fare, for poor to get free treatment and for meritori-ous students. Free education is the government’s job in a democratic welfare state. That’s why the government decided to put an end to NRI quota in MP,” said former joint director of medical ed-ucation in Madhya Pradesh NM Shrivastava.

World business not ...(Contd. from page 1)

Questions have been raised about the legality of the move in part as the Supreme Court had in April 2018 said that Article 370 had acquired permanent status due to its long existence and could not be revoked without approval from a constituent assembly. “I am not opposed to the integrating of Kashmir state into India. Pakistan has no locus standi on Kashmir. I am however against the manner and procedure in which it was done,” said Sumit Ganguly, Professor of Politi-cal Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.

“Legally and constitutionally it (India’s action in Kashmir) is a bit of a coup. They have not followed constitutional procedures and clearly violated the spirit of law in making the necessary changes.”

The government argued that since Jammu and Kashmir was under federal rule through a governor for over a year, after the state’s legisla-tive assembly was dissolved, it had the right to revoke the article.

NEW DELHI: In his first visit as external affairs min-ister, S Jaishankar will be visiting Dhaka next week in an effort to further strength-en the relations between the two countries. Topping the agenda of his two-day visit from Aug 20 to the neighboring country is ex-pected to focus on illegal immigration, connectivity, Rohingya crisis as well as water sharing of 54 rivers including the long-pending Teesta River water issue.

Jaishankar has met with his Bangladeshi counterpart Dr A K Momen recently in New Delhi and prior to that on the sidelines of the 5th Confer-ence on Interaction and Con-

EAM Jaishankar to visit B’desh next week

fidence Building Measures in Asia or CICA in Tajikistan.

The two countries over the last three years have inked almost 60 plus agree-ments, and have also re-

solved the decades-old land boundary as well as maritime

issues. However, the issue of sharing the Teesta River water continues to remain on the table for discussion.

The visit according to officers is reciprocal and is ahead of the forthcom-ing visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in early winter. This will be Hasina’s first visit after assuming office for the third time consecutively.

Besides connectivity and trade-related issues, when Hasina meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the expected agenda would include all bilateral and regional issues, sharing of water in 54 common rivers and the Teesta in particular.

S Jaishankar

Indian student in US sentenced to 12 months in prison WASHINGTON: An In-dian student was sen-tenced to 12 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, for intention-ally damaging computer equipment of a college in New York.

Vishwanath Akutho-ta, 27, of Albany was also ordered to pay $ 58,471(INR 41 lakh) as restitution charge, Unit-ed States Attorney Grant C Jaquith said.

Pleading guilty, Aku-thota admitted that on February 14 he inserted a “USB Killer” device into 66 computers, as well as numerous computer

monitors and comput-er-enhanced podiums, owned by the College of St Rose in Albany.

The device, when in-serted into a computer’s USB port, sends a com-mand causing the com-puter’s on-board capaci-tors to rapidly charge and then discharge repeat-edly, thereby overloading and physically destroy-ing the USB port and electrical system.

Akuthota is a citizen of India and was resid-ing in the United States on a student visa. He has been in custody since his arrest in North Carolina on February 22.

LONDON: The police pro-ceedings against four Indian crew members, including the captain, aboard an Ira-nian oil supertanker has ended and they were re-leased by authorities in Gibraltar on Thursday, even as the US Department of Justice made a last-minute claim on the vessel.

“I am grateful and thankful for my release. And I am grate-ful to all who have facilitated my release in my legal team,” the Captain of the Grace 1 tanker said in a statement.

Oil demand growth at...(Contd. from page 1)extended an output cut deal with OPEC.

“Market focus in oil has clearly shifted. It is squarely on future demand, rather than on supply,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, global oil strategist at BNP Paribas in London. Saudi Arabia plans to maintain its crude oil exports below seven million barrels per day in August and Sept to bring the market back to balance and help absorb global oil inventories, a Saudi oil official said. The UAE also will continue to support actions to balance the oil market, Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei said in a tweet. Oil prices rose on Friday, supported by expectations of more OPEC production cuts. Brent crude futures were up 89 cents at $58.27 a barrel in early trade while (WTI) futures were at $53.33 per barrel, up 79 cents.

All 24 Indians aboard Iranian oil tanker released in Gibraltar

A spokesman for Gibral-tar’s government also con-firmed that police proceed-ings against four members of the crew had ended. The arrested Indian crew mem-bers the Master, Chief Of-ficer and two Second Mates were aboard the Panama-flagged supertanker that was detained off Europa Point in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the Spanish coast, last month.

The Gibraltar authorities had said the vessel is loaded to capacity with crude oil

enroute to Syria, in breach of European Union (EU) sanctions. However, the Gibraltar authorities have since been given assur-ances from the arrested crew members and Iran that the ship was not on its way to Syria.

A total of 28 crew on board the vessel includes majority Indians but also Russians, Latvians and Fili-pinos, who have spent over a month in detention on board the ship since it was seized in early July.

UNITED NATIONS: India has contributed $ one mil-lion to the UN Special Pur-pose Trust Fund for the Resi-dent Coordinator System.

The Special Purpose Trust Fund (SPTF) is a spe-cific fund housed within the UN Secretariat estab-lished to receive, consoli-date, manage and account for all contributions and financial transactions of the new Resident Coordinator system in a transparent and effective way, according to the UN information.

“Tangible contribution. India is happy to tangibly contribute to reform of the @UN Development system,”

India contributes $1m to UN fund

India’s Permanent Represen-tative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin tweeted.

The SPTF web portal, displays in real-time all commitments, contribu-tions and expenditures re-corded for the fund.

Funding sources include voluntary contributions from the Member States, the doubling of cost-sharing amounts from the UN enti-ties who are members of the United Nations development system and a one per cent levy applied to contributions for UN development-related activities earmarked to a single agency, single pro-gramme or project.

India-US friendship flourished into strategic partnership in two decades: Mike PompeoWASHINGTON: Greeting the people of India on the coun-try’s 73rd Independence Day, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said over the past two decades India-US friend-ship has flourished into a strategic partnership.

He said that the shared democratic values of the two nations, strong people-to-people ties and commitment to economic growth have further cemented the relationship.

“Over the past two decades, our friendship has flour-ished into a strategic partnership and we now cooperate on a range of important issues, from defence and counter-terrorism to freedom of navigation and cutting-edge sci-ence, including in space,” Pompeo said in a statement.

“As I said during my recent visit to India, the United States and India are great democracies, global powers, and good friends. I wish the people of India a joyful Indepen-dence Day,” he said.

US Congressw oman urges India, Pak to promote peaceWASHINGTON: After China asked for a “closed consultations” in the UN Security Council to discuss revocation of the spe-cial status to Jammu and Kashmir, a US Congresswoman urged India and Pakistan to take this opportunity to protect human rights and promote peace in the region.

According to a top UN diplomat, a re-quest for such a meeting was submitted very recently, and could take place at the earliest. The move by China, an all-weather ally of Pakistan, came after Islamabad wrote a letter seeking a meeting. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who is co-chair of Pakistani Congressional Caucus and also a member of the India Caucus, tweeted, “Pakistan and India have a chance for peace and to protect human rights at the United Nations Security Council meeting.”

“I’m urging, as someone who knows the

region, for both nuclear powers to take this opportunity to protect human rights and to promote peace,” she wrote on the micro-blogging site. On Thursday she attended the Independence Day celebrations at the Indian Consulate in Houston.

“In the spirit of (Mahatma) Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., we celebrate the 73rd Independence Day of India,” she wrote on Twitter.

India has categorically told the interna-tional community that its move to abrogate the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was an internal matter and has also advised Pakistan to “accept the reality”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged India and Pakistan to exercise “maximum restraint” and refrain from taking steps that could affect the status of Jammu and Kashmir.

3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIESFriday, August 16, 2019

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Friday, August 16, 2019

UPSSSC invites applications for 486 vacancies of chief engineerNEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Service Selec-tion Commission (UPSSSC) has invited online applica-tions for the post of Chief Engineer Minor Irrigation Department, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow. There are a total

of 486 vacancies for which the application process be-gan on August 14, 2019. The last date to apply is Septem-ber 4, 2019.

Applicant should be be-tween the age of 18 and 40 years as on July 1, 2019.

Eligibility: The appli-cants should have passed matriculation and have done a technical course in the relevant trade from any government recognised in-stitute.

There will be a writ-ten test for selection of the candidates. Candidates who clear the written test will be hired for the posts.

Candidates can apply online through the official website - upsssc.gov.in or click on the application link.

Category- wise vacancy bifurcation

General - 248, SC - 101, ST - 08, OBC- 129, Freedom Fighter - 09, Ex-Army - 24, PH- 0, Skilled Player - 0, Women - 97, Man - 0.

NEW DELHI: When you’re studying science and en-gineering, hands-on is the only way to learn, and so colleges have labs, but they’re nothing like what you’d be working with out in the field. Some colleges are now trying to fill this gap by setting up commer-cial labs on campus, with some help from the NABL or National Accreditation Board for Testing and Cali-bration Laboratories.

An NABL tag means uni-versities and institutions can have labs formally rec-ognised as competent third-party assessors, allowing them to accept commercial projects and offer services directly to industry.

Among the institutes that have set up such labs over the past two years are Allahabad University, the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Science, Lovely Professional University

Colleges upgrading labs in line with the govt’s NABL criteria

(LPU), The NorthCap Uni-versity and the Vellore In-stitute of Technology. “The industry now comes to us and we work hand-in-hand on research projects,” says Archanaa Dongre, head of The NorthCap University Testing Center (NCUTC), accredited by the NABL in 2017 for the testing of building materials. “Stu-dents get to assist industry researchers on actual com-mercial projects at our labs now, and leave the institute better equipped for the real world.”

Getting the NABL cer-tificate itself is no mean feat. It’s a necessarily rigid process; costs are high; and even after following all pro-tocol, the accreditation is valid only for two years.

“It’s rare for an institute to get an NABL tag. Most educational institutes in In-dia simply lack the where-withal and will to manage

their labs professionally and hence fail to produce technically competent and authentic test results,” says

Amit Srivastava, professor of civil engineering at LPU.

One hidden market for such labs can be, other stu-dents. At Allahabad Univer-sity’s Food Analysis and Re-search Laboratory (FARL), which has testing facilities

for food and water, students from other colleges, who are working on course proj-ects, frequently drop by to

get samples tested, and get a 10pc student discount.

“We also provide testing services to food business op-erators, government agen-cies, packers and consum-ers,” says professor Neelam Yadav, director of the lab.

And it makes Allahabad University’s MSc Food Technology graduates mar-ket-ready for hire by indus-try regulators such as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). “Every student who is in-ducted to work in the lab is give operations training as mandated by NABL,” says Yadav.

Amardeep Kaur, 29, a research scholar in the geo-technical engineering filed worked on her thesis out of LPU’s lab for mechani-cal testing of building and construction materials, says one of the best parts about working there was the time she saved by working with newer and safer technol-ogy. “There is a certain de-gree of confidence when you’re working at an NABL lab. Your test results are ac-curate and certified. It’s a great advantage to research scholars.”

TNPSC to fi ll up 100 vacanciesfor CDPO, asst dirCHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) has invited online applications for the recruit-ment of child development project officer (CDPO) and as-sistant director. There are 100 vacancies. Last date to ap-ply is September 11.

TNPSC has 87 vacancies for the post of CDPO and 13 vacancies for assistant director. Applicants should possess adequate knowledge in TamilE ligibility:

CDPO -- Applicant should have a degree in Nutrition (or) Home Science (or)A degree with a PG Diploma in Ru-ral Services awarded by the Gandhigram University.

Assistant Director---Applicant should have a Post Grad-uate Degree in Home Science or Psychology or Sociology or Child Development or Food and Nutrition or Social Work or

Rehabilitation Science.Mode of Selection: Selec-

tion will be made in two suc-cessive stages i.e., (i) Written Examination and (ii) Oral Test in the shape of an interview. The final selection will be

made on the basis of the total marks obtained by the applicantHow to apply: Applicants should apply only through

online mode in the Commission‘s websites at www.tnpsc.gov.in / www.tnpscexams.net / www.tnpscexams.in

NEW DELHI: The Staff Se-lection Commission (SSC) has invited candidates to apply for fresh vacancies at ssc.nic.in. Interested and eligible candidates can visit the official website of the Commission to fill the form now. SSC is conducting the recruitment process to se-lect candidates for the post of Junior Engineer (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Quantity Surveying & Con-tracts) for various Ministries/ Departments/ Organizations in the Government of India. Check the details mentioned below to know more.Important Dates

Online Application starts – August 13, 2019

Last date for Online Ap-plication – September 12, 2019 (upto 5 PM)

Last date for making on-line fee payment – Septem-ber 14, 2019 (upto 5 PM)

Date of Computer Based Examination (Paper-I) – To be notified later

Date of Paper-II (Conven-tional) – To be notified laterPost Details

1. Central Water Com-mission – Junior Engineer (Civil)

2. Central Water Commis-

S S C to fi ll up new vacancies for JE ssion – Junior Engineer (Me-chanical)

3. Central Public Works Department (CPWD) – Ju-nior Engineer (Civil)

4. Central Public Works Department (CPWD) – Ju-nior Engineer (Electrical)

5. Military Engineer Ser-vices (MES) – Junior Engi-neer (Civil)

6. Military Engineer Servic-es (MES) – Junior Engineer (Electrical & Mechanical)

7. Farakka Barrage Project – Junior Engineer (Civil)

8. Farakka Barrage Project – Junior Engineer (Electrical)

9. Farakka Barrage Project – Junior Engineer (Mechanical)

10. Border Road Organi-zation (BRO) – Junior Engi-neer (Civil)

11. Border Road Organiza-tion (BRO) – Junior Engineer (Electrical &Mechanical)

12. Central Water and Power Research Station – Junior Engineer (Civil)

13. Central Water and Power Research Station – Junior Engineer (Electrical)

14. Central Water and Power Research Station – Ju-nior Engineer (Mechanical)

15. Directorate of Quality Assurance (Naval) – Junior Engineer (Mechanical)

16. Directorate of Quality Assurance (Naval) – Junior Engineer (Electrical)

17. National Techni-cal Research Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Civil)

18. National Techni-cal Research Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Electrical)

19. National Techni-cal Research Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Mechanical)

Note: Number of vacan-cies per post will be deter-mined by the commission shortly.S alary

The posts are Group ‘B’ (Non-Gazetted), in Level-6 (Rs 35400- 112400/-) of pay matrix of 7th Central Pay Commission.E ducational Q ualifi cation

1. Central Water Com-mission – Junior Engineer (Civil): Degree or Diploma in Civil Engineering from a recognized University or Institution.

2. Central Water Com-mission – Junior Engineer (Mechanical): Degree or Di-ploma in Mechanical Engi-neering from a recognized University or Institution

3. Central Public Works Department (CPWD) – Ju-nior Engineer (Civil): Di-

ploma in Civil Engineering from a recognized Univer-sity or Institute.

4. Central Public Works Department (CPWD) – Ju-nior Engineer (Electrical): Diploma in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering from a recognized Univer-sity or Institute

5. Military Engineer Ser-vices (MES) – Junior Engi-neer (Civil): Three years Di-ploma in Civil Engineering from a recognized Institute or University or Board

6. Military Engineer Ser-vices (MES) – Junior Engi-neer (Electrical & Mechani-cal): Three years’ diploma

in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering from a recog-nized Institute or Univer-

sity or Board7. Farakka Barrage Proj-

ect – Junior Engineer (Civ-il): Diploma in Civil Engi-neering from a recognized University or Institute or Board

8. Farakka Barrage Proj-ect – Junior Engineer (Elec-trical): Diploma in Elec-trical Engineering from a recognized University or Institute or Board

9. Farakka Barrage Proj-ect – Junior Engineer (Me-chanical): Diploma in Me-chanical Engineering from a recognized University or Institute or Board

10. Border Road Organi-

zation (BRO) – Junior Engi-neer (Civil): Three years Di-ploma in Civil Engineering from a recognized Univer-sity/ Institute/ Board

11. Border Road Organi-zation (BRO) – Junior Engi-neer (Electrical & Mechani-cal): Three years Diploma in Electrical/ Automobile/ Mechanical Engineering from a recognized Univer-sity/ Institute/ Board

12. Central Water and Power Research Station – Junior Engineer (Civil): Di-ploma in Civil Engineering from a recognized Institute

13. Central Water and Power Research Station – Junior Engineer (Electrical): Diploma in Electrical Engi-neering from a recognized Institute

14. Central Water and Power Research Station – Junior Engineer (Mechani-cal): Diploma in Mechani-cal Engineering from a recognized Institute

15. Directorate of Qual-ity Assurance (Naval) – Ju-nior Engineer (Mechanical): Three years Diploma in Me-chanical Engineering from a recognized University

16. Directorate of Qual-ity Assurance (Naval) – Ju-

nior Engineer (Electrical): Three years Diploma in Electrical Engineering from a recognized University

17. National Techni-cal Research Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Civil): Diploma in Civil En-gineering from a recognized University/ Institution.

18. National Technical Re-search Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Electrical): Diploma in Electrical Engi-neering from a recognized University/ Institution

19. National Techni-cal Research Organization (NTRO) – Junior Engineer (Mechanical): Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from a recognized Univer-sity/ Institution

How to ApplyVisit the official website

of SSC at ssc.nic.in. Candi-dates must go through the detailed instructions before filling the form. They will have to pay Rs 100 through BHIM UPI, Net Banking or by using Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, RuPay Credit or Debit card or in cash at SBI Branches by generating SBI Challan. For more details, candidates can go through the official notification.

Extramarks w ins Global Educators’ Aw ardMUMBAI: Extramarks, In-dia’s leading education technology company, was recognized for its efforts to-wards creating cutting-edge learning solutions at the Global Educators Fest 2019.

The edtech company bagged the award for the Best Mobile App for School Students and IIT-JEE and NEET Test Prep at the Awards Night hosted at The Ananta, Udaipur.

The honour is a recogni-tion of Extramarks’ work for close to a decade in creating digital learning solutions, which combine the best of technology and pedagogy to deliver world class learning solutions to students across India and beyond.

Extramarks is the first Ed tech company from In-dia to have gone global, with presence in South Africa, Indonesia and the Middle-East.

The jury for the Global Education Awards lauded Extramarks for having a

“profound impact on the way education is delivered today”. They also con-

curred that Extramarks “has the potential to transform education delivery tomor-row along with improved learning outcomes”.

Speaking on the oc-casion, Atul Kulshrestha, Founder and CMD, Extra-marks Education, said “We are delighted to receive this award which acknowledges the continuous initiative of Extramarks towards revolu-tionizing education deliv-ery in India.

“We have been engaged

in creating interactive and visual learning solutions, which take the boredom out

of learning, and empower each learning to tread upon their unique academic paths through personalized learning journeys.”

Extramarks learning solutions are visual, inter-active and promise a fun learning experience. They cater to the entire spectrum of learning, right from early childhood, to school learn-ing, and finally to the com-petitive exam segment with solutions for JEE, NEET and CA Foundation aspirants.

Extramarks’ flagship product, Extramarks - The Learning App, is a firm fa-

vourite with students across the country, having clocked 6 mil-lion downloads in the short span since its launch.

Their apps for test prep segment -- the IIT-JEE and NEET Test Prep App -- are en-abled with the robust testing engine, which give student the cor-

rect exposure into exam pattern and format, and help them get exam ready through live tests and in-stant reports and peer rank-ings.

The Global Educators Fest celebrates the spirit of innovation in learning. Ex-tramarks is among the top and trusted names, who, with their in-house team of close to 3,500 employees, have been keeping the flag of innovation in education fluttering high.

IIMS MBBS, PG admission schedule 2020 releasedNEW DELHI: The All India Institute of Medical Scienc-es (AIIMS) has released the exam schedule for admissions for the 2020 batch at its offi-cial website, aiimsexams.org.

The entrance exam for admission to undergraduate courses – MBBS and BDS will be conducted on May 30 and 31 (Saturday and Sunday), results for which will be de-clared on June 16, 2020. For admission to BSc nursing, the stage 1 exam will be held on June 6 and stage II on June 23, 2020.As per the schedule, the AIIMS PG entrance exam for admission to MD, MS, MCh and DM/MDS courses will be held on May 3 and result will be notified on May 8. For the upcoming 2019-20 session, the MBBS admissions are still on. While the AIIMS MBBS result 2019 was declared in June, counselling for the same is still going on. The last date for registration for AIIMS MBBS 2019 has been extended and the counselling round will be conducted on August 20.

Conclave on education policyNEW DELHI: An RSS-affiliated body will be organising a two-day mega conclave on the implementation of a new ed-ucation policy, and Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will attend it.

The conclave starting on August 17 will also be at-tended by education ministers of various states and vice-chancellors of universities, the organisers said.

The Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, which is a trust for the upliftment of education and culture, will organise a two-day mega education conclave titled ‘Gyanutsav’ on the prem-ises of the Indira Gandhi National Open University premises.

Deliberations will be held on India-centric education system which emphasises on ethos, quality of education and character building of students, sources said.

GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Friday, August 16, 2019

uzzle 88 i ult Eas

Sudoku u le Rules: To solve a Su-doku puzzle, every digit from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine verti-cal columns, in each of the nine horizontal rows and in each of the nine boxes.Solution for Puzzle # 88 will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku u le 87 nswer

Your wellness

Chances are that at least one woman in your immediate circle

has PCOS. Maybe it’s your friend, sister, or that col-league desperately trying to find relief. Affecting about 11 to 22pc of all adolescent girls in India, occurrences of PCOS are on a rise the world over.But what is this disease exactly? Let’s find out!Understanding PCOS

Polycystic ovarian syn-drome is a common health problem caused by an im-balance of reproductive hor-mones and affects women between the ages of 15 to 44 years. While the causes of PCOS are largely un-known, it is known to run in families—as it appears to have an autosomal domi-nant mode of inheritance. So your risk of being af-fected by it is higher if your mother or sister has it. That said, a genetic predis-position might be difficult

Everything you need to know about PCOSprove as there is not enough evidence to this end.

Women with PCOS re-port abnormalities in their metabolism and produc-tion of certain hormones like androgens, oestrogens, and luteinizing hormone. PCOS is also associated with higher levels of blood

sugar as well as insulin resistance, and obesity. In fact, there is evidence that women who are obese are at a higher risk of PCOS.What are the symptoms of PCOS?PCOS comes with a pletho-ra of symptoms, like:

1. Irregular menstrual cycleGetting your periods

once every two to six months as opposed to a regular cycle of 28 to 30 days is a tell-tale sign. A small percentage of women have no periods at all and need medication to correct that. Others may have pro-

longed and heavy periods, a scanty flow, or irregular flow.2. Cosmetic problems

Girls usually suffer from acne (about 20% of all reported cases), hirsutism or increased hair growth (about 45 to 70% of all

reported cases), and more rarely male pattern hair loss.3. Fertility issues

Women who have PCOS find it difficult to conceive and are at an increased risk of miscarriages.

Apart from this, women are also at risk for obesity

(about 31 to 38%), early di-abetes or insu-lin resistance, h i g h b l o o d pressure, fat-ty liver, in-creased risk for cerebrovas-cular disease (strokes etc.).What is the treatment for PCOS?

D e s p i t e several advances in the world of medicine, the treatment of PCOS remains the same—which involves weight loss and lifestyle modifications. Weight loss helps balance out the ab-normal levels of hormones and reduces the symptoms

to some extent, although a complete cure may not be entirely possible.Additionally, your doctor might suggest:

1. Birth control pills to regularize periods. Drugs containing progesterone are used to induce periods once every three to four months if the woman does not want to take birth control pills every day. Moreover, birth control pills containing cy-proterone acetate are used to treat hirsutism and acne. However, this treatment has to be used for a minimum of six to nine months in order to see results.

2. Ovulation drugs and injections if you can’t con-ceive despite losing weight.

3. Metformin, a drug for diabetics, to reduce insulin and luteinizing hormone levels. It also contributes to weight loss if taken regu-larly for six months.

However, it must be em-phasized that the long term management of PCOS can only happen by weight loss and lifestyle modifications.

So, why is PCOS on a rise?There seem to be several

causes for this problem spreading far and wide—the most common ones being increasing obesity, unhealthy food habits, and lack of exercise.When it comes to PCOS, ignorance is not bliss!

PCOS is a syndrome that affects several organs

of the body. So if not rec-ognized early and managed appropriately, it can lead to menstrual irregularities, cosmetic problems, psy-chological issues, diabetes, heart disease, and even en-dometrial cancer. Hence, it is extremely important that you see your doctor when you first see the symptoms coming on.

Researchers have un-veiled a new mecha-nism that could offer

a potential new solution to tooth repair.

The study was pub-

lished in the journal ‘Na-ture Communications’. Re-searchers uncovered ‘a new population of mesenchymal stromal cells’ in a continu-ously growing mouse inci-sor model.

“The discovery of this

A new study has put forth that antiviral drugs used to treat

hepatitis C are beneficial in reducing liver-related deaths by nearly 50% in patients who had a history of liver cancer.

Findings of the study were published in the journal ‘Gastroenterology’.

Many doc-tors pre-v i o u s l y bel ieved that hepa-

titis C, for all its harmful-ness, activates the immune system when it infects the liver, and the immune sys-tem kept liver cancer recur-rence at bay.

But this notion appears to be false. In this study, researchers studied nearly 800 patients from 31 medi-cal centers across the coun-

New mechanism that could help dental treatment

Hepatitis C drugs can reduce liver cancer related deathsnew population of stromal

cells was very exciting and has enormous potential in regenerative medicine,” said Dr Denis Corbeil, lead researcher of the study.

They have shown that these cells contribute to the formation of dentin, the hard tissue that covers the main body of a tooth.

Importantly, the work showed that when these stem cells are activated,

try and found that the drugs are not only safe, but they also decreased deaths from cirrhosis and liver cancer by 46pc.

“Not only are these drugs safe in this patient population, but we have

now demonstrated that they are helpful,” said Dr Amit Singal, study author, asso-ciate professor of Internal Medicine, Medical Director of the UT South-western Liver Tumor Program, and Clinical Chief of Hepatol-

they send signals back to the mother cells of the tis-sue to control the number of cells produced, through a molecular gene called Dlk1.

In the same study, the researchers also demon-strated that Dlk1 can en-hance stem cell activation and tissue regeneration in a wound-healing model.

T h i s m e c h a -n i s m c o u l d p r o v i d e an innovative solution for tooth repair, addressing problems such as tooth de-cay, crumbling and trauma treatment.

Further studies are needed to validate the results for clinical appli-cations to determine the appropriate duration and dose of treatment.

ogy.Dr Caitlin Murphy said

previous studies com-pounded the misunder-standings of direct-acting antiviral therapy because they, among other things, failed to account for the

timing of therapy relative to liver cancer diagnosis, did not include a comparison group, or did not properly consider clinical differences among patients.

“Hepatitis C therapy is so important because it

By Dr Prathima Reddy

provides a cure,” Dr Sig-nal said. “You take oral medications for two or three months, with minimal to no side effects, and you’re done. You’re cured of hepa-titis C. There’s less than a 1 per cent chance of relapse if you’re cured of hepatitis C,” he added.

Defeating hepatitis C is an important step because the infection can otherwise lead to cirrhosis scarring of the liver which can be deadly.

Cirrhosis can increase the risk of liver cancer, which also may be fatal. Curing hepatitis C with antivirals breaks the first link in a deadly chain of events and can lead to an improvement in liver function among those who have previously developed cirrhosis.

The last date of sub-mission of online and offline admis-

sion forms, for all pro-grammes for July session has been further extended. The candidates can submit their forms till August 27 through the website — on-lineadmission.ignou.ac.in.

The scheme of fee ex-emption to the SC/ST stu-dents would also be effec-tive in July 2019 admission cycle for all academic pro-grammes at the certificate level (advanced, under-graduate and post-graduate; all academic programmes at diploma level (advanced, under-graduate and post-graduate) which are not part of undergraduate and master levels academic pro-gramme; Bachelor Prepara-tory Programmes (BPP); freshly registered in BDP (B.A., B.Com., B.Sc.); fresh-ly registered in BSW, BTS, BLIS and BCA.

The first time applicants are advised to click the available programme tab on the homepage of the online admission system and se-lect the desired programme

IGNOU extends date for July session forms

and carefully read the de-tails of programme includ-ing eligibility criteria, fee details, duration, etc.Programmes offeredMaster’s degrees

Online mode: Master

of Computer Applications (MCA); Master of Science (Food Nutrition); MA (Rural Development); Master of Science (Counselling and Family Therapy); Master of Tourism and Travel Management (MTTM); MA (English); MA (Hindi); Mas-ter of Social Work (MSW); Master of Social Work (Counselling); MA (Phi-losophy); MA (Economics); MA (History); MA (Political Science); MA (Public Ad-ministration); MA (Sociol-

ogy); MA (Gandhi & Peace Studies); MA (Psychology); Master of Library and In-formation Science (MLIS); MA (Anthropology); MA (Development Studies); MA( Adult Education); MA

(Gender & Development Studies); MA (Women and Gender Studies); MA (Dis-tance Education); Master of Commerce (M.Com); MA (Translation Studies)

Offline mode: MA (Edu-cation); M. Com (F&T); M. Com (BP&CG); and M. Com (MA&FS) in collabo-ration with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Institute of Com-pany Secretaries of India and Institute of Cost Ac-countants of India.

Bachelor’s degreesOnline mode: Bachelor

of Computer Applications (BCA); Bachelor of Social Work (BSW); Bachelor of Library and Information Science (BLIS); Bachelor of Arts (BA); Bachelor of Commerce (B. Com); Bach-elor of Science (B. Sc).

Offline mode: B. Com (A&F); B. Com (CA&A) and B. Com (F&CA) in collabo-ration with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Institute of Com-pany Secretaries of India and Institute of Cost Ac-countants of India: BBA (Retailing).How to apply

Step 1: Visit the official website, ignou.ac.in

Step 2: Click on ‘en-trance exam’ under ‘Regis-ter online’ on the main tab

Step 3: A PDF will open, click on ‘online reg-istration form’

Step 4: Click on ‘regis-ter yourself’

Step 5: Click on ‘Dec-laration’ then ‘I agree and proceed’

Step 6: Fill formStep 7: Make Payment.

IIT Guwahati recently topped the list of ‘Top Universities in Asia Pa-

cific’ region under the ‘Problem solving’ category. This was according to the report by HackerRank, a technical hiring platform

ranked universities across four important techni-cal skills most sought by employers to determine the top universities for developers across North America, Asia-Pacific, Eu-rope, and the Middle East, and found some interesting

IIT GuwahatiTop universities in Asia Pacific in problem solving

outliers.The universities were

ranked based on the fol-lowing four skills:

Problem-solving, Lan-guage proficiency, Data structures knowledge and Computer science (CS)

fundamentalsThe research was based

on over 1.4 million as-sessments completed by students on HackerRank’s platform between January 2017 and June 2019. It con-trasts with traditional lists, such as the Times Higher

Education CS rankings, which focus on factors in-cluding teaching, research, international outlook and industry income.

Expressing his gratitude, Prof TG Sitharam, Direc-tor, IIT Guwahati, said, “I

would like t o c o n -gratulate everyone associated with I IT Guwahati f o r t h i s r a n k i n g . T h e t o p p o s i t i o n of IIT Gu-wahati in this rank-ing reso-nates with our vision

of taking the institute from being a “Tower of Excel-lence” to a “Network of Excellence.” The institute is committed to work in this direction so that we can extend our contribution towards the development of this nation.”

6 IN FOCUS Friday, August 16, 2019

GULF FAQsI am an employee of a marine repair services company based in Dubai since 2017. I have signed a fixed salary contract with my employer, which includes house allowance, transport allowance and basic salary. There is no clause related to over-time, week-end holidays or work during holidays in the said employment contract. As a marine engineer, I am supposed to work whenever there are service calls. I have now requested my employer to pay me for overtime and extra time spent during weekends/holidays as I was not paid anything for overtime along with my salary. My employer has charged the overtime to the client for the work com-pleted from my end, but I have been told that since my salary is fixed contract, I am not eligible for any compensation for overtime employment. What does the la-bour law say about fixed salary contract?

We assume that you are employed in the mainland of UAE and thereby, the provisions of Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 regulating employment relations in the UAE (the “Em-ployment Law”) are applicable. The terms and conditions in your employment contract cannot be contrary to the provisions of the Employment Law. This is in accordance with Article-7 of the Employment Law, which states: “Any stipulations contrary to the provisions of this law, even if it was made prior to its commencement, shall be null and void unless they are more advantageous to the employee.” An employee is entitled to overtime pay, pay for working during week-end holidays and other public holidays as per the Employment Law, if he is eligible for the same. However, an employee is not entitled to overtime pay or pay for working during weekend holiday or other holidays, if he is a manager or supervisor or else if employed as crew of seagoing ships and persons employed at sea. This is in accor-dance with Article-72 of the Employment Law, which states: “The provisions of this chapter (hours of work and leave) shall not apply to the following classes of persons:

1) Those holdings responsible manage-rial or supervisory positions, if such posi-tions confer upon the holders the powers of an employer over employees. The categories in questions shall be specified by order of the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.

2) Employees constituting the crews of seagoing ships and persons employed at sea and enjoying special conditions of service on account of the nature of their work, except dock employees engaged in loading and unloading and related operations.”

Based on the aforementioned provision of law, if you are not a manager or supervisor or crew in seagoing ships or employed at sea, you are entitled to overtime pay. This is in accordance with Article-67 of Employment Law, which states: “Where the circumstances of work require an employee to work for more than the normal number of hours, any period worked in excess shall be treated as overtime, for which the employee shall receive remu-neration equal to that corresponding to his normal hours of work, plus a supplement of at least 25pc of the pay.” Further, Article 68 states that: “Where the circumstances of the work require an employee to work overtime between 9pm and 4am, he shall be entitled in respect of such overtime to the remunera-tion stipulated for his normal hours of work, plus a supplement of at least 50pc of the remuneration.” Every employee in the UAE is entitled to a weekly rest day and if he/she is required to work during weekly rest day, he must be compensated with another day as rest day or extra salary if such holidays are not granted by the employer. This is in accordance with Article 70 of the Employ-ment Law, which states:

“Friday shall be the normal weekly rest day for all employees except the daily paid ones. Where the circumstances require an employee to work on this day, he shall be granted another day or receive his basic remuneration for his normal hours of work, plus a supplement of at least 50pc of the remuneration.” Further, Article 71 of the Em-ployment Law states: “No employee other than the daily paid one shall be employed on more than two successive Fridays.”

On the other hand, an employee in the UAE is entitled to public holidays. If he works on the public holiday, he should be granted compensatory leave for such holi-days together with a bonus equal to 50pc of his remuneration. This is in accordance with Article 81 of the Employment Law, which states: “Where the circumstances of the work make it necessary for an employee to work on public holiday or rest day in respect of which he is entitled to full or par-tial pay, he shall be granted compensatory

Am I entitled for overtime pay ?leave in respect of such days, together with a bonus equal to 50pc of his remuneration. If he is not compensated for such days by leave, his employer shall pay him a bonus equal to 150pc of his basic remuneration in respect of the days worked.”V isa extension My Abu Dhabi-based company has been blacklisted at the labour department due to non-compliance with the Wage Protec-tion System. Therefore, it is unable to renew its employees’ documents. My visa and Emirates ID expired on May 20, 2019. My wife is days away from delivery and her visa expires in a few days. My ques-tion is this: In such a situation, how do I secure the documents for my newborn? My wife cannot travel at this stage of pregnancy. Is there a way that my case be considered on a humanitarian basis? Pursuant to your queries, a husband in the UAE has to submit his and his wife’s original passport, passport copies, valid residence page, UAE emirates ID, legalised marriage certificate and legal Arabic version of the marriage certificate to the hospital concerned in the UAE where his wife will be admitted to deliver a child. Further, he may also have to submit the copy of tenancy contract and recent utility bill. Since your UAE residence visa is already expired, you may file an ap-plication in the court which has jurisdiction to hear your matter to allow you to cancel your work permit with the Ministry of HR and Emiritisation and your residence visa with the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs - Abu Dhabi. There-after, you may avail of a residence visa through your new employer. However, if you are not able to avail new employment before or within a few days prior to your wife’s expected delivery of child, you may approach the hospital where your wife will be admitted for pregnancy and request them to provide necessary requirements and sup-port which will enable her to deliver in the UAE on humanitarian grounds. Further, you may also approach the Department of Health in Abu Dhabi (HAAD) and Ministry of Interior - Child Protection Centre in Abu Dhabi which may consider your case on hu-manitarian grounds. On the other hand, your newborn child’s birth certificate, passport, UAE residence visa, Emirates ID and medical insurance need to be arranged within 120 days of birth in the UAE. Further, you need to obtain the birth certificate(s) of your new born child attested by the Ministry of Health and Prevention or by HAAD and by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Keeping this in mind, you and your wife should legalise your residence status in the UAE at the earliest or before the lapse of 120 days after your child’s birth so that will enable you to secure aforementioned legal documents for your newborn child. You should contact the relevant government department in Abu Dhabi to seek further advise from them.

Property visaI am a widow staying with my two children in our own apartment in Dubai. Currently, I am employed. But soon, my company will shut down and hence, I won’t have a job and my employment visa will be cancelled. My children are schooling here and in order to complete their crucial academic year, I intend to stay in Dubai for another one and three months. I would like to know what are the options for getting a visa for me and my kids. Are we eligible for an investor licence? If yes, what is the procedure to get one?

Pursuant to your queries, you may ob-tain a residence visa against the property you own in the emirate of Dubai. Property owners who have purchased a property of a minimum value of Dh1 million are entitled to apply for residence visa in the UAE, pro-vided such a property has been completed and handed over to its owner by the devel-oper. Such a visa is valid for two years. The property owner initially has to approach the Dubai Land Department along with original passport, original title deed, NOC from the developer and copy of current visa page (if any). Based on the letter issued by the Dubai Land Department, you need to thereafter approach the Dubai Police for issuance of certificate of good conduct and later to the Dubai Economic Department along with the relevant documents and apply for an investor licence. Once the investor licence is issued by the Dubai Economic Department, you can ap-proach the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (DNRD) to apply for residence visa in the UAE with aforementioned documents. Once you obtain your residence visa, you are entitled to apply for residence visa for your children under your sponsorship in the UAE.

Union Rail Minister Piyush Goyal during the celebrations of Independence Day in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI: All 24 Indian crew members aboard an Iranian oil supertanker were released in Gibralta, even as the US Department of Justice made a last-minute claim on the vessel. The Indian Cap-tain of the Grace 1 tanker, said in a statement: “I am grateful and thankful for my release. And I am grateful to all who have facilitated my release in my legal team.”

The arrested crew mem-bers were aboard the Pana-

All 24 Indian crew in Iranian tanker releasedma-flagged supertanker that was detained off Europa Point in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the Spanish coast, last month. The supertanker, carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil, was seized by Gibraltar police and British special forces, provoking a diplo-matic crisis. The supertanker was suspected of carrying oil to war-ravaged Syria in viola-tion of EU and US sanctions.

A spokesman for Gibral-

tar’s government also con-firmed that police proceed-ings against four members of the crew had ended. The Gibraltar authorities had said the vessel is loaded to capacity with crude oil en route to Syria, in breach of European Union (EU) sanctions.

Tehran described Brit-ain’s actions as “piracy” and hit back by seizing a British tanker, the Stena Impero, on July 19 in the strategic Strait

of Hormuz. Iran has vehe-mently called for the release of Grace 1, insisting it had been in international waters and not headed to Syria. The recent incidents involv-ing the capture of tankers has fomented tensions even as European countries rush to save a landmark nuclear deal with Iran after the US pulled out of the accord in May last year and subse-quently imposed sanctions on Iran.

MUMBAI: Creditors’ hopes of resur-recting India’s Jet Airways and salvag-ing some value from the bankrupt airline were dealt a fresh blow as two potential investors said they were no longer interested in putting money into the business.

The billionaire head of Vedanta Anil Agarwal, whose family trust Volcan Investment had said it was looking at taking a stake in Jet, backed out. Etihad Airways, which already owns a minority stake in Jet, also said it was not interested in reinvesting in the airline. The announcements are a setback for creditors hoping to recover a portion of the more than $3 billion that the airline owes to its lenders, lessors, staff and other suppliers. “The EOI (expression of interest) for Jet Airways by Volcan was exploratory in nature. On further evaluation and considering other priorities, we intend to not pursue this further,” Volcan said in a brief statement, a day after it had disclosed it had submitted an

Jet Airways sale gets setbackEOI for the airline.

The firm declined to provide any detail on its reasoning.

Separately, Abu Dhabi’s Etihad said it was not interested in reinvesting

in Jet because of unresolved issues concerning the Indian airline’s liabili-ties. “Etihad remained engaged in the process, but despite the endeavours of everyone involved there remained very significant issues relating to Jet’s previous liabilities,” it said. Etihad acquired a 24pc stake in Jet in 2013, at a time when the carrier had needed significant financial support. A total

of three EOIs have been received for Jet after prospective bidders were in-vited to express interest, according to media reports. With Volcan out, only two potential bidders likely remain in the fray. Resolution professionals are examining the EOIs and are likely to announce the names that make the cut on Aug 13, according to a source familiar with the matter. The only cri-terion for bidders is having a net worth of Rs 10 billion ($140 million). Prior to entering the bankruptcy court, Jet’s lenders had run a similar sale process that failed to attract any binding offers from bidders that met the cut-off cri-teria. Some analysts are concerned the same problems are playing out again, further eroding any value left in Jet.

“Nothing has changed at all in the last few months, the Jet deal has been stuck in a limbo and we haven’t moved forward. We are again back to the EOI stage and uncertainty remains,” said an aviation analyst, requesting anonymity.

Wipro’s dependence on H-1B downBENGALURU: Tech major Wipro said it had significantly reduced its dependence on H-1B visas. The company has sought only 2,000 H-1B visas this year compared with more than 8,000 in 2015, indicating a 75pc reduction over four years.

Explaining the rationale behind the drastic reduction in visa requirements, Wipro president Saurabh Govil said there wasn’t a significant difference between the landed cost of a person going from India to the US and a fresher hired in that country.

Wipro’s localisation (number of people hired in the US market as a percentage of the headcount there) has gone up significantly, from 40pc a few years ago to 65.4pc in the first quarter ended June 30. “We continue to invest and move up the localisation ratios in all our major markets like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Africa and the MidEast. In the US, we have reached new high of over 65pc up by one per cent from March quarter,” Govil said. Wipro currently has over 15,000 employees in the US.

The company recruited more than 6,000 fresh gradu-ates in a combination of on-campus and lateral hiring, globally during the April-June quarter. The company also set up a Digital and Technology Centre at Minneapolis, an Automation Lab at Melbourne and a Cloud Transformation Centre at Sydney. “We are very focused on building talent and capabilities internally, rather than hiring more later-als. Over one lakh of our employees have already been trained for digital platforms and web based capabilities in the last few years,” Govil added.

Indian population up in AustraliaSYDNEY: The Indian popu-lation in Australia has ex-ponentially grown in the

last two years. There were 592,000 Indians living in Australia as of June 2018.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics report said that this was a 30pc jump compared with Census 2016 figures which record-ed 455,389 Indians living down under. India with 592,000 people moved into third place dropping the New Zealand-born (568,000) down to the fourth place.

After England and China, India ranks third on the list of residents born overseas.

India now accounts for 2.4pc of the Australian popula-tion and the median age of an Indian migrant is revealed to be 34 years, same as those born in Australia. Over seven million migrants were living in Austra-lia as of June 2018, with people born in England continuing to be the largest group of overseas-born residents. China ranked second on this list with 651,000 people born in China residing in Australia now.

CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, August 16, 2019

Saudi Arabia to regain India’s top oil supplier spotSaudi Arabian Oil Co

(Aramco) buying a 20pc stake in Reliance Indus-

tries’ oil-to-chemical busi-ness will help it regain the position of being the biggest supplier of oil to the world’s fastest-growing oil market.

Saudi Arabia, which tra-ditionally has been India’s top oil source, lost the slot to Iraq during the last two financial years. This will change with Aramco buying 20 per cent stake in the RIL’s oil-to-chemical (O2C) busi-ness, which has an enterprise valuation of $ 75 billion as it will be accompanied with a deal to supply 500,000 bar-rels per day or 25 million tonne a year of crude oil.

“Crude supplies of 500,000 b/d represents about 40 per cent of Reli-ance’s crude intake, signifi-cantly higher than the stake taken, although Saudi Ar-

amco historically supplied 20pc of Reliance’s crude oil requirements,” said Alan Gelder, vice president refin-ing and chemicals at Wood Mackenzie.

Saudi Arabia in 2018-19 fiscal exported 40.33 mil-lion tonne of crude oil to India, over 15pc short of 46.61 million tonne sold by Iraq, according to data sourced from the Director-ate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. Additional oil supplies fol-lowing the Reliance deal will catapult Saudi Arabia to top spot again.

The O2C business in-cludes Reliance’s refining and petrochemical divi-sions, and its 51pc stake in its fuel marketing busi-ness. The remainder 49pc stake in the fuel marketing business, which comprises of 1,400 petrol pumps and

aviation fuel facilities at 31 airports, has been sold to BP for Rs 7,000 crore.

The terms of the deal

are yet to be finalised, but Reliance, going by the en-terprise value announced by its chairman Mukesh

Ambani, will get roughly $ 15 billion, including some debt adjustments, for the 20pc stake when the sale

closes later this year.Gelder said the deal is

further evidence that Saudi Aramco is executing on its

long-term strategy to in-crease its refining and pet-rochemical capacity. Saudi Aramco continues to show

a keen interest in accessing the Indian market, which has the strongest long-term growth prospects, he said.

Following the same strategy, it along with UAE’s ADNOC had signed up to take 50 per cent stake in a planned 60 million tonne a year refinery on the west coast. Aramco and AD-NOC are to sup-

ply half of the crude oil required for the proposed refinery that will come up not before 2025.

Saudi Arabia is keen to get a foothold in the world’s fastest-growing fuel market to get a captive customer for the crude oil it produces. Crude oil is the basic raw material for the manufac-turing of petrochemicals.

Like other major pro-ducers, it is looking to lock in customers in the world’s third-largest oil consumer through the investment. Kuwait is also looking to in-vest in projects in return for getting an assured offtake of their crude oil. Saudi Aram-co is also keen on retailing fuel in India.

A refinery in India can also be a base for it to export fuel to deficit countries in Europe and the Americas. India has a refining capac-ity of 247.6 million tonne, which exceeded the demand of 206.2 million tonne.

Reliance’s refining and

petrochemicals assets in-clude 1.2 million b/d of highly-sophisticated refin-ing assets at Jamnagar in Gujarat. Both its refineries in Jamnagar are heavily inte-grated with petrochemicals.

The company also has a world-leading position in polyester and intermediates, as well as steam crackers and polyolefins capacity at an-other four locations in India.

“This strategy is being achieved through a combi-nation of project and acqui-sitions, with this acquisi-tion following on from last year’s acquisition of SABIC and SASREF, and the mem-orandum of understanding Aramco signed this year to acquire a 9pc stake in Zhejiang Petrochemical’s 800,000 b/d integrated re-finery and petrochemical complex in Zhoushan, Chi-na,” he said.

EPFO to appoint HSBC AMC, UTI AMC as fund mangers

Paytm to invest Rs 750crDigital payments firm

Paytm said that it will invest Rs 750

crore to approximately dou-ble its monthly active user base on mobile to 250 mil-lion by March 2020.

The company expects its Paytm Inbox service to ac-celerate the growth as it has garnered 27 million monthly active users and expects addi-tional 60-70 million new cus-tomers to come on board by end of the current fiscal year.

“We are already seeing 27 million monthly active users on Paytm Inbox. Now that we are upgrading it to the next level with innova-tive use of the content, we hope to get around 60 to 70 million new users of the app. Our target is to have 250 million monthly active users this year,” Deepak

Abbot, Sr Vice President, Paytm said.

Paytm currently has a monthly active user base of around 140 million.

The company claims that it is on its way to achieve over 3 billion ses-

sions by users logging in to the application for pay-ments and money transfers.

The platform, backed by global internet giants Ali-baba and Softbank, also has plans to start content, news,

short videos, and live tele-vision on its app by Sep-tember this year.

Paytm has allocated Rs 750 crore to acquire new customers and onboard new merchants in small cit-ies and towns. It is aiming to enable 20 million retail merchants to accept digital payments through Paytm QR, the statement said.

“We have registered 100 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth for Paytm Inbox which offers content servic-es and in a very short period Paytm First Games has also become a popular gaming destination,” Abbot said.

The payment firm has also undertaken deals with smartphone manufacturers like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiao-mi to offer Paytm applica-tion built-in their devices.

Retirement fund man-ager EPFO is likely to appoint next week at

its trustees’ meet asset man-agement firms HSBC AMC, UTI AMC and SBI Mutual Fund as its fund managers for a three-year term.

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) advisory body Finance, Au-dit and Investment Commit-tee (FAIC) has finalised and recommended the names of three asset management firms -- HSBC AMC, UTI AMC and SBI Mutual Fund for ap-pointment as fund mangers of the retirement fund of the body for a three-year term beginning October 1, 2019, a source said.

Now the proposal final-ised by the FAIC would be placed before the EPFO’s apex decision-making body

Central Board of Trustees (CBT) headed by Labour Minister on August 21, 2019 for final approval, the source said.

The appointment of the fund managers for another term of three years has been pending with the EPFO

since April last year. The body had appoint-ed SBI, ICICI Securi-ties Primary Dealer-ship, Reliance Capital and HSBC AMC for a three-year term, start-ing April 1, 2015.

Thereafter, the EPFO gave many exten-sions to the five fund managers. Now the ex-tended term of the five

fund mangers would expire on September 30, 2019.

Earlier this year, the EPFO had made it clear that the SBI as a bank could not

continue as the fund man-gers of the body. Therefore, SBI’s asset management firm SBI Mutual Fund had submitted bids in this round of bidding for appointment as fund manager.

The source said that the names of three asset man-agement firms have been finalised by the FAIC on the basis of their performance in the past years.

The EPFO had appointed multiple fund managers for the first time in July 2008, for earning better rate of return on deposits for its subscribers. Before that, SBI was the sole fund manager for the retirement fund body since its inception in 1952.

Sitting on a high debt of Rs 48,500 crore at the end of the first

quarter of the current fis-cal, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) proposes to raise fur-ther debt by up to Rs 5,000 crore in the next one year through private placement of secured non-convertible debentures/bonds.

The company intends to use the debt to part-fund its ongoing capacity pro-gramme and convert some short-term debts into lon-ger tenure. According to Edelweiss, SAIL has a Rs 3,200-crore debt repayment obligation in the current fis-cal. SAIL also proposes to spend Rs 4,000 crore on ca-pacity expansion this fiscal.

“On analysis of the vari-ous options of raising funds through borrowing in do-mestic and international

SAIL to raise Rs 5,000cr through NCDs, bondsmarkets, it has been decid-ed by the board of directors to raise funds through pri-vate placement of secured non-convertible deben-tures/ bonds to the extent of Rs 5,000 crore during the

year,” SAIL said in a letter to the shareholders ahead of the annual general meet-ing.

SAIL reduced its debt to Rs 45,170 crore as on March 2019 from Rs 45,409 crore a year earlier. However, debt further rose to Rs 48,460 crore at the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal.

As on March 2019, the debt-equity ratio of the company stood at 1.2:1. The compa-ny paid Rs 3,155 crore on interest and finance charges alone in 2018-19.

Edelweiss said, “Despite management guiding for debt to stay below Rs 44,000 crore, as at Q1 FY20 end, it stands at Rs 48,500 crore — the highest-ever level for SAIL. Besides, we are concerned on cash com-mitments – 1) capex of Rs

4,000 crore in FY20 (E) and 2) Rs 3,200 crore debt re-payment obligation. These are expected to account for bulk of Ebitda amid a chal-lenging operating environ-ment besieged by weak prices.”

“Management antici-pates debt to remain at the same level as FY19 despite

a scheduled repayment of Rs 3,200 crore,” it added.

Inclusive of Rs 4,303-crore capital expenditure in 2018-19, SAIL has spent Rs 69,623 crore on its expansion pro-grammes till June 30, 2019. For the current fiscal, SAIL proposes to spend around Rs 4,000 crore on the same, tak-ing the total capex on expan-sion to Rs 73,623 crore. In the first quarter of the current fiscal, the company spent Rs 900 crore on capex, accord-ing to Edelweiss.

With the completion of ongoing modernisation and expansion programmes, SAIL’s saleable steel pro-duction capacity would go up to 20.23 million tonne per annum (MTPA). In 2018-19, SAIL’s saleable steel production stood at 15.1 MTPA, up 7pc over the previous fiscal.

Banks not to charge for failed ATM transactions: RBIThe Reserve Bank of

India (RBI) has is-sued orders clarify-

ing that transactions which fail on account of techni-cal reasons like hardware,

software, communication issues, and non-availabil-ity of currency notes in the ATM, etc., shall not be counted as valid transac-tions for the customer and no charge shall be levied for the same.

“It has come to our no-tice that transactions that have failed due to technical reasons, non-availability of currency in ATMs, etc., are also included in the number

of free ATM trans-actions,” said the RBI in a statement.

“It is hereby clarified that trans-actions which fail on account of tech-nical reasons like hardware, software, communication is-sues; non-availabil-

ity of currency notes in the ATM; and other declines ascribable directly / wholly to the bank/service provid-er; invalid PIN/validations; etc., shall not be counted as valid ATM transactions for the customer. Consequent-

ly, no charges, therefore, shall be levied,” added the statement.

The orders have also been issued to all scheduled commercial banks includ-ing regional rural banks, urban co-operative banks, state co-operative banks, district central co-operative banks, small finance banks, payment banks, white-label ATM operators.

“Non-cash withdrawal transactions (such as bal-ance enquiry, cheque book request, payment of taxes, funds transfer, etc.), which constitute ‘on-us’ transac-tions (i.e., when a card is used at an ATM of the bank which has issued the card) shall also not be part of the number of free ATM transac-tions,” added the statement.

EESL to install 5 lakh smart meters across IndiaEnergy Efficiency Ser-

vices Ltd (EESL) has installed more than

five lakh smart meters in Ut-tar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, under Smart Meter Nation-al Programme (SMNP) to enhance consumer conve-nience and rationalise pow-er consumption.

“To overcome challenges including billing inefficien-cies, unauthorised power consumption, and reduce Discoms’ financial woes, the government is acceler-ating the adoption of smart meters. Thrust on such ef-ficient systems is critical for

consumption and growth in a sustainable manner. It will also enhance consumer ex-perience through improved

service delivery,” said Sau-rabh Kumar, MD, EESL.

Smart meters are part of the overall advanced meter-ing infrastructure solution that measures and records

consumers’ electricity usage at various times in a day and sends this information to the energy supplier through

General Packet Ra-dio Services (GPRS) technology.

It offers consum-ers better access to information and en-ables them to make more informed de-cisions on usage of power at homes. It

can immediately control ag-gregate technical and com-mercial losses, due to power pilferage, bypassing and de-fective meters, or errors in meter readings. Every kilo-

watt of power drawn from the grid is thus accounted for - and billed, therefore boosting discom’s revenues.

A public sector enter-prises under the Ministry of Power, EESL’s model - Pay As You Save has been the base of implementation. EESL procures smart meters in-cluding servicing, enabling Discoms to get benefit with zero upfront investment.

Their repayment to EESL is through the mon-etisation of energy savings, resulting from enhanced billing accuracy, avoided meter reading costs and other efficiencies. These

savings further enable dis-tribution companies to in-vest in value-added servic-es for its consumers.

In a move that is criti-cal for the country’s power sector reforms, the SMNP aims to retrofit 25 crore conventional meters with smart variants leading to 80-100pc improvement in billing efficiency. S mart technology

Smart meters are part of the overall advanced meter-ing infrastructure solution that measures and records consumers’ electricity us-age and sends this to the energy supplier.

India PC market grows 49pc to 3.4m units in Q2 2019The PC market in India saw a shipment of desktop,

notebook and workstations grow 49.2pc year-on-year to 3.4 million units in the June 2019 quarter,

research firm IDC said. The growth was mainly due to commercial segment driven by ELCOT education deal fulfilment under which Tamil Nadu government plans to distribute around 1.5 million laptops to students, it said. Lenovo led the market with 46 per cent share in the June quarter, followed by HP (22pc), Dell (14pc), Acer (10pc), Asus (2pc) and others.

IDC said the notebook category grew 81pc year-on-year contributing over 74 per cent of the overall shipment in the quarter and the growth was again on account of the ELCOT deal. IDC expects PC shipments to decline in the Septem-ber 2019 quarter over April-June since a major portion of the ELCOT deal has been reported in the second quarter.

The commercial market outside ELCOT is also likely to be strong as the government and education projects are expected to materialise, it added.

8 Travel / Entertainment

rinted by Supreeth and published by him on behal o E C ublications vt td. and printed at n uilab set rinters td.,1 6, D Dadaji oad, ardeo, umbai 00 03 , aharashtra and published rom ce No. 1001, 10th Floor, Navjivan Commercial remises Co op. Society td., amington oad, (Dr.D. . arg), umbai Central, umbai 00 008. Editor: E. . aidyanathan olume No.: 1, ssue No. 89 N No. EN /2018/76663.

Friday, August 16, 2019

EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

Rates are subect to change w ithout notice. Errors &omissions excepted

As on 15th August, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 46.75 49.75Bahraini Dinar 184.20 194.20 British Pound 85.00 88.00Canadian Dollar 52.00 55.00Emirati Dirham 18.85 19.85 Euro 77.30 80.30 Kuwaiti Dinar 228.55 238.55Omani Rial 180.00 190.00Qatari Riyal 19.05 20.05 Saudi Riyal 18.45 19.45Singapore Dollar 49.85 52.85 Swiss Franc 71.10 74.10US Dollar 69.85 72.35

Source:

Indian fi lms at S ingapore fi lm fest

Films from across In-dia, in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada,

Marathi, Bengali, Assamese and Ladakhi, will be show-cased at the upcoming third edition of the Singapore South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF).

As many as 45 foreign films from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, Singapore, Bangladesh and Iran will be screened between August 30 and Sept 7 at the festival in Singapore this year. “Films have a universal language and our aim at SAIFF is to screen films from all over South Asia to help connect people across the globe through cinema,” said Abhayanand Singh, fes-tival’s chairman.

Ranj directed by Sunit Sinha, Kathaah directed by

Shilpa Krishnan, Oththa Seruppu Size 7 directed by R

Parthiban and Space MOMs directed by Radha Bharad-

waj will be among the Indian movies making their world

premieres at the festival.Dr Biju’s Malayalam film

Veyilmarangal (Trees Under The Sun), the Marathi films Dithee directed by Sumitra Bhave and Mai Gat: Crime No. 103/2005 directed by Anant Mahadevan and the Tamil films KD directed by Madhumita Sundararaman and Oththa Seruppu Size 7 by Parthiban, are in the competition section.

“SAIFF believes in pro-moting films of the talents which believe in making world-class cinema and we are proud to have a platform where all kinds of films from South Asia can come globally together,” Piyush Singh, co-chairman of the festival, said.

Air India is auctioning more than 60 real estate assets, includ-

ing some it could not sell at its last auction in April, as the debt-laden national carrier makes a renewed attempt to raise funds. The last date for submitting bids is August 30, according to a tender document issued by the airline. State-owned MSTC, which specialises in conducting e-auctions, will handle the online auction for Air India.

The properties on the block include a 14-apart-ment residential building at Mumbai’s Pali Hill, individ-ual apartments at Mahim, Colaba and Bandra, apart from houses and flats in Kol-kata, Nashik, Bengaluru, Lo-navla, Hyderabad, Gwalior, Delhi, Amritsar and Bhuj, among others. The reserve price of these units range from Rs 15 lakh to about Rs 8 crore. Interestingly, the

Air India puts more than 60 realestate assets under the hammer

carrier had sold only a few of the 56 properties it had put up for sale in April.

“We missed the target of Rs 500 crore that was to be raised through the sale of real estate assets in FY19. We hope to better our FY19 performances this year,” an Air India official said. “The airline has received a lot of interest for its proper-ties this time around,” the official added. The Union government had in 2012 approved monetising Air India’s real estate assets totaling Rs 5,000 crore over a 10-year period, with an annual target of Rs 500 crore from 2013 fiscal onwards.

So far, Air India has raised close to Rs 600 crore by selling prime real estate assets, the official cited above said. The loss-making airline may, however, find it tough to find buyers due to the overall slowdown in the real estate market. Ac-

cording to a July report by ANAROCK, a real estate services company, housing absorption in the top seven cities fell to 68,000 units in the June quarter from 78,520 in the preceding quarter.

“For the first time since 2016, total unit launches are more than units sold in the quarter,” the report said. A Mumbai-based real estate consultant said Air India may find it difficult yet again to sell most of the properties on the block. “A large number of these as-sets are located in prime areas and costs more than similar properties located in other areas of the same cities. Any discount on such prominent assets would set benchmarks that other commercial asset owners in these localities would not react well to, as a lower reserve price would affect the market value of similar assets,” the person added.

US-Indian physicist Jyoti Katoch gets Department of Energy grantCarnegie Mellon University has

announced that assistant profes-sor of physics Jyoti Katoch has

received an early career grant from the US Department of Energy. The grant will help with Katoch’s research, which is focused on understanding the properties of two-dimensional quantum materials.

The Indian American professor is one of 73 scientists from across the na-tion to receive funding under the DOE’s Early Career Research Programme. The programme supports outstand-ing scientists early in their careers as they develop their individual research programmes.

“I am very excited about receiving a DOE early career research award,” said Katoch in a statement. “It will enable my research group to perform cutting edge work on 2D quantum materials at the state-of-the-art MAE-STRO beamline at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,” she said. “This award gives LIQUID group members an op-portunity to venture into a new direc-tion of performing in-operando angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with sub-100 nm spatial resolution on

fully functional quantum devices at this beamline.”

The grant will allow Katoch, a condensed matter physicist, and her

research group in Carnegie Mellon’s Lab for Investigating Quantum Materi-als, Interfaces and Devices or LIQUID, to investigate quantum materials using advanced technologies.

2D materials are the thinnest known materials. When these mate-rials are stacked together, they form heterostructures with unique quantum properties, such as superconductivity.

By changing the layers of materials, researchers can finely tune the het-erostructure’s electronic and physical propertie. Under the DOE grant, Katoch will probe the spatially resolved elec-tronic band structure of 2D quantum materials, including those made by stacking graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, and engineer the materials’ properties by making na-noscale perturbations in superlattices and adatoms found in the materials’ heterostructure.

“Supporting our nation’s most tal-ented and creative researchers in their early career years is crucial to building America’s scientific workforce and sus-taining America’s culture of innovation. We congratulate these young research-ers on their significant accomplish-ments to date and look forward to their achievements in the years ahead,” said US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. Ka-toch joined the Department of Physics faculty in 2018, following research sci-entist and postdoctoral appointments at the Ohio State University. She earned her doctorate from the University of Central Florida and her bachelor’s de-gree from Panjab University.

Jyoti Katoch

More Vande Bharat Express trains soonRailways is gearing

up for the launch of second Vande Bharat

Express. Meanwhile, the process to bring in the next batches of the Train 18 train-sets has gone through a shift.

Instead of procuring the next batch of Vande Bharat Express trainsets the same way as the first two trainsets, Piyush Goyal-led railway ministry has decided to go for standardizing the com-ponents that go into making the product. According to the report, after meeting vendors as well as other in-dustry players, the Research Design and Standard Organ-isation (RDSO) is preparing standards and specifications of the subsequent trainsets that are to be manufactured under Modi government’s ambitious Make in India programme.

A senior ministry official was quoted in the report say-ing that once this process is complete, the tender will

be floated, following which industry can participate as per the specifications laid

out for the new Vande Bharat Express trainsets. He also said that it is being ensured that the specifications do not end up favouring any one particular vendor.

In his Independence Day speech, Modi had said that the citizens of India are no longer content with just a railway station or line. The thinking of the public has changed. Earlier, they were happy with merely an idea

to set up a station, but now they ask --- when will Vande Bharat Express come to

my area, the minister said. People of the country do not want only good railway stations or bus stands. Now, they ask when is a good air-port coming, Modi added. The second Vande Bharat Express or Train 18 is likely to run between Delhi and Katra. The train is expected to reduce the travel time be-tween the two cities to just eight hours as against the current 12 hours.

Yusuffali donates Rs 5cr to Kerala fl ood relief

UAE based NRI retail tycoon MA Yusuf-fali of Lulu Group

pledges Rs 5 crore for flood-hit Kerala. Retail tycoon offered donation to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on phone. Yusuffali is donating the money towards the CM’s Distress Relief Fund to help the flood victims of the state.

During the 2018 deluge in Kerala, the retail tycoon had donated Rs.8 crore for Kerala flood relief through the same fund and separate funds created by three Malayalam media houses, a spokesper-son said. “He had donated another Dh5million for the same cause through Khalifa bin Zayed Humanitarian Foundation,” he said. Apart from this, the spokesperson said, Lulu’s employees also donated Rs10 crore to the CM’ s Distress Relief Fund. Many other UAE-based In-dian businessmen had also made huge contributions to rebuild Kerala after the devastating floods last year.

Yusuffali, who also hails from Kerala, is the first UAE-based NRI businessman to make an announcement about the donation after floods and landslides caused massive destructions and claimed 95 lives in Kerala yet again during this monsoon.

Bahrain to set new records in Indian w eddings this year

Bahrain Tourism & Exhibition Author-ity (BTEA) is confi-

dent of setting new records in the number of Indian weddings and the revenue earnings from the Indian wedding business to Bah-rain’s economy this year. The country has played host to more than 17 big

Indian weddings between April 2017 and 2019, re-ceiving about 6,000 Indian guests and contributing $ 22 million to its economy.

The country had recog-nised wedding tourism as a potential segment in 2016 and started promoting it-self as a preferred wedding destination through a dedi-cated incentive programme called Island Weddings Bahrain since April 2017.

Since the programme’s

launch, India has been a target source market. Dr Ali Follad, tourism ad-visor, Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority said: “We are confident of setting records in Indian destination weddings by fourth quarter of this year and first three months of 2020,” Follad said.

“What we offer to our wedding guests is a unique partnership. BTEA acts as eyes and ears of the wed-ding organisers from the time they come scouting for destination. We offer complimentary visa, ar-range special rates from the airlines, take them to the right hotel, arrange professional DMCs, etc. so that they feel confident and at the same time re-laxed,” he added.

Thomas Cook introduces visa home collection serviceThomas Cook India has

launched home col-lection services for its

visa business, in a focussed initiative to empower cus-tomers with a two-pronged benefit of convenience and safety. This is coupled with a live-tracking feature to monitor the delivery of their visa documents. The facility is offered by Thomas Cook on a Pan-India basis, in part-nership with Blue Dart.

Thomas Cook India’s internal data reveals a 39% surge in demand for online visa services. To ensure a truly integrated and seamless

customer experience, the new home collection service has been rolled out to save time, and simultaneously ensure safety in the delivery of valuable visa documents.

The service equips cus-tomers with the flexibility to schedule their collection/pick-up date as per their convenience. Additionally, this service allows customers to track the delivery status of their documents on a real-time basis, via a live-tracker feature. Thomas Cook India’s online visa services offer customers visa assistance for 150 countries, including

the US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several Eu-

ropean destinations (France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.), to name a few.

SATTE to organise South India Roadshow

SATTE, South Asia’s leading travel show, is all set to organise

roadshows in South India in Chennai (Aug 21) and Hyder-abad (Aug 29). The roadshows are expected to be attended by over 100 travel trade profes-sionals. During the roadshow, representative of SATTE will explain the benefit it brings for India tourism.

The idea is to promote the recently rolled out SATTE 2020 Buyer programme. The Buyer Programme for SATTE 2020 has been designed in a way that enhances delegates’ business networking oppor-tunities by leaps and bounds. Buyers can interact with the highest number of exhibitors at SATTE 2020.

SATTE 2020 will be held at the state-of-the-art, India Expo

Centre, Greater Noida from January 08-10, 2020 and will be spread over 25,000 sq mts.

Taj group to sell somebudget hotelsIndian Hotels Co, Tata’s listed firm that operates and

owns the Taj brand, plans to dispose of certain budget inns in the nation’s non-metro areas and lease them

back for a fee, Managing Director Puneet Chhatwal said in an interview. Indian Hotels, currently operates 151 hotels

“We are moving our focus to more management con-tracts rather than constructing hotels of our own,” Chhat-wal said. “We have no plans to put our legacy and flagship properties under sale and lease back.” The Mumbai-based company’s measures to cut costs and liabilities come at a time growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy has cooled to a five-year low, while a lingering shadow-bank crisis damps discretionary spending. The nation’s largest car-maker, Maruti Suzuki India, reported the worst sales drop since 2012 in July. Besides the slowdown, the grounding of Jet Airways India has also hit Indian Hotels, forcing it to write-off some dues.

The chain, which operates New York’s The Pierre and St. James Court in the UK, has been reducing debt in the past few years by selling assets including apartments purchased for Tata Group’s executives. Consolidated net debt stood at Rs 2,000 crore ($282 million) at the end of March, down from as high as Rs 3,100 crore two years earlier, according to the hospitality firm. Indian Hotels is focusing on an “asset light model” besides keeping costs under check and shedding non-core assets, Amit Agarwal, Analyst at Nirmal Bang Securities said. The efforts to pare borrowings at the hotel chain are also part of a wider drive at the conglomerate. Tata Motors, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, has said it is looking at options for the struggling British luxury brands. Tata Steel is in the midst of a revamp of its European operations.

Taj aims to reduce ownership of properties to 50pc by 2022, from 70pc now, Chhatwal said. The sale and lease-back plans include six hotels at the Ginger budget brand and a similar number held by joint ventures and associate firms.