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His Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin SalmanKingdom of Saudi Arabia

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REFER PAGE 3 & 4 FOR GULF JOBS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Russian President Vladimir Putin at Sochi in Russia. A total of 15 MoUs were exchanged during Modi’s visit to Vladivostok in Russia.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is putting the final touches to a “game changer” initiative to attract international tourists, with a visa scheme to open the Kingdom to visitors from up to 50 countries. Although not officially confirmed by the government, industry sources said an event to showcase Saudi tourist at-tractions would take place this month, with a major global advertising campaign launched in the presence of leading international travel and tourism experts.

Leisure tourism — in a market hitherto domi-nated by pilgrimage — is a vital part of the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy away from oil de-pendency. Travel experts say tourism and leisure could

New Saudi visa scheme ready, 50 nationalities may benefi t

account for 10pc of gross domestic product by 2030, adding more than $100 bil-lion a year to the economy. The event on Sept 27 will promote “the sights and sounds” of Saudi Arabia to a regional and international audience. Progress on other tourism projects — such as a nationwide digital events calendar and plans to ex-pand the successful “Saudi Seasons” concept — will also feature.

Work is already under-way on a luxury resort on the Red Sea coast, visitor facili-ties at the historic AlUla area and an entertainment city at Qiddiya outside Riyadh.HIGHLIGHTS

• An event to showcase Saudi tourist attractions would take place on Sept 27.

• Leisure tourism is a vital part of the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy away from oil dependency.

• Travel experts say tour-ism and leisure could ac-count for 10pc of GDP by 2030.

• The event will promote “ the sights and sounds” of the KSA to a regional and global audience.

The economic effects of new tourist visas will be significant. The World Travel and Tourism Council said leisure and tourism ac-counted for nine per cent of the Kingdom’s economy in 2018, and forecast it would rise to 10.4pc by 2029, calcu-lated by direct and indirect economic impact.

The property consultan-cy Colliers International esti-

mated in a recent report that tourism and travel would make up nine per cent of the total GDP by 2026. Imad Damrah, managing director of Colliers Saudi Arabia, said that foreign tourism visas would have a significant impact. “It will be a game changer for tourism, leisure and entertainment in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It will not just encourage more new people to come, but it will be easier for people who have already decided to come.”

Damrah believes Saudi Arabia can hold its own in the global tourism business. “Let’s get some perspective on this. If you come to Saudi Arabia, you can still go to Florida, or Dubai, as well. Every destination has its own attraction,” he said.

DUBAI: Maghanmal Pancho-lia, who died on Monday, popularly known as Magha-ba, had called Dubai home for almost eight decades. The UAE was still 29 years away from its historic union when he landed in Dubai in 1942 to join his father’s business. The then 17-year-old had no clue that he was destined to be a part of the great success story of Dubai that swiftly transformed from a hamlet to a bustling metropolis. In an interview with a TV channel, he had said: “My father and three elder brothers were al-ready in business in Sharjah and Dubai when I joined DJ Sind College in Karachi for higher education in 1942.No electricity

“However, I could not pursue my degree due to protests and the closure of colleges in the wake of the Quit India Movement started by Mahatma Gandhi. I had to come to the Gulf (Trucial States), where our Thattai Bhatia community

Pancholia: Indian who brought electricity to Dubaihad a long-time presence.” Maghanmal arrived aboard a Chinese Cargo ship called “‘Woo Sang”. The fare was Rs23 and the voyage took eight days after touching the ports of Gawadar, Muscat and Bander Abbas. “Life was very difficult without elec-tricity, especially in summer. There were no roads and hardly any cars. Camels and donkeys were the modes of transport,” he said.

Back then, there were no formal procedures or permis-sions required to start any business. “When we started our electricity supply com-pany (Indo-Arab Electricity Company) in 1957 in Dubai, we did not require any per-mission from the authorities. The business licensing sys-tem started only in 1961 and licence fees for any business was Rs100.” After the formal launch of the Dubai Electric-ity Company in 1961, things started improving. More In-dian expats started moving to Dubai. Even foreigners

were allowed shareholding in the company until 1980 when the company was na-tionalised.

Pancholia was one of the founding shareholders and was elected director of

Dubai Electricity Company from 1961 to 1980. Formal supply of electricity changed things in Dubai rapidly. “I could never imagine that Dubai and the UAE would change for the better so much and so fast thanks to the vision and open-door business policy of the past and present rulers,” he said.

Pacholia had made great contributions to the Indian community in Dubai. He founded the Indian High School and was its honorary chairman for almost 20 years (1961 to 1980). He was the founder trustee of the India Club and chairman of the Indian Association Dubai for four terms.

He launched educational, social and medical institu-tions in India. His family businesses -- Arabian Trad-ing Agency and Maghan-mal Jethanand Group -- are involved in real estate, electronics, steel, luggage, watches and investments. He once said: “The best advice I received from my father was to be honest, helpful and friendly to others in life. I try to live up to my motto of ‘simple living and high thinking.” Pancholia’s wife passed away at the age of 92 in May last year. He leaves behind four children, 11 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren.

Maghanmal Pancholia

MUMBAI: The Indian rupee will not regain ground lost against the dollar in the com-ing year, according to strate-gists polled by a news agency, who believe a recent rollback of a surcharge on foreign investments will have no impact on the currency.

After gaining about two per cent following a sweep-ing victory in the general election by the incumbent government late in May, the rupee has lost nearly six per cent since a July 5 budget when a surcharge on foreign investments was introduced. That pushed international investors to turn net sellers after being net buyers until then from Feb. Although those higher taxes were withdrawn last month, the move did not alleviate the rupee’s weakness and about 60pc of respondents did not expect it to have any impact for the remainder of the year.

The rupee fell to 72.40 per dollar on Tuesday, its weakest this year, still suffering from data last week that showed the economy grew at its slow-est pace in over six years in the last quarter. The Aug 29-Sept 4 poll of over 50 strate-gists predicted the rupee will trade around 72 per dollar over the coming year. While

Rupee unlikely to regain lost ground soon

the median forecast showed the rupee will not retest Tues-day’s low, the 12-month view was the most pessimistic in polls since Dec. “Although the measures by the government to roll back the surcharge is a step in the right direction, the damage is already done, as foreign investors continue to withdraw from the Indian equity market,” said Hugo Erken head of international economics at Rabobank, re-ferring to its impact on the rupee.

“Given other factors which fuel a further risk-off sentiment such as...weak GDP print of five per cent for fiscal Q1 and further escalation of the China-US trade war --- we feel it is difficult to attract investors to make up for the losses in portfolio flows.”That weaker rupee view lines up with a separate positioning poll which showed short bets for the currency rose to the highest since Nov 2018 on growing concerns about the US-China trade war.

Emerging market curren-cies, including the Indian rupee, have been hit hard by the intensifying trade war. China has allowed the yuan (CNY) to weaken further be-yond seven per dollar to help

offset new tariffs imposed by the US. “USDINR con-tinues to watch CNY move-ments and broader dollar bias, which at this juncture points toward further rupee weakness owing to a weak global environment,” noted Radhika Rao, economist at DBS in Singapore. Slowing growth concerns pushed central banks across a group of 37 developing economies to deliver a net 14 interest rate cuts last month -- the largest since the financial crisis. Of those, RBI was one of the most aggressive. It has lowered interest rates several times this year and is expected to do so again.

Nevertheless, over 75pc of strategists in response to a separate question expected RBI rate cuts would have no impact on the rupee or be negative. The remainder said easing would benefit the currency. “Even after the 110 (basis points of) cuts, the impact on the rupee was felt more recently when a num-ber of other factors emerged, including the slowdown in both domestic and global demand,” said Kunal Kundu, India economist at Societe Generale, the most accurate forecaster for Asian curren-cies in 2018. “That is why

Banks must link retail loans with external benchmarksMUMBAI: RBI has made it mandatory for banks to link all new floating-rate loans for housing, auto and MSMEs to external bench-mark like repo from Oct 1, a move aimed at ensuring faster transmission of policy rate cuts to borrowers. In-dustry and retail borrowers have been complaining that banks do not pass on the entire RBI’s policy rate (repo rate) reduction to them.

In a circular, RBI said it has been observed that due to various reasons, the transmission of policy rate changes to the lending rate of banks under the cur-rent marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) framework has not been satisfactory. Therefore, it has now decided to make “it mandatory for banks to link all new floating rate personal or retail loans and floating rate loans to MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) to an external

benchmark effective Oct 1, 2019”, the circular said.

In 2019, RBI had already reduced the repo or short-term lending rate by 110 basis points, but the banks have reportedly passed on only up to 40 bps to bor-rowers.The external bench-marks, to which the banks will be required to link their lending rates, could be repo, three-month or six -month treasury bill yield or any oth-er benchmark published by the Financial Benchmarks India Private Ltd (FBIL).The banks have also been asked to reset the interest rate un-der external benchmark at least once in three months.

“In order to ensure trans-parency, standardisation and

ease of understanding of loan products by borrowers, a bank must adopt a uniform external benchmark within a loan category in other words, the adoption of multiple benchmarks by the same bank is not allowed within a loan category,” RBI added. The circular further said while the banks are free to decide the spread over the ex-ternal benchmark, the credit risk premium “may undergo change only” when borrow-er’s credit assessment un-dergoes a substantial change.

Further, other compo-nents of spread including op-erating cost could be altered once in three years. Existing loans and credit limits linked to the MCLR/Base Rate/BPLR

shall continue till repayment or renewal, as the case may be. The decision of the RBI assumes significance amid clamour for reducing borrow-ing cost to push consumer demand, which is one of the major reasons for slowdown in the economy. High fre-quency indicators like signifi-cant drop in auto sales and other consumer non-durable are pointing towards demand slowdown. The government has announced a slew of mea-sures like liquidity support to the NBFC sector to further push credit disbursal. RBI had earlier asked the banks to link the rates to extrernal benchmark from April 1, but it was deferred as the lenders wanted more time.

2 EMIGRATION Friday, September 06, 2019

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LIPSYNCH “Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms”.

— John Steinbeck

Bank mergersIn yet another surprise move, Finance Minister Nirmala

Sitharaman announced the merger of 10 public sec-tor banks (PSBs) into four and with this, India’s PSB

headcount will come down from 27 to 12. Creating glob-ally stronger banks, doing away with needless overlaps in operations and infrastructure and ushering in economies of scale to bring down costs have always been a good thing.

But going by past experience, bank mergers did not achieve much except reducing the staff and some opera-tional expenses. Now the move is also dangerously ill-timed with GDP growth plummeting to a six-year low. Turmoil in the banking sector can only hurt growth further. The great merger of five group banks with SBI did not achieve the desired effects --- in fact SBI, originally one of the best profit-making banks and darling of the stock market ---lost its steam. SBI may blame other group banks for sticky loans and NPAs, but the merger was a failure. SBI’s bad loan prob-lems only worsened after the merger. Massive write-offs and persisting slippages have been eating into SBI’s profit and capital, impeding credit growth. The finance minister says there will no job loss due to the mergers. But the real issue is the creation of new jobs, which will be hit. In FY17 (before the merger), 13,097 people had joined SBI against the retirement of 11,264. But in FY18, the fresh addition was only 3,211 even as 18,973 staff retired. As of March 2019, the total number of employees decreased to 2,57,252 from 2,64,041 the previous year.

True, these mergers cans ease the government’s bur-den of massive capital infu-sion into ailing PSU banks. The merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda last year was a shaky affair right from the start, given the weak finances of Dena Bank. One year on, BoB’s figures only confirm the underlying is-sues with forced mergers.

Punjab National Bank is notorious for its scams. It was hit by the Nirav Modi scam and other fresh frauds. The bank is still grappling with scarce capital. With its own NPAs at over 16pc, it is unclear how the government expects the bank to subsume the weaker OBC and United Bank. The logic for the merger of four weaker banks — Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank — is even unclear. The merger of Canara Bank and Syndicate bank and Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank, also do not make any sense from the operational point or geographical angle.

The Centre proposes to infuse capital into the merged entities based on their size and need. Also, the fate of the six PSBs left out of the merger spectacle — some of whom have NPAs of 20pc or more — hangs in balance. While the Centre has announced a slew of governance reforms, hoping to make managements more accountable and give longer tenure to key officials to implement plans, these are unlikely to bring about significant changes. A rethink is needed.

Editorial

US-Indian couple feared dead in boat fi re mishapCALIFORNIA: An In-dian couple settled in the US is believed to among those who have died in a boat mishap that took place off Santa Cruz is-land in California.

The daughter and son-in-law of Satish Deopujari, a renowned Nagpur-based paediatri-cian, were on board the ill- fated boat packed with scuba divers which caught fire and sank off the California coast. Ac-cording to a close family friend of Dr Deopujari, his daughter Sanjeeri Deopujari, a dentist, had married Kaustubh Nirmal, who worked in a finance company in the US, two years back and they were settled in America.

The Deopujari family has not yet got confir-mation about the death of the couple from US authorities. He, however, said the couple had gone for scuba diving and was on-board the ill-fated ship. The family friend

Sanjeeri Deopujar and Kaustubh Nirmal.

of the Deopujaris said only five crew members man-aged to survive the tragedy.

He said another daughter of Dr Deopujari also stays in the US post-marriage and she is trying to get in touch with US authorities for further details.

Dr Deopujari will also soon leave for the US. As many as 34 people died after the boat packed with scuba divers caught fire near an island off the South-ern California coast, US

officials had said. No one was found alive af-ter flames tore through

the dive boat on early Monday as passengers on a recreational scuba div-ing trip slept below deck, they had said. The ship carried 33 passengers and six crew members, and only five of the crew sleeping on the top deck were able to escape by jumping off and taking a small boat to safety, the US officials had said.

Hong Kong withdraws extradition bill HONG KONG: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced the withdrawal of an extradition bill that triggered months of unrest and threw the Chinese-ruled city into its worst crisis in decades. The announcement, in an internal meet-ing with pro- establishment lawmakers and Hong Kong delegates of China’s National People’s Congress, came just two days after media reports said that Lam told business leaders last week she had caused “unforgivable havoc” by introducing the bill. If she had a choice she would apolo-gise and resign, according to a leaked audio recording. The protests against the bill in the former British colony began in March but snowballed in June and have since evolved into a push for greater democracy. The bill would have allowed extraditions to mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist Part .It was not immediately clear if the bill’s withdrawal would help end the unrest. The immediate reaction appeared sceptical and the real test will be how many people take to the streets.

Many are furious at perceived police brutality and the number of arrests --- 1,183 at the latest count-- - and want an independent inquiry. “This won’t appease the protesters,” said Boris Chen (37) who works in financial services. “In any kind of time, people will find something they can get angry about.”

Pearl (69) said the protests were no longer about the bill. “Some of those guys may change their minds, maybe, but just a minority,” she said of the protesters. “Some of them just want to create trouble and they will continue to do so.” “Too little, too late,” said Joshua Wong, a leader of the 2014 pro-democracy protests which were the precursor to the current unrest, on his Facebook page.

At the closed-door meeting of business leaders last week, Lam said she now had “very limited” room to resolve the crisis because the unrest had become a national security and sover-eignty issue for China amid rising tensions with the US. Lam’s remarks are consistent with a report published on Friday that revealed how leaders in Beijing were effectively calling the shots on handling the crisis. The chief executive’s office did not im-mediately respond to a request for comment on the bill’s with-drawal. Nor did China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.

Kamaljeet named to Virginia’sSTEM Education CommissionNEW YORK: George Ma-son University has named associate professor and executive director for STEM Outreach at the Volgenau School of Engineering Ka-maljeet Sanghera to the Virginia Science, Technol-ogy, Engineering, and Math Education Commission.

Sanghera was among 43 people appointed to the commission that was established on July 17 by Governor Ralph Northam. “This appointment means a lot because I will get the opportunity to collaborate with a lot of great individu-als who are doing wonder-ful work across the state around STEM,” the Indian American professor said in a statement. “To be a voice at the table where I get to represent Volgenau School at George Mason University is truly an honor.”

Sanghera added that she hopes to “expand STEM outreach and education ini-tiatives to women and under-

Kamaljeet Sanghera

represented populations as well as develop programmes that not only prepare stu-dents to succeed in the in-dustry but also allow them to truly impact the world.”

First Lady of Virginia Pamela Northam will chair the commission. The re-maining members will in-clude a wide range of state and local stakeholders, in-cluding representatives of early childhood, K-12, post-secondary, out-of-school, informal, and environmental education programmes as well as workforce develop-

ment, business, and industry partners from every region of Virginia.

The commission will seek to address the edu-cational inequities which often limit access to ad-vanced courses in STEM disciplines, credentials, and work-based learning for many of the Common-wealth’s most vulnerable and underrepresented stu-dents.In doing so, it will support state efforts to close the achievement opportu-nity gaps in STEM-relat-ed fields, meet the grow-ing economic demand for STEM-prepared employees and help Virginia maintain its recognition as the best state for business.

“We must ensure eq-uitable opportunities and access for every Virginian to become a vital part of a robust STEM ecosystem, no matter their race, zip code, socioeconomic status, or gender,” said Secretary of Education Atif Qarni

in a statement. “With the establishment of this Com-mission, we are reaffirming our commitment to improve our STEM ecosystem so that it is vibrant, healthy, and representative of all people in our Commonwealth.” The Commission will also encourage collaboration among government and non-government entities on collective goals to support efforts to track state data and outcome metrics, reshape future curriculum and course design, and inform state and local policy. Ad-ditionally, the Commission will evaluate and recom-mend ways to optimise and align public-private partner-ships and local, state, and federal resources to enhance programs and services for Virginia’s children and their families, particularly those at higher risk. The Com-mission will issue a written report with its findings and recommendations no later than July 1, 2020.

NEW DELHI: Less than one per cent of Indians charged with slavery offences dur-ing the past decade were convicted, research showed as anti-slavery campaigners called for tougher action on human traffickers to stop them preying on people. Out of 429 people charged with involvement in 198 traffick-ing cases in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh from 2008 until 2018, three convic-tions were made, according to research by anti-slavery advocacy group Tafteesh.

Poor law enforcement and India’s under-resourced police and judiciary meant few people were punished and few victims received support, according to anti-trafficking campaigners. “There is no fear of the law,” Snigdha Sen, a researcher at Tafteesh, told a TV chan-nel. “Traffickers out on bail have a lot of power and can do anything. They influ-

Indian human traffi ckers go scot freeence witnesses, threaten survivors and often commit the crime again … Many of them eventually get acquit-ted.” India’s home ministry officials were not immedi-ately available for comment.

The number of human trafficking victims in In-dia has risen steadily in recent years, according to government data, with more than 23,100 people rescued in 2016, up by a fifth on the previous year. Anti-trafficking charities fear the number is much higher with many cases go-ing unreported as survivors fear stigma and retribution from traffickers if they file complaints. Government data showed that 93pc of human trafficking cases sent to courts in 2016 were pending trial and the con-viction rate in cases where trials had taken place was 54pc. Tafteesh researchers analysed police diaries,

cases filed in court, and complaints registered with police by survivors in West Bengal and Andhra after they had been rescued and returned home. The study showed 31 people out of 429 charged with slavery offences had previous con-victions for trafficking and were accused of being in-volved in more than one slavery case involving chil-dren and adolescents, Sen said. They committed 19pc of the crimes analysed in the research.

In total 64 people ac-cused of slavery offences were released on bail and returned to neighborhoods where trafficking victims lived and worked, research-ers said. “Even though this is an organised crime, in-vestigations by police are not thorough,” said Ram Mohan, secretary of Andhra Pradesh-based anti-traffick-ing charity HELP.

MoUs worth Rs 2780cr signed during Tamil Nadu CM’s foreign visitCHENNAI: A total of 16 firms have inked MoU to invest in Tamil Nadu during Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswa-mi’s visit abroad, attracting total investment of Rs 2,780 crore. The investments have the potential to create 20,000 new job opportunities.

At the end of the investors meet held in New York, 16 companies had signed up pacts with Tamil Nadu, includ-ing Jean Martin, Aquil Systems, Scitus Pharma, Nurray Chemicals, Novitium Labs, Jogo Health, ST LNG, Saram 4, Emerson, Aspire Consulting, Revature-LLC, and Zillion Technologies. Palaniswami also held discussions with other investors, such as Melissa Kessler, Mark Johnson, Kay and Lincoln, Warren Knapp and Manish Bhandari. The investors meeting was attended by over 200 investors from US, including majors like Caterpillar and Ford, who have already invested in the state.

Stating that his government would accord a “red car-pet welcome” for non-resident Tamils willing to invest in projects in their homeland, Palaniswami launched the Yaadhum Oore (the world is our home) scheme. He also launched a dedicated portal for the scheme, through which non-resident Tamils can reach out to the state government, if they have any suggestions or proposals. The website will be managed by the Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance and Exports Promotion Bureau. Besides, Haldia Petrochem, one of the largest companies in the sector in India, signed an in-principle agreement to establish a naphtha cracker unit in Tamil Nadu at a total investment of Rs 50,000 crore in the first phase.

Rashmi Radhakrishnan VP at Arcadia varsityPENNSYVANIA: Arcadia University has named Indian-American IT expert Rashmi Radhakrishnan as the new vice president and chief information officer.

Rashmi serves as a member of the president’s cabinet, leads and manages IT efforts, assesses and plans for the university’s long-term technology needs, oversees cybersecurity initiatives at Arcadia’s campuses around the world, and ensures user-centric IT support for all members of the Arcadia community.

“Having a robust and efficient IT unit and structure is crucial for universities today,” said Dr Ajay Nair, Indian-American president of Arcadia. “The needs go beyond communication and include security, infrastructure, and academic and non-academic performance.”

As Albright College’s vice president for digital strategy and infrastructure/CIO (2017-present) and CIO (2013-17), Rashmi was responsible for all aspects of technology on campus, including enterprise applications, enterprise data, information security, security awareness, infrastructure, and communications, said Arcadia University. It added that she led the “successful launch of a real-time, decision-support tool that tracked and projected revenue based on retention trends, financial aid, and other factors, as well as a multi-phased information security programme that, among other improvements, resulted in a significant reduction in phishing attempts, a cross-functional incident response plan, and a strong information security literacy programme.”

Rashmi Radhakrishnan

For new H-1B visas, US agency proposes registration feeWASHINGTON: A federal US agency has proposed $10 fee for the registration of new H1-B visas, offset-ting costs incurred in the process. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or techni-cal expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and Chi-na. The proposed fee on new H-1B visas is part of the new registration process for com-panies wishing to apply for the temporary employment visa. The new system, which was put on hold earlier this year, is expected to come into force for the next application cycle beginning April 1, 2020.

Once the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) implements the new system, it will not consider the H-1B cap-subject petition unless it is based on a valid registration selection for the applicable fiscal year, a federal notification said.

Friday, September 06, 2019 3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Friday, September 06, 2019

MUMBAI: According to a 2018 World Economic Forum (WEF) report titled ‘The Future of Jobs 2018’, the fourth industrial revo-lution will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the year 2022 but will also create 133 million new jobs — a net gain of 58 million.

Cognizant ’s Betha-vandu said in the last 18 months, his firm has reskilled and upskilled 1.4 lakh associates across a host of areas — cloud, AI, data science, design thinking, cybersecurity, interactivity and gamifica-tion to name a few.

There will be 2.5 lakh openings in the IT sec-tor up for grabs this year but the irony of it all is that there aren’t enough engineers to man these jobs. The rapid evolution of technology has left a large number of techies not skilled enough to do the high-end work that companies want. Suresh

Over 2.5 lakh jobs in IT sector, but skilled candidates in short supply

Bethavandu, V-P and glob-al head (talent acquisition) at Cognizant, confirms that while demand for new-age digital skills is high, sup-ply is tight.

Nasscom estimates that nearly 40pc of the coun-try’s workspace needs to be reskilled if they are to work in the artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), machine learning and blockchain spaces. But worryingly, HR experts say very few engineers can be brought up the curve to take on the assignments in the AI, IoT and cybersecurity spaces.

As Zairus Master, CEO, Shine.com, pointed out, skills which were relevant and useful a decade ago are now obsolete.

Yeshab Giri, V-P, Rand-stad Technologies and Strategies, told FE that tech firms are in a fix because they cannot be seen retrenching in large numbers even if they want

to. “They want to build ef-ficient models but would also like to be humane. Companies also have a brand to protect,” Giri said.

With the numbers of the not-so-skilled grow-ing, firms are asking HR experts to place them in

other sectors. One can’t blame them since new technologies — analytics, cloud computing, IoT — are increasingly bringing in more business. Not exploiting these opportu-nities could be ruinous.

So, while the traditional application development, maintenance (ADM) and verification segments, may be the bread and butter today, the growth in these segments is slowing.

Cognizant ’s Betha-vandu said in the last

18 months, his firm has reskilled and upskilled 1.4 lakh associates across a host of areas — cloud, AI, data science, design thinking, cybersecurity, interactivity and gamifica-tion to name a few.

NEW DELHI: In a move that will provide a thrust to higher education initia-tives in India, a bilateral programme with the UK aims to double the number of British students in the country by March 2021.

The higher education-focused bilateral pro-gramme, UK-India Educa-tion and Research Initiative (UKIERI), which has 235 British students in India at present, aims to raise the number to 400 by March 2021.

The students will be enrolled across graduate as well as post-graduate courses.

“As a guiding principle, we want to do everything we can to remove barriers to reciprocal mobility of the students, particularly post-graduate research stu-dents. We want to enhance the multicultural approach to education and remove the hesitation of the British students to come and study in India,” said Vivienne Stern, Director, Universi-ties UK International.

Number of British students in India to double by March 2021As part of the initia-

tive helmed by the Brit-ish Council, a delegation of 20 university leaders met officials of the Min-istry of Human Resource Development and other government departments to explore opportunities of mutual interest in the higher education sector.

The UK universities have a shared interest with India on internationalisa-tion of education which has been stressed upon by the draft New Education Policy (NEP).

“The draft policy also talks about the autonomy of the institutions which will make it easier to work with the universities. It also focuses on pedagogy, professional development as well as creation of Na-tional Research Foundation (NRF), which align with our interests,” Stern said.

The delegation with its visit aims to identify mutual interest areas with Indian stakeholders in the higher education sector, including the government

and the private players. “We discussed about

the proposals made in the draft NEP and how we could mutually work towards achieving interna-tionalisation of education that the draft policy talks about. We also talked about collaborations in the online

and distance learning pro-grammes and enhancing the employability of the graduates,” Stern said.

She said digital tech-nology can enhance the experience of students who are on campus as well as expand access to students who previously would have probably not had ac-cess to such high quality education.

“Our universities are

interested in building part-nerships which are not just limited to the traditional universities and to collabo-

rate and develop courses that cater to the needs of the present times,” Stern said.

Emphasising the impor-tance of the collaborative research, she said, “When an Indian university and a British university come together to produce a re-

search paper, it benefits both of them. Our univer-sities constantly look for-ward to adopt collaborative

research models as they are more enriching and benefi-cial. Also, expanding the research focus from STEM (Science, Technology, Engi-neering and Mathematics) to Arts and Social Sciences would be beneficial to deal with the global challenges of today’s times such as climate change.”

Tom Birtwhistle, Direc-tor, North India, British Council said recently the British government relaxed the student visa norms ac-cording to which Indian students can now stay in the UK for six months rather than four months, without making any modi-fications to their visas.

For PhD students, the duration of stay in the UK has been extended to one year post the completion of their course work.

“Student mobility be-tween India and UK for higher education is very important and has been a key agenda for discussion with the stakeholders,” he said.

Talking about achieving

parity between a one-year masters’ programme that the universities in the UK offer, and a two-year post-graduation programme offered by the Indian uni-versities, Stern said talks between both the coun-tries are ongoing.

“Several students who opted for the masters courses in UK are doing great in their careers. So, this is not a big prob-lem and the governments of the two countries are working towards a fluid approach,” she said.

As per the figures avail-able, the number of Indian students opting to study in the UK has increased by 100 per cent in the last three years. There has been a 42 per cent increase in Indian students in the UK in the last fi-nancial year. Indians are among the fastest growing nationalities of students in the UK. As many as 21,881 Indian students were granted Tier 4 visa in the last fiscal, the highest since 2011-12.

But, at the end of the day, the industry will need to hire a good many new people. Given the short-age, the available talent is expensive. The BFSI space, which is fast going digital, is paying top dollar to pull in the best tech talent. Hikes of 25pc together with ESOPs thrown in are not unusual for a top-class techie, with a flair for analytics. Anshul Lodha, regional director (BFSI), Michael Page India, said a small NBFC may hire a CTO at Rs 60-80 lakh plus variable pay plus ESOPs, while a larger organisation would be willing to offer anywhere between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 2 crore.

According to a 2018 World Economic Forum (WEF) report titled ‘The Future of Jobs 2018’, the fourth industrial revolution will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the year 2022 but will also create 133 million new jobs — a net gain of 58 million.

NEW DELHI: The HRD Min-istry on Thursday, awarded Institution of Eminence (IoE) status to five public institutions including Delhi University, Banaras Hindu University, University of Hyderabad, IIT-Madras and IIT-Kharagpur.

The decision was taken following a recommenda-

tion made by the University Grants Commission last month on the basis of the advice of an Empowered Expert Committee.

“Orders have been issued

HRD Ministry awards IoE status to 5 public institutions

to five public institutions including IIT-Madras, IIT-Kharagpur, DU and Univer-sity of Hyderabad, declaring them as IoEs,” Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said.

“Letter of Intent granting the IoE status have been issued to five private uni-versities including Amrita

Vidyapeetham, Tamil Nadu; Jamia Hamdard University; Kalinga Institute of Industri-al Technology, Odisha; and Bharti Institute, Mohali,” he added.

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GULF JOBS & CAREERS 5Friday, September 06, 2019

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Sudoku Puzzle 93 Answer

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Sudoku Puzzle

A new research has warned that ma-laria infection is

linked to 30pc higher risk of heart failure. The mos-quito-borne infection af-

fects more than 219 million people worldwide each year, according to 2018 sta-tistics of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We have seen an in-

Malaria linked to 30pc higher risk of heart failurecrease in the incidence of malaria cases and what is intriguing is that we have seen the same increase in cardiovascular disease in the same regions,” said the

first author of the study, Philip Brainin, a postdoc-toral research fellow at the Herlev-Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark.

“Even though we have

taken preventive measures to decrease the malaria numbers, it remains a ma-jor burden,” Brainin said.

The researchers used Danish nationwide regis-tries to identify patients with a history of malaria infection between January 1994 and January 2017. The mean age of patients in the study was 34 and 58pc of the subjects were male.

Around 4,000 malaria cases were identified, with 40 per cent having plasmo-dium falciparum, a parasite transmitted through mos-quito bites that is respon-sible for majority of severe malaria cases in humans.

The 11-year follow-up of patients revealed 69 cases of heart failure, which were very high as compared to the general population, and 68 cases of cardiovascular death, which were considered

within normal range.“These patients had a

30 per cent increased like-lihood of developing heart failure over the follow-up time,” Brainin said.

While more research will be needed to further validate the findings, re-cent studies have suggested that malaria could be a contributor to functional and structural changes in the myocardium, which is the muscle tissue of the heart.

Experimental studies have also shown that ma-laria may affect the blood pressure regulatory sys-tem causing hypertension, which is a contributor to heart failure.

Malaria can also affect vascular pathways that cause inflammation in the heart, which could lead to fibrosis and then heart failure.

According to the Euro-pean Society of Cardiology (ESC), a combination of high blood pressure, diabe-tes, obesity, and coronary artery disease are among the most common risk fac-tors for heart failure.

The findings were pre-sented at the ESC Congress 2019 together with the World Congress of Cardiol-ogy in Paris.

Among the high ma-laria burden countries, India has made substantial progress in disease con-trol. The malaria burden has declined by over 80 per cent — malaria cases came down to 0.39 million in 2018 from 2.03 million cases in 2000. Malaria deaths in India have de-clined by over 90 per cent — from 932 deaths in 2000 to 85 in 2018, according to Indian Council of Medical Research.

India with its six million cases of tuberculosis patients, hosts about

one-fifth of the total world population suffering from TB. Out of all the TB patients, one to two per cent suffer from TB of the skeletal system. Among patients suffering from skeletal TB, more than half of the number of cases are diagnosed with TB of the spine.Symptoms and implication of TB

Spinal TB can affect both male and female, and any age group – children, adolescents, adults, elderly. Young adults and females

Early diagnosis is key in spinal tuberculosisin the reproductive age group are more susceptible

to this kind of TB. In the active stage of the disease,

patients suffer from mal-aise, loss of weight, loss of

appetite, night sweats and rise of body temperature

at evening. The spine be-comes stiff and aches with

movement, causing local-ised deformity. There are

persistent muscle spasms around the affected verte-brae. Spinal TB may also be associated with neurologic problems caused by com-pression of the spinal cord.Causes and incidences

TB in the spine occurs when you contract tubercu-losis and it spreads b e y o n d the lungs. Spinal TB typically begins due to the rich vascular supply in the middle of the long bones and the vertebrae. The occurrence of multi-drug resistant TB poses a higher challenge to treat spinal TB adequately.Diagnosis and treatment

Accurate clinical diag-nosis of spinal TB is often difficult as symptoms may not be definitely pertaining to TB in the early stages, however MRI scans would detect the infection. In patients with spinal TB, anti-TB treatment should

be started as early a s p o s -sible. In pat ients

with known difficulties of spinal tuberculosis, surgery may also be required. The treatment varies between conservative management with drugs to surgical man-agement, or a combination of both, depending upon the severity of the disease.

Using multidrug ther-apy, the recurrence rate for skeletal TB is about 2 percent, although the re-lapse rate was much higher when treatment used to be given using a single drug. Long-term multidrug anti-TB treatment helps reduce the relapse rate of spinal TB. Effective medical and surgical management of spinal TB has improved

the outcome of patients significantly even in the presence of neurologic deficits and spinal defor-mities.

Neurologic complica-tions due to spinal TB can be relatively benign if early medical and surgical man-agement is done. Younger age of the patient and radical surgery, along with anti-TB chemotherapy, can drastically improve the outcome.Precaution and prevention

TB has devastating con-sequences for patients, their families and the so-ciety as a whole. Spinal TB is very painful and can leave the patient immobile. Early diagnosis is the key followed by prompt and adequate treatment can completely cure spinal tuberculosis. In neglected cases, the patient may develop angular deformity due to the destruction of vertebral bodies and lead to paralysis of legs and lower parts of the body.The author is consultant, spine surgery, Vikram Hospital, Bengaluru

The Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT)

has invited applications from interested candidates for Non-Teaching posts at mnnit.ac.in. The application process for the same has already been activated on the official website and will continue until the end of this month. It is to be noted that these Non-faculty posi-tions are on a contract basis, in various departments/ sections of the institute. It is to be noted that these

MNNIT Allahabad to recruit for non-teaching postsposts come with 7th Pay Commission salary benefits. For more details, candidates can visit the official website of MNNIT to know more.Important Dates

Notification release date – September 1, 2019

Online Application starts – September 1, 2019

Online Application Ends – September 30, 2019 upto 5:30 PMNon-Teaching post details1. Superintendent – 05 posts2. Junior Assistant – 15 posts3. Senior Assistant – 09 posts

4. Stenographer – 02 posts5. Senior Stenographer – 01 post6. Technical As-sistant/ Junior Engineer/ SAS Assistant/ Li-brary Informa-tion Assistant – 29 posts7. Technician – 30 (Including 02 PwD)8. Senior Tech-nician – 15 (Including 01 PwD)Salary for Non-Teaching

posts1. Superintendent – Pay Level 6 [PB-2 (Rs 9300 to Rs

34,800) & GP Rs 4200/-]2. Junior Assis-tant – Pay Level 3 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200) & GP Rs 2000/-]3. Senior Assis-tant – Pay Level 4 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200) &

GP Rs 2400/-]4. Stenographer – Pay Level 4 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200)

& GP Rs 2400/-]5. Senior Stenographer – Pay Level 5 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200) & GP Rs 2800/-]6. Technical Assistant/ Ju-nior Engineer/ SAS Assis-tant/ Library Information Assistant – Pay Level 6 [PB-2 (Rs 9300 to Rs 34,800) & GP Rs 4200/-]7. Technician – Pay Level 3 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200) & GP Rs 2000/-]8. Senior Technician – Pay Level 4 [PB-1 (Rs 5200 to Rs 20200) & GP Rs 2400/-]Age limit

1. Superintendent – 30 years2. Junior Assistant – 27 years3. Senior Assistant – 33 years4. Stenographer – 27 years5. Senior Stenographer – 33 years6. Technical Assistant/ Ju-nior Engineer/ SAS Assis-tant/ Library Information Assistant – 30 years7. Technician – 27 years8. Senior Technician – 33 yearsHow to apply for Non-Teaching posts

Non-refundable process-

ing fee – Rs 500Interested candidates can

fill the online application at mnnit.ac.in. Applicants may click on the online applica-tion link, read the instruc-tions carefully and fill-in the online application form giving accurate information. After the successful submis-sion of online application must keep a copy of the finally submitted online ap-plication, which they will be required to produce as and when asked for during the selection process.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited has invited applications from

candidates for a number of posts at mmrcl.com. Interested candidates can visit the official website of MMRC now to fill the online application that has already been activated. Sal-ary on offer for the posts goes up as high as Rs 2 lakh. The posts on offer are for Deputy General Manager, Assistant Gen-eral Manager, Deputy Engineer (Track) and Deputy Engineer (TVS/ ECS). The last date to fill online application is September 30, 2019. Candidates need to make sure that they read all in-structions carefully before filling the form. Read the details below to know more.

Important DatesLast date to apply – Sep-

tember 30, 2019Post detailsDeputy General Manager

(Track)

Mumbai Metro invites applications for multiple postsNo. of Post: 1Salary: Grade (E5) Rs 80,000

– 2,20,000/- (IDA Pay scale)Eligibility Criteria: Degree

in Civil Engineering from a recognized and reputed uni-versity.

Age limit: Maximum 40 years

Assistant General Manager (Track)

No. of Post: 2Salary: Grade (E4) Rs 70,000

– 2,00,000/- (IDA Pay scale)Eligibility Criteria: Degree

in Civil Engineering from a recognized and reputed uni-

versity.Age limit:

Maximum 40 years

Dy. Engi-neer (Track)

No. of Post: 1

S a l a r y : Grade (E2 ) R s 5 0 , 0 0 0 – 1,60,000/- ( I D A P a y scale)

Eligibility Criteria: Degree in Civil Engi-neering from a recognized and reputed university.

Age limit: Maximum 35 years

Dy. Engineer (TVS/ ECS)No. of Post: 2Salary: Grade (E2) Rs.

50,000 – 1,60,000/- (IDA Pay

scale)Eligibility Criteria: Full time

degree in Electrical / Mechani-cal Engineering from recog-nized and reputed university

Age limit: Maximum 35 years

How to ApplyInterested candidates can

visit the official website of Mumbai Metro at mmrcl.com. Candidates are required to have valid personal E-mail ID & Mobile No. It should be kept active during the recruitment process. MMRCL will send in-timation of personal interview and any other information re-garding your application only through the registered E-mail ID. All the fields in the online application form should be filled up carefully. Candidate are required to clearly indi-cate whether they are apply-ing against the vacancy for consideration on Regular or Deputation or Contract basis.

Microsoft Garage India has partnered with Indian Institute of Technology

(IIT), Roorkee to conduct lectures on quantum computing for a full semester. IIT’s B.Tech and M.Tech students can choose the course as a pool elective. The course, which has been structured by IIT Roorkee and Microsoft, will provide the stu-dents, access to Q# Programming Language practical examples, Mi-crosoft Quantum Development Kit and Microsoft Quantum Faculty.

Microsoft has been running a quantum computing program for more than 15 years. Experts from the tech giant will teach IIT-Roorkee students real-world experiments and access to tools for emerging technology. The course will be for a full semester.

Reena Dayal, Director, Mi-crosoft Garage India said, “This collaboration between Microsoft Garage and IIT Roorkee represents

Microsoft to teach quantum computing at IIT-Roorkee

another step towards empower-ing students to create futuristic innovations. With Microsoft’s ex-perience in the field of quantum computing, we aim to make the technology more accessible and enhance the learning journey of engineering students. The partner-ship will create a new learning experience for students and help them build impacting solutions.”

Microsoft aims to enable stu-dents across the world to foster innovation and craft solutions for real-time challenges.

Our initiatives provide students with practical experience, expert guidance and mentorship which empowers them to achieve more. Microsoft Garage India has been closely working with academia to provide students access to new technologies and encouraging them to innovate aggressively, learn through practice, and build creatively.

By Dr Amrithlal A Mascarenhas

6 IN FOCUS Friday, September 06, 2019

GULF FAQs

I have been working in a construction company based in Abu Dhabi for over seven years. My employer has not been providing me with re-muneration on a timely basis since two years and the employees who resigned from the company did not receive their pending salaries and end-of-service benefits. My employment contract and employment card expired in Aug 2018. My employer has not renewed my employment card and the medical insurance. However, my residence visa is valid till Aug 2020. Who is responsible to bear the medical insurance costs of an employee?

We assume that you are employed in a company based in the mainland of emirate of Abu Dhabi and therefore the applicable laws are Federal Law No. (8) of 1980 regulating employ-ment relations in the UAE (the “Employment Law”) related to employment and Law No. (23) of 2005 regarding the health insurance scheme for the emirate of Abu Dhabi (the “Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law”) related to health insur-ance. As per the Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law, the employer may be responsible for pro-viding health insurance for all his employees and their family members (employee’s wife and three children under 18 years of age). This is in accordance with Article 5 of the Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law which states: “Every em-ployer shall provide health insurance coverage for all his employees/workers and their family members covering the employee’s/worker’s wife and three children under 18 years of age. Every sponsor shall subscribe to the scheme for any person under his sponsorship from the date of his arrival to the state unless such person is entitled for health insurance coverage by an employer. Expatriates may not be employed, is-sued residence permits nor have their existing permits renewed unless they are subscribed to the health insurance scheme.”

Further, it may be noted that it is illegal to work in the UAE without a valid work permit issued by Ministry of HR & Emiratisation (the “MOHRE”). This is in accordance with Article 13 of the Employment Law which states: “No non-national may be recruited for work in the UAE without the prior approval of the ministry and without first obtaining a work permit in accordance with the procedures and regulations laid down by the MOHRE. Such permit shall not be granted unless the following conditions are fulfilled:

1) That the employee possesses the profes-sional competence or educational qualification which the country is in need of (2)-That the employee has lawfully entered the country and satisfies the conditions prescribed in the residence regulations in force in the state.”

Therefore, it may be noted that upon the expiry of your employment contract and work permit, if your employer is eager to continue with your employment, then he should renew them by following the draft of the Standard Employment Contract. This is in accordance with Article 3 of Ministerial Decree (764) of 2015 on MOHRE approved Standard Employ-ment Contracts which states: “The Standard Employment Contracts referenced in Article 1 must be used upon renewing contracts that are in force prior to the issuance of this decree.”

Since your employer has not terminated your employment contract, you may still con-tinue to work for him without the execution of a new job contract. In this scenario, the terms and conditions of your expired employment contract is deemed to be extended. This is in accordance with Article 40 of the Employment Law which states: “Where the parties to the con-tract continue --- after expiry of its initial term or completion of the work agreed upon --- to perform the contract without explicit agreement, the original contract shall be deemed to have been extended on the same conditions except for the term.”Based on the aforementioned provision of the Abu Dhabi Health Insurance Law, the employer is under an obligation to provide medical insurance to his employees and his family members as mentioned above until such employee’s residence visa in the UAE is sponsored by his employer. Furthermore, based on the aforementioned provisions of the Employment Law and Ministerial Decree, upon expiry of your employment contract you may approach the MOHRE and lodge a complaint against your employer for non-renewal of employment contract and medical insurance.

Bank A/C closureI have a problem with a UAE bank. I didn’t close my account before I left for India two years ago as I thought the bank would auto-matically close it. I am back in Dubai as I have a new job. When I went to the bank to reactivate the account, I discovered I have to pay Dh361. I don’t want to pay this charge as I didn’t use the account after I returned to my

UAE employer must providemedical insurance to employees

native country. I want to close it and open a new account. What can I do?

This is a salutary lesson. You did not close the bank account when you left the UAE but many banks charge a monthly fee if the mini-mum balance is not maintained. Furthermore, a bank’s terms and conditions make reference to fees and these are assumed to be accepted when any person signs the paperwork to open an account. The bank’s general terms include this statement: “The bank, without referring to the customer, may deduct from the customer’s account expenses, fees or commissions payable against the banking services rendered to the customer according to banking fees and com-missions regulations approved by the bank.”

The bank is well within its rights to charge a fee for maintaining the account as you did not notify them that you were leaving and wanted to close the account. No bank account closes automatically and it is the responsibility of the individual to notify their bank of any actions required. You need to pay the money you owe to the bank and then tell them you want to close the account if that is your required course of action.

Penalty to employerI work under a renewed limited two-year contract and after one year I am planning to tender my resignation as I am going back to my home country India to continue my studies. How much do I need to pay to compensate my employer? It is written in the contract that on termination of contract either or both parties will pay one month’s total wage. Will this be followed? If so, will I receive my gratuity for the previous year?

Anyone on a limited-term contract, even if this is a second one, is liable to pay a penalty to their employer for breaking the terms of the contract. Article 116 of UAE Labour Law, which is largely adopted across all employment zones in the UAE, states: “Should the contract be rescinded by the worker … the worker shall be bound to compensate the employer for the loss incurred thereto by reason of the rescis-sion of the contract, provided that the amount of compensation does not exceed the wage of half-a-month for the period of three months or for the remaining period of the contract, which-ever is shorter, unless otherwise stipulated in the contract.” An employer does not have to follow this, provided the employee is no worse off than under the minimum requirements, so a penalty equivalent to one month’s salary could be applied instead of the standard penalty that equates to 45 days’ pay. In this situation as the total period of service is fewer than five years in total, no end-of-service gratuity will be pay-able. This is per article 139 of the law, which states that “the worker shall be deprived of his end-of-service gratuity … should he leave his employment of his own accord … prior to the completion of five years of continuous service with regards to contracts with determined term”.

Bogus letterI run a business in Jafza (Jebel Ali Free Zone Area) and was recently sent a letter, on official-looking letterhead, from an organisation called UAE Register of Commerce. All our business information was shown there correctly and it said that we hadn’t paid our annual premium and the invoice they had sent us was outstand-ing. This is the first I had heard of this and we haven’t been sent any invoice or received anything in the past. The amount they are ask-ing is in US dollars, in the amount of $1,177 . We don’t want to get in trouble, so can you tell us if this is a real organisation and if we have to pay this bill?

You have sent me a copy of this letter and it does look rather official and is on a letterhead in UAE colours. This is a scam, though, and the giveaway signs are that they are requesting payment in US dollars, as the UAE government would only ask for payments in UAE dirhams and at the bottom of the letter there is an ad-dress in Germany. The bank details are not for a UAE bank, although this is harder to spot, but all UAE bank IBANs start AE and this starts DE. The letter refers recipients to a website which looks like it could be real until you get to the contact page which is for an address and phone number in Germany. The UAE authorities do not usually send official correspondence by standard post. Instead communication is usu-ally electronic these days and contact details will always be in the UAE. There seems to be a significant increase in scammers targeting the UAE in the past few months and many of their approaches look realistic at first glance. It pays to be cautious and check whether any requests for money or personal information are genuine. Dubai residents can report cybercrimes via the Dubai Police website or app.

Union Minister for Textiles and Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani inaugurating One Step Centre of Excellence for comprehensive care of Victims of Crime Against Women and Children at KEM Hos-pital, Parel in Mumbai.

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax De-partment will automatically issue PAN to a taxpayer using Aadhaar number for filing returns as part of a new arrangement to link the two data bases.

According to a notification issued by the CBDT, a person who furnishes Aadhaar, as he does not have PAN, “shall be deemed” to have applied for allotment of PAN and he will not be required to apply or submit any more documents. The rule had come into effect from Sept 1, it said.

The notification said the tax de-partment would “obtain demograph-ic information of an individual from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)” for allotment of PAN, a 10-digit alphanumeric identi-fier issued by it. The CBDT frames policy for the tax department.

CBDT chairman PC Mody told

Use Aadhaar, get automatic PAN a Tv channel that the department would “suo motu” allot a fresh PAN to a person who files I-T Returns (ITR) with only Aadhaar as part of a new arrangement to link the two databases. “In cases where Aadhaar is being quoted and PAN is not there, we could possibly think on the terms of allotting a PAN to the person (who is filing income tax return).”

“The law provides that the as-sessing officer can suo motu allot PAN. So, if Aadhaar is being quoted without PAN, I give him the PAN. It becomes linked,” the CBDT chair-man had said. Mody was asked if the Income Tax Department-issued PAN would be dead after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech on July 5 an-nounced that PAN and Aadhaar are being made interchangeable as the government would allow those who

did not have PAN to file I-T returns by simply quoting their Aadhaar number and use it wherever they are required to quote PAN.

Linking of the two databases is now compulsory and backed by law, the CBDT chief had said. While Aadhaar is issued by UIDAI to a resident, PAN is a 10-digit al-phanumeric number allotted by the tax department to a person, firm or entity.

Aadhaar holds all vital informa-tion of an individual such as name, date of birth, gender, photo and ad-dress, and also biometrics. The same set of information is required to get a new PAN. As per data, over 120 crore Aadhaar numbers have been issued in the country and about 41 crore PAN numbers have been gen-erated. Out of these, more than 22 crore PANs are linked with Aadhaar.

MUMBAI: A rally in the in-ternational gold market saw Indian prices touching record high levels several times in the past few months. Gold imports last month dropped by 73pc to 30 tonnes from 111.47 tonnes in the year-ago month, the lowest level in three years. The 30 tonnes include import for domes-tic consumption and export purposes

Physical demand for gold has suffered a blow after prices shot up to multi-year

Gold imports down 73pc in Augusthighs due to macro-eco-nomic factors and investor demand. In value terms, August’s imports fell 62pc to $1.37 billion, the low-est since Aug 2016. A rally in the international gold market saw Indian prices touching record high levels several times in the past few months. A hike in import duties also discouraged retail buying.

“It is a lean season and the marriage season has not started yet. High gold prices

is another reason to keep away from buying gold,” said Debajit Saha, Senior Analyst, Precious Metals Demand, South Asia and UAE, GFMS.According to him, gold is available for a discount in the bullion market ever since prices began moving up in June. The discounts reached $59 per ounce last week across key bullion markets and has now come down to $40- $45 per ounce.

“Discounts might fur-

ther come down by third week of Sept when jewellery manufacturers and jewellers begin their purchases for the festive season,’ he said.Meanwhile, July witnessed the lowest level of monthly net purchases by central banks since Aug 2017. While central banks bought 35.5 tonnes in July, sales of 22.4 tonnes by Uzbekistan central bank led to net purchases plummet to 13.1 tonnes, as per the data from the World Gold Council.

NEW DELHI: The board of Punjab National Bank (PNB) has given in-principle approval for the amalgamation of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India with PNB. The board meeting followed the finance ministry asking the three banks to consider the proposal of amalgamation. The Alternative Mechanism headed by the finance minister after consultation with RBI has given the go-ahead for the merger. The government on Friday unveiled a mega plan to merge 10 public sector banks into four as part of plans to create

PNB board okays merger

MUMBAI: The Maharash-tra government has signed a MoU with the UAE-based Eagle Hills Investment LLC, which is a sister concern of Emmar Proper-ties PJSC.

The company has pro-posed an investment of Rs 9,500 crore in hi-tech food city, mega food city, logis-tics and warehousing hub and fruits and vegetables hub across multiple loca-tions in the state. These projects are expected to

UAE-based Eagle Hills to investRs 9,500 cr in Maharashtra

generate a total employ-ment of close to 6 lakh. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in his tweet said:

‘’This MoU includes set-ting up of Hi-Tech food cit-ies on multiple locations in Maharashtra and Mega food city, logistics/warehousing hub, fruit-vegetable hub on select locations. This will boost direct procurement from farmers, eliminating the middlemen.’’

The MoU comes a week after Walmart India

and Chinese major ATL evinced interest to invest around Rs 6,000 crore in the state. Walmart India has proposed to set up 10 more cash and carry stores for wholesales while ATL plans to manufacture mo-bile batteries. With Eagle Hill’s proposed investment of Rs 9,500 crore, the state has attracted an investment of Rs 15,500 crore during the economic slowdown and also ahead of imposi-tion of the model code of

conduct for the state as-sembly elections slated for Oct this year.

The state government and Eagle Hills inked MoU in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fad-navis, Industries Minister Subhash Desai, CM’s Prin-cipal Secretary Bhushan Gagrani, Industries Com-miss ioner Harshdeep Kamble and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation CEO P An-balagan.

fewer and stronger global-sized lenders as it looks to boost economic growth from an over six-year low. Besides, the PNB board cleared a capital infusion of up to Rs 18,000 crore by the government for preferential allotment of equity shares of the bank at a price determined in terms of SEBI regulations. The government announced infusion of Rs 16,000 crore in PNB for a smooth and seamless amalgamation. The EGM in this regard will be held on Oct 22 to obtain shareholders’ approval, it said.

CORPORATE NEWS 7Friday, September 06, 2019

IT consulting and busi-ness process services company Wipro has

secured a strategic seven-year engagement valued at 300 million dollars (about Rs 2,165 crore) from private lender ICICI Bank to provide a comprehensive suite of services.

Wipro provides solutions to banks by leveraging Wipro Holmes, the company’s artificial intelligence plat-form. It has a significant presence as an IT servic-es provider in the global banking and financial services sector.

“This engagement will further strengthen our endeavour to provide differentiated technology and digital capabilities to the financial services industry,” the company said in a statement.

Currently, Vara lnfo-

Wipro bags digital services contract from ICICI Bank

tech provides these ser-vices to ICICI Bank.

As a part of this stra-tegic engagement, Wipro will absorb about 3,800 employees of Vara lnfo-

tech along with its exist-ing contracts, facilities and assets on a going concern basis through a business transfer agree-ment for an all-cash con-sideration of Rs 321 crore.

The revenues gener-ated by this business in the last financial y e a r 2 0 1 8 - 1 9 w a s Rs 221.5 crore. This transaction is expected to be completed during the quarter ending Sep-tember 30.

Indian telecom sector received heavy inflow of foreign direct investment

(FDI) in the first quarter of the current financial year. At Rs 29,352 crore, the FDI in telecommunications in just one quarter of FY20, sur-

passed the total FDI inflow into the sector in the entire previous financial year FY19, according to the data from Ministry of Commerce and Trade. FDI inflow in India has shot up 33 per cent in the first quarter of the cur-rent financial year. Foreign direct investments of Rs 1.13 lakh crore has been received

Telecom sector receives heavy FDI infl ow in Q1

in Q1 FY20, which was Rs 85,180 crore in the same quarter last year.

In the month of June alone, a cumulative FDI of Rs 50,567 crore was received in India. In dollar terms, the growth in FDI in the

first quarter r e m a i n e d 28 per cent. On an av-erage, ser-vice sector i n c l u d i n g f i n a n c i a l , b a n k i n g , insurance, o u t s o u r c -

ing, R&D, etc, receives the maximum, that is, 18 per cent of the total FDI received in India. In the first quarter, the service sector received Rs 19,462 crore, second highest after telecommunications. In 2018-19, India received a lifetime high FDI of $62 billion, with maximum share of $9.2 billion in the services

sector.The government has been

consistently trying to ease the process of investing in India. The efforts of the gov-ernment are aimed to boost FDI in the country, which would eventually help to steer India out of the ongoing slowdown. Recently, a major decision on single-brand retail has allowed 100pc FDI in the sector. In another decision, the government has also permitted 100 per cent FDI through the automatic route in coal and its related industries.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said a few days back that, to boost domestic manufacturing, 100pc FDI in contract manu-facturing under automatic route has been allowed. In-creasing FDI in this scenario can provide some help to the manufacturing sector, which has pulled down the coun-try’s GDP to a six-year low.

Reliance Jio on Thursday announced complete de-tails of its Jio Fiber optic-

fiber based broadband service. The telecom giant aims to reach 20 million households and 15 million business establishments across 1,600 towns with its new Jio Fiber broadband service. Re-liance Jio is also bundling free landline calls, complimentary access to OTT platforms, and free set-top-box as part of its introductory offers for Reliance Jio Fiber.

Reliance Jio has categorized its Jio Fiber plans into fol-lowing: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Platinum, Titanium.

Reliance Jio’s base plan starts at Rs 699 and goes up to Rs 8,499. The base plan offers 100Mbps speed and 100GB+50GB extra data with free voice calls, TV video calling and conferencing. The second plan is priced at Rs 849 and offers 100Mbps data speeds and 200GB+200GB extra data along with the same calling and conferencing benefits.

The Rs 1,299 monthly plan offers 250Mbps data

Reliance Jio Fiber launchedspeed with 500GB+250GB extra monthly data. The Rs 2,499 monthly plan has 500Mbps data speed with 1250GB+250GB extra data. Under Rs 3,999 and Rs 8,499 data plans, users get 2,500GB and 5,000GB data respec-tively at 1Gbps data speeds.

Jio Fiber users need to make one-time payment of Rs 2,500 for the installation of this broadband service. This includes Rs 1,500 security deposit and Rs 1,000 non-refundable installation.Jio Fiber Welcome Offer

Reliance Jio has also an-nounced a Welcome Offer for Jio Forever annual plans. Under Jio Forever annual plans, users will get the fol-lowing - Jio Home Gateway, Jio 4K Set Top Box, Televi-sion Set (in Gold plan and above), and subscription to OTT apps.

How to register/apply for Reliance Jio Fiber

Interested customers ap-ply and register for Jio Fiber through the company’s offi-cial registration website.

Standard Chartered Bank has launched a DigiSmart credit

card that is focussed on millennials. The card is available for a monthly fee of Rs 499, which will, however, be waived off if the customer spends more than Rs 5,000 in the previous month.

“In the initial phase, Standard Chartered has partnered with mar-quee brands such as Myntra, Grofers, Yatra, Zomato, Ola and INOX,” the bank said in a state-ment, adding that the credit card will offer instant discounts and benefits across key e-commerce categories of travel, entertainment, fashion, groceries, and food delivery round the year.

StanChart launches DigiSmart card

With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) extending the dead-

line for mobile wallets to be fully compliant with Know Your Customer (KYC), people using PhonePe, Paytm, Ama-zon Pay or other such wallets will have no trouble making their transactions as usual till 29 February 2020.

The date to become com-plete KYC compliant for mo-bile wallets was previously set to end on August 31. But the RBI expanded the deadline by six more months on August 30 with the warn-ing that there would be no further expansion.

“It is advised that the timeline for the conversion of minimum detail PPIs (pre-paid payment instruments) to KYC compliant PPIs has been

Mobile Wallets have time till Feb 2020 to update KYC

extended from 18 months to 24 months. It may also be noted that no further exten-sion will be granted for this purpose,” the RBI said in the

notification to all PPI issuers or mobile wallet providers.

Becoming a complete KYC compliant would imply that their clients would have to be physically verified by mobile wallet service sup-pliers. These PPI issuers used partial KYC earlier, which could be done via a

smartphone.Industry body Payments

Council of India hopes that the government would come up with a method that would

enable mobile wallet users to avoid face-to-face verifications.

“PCI further states that the PPI indus-try hopes government will soon come up with the clarity on e-KYC via Aadhaar or any other remote fully

non-face to face digital KYC method in order to enable the PPI industry players to perform this task of full KYC conversion effectively and efficiently under the given timelines as well as in a fast-track manner,” the Payments Council of India said in a statement earlier.

Food and Consumer Af-fairs Ministry has de-cided to ban single-use

plastic in its various depart-ments as well as the public sector units under its admin-istration from September 15.

The decision was taken at a meeting held by Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

Paswan announced “a blan-ket ban on all types of single-use plastic products” in the ministry as well as PSUs, including Food Corporation of India (FCI) from September 15.

The decision on this was taken in a high-level meeting with secretaries of both the departments i.e. Consumer Affairs and Food, CMD of Food Corporation of India, DG Bureau of India Standards, MD

Paswan bans on single use plastic in his offices

of CWC, Director Legal Metrol-ogy along with other senior officials of the ministry.

Paswan asked the officials to make alternate arrangements to ensure that the ban is effec-tive, an official statement said.

Moreover, the department said, it distributed cloth bags to employees to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics.

“Department of Fertil-izers is committed to do its utmost efforts to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics. As these are non-biodegradable they pollute our environment,” it said.

An effective ban on single-use plastic can happen if an alternative is available in the market.

Cloth or jute bags, locally

tailored and produced, can be a viable alternative, an official statement said.

“Looking into such oppor-tunities, Department of Fertil-izers, during the Swachhata Pakhwada and Swachhata Hi Sewa campaign decided to distribute cloth bags pro-duced by Women’s Self-help Group Laxmi Devi Swasya Group of village Maragon-danahalli Grama Panchayat Ramohalli district, Karnataka to its employees,” the state-ment said.

The department termed it as a small step to reduce single-use plastic usage and, to make people aware of a viable alternative, while at the same time to improve the income and livelihood of rural women of India.

State-owned Indian Bank expects to com-plete the merger with

Allahabad Bank by the end of current fiscal, a top of-ficial said.

Last week, the govern-ment announced the con-solidation of 10 public sector banks into four mega state-owned lenders, in-cluding the merger of Al-lahabad Bank with Indian Bank.

“We have to go to board first...there is a process to follow. In the next few months, boards of both banks should complete the process. I expect that all the process should ideally be over by March 31,” In-dian Bank Managing Direc-

Indian Bank, Allahabad Bank expect merger by Mar 31tor Padmaja Chunduru said.

Indian Bank last week received a communication from Ministry of Finance that the Alternative Mecha-nism after consultation

with Reserve Bank of India has cleared a proposal for the merger.

When asked about the board meeting for con-sidering the proposal for

amalgamation, she said, it will happen soon.

“It may happen during the week or early next week,” she said.

The merger of Indian Bank and Alla-habad Bank will create a robust enti-ty with a Pan-India presence, she said.

Currently, In-dian Bank has a strong presence in South India where-as Allahabad Bank is present in north-

ern and eastern India. This will also enable

major scaling up of both banks’ business, due to complementary networks as currently both use

the same CBS platform (BaNCS), thereby enabling quick realisation of gains, she said.

The merged entity will emerge as the 7th largest public sector bank with a business of Rs 8.08 lakh crore (approx 1.9 times of pre-merged Indian Bank) and will have a nationwide presence spread over 6,100 branches with about 43,000 employees.

“We are confident that given our commitment to deliver the best, we will be among the first to com-plete the integration and shall thrive on the mutual strengths, thereby emerg-ing as a global bank of the future,” she said.

Also, as a combined entity, it can leverage the balance sheet which will make the lending capacity more robust, she said.

On the technical and HR integration, she said, it is likely to be seamless, so will be the cultural pro-cesses and systems.

“Post-merger, our top priority apart from business growth and profitability, will be employee manage-ment and welfare. Further with this integration, focus on MSMEs and agricultural sector in the respective ge-ographies can be leveraged better,” she said.

She ruled out any clo-sure of branches and staff retrenchment.

National Stock Ex-change (NSE) has said it will con-

duct mock trading ses-sions for various segments on September 7.

The mock trading (con-tingency) has been sched-uled for capital market segment, securities lend-ing and borrowing market, commodity derivatives, currency derivatives and futures and options seg-ments, NSE said.

Normal working hours for a capital market seg-ment and futures and options will be between 1015 hours and 1530 hours.

NSE to conduct mock trading sessions on Sept 7

For the securities lend-ing and borrowing market, the timing for continuous trading will be from 1015 hours to 1215 hours.

The normal session for currency derivatives is scheduled to open at 1000 hours, while commodity derivatives will open at 1100 hours; and will close at 1530 hours for both the segments.

Mock trading sessions are generally conducted by stock exchanges to test their system performance as part of their efforts to provide a robust platform to members in order to enable flawless trading.

A day after the Union cabinet approved a Rs 9,300 crore

infusion in IDBI Bank, the lender plans to sell its stake in IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company and has mandated JP Morgan India to manage the pro-cess, according to a public announcement.

“JP Morgan India Private Ltd has been mandated for advising and managing a strategic review process for IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company Ltd which may

IDBI Bank plans to sell stake in insurance joint ventureresult in, inter alia, poten-tial divestment of all or part of the stake held by IDBI Bank in IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company,” the announcement said, add-ing that JP Morgan invites expressions of interest by way of submission of com-prehensive, non-binding proposal from potential investors for evaluating the potential transaction.

While IDBI Bank owns 48pc of the insurance com-pany, Federal Bank and Ageas Insurance Interna-

tional NV own 26pc each. IDBI Bank’s exit from the insurance joint venture became essential after Life

Insurance Corp of India (LIC) took a 51pc stake in it in January and the bank started using its network to sell LIC products.

Through the sale of a

non-core asset, the LIC-owned private lender is try-ing to raise additional capi-tal. IDBI Bank is also look-

ing to sell its mutual fund business. Mint reported on May 30 that the bank’s mutual fund business has assets under manage-ment (AUM) of more than

Rs 9,000 crore and since mutual fund businesses are generally valued at 4-5pc of their assets under manage-ment, the sale could fetch around Rs 360-450 crore.

IDBI Bank has been looking for an investor in the insurance company since 2017. In January 2019, the lender said its board has approved a pro-posal to resume the process of divesting its stake in the life insurance joint venture.

“We hereby advise that the board of directors of

IDBI Bank at its meeting held on Monday, 21 Janu-ary, 2019 has approved in-principle, the proposal to re-initiate divestment pro-cess of IDBI stake in IDBI Federal Life Insurance Co. Ltd subject to statutory/regulatory approvals, if any, required to be obtained in this regard,” the bank had said in a regulatory filing.

IDBI Bank, the country’s weakest bank in terms of asset quality, had a gross bad loan ratio of 29.12pc in the June quarter, followed

by UCO Bank at 24.85pc and Indian Overseas Bank at 22.53pc, according to data from Capitaline.

Meanwhile, as part of the recapitalization plan approved by the Union cabinet, IDBI Bank will get Rs 4,557 crore from the government, and state-owned LIC will pump in an additional Rs 4,743 crore to improve the bank’s capital buffers. The government, the erstwhile owner of the bank, held a 46.46pc stake in the lender as of June.

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8 Travel / Entertainment

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Friday, September 06, 2019

EXCHANGE RATESEXCHANGE RATES

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

As on 05th September, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 47.50 50.50 Bahraini Dinar 186.00 196.00British Pound 87.10 90.10Canadian Dollar 52.90 55.90 Emirati Dirham 19.05 20.05 Euro 77.95 80.95 Kuwaiti Dinar 231.45 241.35Omani Rial 181.80 191.80Qatari Riyal 18.00 21.00 Saudi Riyal 18.65 19.65 Singapore Dollar 50.45 53.45 Swiss Franc 71.60 74.60US Dollar 70.60 73.10

Source:

Sridevi’s wax figure at Madame Tussauds, Singapore

Sridevi’s wax fi gure at Madame TussaudsIndian screen icon Sridevi, who died in Dubai due to

accidental drowning in a bath tub in Feb 2018, contin-ues to immmortalise and court fame posthumously.The legendary actress’ wax figure was unveiled

by her daughter Jhanvi Kapoor at Madame Tussauds in Singapore. Her de-voted husband, pro-ducer husband Boney Kapoor and his daugh-ters including Khushi Kapoor were a part of that glorious moment in Singapore.

“Sridevi lives for-ever in not just our hearts but also in the hearts of millions of her fans. Eagerly wait-ing to watch the un-veiling of her figure at Madame Tussauds, Singapore on Sept4, 2019.SrideviLivesFor-ever,” tweeted Boney Kapoor. He also posted a video of the making of the iconic statue of Sridevi, dressed in the legendary golden outfit worn in her 1987 sci-fi block-buster Mr India, directed by Oscar nominated director Shekhar Kapoor.

It was on Sridevi’s birth anniversary that news emerged that Madame Tussauds in Singapore will honour India’s first female superstar with a place in their tourist-flooded museum. Kapoor was quick to ac-knowledge their gesture. Sridevi was 54 when she died.

Qatar 2022 World Cup emblem unveiled

The official emblem of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 was

unveiled digitally across the globe, marking another milestone in the country’s journey to host football’s showpiece event in a little over three years’ time. The emblem’s design embodies the vision of an event that connects and engages the entire world, while also featuring striking elements of local and regional Arab culture and allusions to the beautiful game.

The swooping curves of the emblem represent the undulations of desert dunes and the unbroken loop de-picts both the number eight --– a reminder of the eight astonishing stadia that will host matches –-- and the infinity symbol, reflecting the interconnected nature of the event. Besides echo-ing the shape of the iconic FIFA World Cup Trophy, the emblem’s central form takes inspiration from a tradi-tional woolen shawl. During winter months, shawls are worn around the world and in the Arab and Gulf region

in particular by a variety of people and in various styles.

The intricate embroi-dered detail that often adorns shawls in the Arab

world is featured and takes inspiration from various cul-tures across Asia, celebrat-ing the continent’s second hosting of a FIFA World Cup tournament and Qatar’s diverse population.The new typeface created to accom-pany the emblem reimagines traditional Arabic calligra-phy in a new, contemporary font, taking inspiration from the region and Asia and fus-ing tradition with modernity. Fans all over the world wit-nessed the official unveiling.

Thousands of spectators witnessed the synchronised

projection of the emblem onto a number of the coun-try’s most iconic buildings, including Burj Doha, Katara Cultural Village Amphithe-

atre, Ministry of Interior, Souq Waqif and Msheireb and Al Zubarah Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage site. A number of major cities around the world are also celebrating the mile-stone, with images of the emblem seen on renowned locations and outdoor bill-boards in prominent public spaces. Some of the world’s best-known footballers and FIFA World Cup legends are also taking to social media to support the launch and share the emblem with their millions of fans online.

Air India’s new service toDoha in winter schedule

Indian national carrier Air India has announced a new service to Doha

in its winter schedule. The weekly four flights con-necting Delhi to Doha will be effective Oct 29 and will continue till the end of the schedule in March 2020.

This will be Indian na-tional carrier’s only flight to Doha. Its subsidiary, Air India Express flies to many cities in India from Doha, including Mumbai, Thiru-vananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Mangalore. Air India’s Airbus 321 will fly from Delhi on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 2:20pm and on Friday at 3:20 reaching Doha at 6:35

pm and 7:35 pm respec-tively. Meanwhile, the Doha flight will take off at 7:35 pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday while on Fri-day it will take off at 8:35pm

landing in Delhi at 11:20pm and 12:20 am (next day).

Economy tickets for Doha to Delhi trip as of Sept 4 is priced at about QR695. Bookings are available on the airline’s website from Oct 29, 2019, to March 28, 2020. It is unclear if the ser-vice will continue in sum-mer when there is increased demand due to vacations. As of now, Indigo and Qatar Airways are the only two airlines operating non-stop flights in this sector. The suspension of Jet Airways service left gaps in the Mid-East sectors from India, an opportunity that Air India is cashing in on.

This is part of the air-

line’s winter 2019-20 ex-pansion to MidEast where two new additional routes have been introduced - other one being to Kuwait City from Mumbai.

Railways’ 25pc discounted fare: how it works?In a bid to fill vacant seats

in trains, the railways has decided to give discount

of upto 25pc to passengers on ticket fares in some trains which have low occupancy. This new discount scheme on passengers ticket fares will come into effect from Sept-end. Sharing the news, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted: “Great news! Up to 25pc discount on train fares”. This discount will be offered in Tejas Ex-press, Gatiman Express, Double Decker, Intercity trains among others from

end of Sept.1) The railway ministry

said that discount to be offered can be up to 25pc of the base fare and the scheme shall be applicable for AC Chair car and Ex-ecutive chair car categories of selected trains such as Shatabdi, Gatimaan, Tejas, Double Decker, Intercity among others.

2) Once the scheme is in place, no other discounts such as the flexi-fare scheme or the graded discount in Shatabdi trains will be applicable.

3) Discount can be given

for the first leg and/or last leg of journey and/or intermedi-ate sections and/or end to end journey.

4) Passengers will also get the provision to make catering optional with the discounted fare.

5) The Railways’ new 25pc discounted ticket fare can be for the full year, part of the year or month wise or seasonal or for weekdays/weekend.

6) The 25pc discount scheme will not be appli-cable on these trains which already are covered under

existing discounted scheme: 12007/12008 Chennai Cen-tral-Mysuru Shatabdi Ex-press over Benguluru-Mysu-ru-Bengaluru section, 12010 Ahemdabad-Mumbai Centra Shatabdi train over Ahemd-abad-Vadodara section, 12042 New Jalpaiguri-Horah Shatab-di Express over Jalpaiguri-Malda town section.

Railways has directed all zonal authorities to review the occupancy of all trains with Chair Car and Execu-tive Class seating accommo-dation by Sept 30 , 2019 and take suitable action.

Budget carrier GoAir is offering flight tickets from Rs 1,020 all in-

clusive in its “Flash Forward Sale 2020”. This offer is valid in Business and Econ-omy class for flights within India, the carrier mentioned on its site. For GoAir’s 2020 sale, bookings will end on Sept 10 . GoAir’s latest flash sale offer is valid for travel between Jan 14 and July 31, 2020, the carrier noted.

GoAir’s Rs 1,020 flight ticket offer is available either on goair.in website or GoAir mobile app. “Fast forward to vacay mode! Book your tickets with GoAir’s Flash Forward #Sale 2020 at un-believable fares starting from

GoAir offers tickets from Rs 1,020Rs 1,020 before Sept 10, 2019!” GoAir tweeted. If a passenger cancels the flight, standard charges will apply.

Last week, the airline announced a “ Super Saver Fares” offer. Under the flash sale, GoAir was offering tickets at a starting price of Rs 1,223. The offer was available till Aug 30, 2019. Effective Oct 1 , 2019, GoAir will operate all its domes-tic flights from Mumbai Airport Terminal 1 (T1). This move will immensely benefit GoAir passengers as they will be able to easily demarcate the terminal they need to go to—Terminal 1 for domestic flights, Termi-nal 2 (T2) for international flights. Internally, the shift of domestic flights to T1 will streamline the departure and arrival process for GoAir and create greater synergies.

GoAir has flown approxi-mately 73.3 million passen-gers since its inception. The company aims to touch the figure of 100 million in the next two years. The carrier currently operates about 285 daily flights and flies to 24 domestic destinations. In the international markets, GoAir flies to six international des-tinations, including Phuket, Malé, Muscat, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Bangkok.

The carrier with 11.1pc domestic market share is ex-panding its India operations from Hyderabad with eight new flights covering cities such as Kochi, Chennai, Jai-pur, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Patna. Its new interna-tional services are Delhi-Abu Dhabi, Mumbai-Abu Dhabi, Mumbai-Muscat, Delhi-Bang-kok, Kannur-Dubai, Mumbai-Bangkok and Kannur-Kuwait.

Muscat Airport ranks 14 for customer serviceMuscat International

Airport has been rated high for its

customer service at the Global Customer Experi-ence Summit held in Bali, Indonesia.

The airport was ranked 14 from among the 371 participating international airports to become the most improved airport in the Mid-East. It was earlier ranked 74. According to Oman Air-ports, the ranking is due to the tireless efforts of all stakeholders at Oman Air-ports since 2015, when it started to follow a strategy to make it among the top 20 in the world by 2020. This strategy was to follow the latest practices in the world of travel at all civil airports in Oman, including Salalah and Duqm.

With facilities such as waiting lounges for airlines, facilities at the Muscat airport include a hotel, duty free shops, play area for children,

and efforts are also on to reduce the waiting time of delivery of luggage to save the time of travellers. The airport has been designed to the highest quality stan-dards of International Air Transport Association with a total area of approximately 580,000 sqm and a capac-ity of 20 million passengers, with the capacity to handle 56 million at the completion of all stages. The Airport Ser-vices Quality Programme is a global indicator of passenger satisfaction, covering over 300 airports in more than 50 countries around the world, where thousands of travel-lers are interviewed for their feedback.

Airfares hit sky high on festive season

Be prepared to shell out a hefty amount if you wish to fly on

some of the popular travel routes within India this fes-tive season.

With the country enter-ing the busiest air travel period of the year, airlines have turned to sharply rais-ing their fares to exploit a traditional surge in demand, troubling those who make last-minute travel plans. Ac-cording to data from online travel websites, a return trip between Delhi and Kolkata for travel between Oct 3-9 costs at least Rs 10,000, if booked a month in advance on Sep 4.

Similarly, a passenger will have to shell out about Rs 12,500 for travelling be-tween Mumbai and Kolkata, and at least Rs11,000 for a return journey between Bengaluru and Kolkata, dur-ing the same period. Fares on the Mumbai-Kolkata and Bengaluru-Kolkata routes cost about half if booked for travel during July and

August.Typically, passengers

who book tickets 30 to 45 days before their travel date pay lower prices than those who book up to a fortnight before their travel date. This time around, however, trav-ellers booking even a month before the festive season will have to pay up a signifi-cantly higher amount. West Bengal will celebrate the Durga Puja festival between Oct 3-8 . Dussehra falls on Oct 8 and Diwali on Oct 27.

Airlines are trying to make up for the subdued travel demand during the monsoon months when air traffic remained weak, especially this year. Air traffic in India grew 3.1pc in the first seven months of 2019—the slowest pace in at least five years—amid market uncertainties in a slowing economy, and the grounding of Jet Airways. A gradual reduction in flights of Jet Airways since Feb 2019 and its eventual shut-down of operations from

April 18 has impacted 14pc of the industry capacity, according to credit rating firm Icra. Interestingly, do-mestic airlines are yet to steeply raise fares on the Delhi-Mumbai route for the festive season. A return trip on the route considered one of India’s busiest—booked on Wednesday—for travel between Oct 8-27 , costs at least Rs 6,000. Fares on this route are, however, expected to start rising just before Diwali. “With Octo-ber packed with Dussehra and Diwali festivities, the fares are on the higher end with travellers taking their festive holiday or returning home to be with friend and families,” said Sharat Dhall, chief operating officer (B2C) at online travel portal Yatra.

“However, fares in Nov have declined compared with Oct. But they are expected to increase dur-ing Dec as we anticipate Christmas and New Year’s bonanza to accelerate the passenger load,” he said.

Kempegowda statue at Bengaluru airportChief minister BS Yediyurappa has said that a statue

of Kempegowda will be installed at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. He said that the

government would set up a Kempegowda board, which will be given Rs 100 crore to take up works for improving the city.

He was speaking at the Kempegowda awards presenta-tion ceremony in the city, organised by BBMP. Using the platform Yediyurappa assured Bengalureans that the face

of the city will be changed in one year.Deputy chief minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan said that

the Kempegowda board will comprise experts and stake holders who will give suggestions on what needs to be done. Consultants will also be appointed to take up the project. A tourism circuit will also be created to showcase the works of Kempegowda, which includes historic temples and forts.

On the occasion, 100 eminent personalities from differ-ent walks of life were honoured with Kempegowda award.