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JNPT projects to generate 1.25 lakh jobs: GadkariURAN (Maharashtra): Term-ing ports as the engines of growth, Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the developments un-dertaken by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) here will change the face of the Konkan region and make it a global tourist destination. Gadkari further said devel-opment of various projects undertaken by JNPT will also generate employment for nearly 1.25 lakh people residing in the region. He was speaking at an event organised here by JNPT in which he laid the founda-tion stone for a free trade warehouse zone (FTWZ) at the JNPT-SEZ.

The event also wit-nessed inauguration of the increase in draft of JNPT

Mumbai navigational chan-nel, a project worth Rs 2029 crore and unveiling of the Shiv-Samarth Smarak, a

recreational facility having statues of Maratha warrior-king Shivaji Maharaj and Saint Ramdas Swami de-veloped to promote the art and culture. JNPT has deepened and widened the existing channel from 14mt

to 15mt draft by which the handling capacity of the port has increased from 6000 TEUs to 12,500 TEUs.

With this, JNPT can now navigate new genera-tion container vessels, in-crease its handling capacity and provide economic ben-efits to EXIM trade through faster turnaround time. The FTWZ is a special eco-nomic zone developed by Hindustan Infralog, a joint venture between DP World and National Infrastruc-ture and Investment Fund (NIIF), entailing an invest-ment of Rs 700 crore and will be developed in two years. He said under the Sagarmala project, which entails investment of Rs 16 trillion, nearly 114 projects will be developed by JNPT

at an investment of around Rs 2.35 trillion.

“Considering the number of projects being undertaken by JNPT, the development of Konkan will be rapid. I am sure in the next three years, this region will become a global tourist destination,” he added. He further said JNPT has won the bid for Dighi port and now it will undertake all the necessary developments to revamp the port. Speaking at the event, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said var-ious projects undertaken by JNPT will bring more busi-ness to the state.

“When businesses grow at JNPT, the state will get more money through tax. It will generate more funds for

(Contd. on page 2)

Nitin Gadkari

Air India resumes fl ights to Iraq NEW DELHI: Air India has resumed flights to Iraq af-ter a 30-year gap when a plane carrying Shiite pil-grims landed in the city of Najaf. “This is the first time in the last 30 years” that a plane has come from India to Iraq, said Pradeep Singh Rajpurohit, India’s ambas-sador to Iraq, at the inter-national airport that serves the Shiite holy city.

“We are very fortunate that the holy city of Najaf has been chosen as the first destination”, he added, not-ing that attempts to restore direct air links had been ongoing for some time. Flights were prevented by years of conflict in Iraq and sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime after his invasion (Contd. on page 2)

$22b worth projects launched in Riyadh RIYADH: Saudi King His Hi-hgness Salman has launched a programme of projects in the Riyadh region worth bil-lions, which will enhance the living standards of resi-dents in a province that he has helped to shape for more than 50 years.

The 1,281 development projects in the Saudi capital and surrounding towns will cost about $22 billion. They aim to enhance crucial in-frastructure, such as trans-portation and housing and improve amenities the en-vironment and education.

The programme in-cludes: 15 housing projects in Riyadh and its governor-ates in line with the ob-jectives of Vision 2030 to increase house ownership among citizens, the estab-lishment of the largest Is-

lamic museum in the capi-tal, a huge environmental project for the lakes south of the capital covering an area

of 3.15 lakh square metres, sports cities, seven medical cities, 16 educational proj-ects, quality entertainment facilities, the expansion of airports and the develop-ment and upgrading of the road network.

The projects were an-

nounced by Prince Faisal bin Bandar, the governor of Riyadh region, during an official inauguration event at Qasr Al-Hukm, in the presence of King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other dig-nitaries. They are part of a wider programme of 2,830 projects planned for Riyadh at a total cost of SR 338 bil-lion, which are expected to create tens of thousands of job opportunities for young men and women. During the inauguration, the king ordered the release of citi-zens of the region jailed on financial charges who are not involved in criminal cases, whose debts do not exceed SR1m and whose in-solvency can be proved. He also ordered the payment of their debts.

His Highness King Salman

Bank of Singapore ties up with EdelweissMUMBAI: Bank of Singa-pore has tied up with In-dia’s largest financial ser-vice provider Edelweiss Group to allow clients of both entities to access their respective platforms ---- Bank of Singapore’s wide range of global investment solutions offered through its open-architecture plat-form and Edelweiss’ robust wealth solutions and in-vestment opportunities in India.

NRI clients of Bank of Singapore will benefit from this partnership as it will avail a wider range of in-vestment opportunities in India. “This partnership will allow Bank of Singa-pore to significantly raise its profile in one of Asia’s fast-est growing wealth markets through one of India’s larg-est industry players,” said

Bank of Singapore. India’s total personal wealth is ex-pected to top US$5 trillion by 2022 according to Bos-ton Consulting Group. This

partnership also offers Edel-weiss’ clients the opportu-nity to access Bank of Sin-gapore’s product platform, creating a powerful global investment proposition.

“This partnership rep-resents a milestone in our business strategy to tap into India’s growth. As Asia’s global private bank, we are well placed to be

the gateway to the global fi-nancial markets for Indian entrepreneurs by providing them with suitable solu-tions to diversify their in-vestments,” CEO of Bank of Singapore Baharen Shaasri remarked.

“Edelweiss is a highly respected wealth manager in India, with an excellent product platform across the financial services value chain. We are delighted to be working together with such an esteemed partner and look forward to com-bining our strengths and achieving a successful col-laboration,” said Vikram Malhotra, Global Market

Head, Global South Asia & MidEast, Bank of Singapore.

“We are delighted to partner with Bank of Sin-gapore which is one of the largest Asian private banks. Our combined network, business knowledge and decades of on ground ex-perience in the financial services space will act as catalysts to our joint ambi-tion of providing the best in class solutions to our collective clientele,” said Rashesh Shah, chairman , Edelweiss Group.Bank of Singapore caters to the global NRI diaspora and is a renowned market stal-wart.

NEW DELHI: The regional All India Institutes of Medi-cal Sciences that have come up in various states have joined the premium Indian Institutes of Technology in the hunt for foreign faculties.

Senior officials in the Union Ministry of Health said a decision has been taken to allow NRI doc-tors, including Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders, to apply for faculty positions in AIIMS institutions in several states. There are six new AIIMS in Patna, Jodhpur, Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Rishikesh and Rai-pur that came into being in 2012. Four others in Rae-bareli, Kalyani, Nagpur and Mangalgiri Guntur have started with classes for small batches of MBBS stu-dents from 2018 academic session but except AIIMS, Raibareli, other are yet to begin even OPD services.

NRI docs can apply for faculty at regional AIIMS

These AIIMS institu-tions have been planned with a view to provide quality government tertiary care in states on the lines of AIIMS, Delhi. “At present, there are less than 60pc po-sitions filled in six regional

AIIMS institutions and re-cruitment of faculty is a ma-jor task,” a senior ministry official said.

“We have, therefore, now introduced measures like inviting retired profes-sors from top health institu-tions, visiting faculty from abroad for up to two years and NRI doctors to come and join these institutions.”

Linking Aadhaar-PAN mandatory for tax fi lersNEW DELHI: The CBDT has stressed that Aadhaar-PAN linking is “mandatory” for those filing an Income Tax Return (ITR) and this procedure has to be “completed” by March 31 this year.

“Constitutional validity of Aadhaar has been upheld by the Supreme Court of In-dia in Sept, 2018. Consequently, in terms of section 139AA of Income Tax Act, 1961 and order dated June 30, 2018 of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Aadhaar-PAN linking is mandatory now which has to be com-pleted till March 31, 2019 by PAN holders requiring filing of ITR,” the CBDT said.

The Supreme Court had confirmed that linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory for filing of ITRs. This reiteration of the Sept order of the apex court came on an appeal filed by the Centre against a Delhi High Court order allowing two persons, to file their ITRs for 2018-19 without linking their Aadhaar and PAN numbers. A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said the top court has already de-cided the matter and upheld the section 139AA of the IT Act.

The apex court on Sept 26 last year had declared the Centre’s flagship Aad-haar scheme as constitutionally valid but

struck down some of its provisions includ-ing its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions. Former CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra, early this month at an event, had said that just 23 crore PAN card holders– over half of the to-tal PAN card holders — have so far linked their cards with biometric ID Aadhaar. He had said the IT department has so far is-sued 42 crore permanent account numbers (PAN), of which 23 crore have been linked with Aadhaar.

Chandra said that once Aadhaar is linked with PAN and PAN is linked with bank ac-count, the IT department can find out spending pattern and other details of the as-sessee. Also since many agencies are linked with Aadhaar, it would be easier to gauge whether the benefits of welfare schemes are availed by eligible persons, he said.

Section 139 AA (2) of the IT Act says that every person having PAN as on July 1, 2017, and eligible to obtain Aadhaar, must intimate his Aadhaar number to tax authori-ties. While Aadhaar is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to a resident of India, PAN is a 10-digit alpha-numeric number allotted by the IT Depart-ment to a person, firm or entity.

Over 3.8m Umrah visas issued RIYADH: The number of Umrah visas issued this year has reached 3,896,580, of which 3,454,398 pil-grims have arrived in Saudi Arabia according to data provided by the Haj Minis-try. There are 431,293 pil-grims still in the Kingdom, with 297,147 in Makkah and 134,146 in Madinah. Most pilgrims — 3,069,062 — came to the Kingdom by air, while 357,165 entered by land and 28,171 arrived by sea.

The largest number of pilgrims are from Pakistan (863,317) followed by In-donesia (564,273), India (373,781), Yemen (191,214), Malaysia (185,716), Egypt (177,695), Turkey (143,074), Algeria (119,545) and Bangladesh (86,476). The weekly data also included the number of Saudi staff within Umrah companies and institutions. They are 10,124 Saudis including 8,386 males and 1,738 fe-males.

2 EMIGRATION Tuesday, February 19, 2019

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Indian appointed to high-level post at UNUNITED NATIONS: Chan-dramouli Ramanathan has been appointed as the world body’s controller by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, ac-cording to his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

He told report-ers: “Chandra-mouli brings to the position nearly 40 years of execu-tive international experience in di-verse organisa-tional settings in finance and bud-get, management and infor-mation technology. We are delighted to officially have him in that position.” Ram-anathan will simultaneously be the assistant secretary-general for Program Plan-ning, Budget and Finance in the Department of Manage-ment Strategy, Policy and Compliance.

While serving as the as-sistant secretary-general for

Enterprise Resource Plan-ning, he was concurrently made the acting controller in Sept when Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas of Uruguay left the position. Earlier, he had served the UN as Deputy

Controller, Direc-tor of Accounts Division and Chief of Service in IT Services Di-vision.

The UN said: “He has proven ex-perience leading complex change

management initiatives, in-cluding implementation of IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Stan-dards) and Umoja (UN En-terprise Resource Planning solution).” Ramanathan had served in India as assistant auditor general and director of accounts for the Auditor General of India. He is a cost accountant and has a Mas-ter’s degree in economics.

Ramanathan

DUBAI: A UAE consortium led by Dubai-based SecLink group has clinched the deal to give a multibillion dollar facelift to one of the world’s largest slum settlements.

In an exclusive inter-view to a TV channel, Se-cLink group’s chairman and managing director Nilang

Shah said they have se-cured the bid to transform Mumbai’s Dharavi, which sprawls 2.4 km on prime land in India’s financial capital and is home to over seven lakh slum dwellers.

The mega project, esti-mated to cost Dh13.54 bil-lion, will provide quality housing to Dharavi resi-dents and also yield over 50 million square feet of saleable space with a rev-enue potential for $15 bil-lion, SecLink said in a

Dubai fi rm to transform Dharavistatement. The financial bid for the redevelopment of Dharavi Notified Area (DNA) was opened by the government of Maharash-tra. Last week, Seclink emerged as the highest bid-der after it quoted invest-ments worth Dh3.73 bil-lion. The other bidder was

the Adani Group, which quoted Dh2.35 billion.

An MoU is now being signed between the Maha-rashtra government, the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Authority (DRPA) and SecLink. “This is a great opportunity for UAE-based developers and con-struction companies to take part in the massive human resettlement programme and expand their footprint in Mumbai,” Shah said, adding that the consortium

will seek feedback of Dhara-vi residents and ensure their ideas are incorporated. “Our primary aim is to uplift the lives of slum dwellers while preserving their social fab-ric and local economy.”

Among a host of other things, the proposed town-ship will include a hospital and medical college. “Skill training Institutes and eCommerce portals are also being considered to pro-vide employment opportu-nities to residents,” he said.

The Dharavi makeover project was first concep-tualised in 2003 and has since been on the agenda of many political parties in India. It was also one of the poll promises made by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis when he came to power in 2014. The project was revived last year and Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) was set up to include private-public partnership in 80:20 ratio before global tenders were floated in Nov 2018.

India, Singapore to sign aviation skilling pactSINGAPORE: India and Singapore will sign an agreement for skilling In-dian youths in the aviation sector at the Aero India Show next week. Acad-emies will be set up in Bengaluru and other places in India that will act as re-gional hubs for the training of Indian youths for do-mestic and overseas jobs in these sectors.

National Skill Develop-ment Corporation of India’s (NSDC) Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Coun-cil in collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic and a Singapore-based private sector firm will signing an MoU on Friday to establish skill development centres. Aero India show 2019 will be held in Bengaluru from Feb 20 to 24. It will pro-vide a significant platform in bolstering business op-portunities in International aviation sector.

These “Centers of Excel-lence in Advance Skilling” will provide training and certification drawing from

Singapore curriculum and standards in sectors such as aerospace and aviation, emerging technologies, automotive and logistics. “These are all priority sec-tors under Skill India and Make in India programmes, which require large work-force with advanced tech-nical skills,” India’s High Commissioner in Singapore Jawed Ashraf said here. He said that these sectors also provide more productive and remunerative employ-ment opportunities. Singa-pore is a leader in aviation services including main-tenance, repair, overhaul services as well as skill de-velopment across various sectors, Ashraf said.

This is one of the many collaborations between In-dia and Singapore in the crucial skill development sector following the sign-ing of two MoUs between NSDC and Singapore Poly-technic to establish state-of-the-art Trainer and Assessor Academies across India. “Skills development is one

of the new areas that have gained prominence in the bilateral engagement with many countries, but espe-cially with Singapore, not only at central but also at state level,” the envoy said.

There are several insti-tutional engagements in-cluding plans for setting up the first Indian Institute of Skills in Mumbai in col-laboration with Singapore’s Institute of Technical Edu-cation Services (ITEES), training programmes for state government officials in public administration and governance; urban planning, logistics and in-frastructure development in collaboration with many Singapore-based institu-tions, including Institute of Technical Education, Singapore Co-operation Enterprise and Civil Ser-vice College. “Singapore has also opened three in-ternationally acclaimed Skill Centers in India (New Delhi, Udaipur and Guwa-hati) and more coming up,” Ashraf said.

CALIFORNIA: California Democratic Senator Kamala Harris who recently an-

nounced her Presidential bid for the 2020 elections has fallen short of her fund-raising goals for the election campaign. She appealed for donations in time for the next Federal Election Com-mission reporting period, which campaigns use to show if they have the need-ed financial support to push through the Iowa caucuses.

“I need to be direct: right now, we are at a real risk of falling short of our Feb fundraising goals,” said the email signed by her. Demo-cratic campaign experts say it will cost candidates

Kamala Harris faces fund shortage for presidential campaign

$50 million to $100 mil-lion just to get to the early 2020 Iowa caucuses and

New Hampshire primary. Several campaigns are com-peting with each other for donations and staff. Often as FEC deadlines near, cam-paigns issue dire warnings not because they are fall-ing short but because they want to pump up their final number.

“I need to be direct-- right now, we are at a real risk of falling short of our February fundraising goals. I hope you will give me a moment to explain what these monthly fundraising goals mean and why your support matters.”

Filipino remittances from the MidEast down 15.3pcDUBAI: Money sent home by overseas Filipino work-ers (OFWs) in the MidEast went down 15.3pc to $6.62 billion in 2018 from $7.81 billion a year earlier, latest government data shows.

Lower crude prices, which affected most OFW host countries in the region, the job nationaliszation schemes of Gulf states and a deployment ban last year of household service workers to Kuwait were the primary reasons for the decline, a reversal from the 3.4pc re-mittance growth recorded in 2017. A government study has noted that Saudi Arabia was the leading country of destination for OFWs, with more than a quarter of Fili-pinos being deployed there at any given time, together with the UAE (15.3pc), Kuwait (6.7pc ) and Qatar (5.5pc). Cash remittances from OFWs in Saudi Arabia fell 11.1pc last year to $2.23 billion from $2.51 billion a year before; down 19.9pc to $2.03 billion in the UAE from $2.54 billion in 2017, 14.5pc lower in Kuwait to $689.61 million from $806.48 million

and 9.2pc down in Qatar to $1 billion in 2018, from $1.1 billion a year earlier.

The Philippine govern-ment issued a deployment ban for Kuwait early last year, and lasted for five months, af-ter a string of reported deaths and abuses on Filipino work-ers in the Gulf state. OFW re-mittances from Oman, which implemented a job nationali-sation programme like that of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, dove 33.8pc to $228.74 mil-lion in 2018 from $345.41 million a year before. In Bah-rain, cash sent by Filipinos rose 2.2pc to $234.14 mil-lion last year from $229.02 million previously.

Meanwhile, overall OFWs remittances grew three per cent on year-on-year to $32.2 billion, the highest annual level to date. “The growth in personal remittances during the year was driven by remit-tance inflows from land-based OFWs with work contracts of one year or more and remit-tances from both sea-based and land-based OFWs with work contracts of less than one year,” the Philippine cen-tral monetary authority said.

Premium processing of H-1B visa to help Indians

THE PRESENT SCENARIO• The USCIS has a cap of 65,000 H-1B visas in the

general category and 20,000 for master’s degree hold-ers from a US institution.

• The agency received over 94,000 applications for the general category last year and over 95,000 for mas-ter’s exemption.

• Premium processing allows employers to apply for faster processing of H-1B visas.

• It does not guarantee a visa, but the process-ing time is much lower (15 days to a month) vs 3-5 months for a normal application.

NEW DELHI: The US Citi-zenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it would resume premium processing of all H-1B visa petitions filed on or before Dec 21, 2018 soon. Never-theless, this will bring a mild respite to Indian tech-nology firms already grap-pling with a shortage of talent in the US, its largest market.

Premium processing of H-1B visas is like the “Tat-kaal” scheme, which allows processing of applications within 15 calendar days for an additional fee of $1,410 per application, apart from the base fee.

This allows employers a faster route to get skilled talent in the US and the In-dian IT industry has been a long-standing beneficiary of this programme. The US administration, un-der President Trump, has made significant changes to the H-1B visa system, including reversing the order in which the USCIS selects H-1B petitions. This is likely to result in an in-crease in the number of petitions from applicants with a master’s or a higher degree from a US institu-tion of higher education. The immigration agency had suspended premium

processing last April, cit-ing a long-pending backlog. But, it was open for certain categories such as exten-sion of H-1B visa with the same employer.

Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO at research firm Ever-est Group, said it is a help-ful move for the IT indus-try. “The importance of this development goes beyond the reinstatement of the accelerated H-1B applica-tion as it signals a change in policy from the adminis-tration, with regard to high-skill immigration. The In-dian firms will benefit from this,” he said.

The USCIS also released data about the time taken to process visa applications since financial year 2015.

The time taken to process a premium H-1B applica-

tion rose from 18 days in the last four years to one month in FY19 (until Oct 2018). The time taken to

process a normal H-1B ap-plication also rose from 3.2

months in FY-2018 to 5.2 months in FY-2019.

The Nasscom, the in-dustry body, said it was still assessing the impact of the announcement. “We are in touch with mem-bers to check implications. This only applies to filings prior to Dec21, 2018, and does not have any impli-cations on any filing after that or filings that will hap-pen in the upcoming lot-tery season,” said Shiven-dra Singh, vice-president, global trade development, Nasscom. Immigration law firm Fragomen said it was not yet clear what will hap-

pen to the premium pro-cessing applications filed on or after Dec 22, 2018. “The USCIS has not yet an-nounced whether premium processing will be available for the upcoming H-1B cap season,” it added.

Given the tightening of H1B visa norms, Indian IT firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technolo-gies have upped their local hiring in the US. While the latest resumption in premi-um processing of H-1B vi-sas will be a small breather for the IT firms, it will not be enough to bridge the de-mand-supply gap.

JNPT projects to generate...(Contd. from page 1)undertaking new projects and increase the GDP of state,” he said. Gadkari said that state run port has bid the highest at Rs 1300 crore for the Air India building at plush Nari-man Point in south Mumbai. He also said that the JNPT was ready to surrender the rights on the building if the Maha-rashtra government was willing to take it over and restore it.

Air India resumes fl ights to Iraq(Contd. from page 1)of Kuwait, as well as by the extended chaos that came in the wake of the former dictator’s 2003 downfall. The plane started its journey from Lucknow and upon landing the crew and pilgrims were welcomed by Iraqi officials. Shiite pilgrims from around the world come to Najaf, some 150 km south of Baghdad, to visit the tomb of Imam Ali, Proph-et Mohammed’s son-in-law and founder of Shiite Islam.

Kerala to tap tourism potential of IsraelKOCHI: For the first time in its history, Kerala Tourism participated in the Interna-tional Mediterranean Tour-ism Market (IMTM) 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

With this, Kerala Tourism is foraying into the largely untapped Israeli market to increase footfalls from the MidEast. Director of Kerala Tourism P Bala Kiran, led

the state delegation to the two-day event. The IMTM is the largest annual profes-sional tourism fair of its kind in eastern Mediterranean and the official and only profes-sional exhibition for the tour-ism trade market in Israel.

To mark the occasion, Kerala Tourism launched a sleek and glossy coffee-table book, the first-of-its-kind

visual odyssey of the Jews who decided to make Kerala their home before several of the diasporic community returned to Israel, their fa-therland. The book was formally launched by Indian Ambassador to Israel Pavan Kapoor, who also visited the Kerala stall at the event. Ex-pressing happiness over the debut of Kerala Tourism at

the IMTM, Tourism Minister Kaakampally Surendran said it was a successful outing for the tourism in the state.

“In the highly competi-tive global marketplace, we need to scout for new source from markets abroad to attract tourists. Our par-ticipation in a prestigious event like IMTM will act as a trigger to meet that objec-

tive,” he said. The minister said there is a direct flight from Tel Aviv, the second most populous city in Israel, to Delhi and Mumbai. “Now, a new direct flight will be launched by Arkia Israeli Airlines from Tel Aviv to Kochi in Sept which will be a major boost to tourism in India in general and Kera-la in particular, he added.

Emiratis get visa on arrival in RussiaMOSCOW: UAE citizens can now obtain a visa on arrival in Russia as part of a grow-ing partnership between the two countries. The change in policy, which came into force on Sunday, follows an agreement struck last July granting Russian passport holders a free 30-day visa on arrival in the UAE, with the option to extend for another month for a fee. The change was praised as a sign of the flourishing friendship be-tween the UAE and Russia

when it was announced last year. It followed a June 2018 meeting between Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Putin in Moscow

Ahmed Sari Al Maz-rouei, under-secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-opera-tion, said the initiative high-lighted bilateral relations between the UAE and Rus-sia and would open new op-portunities for Emirati citi-zens in tourism, investment, trade and cultural exchange.

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Tuesday, February 19, 2019

N A T I O N A L

LUCKNOW: The Indian In-stitute of Management (IIM) Lucknow’s Noida campus is all set to conduct the Blockchain Summit India 2019 on February 22 and 23, 2019. The institute will be organizing this two-day event in partnership with Auxesis Group. BSI 2019 will be a one of its kind event in the country that will bring together academia, policy makers, corporates and blockchain giants. The event will in-clude 3000+ delegates from the industry along with 50+ speakers and a couple of dozen investors. The event is being supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of

IIM Lucknow Noida campus set for Blockchain Summit India 2019India. This event will be an opportunity for investors to interact directly with policy-makers and top-notch tech enterprises and startups.

The Blockchain Summit India 2019 is an event that is targeted towards enabling the Indian government and ministries to speed up the process of developing a Blockchain and Cryptocur-rency ecosystem. The event will be a platform for Global Blockchain brands and gov-ernment bodies in coming together in order to make India, a Blockchain capital. This will also be an oppor-tunity for entrepreneurs to meet with policymakers and interact with investors and tech giants.

Blockchain is a revo-lutionary technology that

allows the distribution of digital information without

being copied. It was origi-nally designed for the pro-

tection of Bitcoin. Don and Alex Tapscott, the authors of Blockchain Revolution while talking about Block-chain said that it is “an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.”

Policy makers at the event will include minis-ters and bureaucrats from Departments of Science and Technology, Law and Com-merce will be joining in at the event. BSI 2019 will also see the presence of some senior faculty members from India’s top academic institu-tions. Among other invitees are global crypto econo-

mists, technology pioneers, academicians from across the world and community builders.

The summit is being organized for the under-standing of Global Block-chain space and also pick the blockchain solutions to accelerate the growth of the Indian market. Startup and companies will also be provided with grants and funding from L Incubator IIM Lucknow and other Indian accelerators and pub-lic companies. Interested individuals who want to attend the summit can visit blockchainsummitindia.co to know more about Block-chain Summit India 2019 and register for the same.

BENGALURU: Infosys is partnering with the Com-munity College of Rhode Island to set up a digital economy aspirations lab for training students in the US for digital jobs, said the software major.

“Our digital innova-tion and design centre at Providence in Rhode Island will help bridge the gap for design and human-centric skills and provide digital technologies to our clients,” said the city-based IT firm in a statement here.

The centre offers de-signers and design gradu-ates training in digital skills, exposure to systems, platforms, strategy and organisation domains to make them employable in a digital world.

The $11-billion IT behe-

Infosys to train students in US for digital jobsmoth has so far hired 100 techies as part of its goal to create 500 jobs in the

north-eastern state by 2022.“We have hired 7,600

American workers since spring 2017 as part of our commitment to speed up digital innovation of en-terprise clients in the US,” said the statement.

The outsourcing firm committed on May 2, 2017, to hire about 10,000 Ameri-

can techies to bridge the IT skills gap in the US and set up six technology-cum-

innovation hubs across North America by 2022-23.

Global clients across the US account for about 60 per cent of the company’s software export revenue annually.

The company’s technol-ogy-cum-innovation hubs are at Indianapolis in Indi-ana state, Raleigh in North

Carolina, Richardson in Texas, Phoenix in Arizona, Hartford in Connecticut

and Providence in Rhode Island.

B y s t u d y i n g user-experience to how people interact with systems, the graduate hires will be equipped to cre-ate 360-degree solu-tions to business challenges.

“Critical think-ing is key to building hu-man-centric solutions our clients need to accelerate their digital transforma-tion. As demand for talent with design skills will rise, we are training American workers in them,” said In-fosys Chief Executive Salil Parekh on the occasion.

Rhode Island Governor

Gina Raimondo lauded In-fosys for setting up its new innovation centre at Provi-dence to train its graduates for digital jobs.

“Our state has some of the world’s top designers who testify the strength of our workforce for Infosys to tap and develop their talent,” said Raimondo in the statement.

The digital lab is at the forefront of education and workforce development of the community college students for careers in the digital economy, said Info-sys President Ravi Kumar in the statement.

“We will co-develop bridge programming to support the four-year de-gree course and enable the students to pursue careers in IT,” added the statement.

Readers are requested to verify and make appropriate enquiries to satisfy themselves about the veracity of an advertisement before responding to any published advertise-ments in this newspaper. NEWS AND NRI CONNECT, its publisher and owner IPEPCIL Publications do NOT vouch for the authenticity of any advertisement or advertiser or for any of the advertiser’s products and /or services. In no event can the owner, publish-er, printer, editor, director, employees of this newspaper/company be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any claims and /or damages for advertisements in this newspaper.

DISCLAIMER

NEW DELHI: Samsung has announced the release date of Galaxy M30, the com-pany’s next smartphone in the M series. Samsung confirmed the newest mem-ber in the Galaxy M series will be unveiled at 6pm on February 27, 2019, sources said. What makes this an-nouncement interesting is the timing. The launch of the Galaxy M30 is happening, just a day before the debut of Redmi Note 7 in India.

Previous reports have suggested that the Galaxy M30 will have a Super AMO-LED Infinity V display (Sam-sung’s name for V-shaped notch), triple camera setup on the back and a 5,000 mAh battery. The device will be powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 7904 processor and

Samsung’s Galaxy M30 India launch on Feb 27

will be available in 4GB/6GB RAM and 64GB/128GB inter-nal storage options.

Remember that the Gal-axy M20 is also powered by the same Exynos 7904 processor. While the price of Galaxy M10 starts from Rs 7,990 and M20’s from Rs 10,990, reports suggest that the price of Galaxy M30 would be in the vicinity of Rs 14,990.

It is worth noting that Samsung will launch its flagship Galaxy S10 smart-phone at its Galaxy Un-packed event in San Fran-cisco on February 20, 11 am PT, which converts to Febru-ary 21, 12:30 am in India. During the event, Samsung is expected to showcase its Galaxy F foldable phone as well.

NATIONAL JOBS & CAREERS 5Tuesday, February 19, 2019

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Sudoku PuzzleRules: To solve a Sudoku

puzzle, every digit from 1

to 9 must appear in each of

the nine vertical columns,

in each of the nine hori-

zontal rows and in each

of the nine boxes.

Solution for Puzzle # 38

will be in next issue.

Fun Corner

Sudoku Puzzle 37 Answer

Your wellness

Glenmark Pharmaceu-ticals said, it has received final ap-

proval from the US health regulator for Sevelamer Hy-drochloride tablets, used to

control serum phosphorus in patients with chronic kidney disease on dialysis. The approved product is a generic version of Gen-zyme Corporation’s Renagel tablets.

Glenmark Pharma gets USFDA nod

“Glenmark Pharma-ceuticals Inc., USA (Glen mark) has been granted fi-nal approval by the United States Food and Drug Ad-ministration (USFDA) for Sevelamer Hydrochloride tablets in the strengths of 400 mg and 800 mg,” the company said in a BSE filing.

The company ’s current portfolio con-sists of 149 products au-thorised for distribution at the US marketplace and 53 Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) pending approval with the USFDA.

Adding fluoride to water has been com-mon practice in a

number of countries, in-cluding India. In low con-centrations, it can help pre-vent tooth decay and even strengthen bones, but going above that can have the opposite effect. Scientists have developed a portable and user-friendly device that can measure fluoride concentration accurately using only a few drops of water, and help address contamination in drinking water, said researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

In low concentrations -- below 1.5 milligrammes per litre (mg/L) -- fluoride can help prevent tooth decay and even strengthen bones, according to the study pub-lished in the Journal of the American Chemical

New device can detect fluoride contamination in waterSociety (JACS). However, going above that can have the opposite effect, causing serious dental and bone dis-ease, especially in children and developing foetuses. To keep things in check, the WHO has set 1.5 mg/L as the maximum limit for fluoride in drinking water.

“To determine whether drinking water is safe we need to detect fluoride in water at the level of parts-per-million (ppm),” said Kyriakos Stylianou from EPFL. “Around 1-1.5 ppm is good for teeth, but in many countries the water sources have concentrations above two ppm can cause serious health issues,” he added.

However, measuring fluoride at such low con-centrations with sufficient accuracy is expensive and requires a well-equipped chemical lab. Because of this, fluoride contamination

in water affects a number of developing countries today, and even parts of developed countries. Scientists have now built a device that can

accurately measure fluoride concentrations using only a few drops of water -- even with low-level contamina-tion -- resulting in a simple change in colour brightness. The device, named SION-105, is portable, consider-ably cheaper than current methods, and can be used

on-site by virtually anyone, researchers said.

The key to the device is the design of a novel material that the scientists

synthesised, they said. The material belongs to the family of “metal-organic frameworks” (MOFs), com-pounds made up of a metal ion -- or a cluster of metal ions -- connected to organic ligands, thus forming one-, two-, or three-dimensional structures. Because of their

structural versatility, MOFs can be used in an ever-growing list of applications, e g separating petrochemi-cals, detoxing water, and getting hydrogen or even gold out of it. SION-105 is luminescent by default, but darkens when it encounters fluoride ions.

“Add a few droplets of water and by monitoring the colour change of the MOF one can say whether it is safe to drink the water or not,” said Mish Ebrahim, the first author of the re-search paper. “This can now be done on-site, without any chemical expertise,” Ebra-him said. The researchers used the device to deter-mine the fluoride content in different groundwater samples from Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

The data corresponded very well when compared to

measurements made using ion chromatography, a stan-dard method for measuring fluoride concentration in water. “This comparison showcases the performance and reliability of SION-105, which, coupled with the

portability and ease-of-use of the device, make it a very user-friendly solution for water sampling in remote areas where frequent fluo-ride concentration moni-toring is paramount,” said Stylianou.

In order to reduce paper-work in hospitals, the 34 state-run hospitals

will put patients’ health records online, enabling doctors to access these with ease. A senior official from Directorate of Health Services said, currently the hospitals in Raigad and Na-

shik have implemented this system and have received a positive response from the hospitals.

“After successfully im-plementing this system in Raigad and Nashik, we are

Patients’ health records now a click away now: BMC Hospnow planning to extend it in 34 hospitals,” said the of-ficial. This decision comes after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), decided to main-tain the patients’ records on the health management information system (HMIS) which is the dream project.

Dr Nitin Amadekar, the Joint Director, Health Ser-vices (Hospital), said, under this programme, E-Hospi-tal, Outpatient Department (OPD), the patients’ wards, laboratory, medical shop, emergency department and surgery department will be linked with each other. “This initiative will bring a complete transparency and

accuracy in the day-to-day functioning of the hospitals. The aim is to keep proper records of all the patients,”

said Dr Amadekar.He further said, thou-

sands of needy patients visit the government hos-

pitals for better treatment, but in the current situation there is a lot of confusion and chaos. Often many

patients lose their case pa-pers and medical records in transit, as they travel long distances to make it to the

city. The lack of any docu-mentation prevents doctors from treating these patients properly.

“While drawing the case papers, all the necessary infor-mation of the pa-tients will be record-ed. A patient will be given a receipt with a barcode and when the patient returns for a follow-up, the hospital has to only scan that barcode where all the infor-mation related to

the patient’s condition and treatment will be easily available to the doctor,” said Dr Amadekar.

The Institute of Char-tered Accountancy of India (ICAI) had

announced to conduct the CA foundation course (new scheme), Intermediate (IPC) under old scheme, interme-diate (under new scheme) and final (under old and new scheme) exams from May 2019 onwards.

Interested candidates need to apply for the ex-ams on the official website, icaiexam.icai.org. The ap-

ICAI CA foundation course, IPC, exam dates announcedplication process will begin from February 20 and will

conclude on March 12, 2019. The exams will be

conducted over 139 exam centres across the country.

Additionally, there are five foreign centres where the

exam will be conducted.The last date for appli-

cation is March 12, 2019 without late fee and March 19, 2019 with late fee of Rs 600.

The CA foundat ion course exams will be con-ducted on May 10, 12, 14, 15 and 16 while the IPC exam will be conducted in two groups. Group I exams will be conducted on May 3, 5, 7 and 9 and the group II exams will be conducted on 11, 13 and 15, May 2019.

According to the offi-cial release, the IPSC new scheme exams will be con-ducted in two groups too. Group I exam will be con-ducted in May 3,5,7 and 9, 2019 and group II exams will be held on May 11, 13, 15 and 17, 2019.

Final course exam under old scheme will be conduct-ed on May 2, 4, 6 and 8 in group I and on May 10, 12, 14 and 16 May for group II.

Examination Paper(s) Exam. Timings (IST) Duration

Foundation Paper 1 & 2 2 PM to 5 PM 3 Hours

Intermediate (IPC) (Old Scheme) Paper 3 & 4* 2 PM to 5 PM 2 Hours

Intermediate (New Scheme) Paper 1 to 7 2 PM to 5 PM 3 Hours

Final (Old Scheme) All Papers 2 PM to 5 PM 3 Hours

Final (New Scheme)Paper 1 to 5 &

Paper 7 & 82 PM to 5 PM 3 Hours

International Taxation – Assessment Test (INTT-AT)

Paper 1 & 2* 2 PM to 5 PM 3 Hours

ICAI CA foundation, IPC, final exam dates: Check date sheet

Birla Institute of Tech-nology and Science popularly called BITS

Pilani is one of the top-ranked Engineering colleges in India. It is also considered as one amongst the best B-Schools in the country. This institute was established in 1964 and grew its reputation year on year and now this college has institutions in Goa, Dubai and Hyderabad.

BITS conduct a com-petitive exam called BITSAT, where the candidate’s knowl-edge in reasoning, analyt-ics, English and Science is tested. To obtain a seat in this college, the candidate has to clear the examination

Seven best courses offered by BITS Pilaniwith a minimum of 75pc in science, and 60pc in other subjects.Here is the list of 7 best courses offered by BITS Pilani:B.E (Hons.)

These engineering cours-es of BITS Pilani are based on hard science and math-ematics and incorporate the latest analysis and synthesis techniques. These courses might have slight variations in each campus.B.Pharm

This programme is tai-lored as per the require-ments of the Indian Phar-macy Council. It also has exposure to various Research

Methodology techniques, emerging areas of industrial operations and instrumental techniques. Along with the regular B.Pharm course, stu-dents can do projects from their third year. This course remains the same across all the campuses of BITS Pilani.M.Sc (Hons.)

This is an integrated program offered by BITS Pilani without the basic B.Sc degree. However, the inte-grated program here provides the students with excellent engineering and analytical science contents and equips them with problem-solving skills to participate effec-tively in corporate jobs.

M.EThis course is tailored

as per the industry require-

ments and also students opting for M.E in BITS Pilani can gain complementary knowledge in traditional

areas of engineering like Em-bedded Systems, Electronics and Control, Biotechnology etc.M.Pharm

Students who wish to acquire further competence in the pharmacy field can opt for the M.Pharm program offered by BITS Pilani. This institute offers M.Pharm with specialization in Phar-maceutics / Pharmaceutical chemistry.MBA

BITS Pilani is well known for its unique teaching meth-odology when it comes to Master of Business Admin-istration. This programme has been designed based on

the industry feedback and formulated with input re-quirement as the first degree of BITS Pilani. This course trains the students with a scientific and business ap-proach towards the business administration. Another ad-vantage of this programme is that they get exposure to the critical modern technolo-gies of a business. MBA in BITS Pilani is a two-year programme designed as a full-time residential course.Doctoral Courses

BITS Pilani also offers doctoral courses like Ph.D., which is governed by the Academic Regulations of the BITS Pilani institute. This

programme is only being offered in the BITS Pilani institute and not at any other BITS institutes. One can do a full-time Ph.D., part-time Ph.D., and also there is a faculty development scheme available for the candidates who wish to take up Ph.D.

These are some of the best courses offered by the BITS Pilani institute. Get-ting into such a reputed institution requires a lot of hard work and perseverance. Check which course you would like to opt for in BITS Pilani and go through the eligibility criteria and put in all your efforts to get a seat in this reputed institute.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) as a part of

its latest recruitment drive has released an important update for aspirants who had applied for the Com-bined Defence Services Examination-I, 2018. Candi-dates who had appeared for the same can visit the of-ficial website now to check what has been updated. According to the Press note, the board has announced the results of CDS-I on the official website and now candidates can visit the of-ficial website to check their scores and prepare for the process that follows.

According to the release, “The Marks Information in respect of the candidates of the Combined Defence Services Examination-I, 2018 has been hosted in

Important update for UPSC aspirants applied for CDS (I)

the Commission’s Web-site. The candidates may download their individual marks by keeping in the relevant details.” It further says that the “Commission has started the Disclosure Scheme for the willing non-recommended/non-qualified candidates with the Combined Medical Ser-vices Examination, 2018 with a view to provide a useful database to other employers to enable them to identify good employ-able candidates. The details will include Name of the candidate, Father’s/Hus-band’s name, Date of Birth, Category (SC/ST/OBC/PH/Minority), Gender, Educa-tion, Complete Address and E-mail address.”

For candidates who have not been able to qualify the paper, the release states

that “The non-qualified candidates may have to mark their option as Yes Or No for disclosure of their scores and other per-sonal details., as above, in the Commission’s Website, which will also be linked to the National Career Service (NCS) Portal of the Govern-ment of India.”

Meanwhile, the commis-sion is all set to release the official notification of Civil Services (Preliminary) Ex-amination, 2019 along with the notification for Indian Forest Service (Preliminary) Examination, 2019 through CS(P) Examination 2019 on February 19, 2019. The application process for the same will begin on the same date and continue till March 18, 2019. The exam for the two will be conducted on June 2,2019.

6 IN FOCUS Tuesday, February 19, 2019

I live on the third floor of a building lo-cated at Deira, Dubai. There is a Shisha coffee shop that remains open till 3am just opposite to my building. There are loud-speakers installed outside the shop. Mostly during important football matches or when the coffee shop is buzzing, I am unable to sleep in the bedroom due to the noise blaring through the shop from the speak-ers and have to shift to the living room. I tried discussing the decibel problem in a friendly manner with the shop manager, but he didn’t pay any heed to me. I often have to go to work without getting enough sleep during the nights. I tried approaching many authorities by email, but to no avail. Does the UAE law give permission for blaring loudspeakers regardless of the time during the day/night?

We assume that you are residing as a ten-ant in the said building based in the emirate of Dubai. The Dubai Municipality has laid down rules and regulations relating to loud noise in their Local Order No. 61 of 1991 on the Environment Protection Regulations in the Emirate of Dubai (the DM Local Order). Article 75 of the DM Local Order states that: “It shall be the duty of the occupant of any premises or persons operating mechani-cal devices or drivers of public or private transportation vehicles, house owners or supervisors of worshipping place to adopt the best practicable means of ensuring that the noise coming out from those premises does not exceed a reasonable level. The level is considered reasonable if it does not exceed 55 decibels during the period 7am to 8pm and 45 decibels during 8pm to 7am.” How-ever, Article 76 of the DM Local Order states that the aforementioned provision of law is exempted during holidays or any public or popular celebrations.

Further, you and your house owner may approach the landlord of the building where the said coffee shop is located and request him/them verbally and if required by writing, to reduce the volume of the loudspeakers to a minimum level after 8pm so that it doesn’t disturb the other residents. As a tenant, it is your right to live in the rented premises peacefully and therefore, you can seek as-sistance from your landlord/house owner on the said matter.

However, if the coffee shop manager or its owner does not take your request seriously, you along with your landlord/ house owner may approach the Dubai Municipality and file a complaint against the said shop. This is in accordance with Article 77 of DM Lo-cal Order, which states: “Any person may complain against noise emitting from any premises to Control Room in Dubai Mu-nicipality in order to inform noise control officer. The officer then shall take any of the following procedures: (a) Visit the site of complaint and deal with

the person causing the noise, while removing the cause of the problem or

(b) Inform the police, if he is convinced that there is a real risk of violence or if for any other reason, the case appears to require the involvement of the police to deal with it.”Based on the aforemen-tioned provision of law, the noise control officer along with police may approach the coffee shop, which use loud speakers at night and settle the issue.

Did you lose your job? My wife is a doctor working on a limited period employment contract for two years starting from Oct 2017 at a medical clinic in Dubai. The contract states that if the employer or employee intends to terminate it, the notice period to be served by either of them will be two months. My wife ap-plied for three months of maternity leave in the first week of Jan 2019 starting from Mar 14, 2019 to June 14, 2019. This would include 45 days of paid leave salary as per employment law of the UAE and the rest would probably be unpaid as she does not want to use her annual leave. Her employer did not reply to the aforementioned leave request. In Feb 2019, they had informed her that they will close the clinic and served her with two months’ notice from Feb 9, 2019 to April 9, 2019, terminating her employment contract. Since she is expected to deliver the child around second week of Mar 2019, she will not be able to serve the complete notice period. What will happen to her remunera-tion of March and April? What happens to her annual leave balance and how will her end-of-service benefits be calculated?

Pursuant to your queries, your wife’s employer should not terminate her from employment once she has requested them for maternity leave. Any reason for termi-nation of employment by employer without

How to control a noisy shop in UAE?any valid reason may be termed as arbitrary termination. This is in accordance with Ar-ticle 122 of the Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 regulating Employment Relations in the UAE (the Employment Law), which states: “An employee’s service shall be deemed to have been arbitrarily terminated by his employer if the reason for the termination is irrelevant to the employee and more particularly, if the reason is that the employee has submitted a serious complaint to the competent authori-ties or has instituted legal proceedings against the employer that has proved to be valid.”

Since, your wife’s employer is terminating her employment without any valid reason, she may claim for additional remuneration for up to three months under arbitrary dismissal. This is in accordance with Article 123 (a) of the Employment Law, which states: “Where an employee is arbitrarily dismissed, the competent court may order the employer to pay him compensation. The court shall assess such compensation with due regard to the nature of the work, the amount of prejudice he/she has sustained and his/her period of service, and after investigating the circumstances of the work. The amount of the compensation shall in no case exceed the employee’s remuneration for three months calculated on the basis of the last remunera-tion he was entitled to.”

However, if the employer proves that they are really closing the business and are not giving an excuse, then your wife may not be in a position to claim her termina-tion of employment on arbitrary grounds as mentioned above. Further, your wife has already submitted her maternity leave appli-cation and is expected to deliver a child in March 2019 which comes under the notice period issued by her employer. Considering your wife’s health and that of the child, she can refrain from attending her office from the day as advised by her doctor. Therefore, your wife may claim from her employer the maternity leave salary as mentioned in Article 30 of the Employment Law from her actual day of leave due to pregnancy till the last of employment.

Further, your wife is entitled to claim sal-ary for annual leave which are not availed during the course of employment with her employer. This is in accordance with Article 79 of the Employment Law, which states: “Where an employee is dismissed or leaves his employment after the period of notice prescribed by law, he shall be entitled to remuneration in respect of any days of annual leave not taken. Such remuneration shall be calculated on the basis of the remuneration that he earned on the date on which the leave became due.”

Since your wife’s termination is assumed as arbitrary, she is entitled for end- of- ser-vice benefits even though she is on limited contract and did not complete two years of service. This is in accordance with Article 123(b) of the Employment Law, which states: “The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall not prejudice the employee’s right to the gratuity he/she is entitled to and the termination notice allowance provide for in this law.” Your wife is entitled to claim 21 days of gratuity pay per year for completed year of service as mentioned in Article 132 of the Employment Law and proportionate for the rest of the period of service.Visa cancellationI had sponsored my child’s residency visa while he was in UAE a year back. I assumed that his visa has got expired automatically since he didn’t travel to UAE for the last one year. I even went to one of the Amer centres, which told me can-cellation was an automatic process. When I tried to hand over my child’s Emirates ID to them, they said it was not needed and the cancellation will happen on its own. Now, I want to bring my child here on a visit visa. But some of my friends at typing centres are saying that despite the visa expiration, it needs to be properly cancelled at immigration centre. They say the charges should amount to Dh250, including typing fees. The Emirates ID card must be handed over when the visa is cancelled. Are they right?

Upon completion of six months from the date your son last departed from the UAE, the residence visa of your child should automatically get cancelled in the record of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA). However, before applying for his visit visa, you should check if his residence visa is cancelled automati-cally. If you are informed that his residence visa is not automatically cancelled, then you should apply for cancellation by paying the applicable fee to GDRFA.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met with Dubai ruler His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai.

DUBAI: Dubai ruler His Highness Sheikh Moham-med bin Rashid Al Mak-toum received Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his accompanying delegation.

Sheikh Mohammed welcomed his guest and discussed with him means of developing the historical relations between the UAE and India and especially Kerala. Sheikh Mohammed

also underlined the keen-ness of the leaderships of both countries to expand these strong relations for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries.

During the meeting,

Sheikh Mohammed re-ceived an official invita-tion from Chief Minister Vijayan to visit Kerala, where the leadership of the UAE enjoys great re-spect.

Vijayan invites Dubai Ruler to Kerala

DUBAI: In a bid to protect women against harassment and discrimination while working abroad, a special women’s cell will be formed under the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Af-fairs (Norka Roots), a gov-ernment of Kerala under-taking.

The cell will protect women against discrimina-tory practices, announced Kerala Chief Minister Pina-rayi Vijayan, adding that multiple sub-initiatives to protect the interests of non-resident Keralite (NRK) women will be formed. “This includes migration facilitation centres in air-ports and pre-embarkment orientation counters in passport centres across Kerala,” confirmed Vijayan.

Vijayan was speaking at the opening session of the region’s first Loka Kerala Sabha (World Kerala As-sembly) at Etisalat Acad-emy in Muhaisnah. Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri and other delegates from the UAE business community and LKS members from the UAE were present at the opening of the two-day meet. Kerala Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan an-nounced that recommenda-

Kerala to protect NRI womentions and proposals regard-ing expatriate issues would be heard from the seven standing committees of the Loka Kerala Sabha over the next two days.

The chief minister said a range of new initiatives for the benefit of NRKs, in-cluding an NRK dividend-cum-pension scheme, is under discussion and will be launched soon. The con-ference will be discussing several welfare measures for NRKs and the establish-ment of important institu-tions to support the state’s development.

Vijayan called the LKS a truly democratic system. He hailed the formation of the LKS secretariat that has closely studied NRI issues and formed several recom-mendation reports. “We will discuss how to overcome the challenges faced by the expatriates. Expert teams in each of the seven standing committee areas have been formed and studies have been conducted to diagnose their issues. The main aim of the standing committee is to find solutions to the issues faced by the NRK diaspora.”

The chief minister said a total of 10 proposals were shortlisted from 48

recommendations received from the seven standing committees of LKS. The committees, formed during the first LKS conference that took place in January 2018 in Kerala, deal with different topics for the state’s development and NRKs’ welfare. According to Vijayan, the Kerala govern-ment is looking to set up a parent organisation - NRI Investment Company - that will find means to draw investment from NRKs to bolster various economic sectors --- tourism and in-frastructural projects such as roads etc. The govern-ment is also looking to set up bodies for overseas Keralites, including co-operative society, bank, construction company and an international Migration Centre for promoting migra-tion studies. “The LKS is a perfect platform to build initiatives of this kind,” said the chief minister.NRI issues

The chief minister also confirmed that a special festival for NRK youths is expected to be launched. Other opportunities for Keralites seeking jobs in the Gulf region include help from the government for further studies, skill devel-

opment centres, foreign lan-guage centres and student exchange programmes for interested students. Vijayan has also announced that the government is considering the setting up of an NRK Returnees Co-operative So-ciety established in the panchayat-level, which will provide job opportunities for NRK returnees in their respective districts.

A total of Rs 810 mil-lion has been earmarked for the welfare of NRKs in the Kerala state budget of which Rs 250 million has been set aside for the “Santhwanam Project” to provide financial assistance in emergency situations to returnees who have an annual income below Rs1 lakh. Furthermore, a total of Rs150 million has been allocated to provide capital and interest subsidies to NRI entrepreneurs and Rs 50 million for LKS Global Pravasi Festival.

Vijayan re-announced that the Kerala government would undertake costs for repatriation of mortal re-mains of expatriates living across the Gulf Region. “A Global Kerala Centre will be opened in Mavelikkara, on a five-acre land owned by Norka,” said Vijayan.

DUBAI: NRI property inves-tors and buyers stand to benefit significantly from an impending tax cut that has been proposed by a panel in a bid to give the much-needed fillip to the lackluster Indian real estate sector.

The possible Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate cut to three per cent and five per cent (from eight and 12pc) in affordable and in other categories, respectively, will not only be a big boon to property buyers from within and outside of India but also trigger the rebound of the $120-$130 billion real estate industry currently languish-ing in the doldrums, realty pundits said.

Currently, GST is levied at 12pc with input tax credit (ITC) on payments made for under construction property or ready to move in flats where the completion cer-tificate has not been issued at the time of sale.

GST rate cut will benefi t NRI property buyersThey said the belea-

guered real estate sector, of late caught in a web of new reforms, would be bet-ter positioned to brave the challenges once the NRI segment is incentivised to return to the market through

home prices by as much as Rs300,000 for super built-up area of 1,000 sqft However, others believe the net benefit will depend on the percent-age of input taxes forgone under the proposed regime.

“For NRIs, it will be a ma-

BENGALURU: As the demand for disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics grows, shortage of a skilled IT work-force to run them is posing a challenge to the stake-holders, Nasscom has said.“There is an urgent need to re-skill about 50pc of India’s IT work-force, as demand for it in new technologies remains unmet,” Nasscom’s IT-ITeS (IT enabled Services) Sector Skills Council chief executive Amit Aggarwal said.

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is the apex body representing the country’s IT and business process management (BPM) industry. The demand-supply gap for skills affected the in-dustry’s performance in 2018, due to shortage of 1.4 lakh skilled techies for five lakh jobs in the industry across verticals.

Shortage of skilled IT staff feared

the GST cut proposed for all under-construction resi-dential properties. The tax cut, recommended by the Group of Ministers (GoM), will definitely attract more NRIs to the real estate sector that is expected to touch $1 trillion by 2030, resulting in an overall positive impact on the Indian real estate market, said analysts. Realty experts believe the GST cut would lead to reduction of

jor boon because they largely invest in under-construction properties as they buy it more for investment purpose and not largely for their end-use. Thus, a flat five per cent rate of GST on under-construction homes without the ITC would provide an indubitable and transpar-ent benefit to NRI buyers as well,” said Shajai Jacob, CEO for the GCC at Anarock Property Consultants.

The reported recommendation from GoM to reduce GST rates to three per cent and five per cent respectively in affordable and in other cat-egories, will breathe a new life in to the sector. The existing GST regime has been a major de-terrent for sales in under-construction projects.

CORPORATE NEWS 7Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has come up with a new brand

identity ‘Caringly Yours’.Under the rebranding,

both the logo and the erst-while popular tagline ‘Rela-tionship beyond Insurance’ have been changed.

The objective behind adopting the new identity is to reposition itself in the minds of consumers as a brand that protects and cares in great detail about all their financial worries around their most prized possessions - their health, home & content, vehicles, businesses etc.

The underlying philoso-phy of the brand with this new identity is the belief that no one should com-

Bajaj Allianz rolls out new brand identitypromise on their day to day happiness because their problems aren’t being met with adequate solutions.

Since most of the wor-ries stem from a finan-

cial standpoint, the brand envisions to be there as ‘Caringly Yours’ for all its customers by creating eco-systems that protect them against all such everyday worries and problems.

Commenting on the rebranding, Sanjiv Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance said, “We have been consciously building Bajaj Allianz Gen-

eral Insur-ance to be truly iden-tified as a c u s t o m e r centric ro-bust insur-er. For us, c u s t o m e r centricity is not just a

service, but rather a way of being. With our new brand identity of ‘Caringly yours’, we will not only reinforce this message but take it to a newer light”

Tapan Singhel, MD, Ba-

jaj Allianz General Insur-ance said that, “We felt that caring about the customers is taken for granted many a times and yet should be the backbone of any service industry.

Be it care at the stage of consideration, purchase, experience, claim or renew-al, with “Caringly Yours” our intention is to make in-surance a seamless part of the customers lives where they will be able to relate their everyday worries to the product and allied services that we will be able to provide. With this we aim not just to take our service to the next level, but also aim to provide the best customer experience at every touch point”.

Foreign investors have put in over Rs 5,300 crore into the Indian

equity market in the first half of this month, primar-ily on account of positive view on the Interim Budget 2019-20.

The infusion into the equity market comes fol-lowing a pull-out of Rs 5,264 crore by foreign portfolio investors (FPI) in January.

According to the lat-est data available with depositories, a net sum of Rs 5,322 crore has been pumped into equities dur-ing February 1-15. How-ever, FPIs pulled out a net amount of Rs 248 crore from the bond market dur-ing the period.

FPIs pour Rs 5,300cr into equities in Feb so farThis has translated into

a net investment of Rs 5,074 crore in the country’s capital markets (equity and debt together).

FPIs have turned into net buyers in February so far as India is one of the promising emerging markets, analysts said, adding that sustainability of the economic growth and formation of a stable government at the Centre will play significant roles in the FPI flows.

The inflow into the equity market can be a result of the positive view on the Budget. Though India is among the prom-ising emerging markets, the foreign investors are expected to stay cautious

for the next few months till elections, said Harsh Jain, chief operating officer at Groww.

Express ing s imi lar views, Bajaj Capital Head (Investment Analytics) Alok Agarwala said: “The trends are suggesting that the FPIs are tracking the short-term news and im-provement in macroeco-nomics.

“However, crude oil prices, currency volatility and upcoming Lok Sabha elections are some of the key events which will be the major factors for FPI flows. The interim ap-proach of the government until it ends will help FPIs make a come-back in India,” he added.

Exporters body FIEO suggested a series of measures including

outright exemption from

GST, interest subsidy for agri-sector, and more funds for MSME players to boost outbound shipments.

With increasing protec-tionism in several coun-tries, domestic exporters need incentives to increase shipments, Federation of Indian Export Organisa-tions (FIEO) President Ga-

FIEO suggests measures to boost exportsnesh Kumar Gupta said.

“These support mea-sures, if provided on time has the potential to take

the country’s exports to $ 375 billion in 2019-20 and create lakhs of jobs. This fiscal, we will cross $ 325 billion to $ 330 billion,” he said.

On Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said, it is necessary that an outright exemption window may be provided to exporters

as was in existence before the GST regime to mitigate the liquidity problem.

“Though, the govern-ment has taken several measures to provide quick GST refunds to exporters, but due to one reason or the other, substantial GST refunds remain outstand-ing for long time causing acute liquidity problem which adversely affect our exports growth,” he said.

There is a good poten-tial for agricultural produce in overseas markets and, for that there is a need to extend the interest subsidy scheme to the sector, he added.

Bes ides , the F IEO president sought more funds for improving trade related infrastructure in states, incentives to pro-mote shipments of value added branded products,

steps to increase trade with neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangaldesh, and benefits on sales to foreign tourists.

“To reduce transaction time and cost simultane-ously increasing competi-tiveness, there is a need to provide more facility to the MSME exporters in the forthcoming foreign trade policy particularly of non-fiscal nature,” Gupta said adding exemption from IGST under advance authorization scheme.

Under this scheme, manufacturers are allowed

to import inputs at zero duty but only for the export purposes.

During the April-Janu-ary period of the current fiscal, exports grew 9.52pc to $ 271.8 billion.

Several key sectors like gems and jewellery, rice, marine product, leather, tea, coffee and cashew has recorded negative growth for the current period.

Since 2011-12, India’s exports have been hovering around $ 300 billion. Dur-ing 2017-18, the shipments grew by about 10pc to $ 303 billion.

Indian Bank an -nounced upward revision in interest

rate on domestic term deposits by 50 bps to 90 bps for amount less

Indian Bank’s term deposit rates hikedthan Rs one crore across various tenors from three years to less than five years, five years and above five years, the bank said.

Markets regulator Securities and Ex-change Board of

India (Sebi) has granted certain exemptions to Wipro from the buyback norms in case of the IT firm’s pro-posed share repurchase pro-gramme, according to an or-

der by the watchdog. Wipro in November 2018 had filed an application with the SEBI to seek exemption from the strict enforcement of

Sebi relaxes norms for Wipro’s buyback plan

the buyback norms for the merger of its four wholly-owned subsidiaries with itself. The IT firm said its scheme of amalgamation is pending for sanction of the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) and consid-ering the backlog of cases

at NCLT, there could be delays and the firm cannot anticipate the time that it may take to complete the merger process.

The Centre has ex-empted industries like steel, cement

and metal from mandatory prior environment clearance for setting up a new or

expanding the existing cap-tive power plant employing waste heat recovery boilers (WHRB) without using any auxiliary fuel.

Govt eases green clearance norms for captive power plants

The exemption to indus-tries having potential for heat recovery has been giv-en to promote energy con-servation and reduce green house gas emissions, ac-

cording t o a n order.

This exemp-tion was s o f a r given to thermal p o w e r p l a n t s u s i n g

waste heat boilers without any auxiliary fuel.

Prior environment clear-ance will not be required for setting up of new or expan-

sion of captive power plants employing WHRB without using any auxiliary fuel, in the existing cement plants, integrated steel plants, met-allurgical industries and other industries having potential for heat recovery, the order said.

The objective was to promote energy conserva-tion, reduce green house emissions and, in larger interest of the environment including climate change, it added.

The Union Environment Ministry has amended the norms and issued a fresh order following several representations from the industry, according to the order.

Reserved Bank of India (RBI) has approved an early transfer of a part

of its profit to the govern-ment, which needs cash to fund its schemes ahead of the national elections due by May. RBI ‘s board ap-proved Rs. 28,000 crore as interim dividend, according to a statement. This is the second straight year that RBI has announced an advance payment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

In approving the measure, RBI is emulating Turkey’s central bank that came to the aid of its government before municipal elections in March seen as a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule. The RBI divi-dend will help PM Modi’s government partly bridge a

RBI gives Rs. 28,000 cr interim dividend to govtbudget gap and could be key to funding an income support programme for farmers.

The government needs cash after allocating Rs. 20,000 crore toward the first installment of the $10.5 bil-lion programme by March 31. The cash support -- handing about 12 crore farmers with up to two hectares (4.9 acres) three payments of Rs. 2,000 per year -- was PM Modi’s last attempt at reversing fortune.

The transfer is “based on a limited audit review and after applying the extant economic capital framework,” the cen-tral bank said in a statement. The central bank’s financial year runs from July to June.

The government has, in all, budgeted Rs. 74,140 crore in dividends from RBI and the state-run lenders in the

year ending March 31 and has penciled in Rs. 82,910 crore for the next year.

The demand on RBI for more dividends and to part with a greater share of its capital has been a contentious issue between the central bank and the government. It resulted in a public standoff last year and is seen as one of the reasons for the abrupt exit of then Governor Urjit Patel. The fi-nance ministry has asked the central bank to transfer about Rs 27,000 crore of surplus capital withheld by it in the previous two financial years. Separately, finance ministry officials estimate RBI has at least Rs. 3.6-lakh-crore more capital than it needs, which they say can be used to help bolster weak Indian banks.

Electric vehicle charg-ing infrastructure provider EVI Tech-

nologies plans to invest around Rs 100 crore in the next one and a half years to set up 20,000 charging stations across the country, a senior company official said.

The firm, incubated at the Electropreneur Park funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Infor-mation Technology, has also tied up with BSES Rajdhani Power to set up around 3,000 electric ve-hicle (EV) charging stations in Delhi.

EVI targets to create a network of around 20,000 EV chargers in the next one and a half years.

EVI Tech to invest around Rs 100cr

In a first of its kind transaction, Tata Motors along with Tata Motors

Finance Group entered into strategic tie-up with Kool-ex Cold Chain Limited – a leading Pharma Cold Chain Logistics Service Provider to supply 200 Fully Built Reefer Trucks manufactured by Tata Mo-tors.

Developing a unique one stop solution for Kool-ex Cold Chain Ltd, this tie up includes manufactur-ing of the specially built pharma compliant reefer trucks which will be cov-ered under the Tata Sam-poorna Seva umbrella of value added services and a complete funding plan by TMF Group with a mixture of Equity and Debt, mak-

Tata Motors-Kool-ex tie-uping the entire transaction a single window structure. The reefer units used for this deal will be built on the popular Tata LPT 1613 MCV trucks and the Tata LPT 2518 Multi axle truck.

According to Shyam Mani - MD, Tata Motors Finance Group – “We are elated to be a part of this one of a kind tie up to provide complete financ-ing solutions to Kool-ex Cold Chain Limited. As a part of this tie up, we will not only be providing

vehicle financing through Tata Motors Finance Lim-ited (TMFL) but will also provide mezzanine equity financing to the company through Tata Motors Fi-nance Solutions Limited

(TMFSL), making this a structured financing deal. We are confident that this complete package will deliver the best for all com-panies who are a part the deal and will lay

a strong foundation for a continued association ahead.”

On this occasion, R T Wasan, Head, Marketing & Sales, CVBU, Tata Mo-tors said, “Tata Motors as the leading CV player in the Industry continues to work closely with its cus-

tomers and their clients to develop total solutions for their transportation and logistics requirements. With a sectoral approach, Tata Motors has worked with Kool-Ex to co-develop the fully built reefer unit to meet the sophisticat-ed logistics requirements of the Pharma Industry which will meet the rap-idly growing needs of the Pharma Industry due to the anticipated changes in the regulations related to transportation and storage”

Kool-Ex which has over 21 years of experience in this segment is all set to become one of the larg-est Pharma Cold Chain Logistics Service Provider in the country, with this partnership.

PROPERTYMONK, In-dia’s one of the largest International Property

Consultants, has entered into a strategic partnership with RANK GROUP, a lead-ing Financial Consulting firm focusing on Debt Syn-dication and Management.

This strategic partner-ship will help Developers to avail complete solutions from RANK GROUP and PROPERTYMONK starting from financial closure to Sales & Marketing of their Real Estate Projects. The offering will also benefit De-velopers to lower their Costs through competent services from both the Brands.

The partnership with RANK GROUP will help in bolstering PROPERTY-MONK’s growing relations with Developers across India

Propertynonk joins hand with Rank Groupand offer a comprehensive offering to the Developer’s growing fund needs.

The Debt Syndication facility will also enable PropertyMonk’s customers to continue to accumulate value proposition from retail loans department for best of-fers in Home Loans through various banks, while gaining continued access to develop-ers to set up financial man-agement or to raise funds from the market.

Speaking on the part-nership, Manoj Asrani, Founding Principal, PROP-ERTYMONK said, “As a knowledge driven IPC, PROPERTYMONK under-stands the specific needs of developers and we are proud to partner with RANK GROUP to provide conve-nience to our B2B custom-

ers through liquidity against their Inventories, where we will ensure better sales and profitability. MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) is an important geography for PROPERTYMONK’s finance proposition and the foray in other states will play a key role in our aspiration to become IPC of choice for all Brands”.

Commenting on the de-velopment, Kuldeep Jain, Founder RANK GROUP, said “We are delighted to partner with PROPERTYMONK to offer this complete solu-tion to our clients who have been struggling with Inventories Overhang. This association will go a long way towards supporting our clients to get the best value for their trust on us both in Financing and Sales.

8 Travel / Entertainment

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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

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

As on 18th February, 2019 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

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As Airbus A380 being scrapped,Emirates orders fresh 14 aircraft

Airbus A380, better known as the “ Flying palace”.

Dubai’s Emirates air-line ordered 70 Air-bus jets at a value of

$21.5 billion and reached an agreement with the plane manufacturer to receive 14 more A380s, whose produc-tion will stop by 2021.

Emirates ordered 40 A330-900 aircraft and 30 A350-900 jets, the airline said in a statement. The latest generation of A330neo and A350 aircraft, will be de-livered to Emirates starting from 2021 and 2024, respec-tively. The Toulouse plane manufacturer and Emirates reached an agreement on the outstanding A380 deliver-ies, according to which the airline will receive 14 more double-decker jets from 2019 through to the end of 2021. These deliveries will take Emirates’ total A380 or-der book to 123 units, a drop from the original 162 figure. “While we are disappointed to have to give up our order and sad that the programme

could not be sustained, we accept that this is the real-ity of the situation,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates.

The A380 is a “differ-entiator” for Emirates and the aircraft “will remain a pillar” of its fleet until the 2030s, he added.

Emirates, which shunned the double-decker at the 2017 Dubai Airshow for Boeing’s 787s, salvaged the A380’s production in Jan of last year with an order for 20 more jets as the future of the superjumbo was in question.

Until that point, Airbus had not sold the aircraft dubbed the flying palace in more than two years. Emirates, which invested billions of dollars to establish a transportation

hub in Dubai, had demanded that Airbus commit to a pro-duction timeline of at least a decade due to a lack of trac-tion from other airlines for the aircraft and the absence of a secondary market for the jet.

But even with Emirate’s order, the market dynamics didn’t change for the A380, making it the second most iconic aircraft to be retired after the Concorde ceased

operating in 2003. “As a re-sult of this decision we have no substantial A380 backlog, and hence no basis to sus-tain production, despite all our sales efforts with other

airlines in recent years. This leads to the end of A380 de-liveries in 2021,” said Airbus chief executive Tom Enders.

Airbus incurred €463 million in charges for scrap-ping the production of the A380. The first double-decker to go into operation was in 2007 as part of Sin-gapore Airlines’ fleet, and was retired in June 2017. Sheikh Ahmed said Emir-

ates’ order of A330neos and A350s complements the air-line’s fleet mix, enhances its flexibility and supports the growth of its network. The jets will “play an important role in our future fleet and network plans”, he said.

Meanwhile, Etihad Avia-tion Group said it has re-structured its aircraft orders after concluding talks with Airbus and Boeing.The par-ent of Etihad Airways said on it will take delivery of five long-range A350-1000 aircraft and 26 A321neos from the European manufac-turer Airbus and receive six 777-9x from the US plane maker Boeing. Middle East airlines will spend about $600b on new aircraft in the next 20 years, as the fleet size of the regions’ carriers are projected to more than double to 3,320 aircraft in the period, according to Airbus. The region’s carriers will require around 2,590 new aircraft by 2036.

Dubai airport to eliminate queues

To cope with the heavy rush of tour-ists, the Statue of

Unity in Gujarat will now open for tourists at 8am instead of earlier 9am and will remain open till 6pm instead of earlier 5pm.

MD of Gujarat Tourism Jenu Devan said: “Almost 10,000 tourists come on a daily basis to the Statue of Unity and on holidays and weekends the number may go up to 15,000 to 20,000. So, in order to cater to the requirement of the tourists the authorities have de-cided to increase the visit-ing hours to the Statue of Unity by two hours – one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening.”

Unity Statue: visiting hrs extendedThe viewing gallery situ-

ated at the chest height of this 182-metre -high Statue of Sardar Patel is the prime attraction for the tourists as they get a panoramic view of the Narmada Valley, lofty Satpura and Vindhya Mountains and the Sardar Sarovar dam situated 3.2km upstream. “Tourists want to take the lift to the chest level, all tourists wish to visit the viewing gallery and but only a certain number, about 5,000 can go up to the viewing gallery. Its number also depends on lifts’ carry-ing capacity and the time spent by the tourists at the chest level. So, the authori-ties have taken a stand that in order to cater to more

tourists coming from far away places the time limit for visiting the Statue of

Unity should be increased by two hours. That way it can accommodate more and more people on a daily basis,” Devan said.

Dewan told a TV chan-nel that this time slot will

remain for the time being as the tourists demand is likely to increase due to the upcoming vacations season, so, in next few months it won’t change. “As of now, visiting time stands to remain same but it all depends on the situation in the future,” Devan added.

Statue of Unity is wit-nessing huge rush of tour-ists and according to a reply filed by the Union Tourism Minister KJ Alphons. Over eight lakh tourists have visited the place since its inauguration on Oct 31 till the end of January and the “revenue generated from visitors to Statue of Unity from Nov, 2018 to Jan 2019 is Rs.19.47 crore.”

Dubai airport launched its new brand iden-tity as it plans to

introduce changes across its airports to improve the passenger experience. The new brand, with a fresh logo bearing the letters DXB, will see the operator enhance technology at the city’s two airports and launch new retail concepts there. Dubai Airports said it aims to “eliminate” queues at air-ports and leverage its use of technology.

Today marks a new mile-stone for Dubai Airports weeks after celebrating its billionth passenger. A phase that carries a new identity and transforms Dubai Air-ports from an operator to an innovative and cultural travel experience. A new vision for the new journey of our airports .

“Airports are chang-ing, and what we wanted to do is make sure that we focused on the custom-er experience,” said Paul Griffiths, chief executive officer of Dubai Airports. “We don’t want anyone to have to queue. The idea is we will gradually introduce

new technology, which will make the processes very ef-ficient and quick. Not only then do passengers not have to wait, that means they’ll have a far more enjoyable experience and we will get greater capacity out of our airports because everyone will be moving much more quickly.” The changes will take “a few years to fully manifest” themselves across the airports.

Griffiths has long ex-pressed his views about how airports around the world need to up their use of tech-nology, painting a picture of his vision of how airports will look in the future — and it’s a significant difference from how they look today.

In a speech in May 2018, the CEO said he believes technology can remove the pain from travel, by elimi-nating queues, document checks, and long walks from one gate to another. He described a future where airports have no check-in desks, no immigration and discreet security procedures that rely on technology such as facial scans.

Singapore records new high of 18.5m arrivalsSingapore tourism in-

dustry received a ma-jor thrust in 2018 as

there were a record 18.5 million visitor arrivals to the island marking a 6.2pc hike from the year before. Ar-rivals from India rose 13pc with greater air connectivity to tier II cities (including Guwahati, Pune and Vijay-wada) and marketing strat-egies of Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in more cities.

The tourists also spent a whopping amount of SG$27.1 billion, which is a new high and an increase of one per cent from 2017. About 14 out of Singapore’s top 15 markets registered growth in 2018 with seven – China, India, Philippines,

UK, USA, Vietnam, and Ger-many – hitting record-high visitor arrivals. China, Indo-nesia and India continued to be the top three contributing markets for visitor arrivals to Singapore. China (six per cent), Indonesia (two per cent) and India (13 per cent) continued to be the top three contributing markets for visitor arrivals to Singapore.

“For China and India, there was growth from both tier one and tier two cities, due to strong travel demand and increased flight connec-tivity. In particular, cruise ar-rivals from India spiked 27pc as more Indian travellers took up new cruise offerings such as Genting Dream and Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Voyager of

the Sea,” said STB. Keith Tan, Chief Execu-

tive of STB, said: “We are pleased that Singapore’s tour-ism sector performed well in 2018 despite some economic uncertainties. We were fortu-nate to have benefited from a confluence of positive factors such as strong Asia-Pacific travel demand, increased flight connectivity to Singa-pore and various high-profile events. It is also heartening to see our marketing efforts and collaborations with industry partners bearing fruit.” STB also observed that receipts and arrivals from the Busi-ness Travel and Meetings, In-centive Travel, Conventions and Exhibitions (BTMICE) sector saw bumper growth.

Raigad Fort to be made global tourist spotOnce considered im-

pregnable, the hill-top Raigad Fort from

where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj laid the founda-tions of “Hindavi Swaraj”, is poised for a major revamp to make it a global tourist hotspot. The 350-year-old majestic fort, which stands on a hill of 820 metres, rises upto 1,356 metres above sea level, and is presently looked after by the Archaeo-logical Survey of India (ASI).

Nestled in the pictur-esque Sahyradri Range of the Western Ghats, the fort was once accessible only by climbing 1,737 steep steps for several hours, but since the past few years a cable car -- the Raigad Ropeway -- has made the ascent to the fort an easy 10-minute effort. Raigad Fort is spread across 1,300 acres on the hilltop, making it one of the largest fort complexes in India, be-sides having a unique topog-raphy on an almost vertical, stony, hill slope affording a magnificent view of the sur-rounding hills and valleys.

Overseeing the mega re-vamp project is Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati of the Kolhapur royal family and the 13th direct descendent of Chha-trapati Shivaji Maharaj, who is now the Raigad Develop-ment Authority Chairman and a President-nominated

Rajya Sabha Member.“The RDA has sanctioned

Rs 606.08 crore of which Rs 114 crore will be for the

Raigad Fort redevelopment. Besides, another Rs 237 crore will be spent on major road-works between Mahad on the Mumbai-Goa Highway to Raigad Fort which will be developed as a heritage highway,” Chhatrapati said. Recently, Sambhajiraje Chha-trapati was appointed the brand ambassador of forts by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was coronated as the King in this fort on June 6, 1674 from where he founded the Maratha Empire, with Raigad as its capital.

Conservation Archi-tect for Raigad Fort Varun Bhamre said that another Rs 100 crore is expected from the Centre, based on the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commis-sion, for the revamp of 10 forts in the country. “There

are at least 84 big and small natural bodies which were converted into tanks during Chhatrapati Shivaji Maha-

raj’s rule to provide drinking water for the residents here. We shall clean them up in a scientific manner to ensure that any artefacts there are

retained without damage,” Bhamre told a TV channel.

There are plans to launch “facade lighting” and a sound-and-light show to at-tract tourists at night. Some 21 villages in the fort’s vicin-ity, including Pachad and Raigadwadi at the base of the hill, will be developed in a big way. The locals will be deployed in tour-

ism-related activities under various schemes to ensure their participation for the self-sustainable and “Model Fort” plans. An amount of Rs 50 crore has been set aside for the revamp of the Raigad Ropeway. Nature trails shall be developed as the fort and its surroundings are rich in biodiversity, said Sambhaji-raje Chhatrapati.