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REFER PAGE 3 & 4 FOR GULF JOBS

Alexander Dobrindt (L) leader of the CSU parliamentary group, greets German Chancellor An-gela Merkel in Indian style Namaste to avoid a handshake in times of coronavirus as Ralph Brinkhaus (R), group leader of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group looks on at the parliamentary group meeting in Berlin.

Corona will drill $2t hole on world economyNEW YORK: The coronavi-rus outbreak may set global economy back by about $2 trillion this year, says the UN’s trade and develop-ment agency, UNCTAD, warning that shock from the epidemic will cause a reces-sion in some countries and push down global annual growth to below 2.5pc.

“We envisage a slow-down in the global economy to under two per cent for this year and that will prob-ably cost in the order of $1 trillion, compared with what people were forecast-ing back in Sept,” said Rich-

ard Kozul-Wright, Director, Division on Globalisation and Development Strate-gies at UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The UN agency said that apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 tril-lion in 2020. A preliminary downside scenario sees a $2 trillion shortfall in global income with a $220 billion hit to developing countries (excluding China).

The most affected econo-mies in this scenario will be oil-exporting countries, but also other commodity ex-porters, which stand to lose more than one percentage point of growth, as well as those with strong trade link-ages to the initially shocked economies.

Last week, UNCTAD had pegged the trade impact of the coronavirus epidemic on India at $348 million. India also figures among the 15 most affected econo-mies. Slowdown of manu-facturing in China due to the coronavirus outbreak is

disrupting world trade and could result in a $50 billion decrease in exports across global value chains.

According to Kozul-Wright, only a few coun-tries will be left unscathed by Covid-19 ’s f inan-cial ramifications. One “Doomsday scenario” in which the world economy grew at only 0.5pc would involve “a $2 trillion hit” to gross domestic product, he said, adding that collaps-ing oil prices had been “a contributing factor to that growing sense of unease and panic.

DIPLOMATIC, EMPLOYMENT VISAS EXEMPTED

Visas to India suspended

Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport’s Terminal 2.

NEW DELHI: India has suspended all tourist visas until April 15 and said it would quarantine travel-lers arriving from seven virus-hit countries in an attempt to contain the spread of the new corona-virus. The visa suspension begins on March 13 at 1200 GMT at the port of departure, the government said. Diplomatic visas and visas for international or-ganisations, employment and projects however are exempt.

Besides this ministry of health said: “All incoming travellers, including Indi-

ans, arriving from or having visited China, Italy, Iran, Republic of Korea, France,

Spain and Germany after Feb, 2020 shall be quaran-tined for a minimum period

of 14 days.”The ministry added:

“Visa free travel facility

granted to OCI cardhold-ers is kept in abeyance till April 15, 2020.

Sensex crashes by 2919 pointsMUMBAI: Indian equity markets went on a free-fall on Thursday, in line with global markets which were rattled after the WHO de-clared the novel coronavirus outbreak a “pandemic”. The carnage on Dalal Street erod-ed investor wealth worth Rs 8,56,689 crore, taking the total market capitalisation (m-cap) to Rs 1,28,56,869 crore on the BSE.

Globally, over 119,400 confirmed cases of corona have been reported among which over 4,300 people

have succumbed to the virus. Wall Street stocks plunged on Wednesday, with the Dow confirming a bear market for the first time since the financial crisis.

The Sensex and Nifty were both down seven per cent each. The S&P BSE Sensex was down 2,555 points or 7.16pc at 32,778 levels, its lowest level in 17 months. HDFC Bank (down seven per cent) and Reliance Industries (down eight per cent) were the top contribu-tors to the Sensex’s fall today.

Besides, Mahindra, Axis Bank and SBI all tumbled over 10pc each.

T h e N i f t y 5 0 i n d ex opened below the crucial mark of 10,000 for the first time since March 26, 2018 and was trading around 32-month low level of 9,687, down 771 points or 7.37pc. The index has now entered bear market after falling over 20pc from the recent high. All the Nifty sectoral indices were painted red.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index

slumped 670 pointsc or five per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap was down 670 points or 5.3pc.

The total market cap-italisation of companies listed on the BSE hit an over 32-month low on Thursday as the benchmark indices crashed over seven per cent after the WHO declared the worldwide outbreak of the new coronavirus as pan-demic. Investors had lost a whopping nearly Rs 11 tril-lion in the stock markets till 11:10 am today.

NEW DELHI: At least 83 peo-ple who arrived from Italy on an Air India flight have been quarantined at the Indian Army facility at Manesar. Around 74 people among them are Indian nationals while nine are foreigners of Indian origin -- six Italians and three US nationals.

The group, which took the AI138 flight, comprised 16 children, one infant, 26 women and 40 men. “The evacuees will be monitored for over 14 days by a quali-fied team of doctors and staff members. They will watch for any signs of infection. If any individual is suspected to be infected, he/she will

Air India brings 83 passengers from Italybe shifted to an isolation facility,” said a person at the ministry of health and family welfare.

The plane carrying pas-sengers, who had not been screened for COVID-19 in Italy, were initially taken to an isolation bay at the airport, an Air India spokesperson said.They were later screened at the Delhi airport. Accord-ing to the government, daily medical examination of all personnel will also be done at the medical facility.

After 14 days, individuals with no symptoms will be al-lowed to go home with their detailed documentation sent to the district/state surveil-

lance units. The government has said those found infected will be shifted to Safdarjung hospital isolation ward for further medical examina-tion. Samples will be sent to the Department of Virology, AIIMS, while the tests will be confirmed by National Centre for Disease Control. “Patients will be discharged only after clinical recovery and two successive negative samples tested for n-COV. Apart from playing games, watching TV and having meals together within a barrack, no one will be allowed to interact with the members of another bar-rack,” said the health minis-try official. (Also see page 2)

MUMBAI: The currencies of India and Pakistan will con-tinue to witness increased volatility in the ensuing days as global economic concerns and the possibilities of a fur-ther plunge in financial and oil markets deepen, analysts say. The rupee, after breach-ing the 74 per dollar mark to hit a 17-month low of 74.17 on Monday, closed on Tuesday at 20.14 against the dirham.

The Pakistan rupee de-clined 0.7pc on Tuesday, extending a two-day decline to 2.1pc , the most in eight months as foreign investors withdraw $180 million from

Rupee to experience heightened volatilityPakistan’s treasury bills in the first six days of March. Dharmesh Krishnan, as-sistant general manager at Belhasa Global Exchange, said the Indian rupee is expected to trade weaker in the short-term on account of the global meltdown over the past few days.

“If a widely anticipated intervention by Reserve Bank of India is not there, pressure on the currency is expected to continue,” said Krishnan.

Currencies across Asia have also been under severe pressure. Russia’s central bank said it would sell for-

eign currency for the first time in five years after the rouble fell to a four-year low, while Kazakhstan sharply raised its key interest rate to stem a slide. The Saudi riyal recovered some of its losses against the US dollar in the forwards market after drop-ping to a more than two-year low on Monday following a plunge in oil prices.

The slump in the Indian rupee was on the back of a rout across global financial and oil markets on persistent concerns of severe impair-ment of the global economy due to the coronavirus out-

break. Further, free-fall in oil prices also weighed on the sentiments. Although, the rupee has significantly weak-ened in the past 10 days, over the past month, it has been depreciating and has weak-ened from around 71 per dollar to over 74. Along with the global stock markets, the Indian equity market also witnessed a bloodbath, on Monday with the BSE Sensex registering its deepest single-day fall in its history as it closed 1,941 points lower. Investors lost around Rs 7 trillion during the day due to the rout, analysts said.

Corona: 9 criticalin SingaporeSINGAPORE: Amongst the 12 new cases identified on Wednesday are four regu-lar servicemen from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) who were on official duty in Marseille, France between Feb 15 and March 7. As per a statement by the ministry of defence, the servicemen returned to Singapore on March 8 and developed symptoms soon thereafter. Nine of them are in a critical condition.

Three of the servicemen are currently warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and one is warded at (Contd. on page 2)

E L Vaidyanathan

MUMBAI: Close on the heels of Yes Bank, the Tamil Nadu-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) is in deep trouble, ac-cording to banking sources in Mumbai. This private sector bank has operations largely in Tamil Nadu and some other parts of the south.

To save the bank, RBI is seriously considering merg-ing LVB with another private bank. Among those in the fray to acquire LVB include Kotak Mahindra Bank. A number of global inves-tors, including DBS Bank India, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and the US-based Tilden Park Capital Management are among those who have al-ready expressed interest in

Jittery Lakshmi Vilas Bank set for merger?

investing in LVB. It may be recalled that Tilden Park was one of the investors which was in the fray to invest in Yes Bank as well before it was taken over by RBI. Bank union sources confirmed that a strategic investor in LVB would be finalised in the next few days. They revealed that RBI had last year thwarted attempts by Indiabulls Housing Finance to take over LVB.

Fund raising from inter-national investors would be time-consuming as the cen-tral bank goes about its due diligence to ensure that they adhere to its guidelines. It would be much easier for an existing bank to take over an ailing bank than go through the process of due diligence, an analyst with a major fund

house said.It is a known fact that

LVB needs an investment of around Rs 2,000 crore in or-der to stay afloat. “We require about Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 2,000 crore to improve our operations,” LVB’s Interim Managing Director Sundar had said last month shortly after declaring the bank’s re-sults for the December quar-ter. LVB’s non-performing assets increased to 23.27pc in the Dec quarter as against 13.95pc in the corresponding period of the previous year. During Oct-Dec quarter of 2019, the bank suffered a net loss of Rs 334 crore. During the nine-month ended Dec 2019, the loss was Rs 928 crore as against Rs 629 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Cancelling Olympics unlikelyTOKYO: Cancelling the 2020 Olympics is “unthinkable” although the classifi-cation of the coronavirus as a pandemic will likely have some impact on the games, the Tokyo city governor said. “It can’t be said that the announcement of a pandemic would have no impact... But I think cancellation is unthink-able,” Yuriko Koike said.

Doubts are increasingly being raised over whether the Olympics can be held as scheduled from July 24 to Aug 9. Or-

ganisers have insisted the games will go ahead as planned and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with whom the final decision rests, has said there has not yet been any talk of cancellation or postponement.

The IOC has said it will co-ordinate closely with the WHO , which has now officially classified the outbreak as a pandemic. Koike vowed to work with the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organisers on what she described as a “global issue”,

promising to devote her “utmost ef-forts” to holding the Games.

According to world health officials, the fatality rate of the coronavirus has reached 3.4pc worldwide. But corona-virus has already taken a huge toll on sport across the globe with a long list of competitions affected. US basketball was the latest sport to be hit, as the NBA said it would suspend the season after a preliminary test on a Utah Jazz player came back positive (Contd. on page 2)

Saudi extends travel ban to IndiaRIYADH: Saudi Arabia has announced to suspend flights to several countries including India and Pakistan, to prevent coronavirus spread, after an-nouncing 24 new cases over-night to bring its total to 45.

The Saudi government has temporarily suspended travel of citizens and resi-dents and halted flights with several states due to corona-virus fears, state news agency SPA said on Thursday cit-ing an official government source.

The decision includes the European Union, Swit-zerland, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Er-itrea, Kenya, Djibouti, and

Somalia, source added, say-ing the Kingdom also sus-pended entry to those coming from these countries. Citizens and residents in the affected jurisdictions have 72 hours to return to the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia also sus-pended passenger traffic through all land crossings with Jordan, while commer-cial and cargo traffic is still allowed, and the passage of exceptional humanitarian cases. The decision excludes health workers in the King-dom from Philippines and India, and evacuation, ship-ping and trade trips taking necessary precautions. Saudi Arabia has 45 coronavirus cases. The kingdom had

already banned travel to some 19 countries, including neighbouring Arab states and said it would impose a fine of up to SR500,000 on people who did not disclose health information and travel details at entry points.Pilgrimage

Other preventive mea-sures include locking down the oil-producing region of Qatif, where many of its cases are centred, suspend-ing the Umrah pilgrimage, closing schools and cinemas nationwide, cancelling con-ferences and sporting events and postponing a G20 minis-terial meeting scheduled for next week. Saudi Arabia has already (Contd. on page 2)

2 EMIGRATION Friday, March 13, 2020

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

Publisher: Supreeth M.J.Editor : E.L. VaidyanathanVolume No.: 2, Issue: 45

Published at: Office No. 1001, 10th Floor,Navjivan Commercial Premises Co-op. Society Ltd.,Lamington Road, (Dr.D.B.Marg), Mumbai Central,

Mumbai - 400 008. Ph.: 022 - 23001102 / 23001103.Printed at: Siddhi Services, A-180/4, TTC Industrial Area,

MIDC, Khairne, Thane, Maharashtra - 400709.

LIPSYNCH “Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself.”

—Desiderius Erasmus

The global plunge

It was a Black Mondy world wide on March 9. Everything took a deep plunge--- whether they were the crude prices or the stock prices or the Indian rupee. The coronavirus was

the villain and its economic fallout turned out be disastrous.According to reports, the crude oil prices crashed ow-

ing to disagreements between OPEC and Russia and fears that the world economy was moving into a recession. The benchmark stock indices fell by over six per cent, trimming some of their losses thereafter to end the day down 5.2pc. The collapse in oil prices has been more severe. Crude oil prices plunged by around 30pc in early trading, ending the day at around $35 per barrel, as Russia disagreed on production cuts to reduce supply as demand falls. OPEC leader Saudi Arabia had wanted Russia to join the cartel in deep production cuts after world prices had already tanked on forecasts of plunging demand because of corona. Nev-ertheless, Moscow declined, triggering Riyadh’s move to preserve market share and sideline its closest competitor -- but creating fresh markets chaos.

According to some forecasts, global oil demand growth in 2020 will be less than 0.48 million barrels per day, down from 1.1 million barrels in Dec 2019, as the shut-down of factories in China, disruptions in supply chains and travel restrictions imposed across the world depress demand.

For India, this can be a blessing in disguise as it pro-vides some handsome gains as well. India’s macro eco-nomic indicators being de-pendent on crude oil prices to a great extent, the sharp fall in price augurs well on several fronts. First, as India imports around 80pc of its oil requirement, the collapse in oil prices will slash the country’s import bill and soften its current account deficit. According to estimates, a one dollar decrease in crude oil price reduces the oil bill by around $1.6 billion per year! The current account deficit has already become more man-ageable in recent times, as domestic demand has been slug-gish. Second, the fall in crude prices will also help ease inflationary pressures that have been building up over the past few months, though the impact will perhaps be felt more in the wholesale price index (WPI) than the consum-er price index (CPI). This will increase the space for RBI to ease rates further. The 10-year G-sec yield has already fallen in anticipation, sliding below the six per cent mark during the day, recovering thereafter to end at 6.07pc. The fall in crude prices is likely to help boost government cof-fers. As in the past, the government can choose not to pass on the benefits of lower prices to end consumers and use this opportunity to build up reserves. If chosen to pass on the benefit of lower prices to consumers, it will help boost their purchasing power and stimulate demand. The gov-ernment must carefully assess the situation, monitor the sectors that are likely to be affected the most by disrup-tions in supply and craft the necessary policy response.

Editorial

Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s new office in Singapore was officially opened by its presi-dent Masatsugu Asakawa and Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat in the presence of bank and government officials.

Saudi Aramco to hike crude outputRIYADH: Energy titan Sau-di Aramco has said it would boost its supply of crude oil to 12.3 million barrels per day in April, flooding mar-kets as it escalates a price war with Russia. “Saudi Aramco announces that it will provide its custom-ers with 12.3 million bar-rels per day of crude oil in April,” the company said in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange.

The world’s biggest crude exporter has been pumping some 9.8 million bpd which means it will be adding at least 2.5 million bpd from April. “The com-

pany has agreed with its customers to provide them with such volumes starting April 1, 2020. The com-pany expects that this will have a positive, long-term financial effect,” the state-ment said.

Saudi Arabia says it has an output capacity of 12 million bpd but it is not known for how long it can sustain such levels. The kingdom also has dozens of millions of barrels of crude stored in strategic reserves to be used when needed and is expected to use it to provide the extra barrels to the global market

About 300 Indians stranded at Milan airportKOCHI: Over 300 passen-gers, the majority of them Keralites, got stuck at the Milan International Airport after the Italian officials denied them permission to board flights to India cit-ing the Union health min-istry’s advisory to furnish a certificate from authorised laboratories that they are COVID-19 negative.

They told a TV channel that despite the panic calls to the Indian embassy, the Indian officials are yet to respond. “Since the virus

is rapidly spreading across Italy, it is not safe to be here. The basic needs like food and travel are getting limited and hence we are returning home,” said Mu-hammed Ashiq , a PhD. student in Italy. He said he booked a ticket for a Tues-day night flight to Delhi.

“The ministry’s direc-tive is impractical,” Ashiq said. “A person living in a safe environment will have to go to a potentially virus-affected laboratory for med-ical checkup. With people

exhibiting COVID-19 symp-toms queuing up for tests, the laboratories will not be ready to tend to a person with no symptoms,” he said.

“Even if we obtain the certificate, there are chanc-es of contracting the disease while travelling or from any other place,” he said. An-other person who returned to Kochi on March 3 from Italy said such measures will only make it difficult for people wishing to leave the affected country.

“There are apprehen-sions while boarding a flight. At the same time, there is the hope of reach-ing one’s homeland,” said the Aluva native who did not wish to be named. “The government officials are not taking enough measures to tackle the spread of the virus in Italy. People are freely travelling in public transport.

Many are risking their lives to reach airports and catch available flights to In-dia. The new advisory will

make things more difficult for them,” the Kochi native alleged.

A video, which has gone viral, showed Malayalee families at the Milan air-port, urging an immediate intervention by the Indian authorities to help them board the flight to India. “We can’t board the flight due to the restriction put by the Italian authorities, citing the Indian govern-ment’s advisory prohibits them to carry the passen-gers,” said one woman.

Why Puri Temple failed to withdraw Rs 545 cr from Yes Bank in time?BHUBANESWAR: The Tirumala Tirupati Dev-asthanams (TTD), which manages the affairs of Ti-rumala Temple, had with-drawn about Rs 1,300 crore from its Yes Bank accounts late last year, but the Sri Jagannath Temple Admin-istration (SJTA) could not. Why? In fact, term depos-its of TTD had matured in Oct last after which the authorities withdrew the money only to deposit it in nationalised banks. To the contrary, SJTA had actual-ly decided to withdraw its deposits from the private bank but the Finance Sub Committee decided against it leaving Rs 545 crore in a state of uncertainty.

Documents available with the media here show that on Jan 13, Deputy Ad-ministrator (Finance) of

SJTA wrote to Yes Bank, Puri ,to close the term de-posits in six accounts. The letter was issued after an instruction from SJTA Chief Administrator Krishan Ku-mar. Basing on the chief administrator’s direction, the deputy administrator sent in a letter to Yes Bank where the term deposits to the tune of Rs 592 crore was parked. Of it, Rs 545 crore was kept in fixed deposits while the rest was put in flexi accounts. In the let-ter, the deputy administra-tor had asked Yes Bank to credit the term deposits in SJTA’s UCO Bank account with the interests accrued.

The flexi account de-posits amounting to Rs 47 crore were withdrawn but the fixed deposits re-mained stuck. Going by the draft proceedings of

the temple managing com-mittee, the Finance Sub Committee took up for dis-cussion chief administra-tor’s order to withdraw the deposits in its Jan 16 meet-ing where it was decided that Rs 389 crore and Rs 156 crore should not be withdrawn before their maturity dates on March 19 and 30 respectively.

Why the finance sub-panel was adamant against pre-mature withdrawal and decided to over-ride the chief administrator’s order remains unknown. So is the role of firms that advise on financial mat-ters. With such huge funds of the shrine locked up in the cash-strapped bank ac-counts, the opposition po-litical parties have sought an answer from the gov-ernment on the matter.

US-Indian jailed for rapePENNSYLVANIA: An In-dian-origin man has been sentenced to seven years in prison in the US after he was found guilty of rape. Ashok Singh ( 59) of Pennsylvania was convicted at trial for forcible rape, Queens Dis-trict Attorney Melinda Katz said . He has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

Singh was accused of raping a woman after he had helped her find a place to live and aided her in moving in a basement apartment in Queens in December of 2015. “The victim met the defen-dant in a Queens temple and trusted him when he offered to assist her in finding a place to live. This defendant, however, was a predator who waited for an opportunity to victimise this woman.

“In the victim’s new home, the defendant forced himself on her and then later apologised for the attack tell-ing her he would ‘never do it again without permission’,”

Katz said. In Nov, 2019, Singh was found guilty of rape in the first and third de-gree and unlawful imprison-ment in the second degree.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris sentenced Singh to seven year in pris-on, which will be followed by five years’ post-release su-pervision. He is also required to register as a sex offender. Katz said that according to trial testimony, the victim, a 40-year-old woman, visited a temple to look for rental post-ings on the bulletin board. At this place of worship, she met Singh, who offered to help her find a place to live. They exchanged phone numbers and four days later, Singh called her with news that he’d found her an apartment and that she needed to move in right away. Singh threw her on the bed and raped her. When he fell asleep, the vic-tim ran out of the apartment, contacted a friend for help and the police were called.

Sonia Syngal appointed CEO of retailer Gap

Sonia Syngal

NEW YORK: United States’ clothing retailer Gap named Indian-Amer-ican Sonia Syngal as the new CEO in a bid to re-verse falling foot traffic and sales while it pivots to a new strategy. Syngal became CEO of Old Navy, a clothing subsidiary of Gap, in 2016.

Syngal (49) will take over as of March 23, the company said in a state-ment. She joins a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs who have been tapped to run US conglomerates. This list most recently saw the addition of Sand-eep Mathrani at WeWork and Arvind Krishna at IBM, apart from featuring established executives such as Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Sundar Pi-chai (Alphabet) and CEO of Mastercard Ajay Ban-ga, who is set to become executive chairman from

2021.Syngal became CEO of

Old Navy, a clothing sub-sidiary of Gap, in 2016 and her previous roles include

executive vice president for global supply chain and product operations at Gap. She joins the small cohort of female CEOs running Fortune 500 com-panies. Robert Fisher, the son of Gap’s founder, who has served as interim CEO while the company looked

for a permanent replace-ment, said that Syngal will “deliver value from our portfolio of brands over the long term.”

The company also named Bobby Martin, a Gap board member and former CEO of Walmart’s international business, to take over as executive chairman. Syngal over-saw sustained growth at the Old Navy chain -- but like Gap’s namesake brand, that expansion has evaporated in recent quarters. She inherits a business that has re-ported weakness across its three largest divisions amid a broad change in how consumers shop for apparel. Gap, which was founded in 1969 in San Francisco, owns its namesake brand, Old Navy, Banana Repub-lic and athleisure brand Athleta.

Corona: 9 critical in Singapore(Contd. from page 1)Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. None of the four servicemen had been at their workplace or other SAF premises since their return from France. Two other RSAF regular servicemen on the same overseas duty as the affected servicemen have also returned to Singapore and are currently well, but placed on home quarantine as they were close contacts. The SAF had already reduced its overseas training deployments and exercises in view of the COVID-19 outbreak, and will continue to adjust such activities where necessary depending on the conditions within the host country, said the statement.

Cancelling Olympics...(Contd. from page 1)for COVID-19. In Italy, the hardest-hit European country, all sporting events including Series A football have been suspended until April 3. Arsenal’s game at Manchester City on Wednesday was the first Premier League football fixture to be called off, while Champions League matches have been played behind closed doors and Indian Wells, one of the biggest events of the tennis season, was cancelled. Corona has already had some impact on the games, as the traditional flame-lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece, is expected to be held without spectators after dozens tested positive for the virus nearby.

Saudi extends travel ban to India(Contd. from page 1)banned citizens and residents from performing pilgrimage in Mec-ca over fears of coronavirus. The rare step by the kingdom, which hosts Islam’s holiest sites, expands on restrictions introduced last week for Muslim pilgrims from abroad making the same religious trips and limiting the entry of tourists. Across the MidEast, the vast majority of the 9,700 people who have contracted the coronavirus are in hard-hit Iran or had recently returned from there.

Rishi’s budget to make UK visa costlierLONDON: The UK budget tabled by Indian-origin Finance Minister Rishi Sunak is set to make the cost of long-term visas to Britain higher with a major hike in the compulsory health fee charged on migrants from countries, including India.

Sunak, born in the UK to a general practitioner father and pharmacist mother, announced that the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) would be hiked from 400 pounds to 624 pounds. “Migrants benefit from our NHS (National Health Service). And we all want them to do so – but it’s right that what people get out, they also put in,” the 39-year-old Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his budget statement in the House of Commons.

“There is a surcharge already, but it doesn’t properly reflect the benefits people receive. So, as we promised in our manifesto, we are increasing the Immigration Health Surcharge to 624 pounds, with a discounted rate for chil-dren,” he said.

The hike was expected as it was in the Dec 2019 general election manifesto of the Boris Johnson-led government, but its timing is now confirmed as this year.

A new discounted rate of 470 pounds has been incor-porated for children aged under 18, but the lower rate for international students is also set for a rise -- from 300 pounds to 470 pounds. The IHS was introduced in April 2015 and from Dec 2018 it was hiked from 200 pounds to 400 pounds per year. It is imposed on anyone in the UK on a work, study or family visa for longer than six months in order to raise additional funds for the country’s state-funded NHS.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), the UK’s largest representative body for Indian-origin doctors, has been lobbying the UK Home Office for a rethink over the charge as it would have an adverse impact on their attempt to recruit more health care professionals from India to meet staff shortages in the NHS.

Friday, March 13, 2020 3GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES

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4 GULF JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES Friday, March 13, 2020

PATNA: The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has invited applications for the post of assistant engi-neer (AE). A total of 31 posts are to be filled through this recruitment process. Inter-ested can apply at the offi-cial website, bpsc.bih.nic.in. The registration process will start from March 11 and will conclude on March 25, as per the official notification.

Candidates can fill form online till April 9, however, the fee payment window will close on March 31. Those who have not reg-istered will not be able to apply. Candidates can send their duly filled application form to the headquarters till April 16, 5 pm. To be eligible for the posts candidates will have to clear a written exam. The exam will consist of four

NEW DELHI: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Jammu has issued notification for a number of posts. Applications have been invited for a number of posts including associate professor, assistant professor, additional professor and pro-fessor.

Those looking to apply may do so at the official web-site aiimsrishikesh.edu.in.

AIIMS is looking to fill up as many as 164 posts. Candi-dates may note that the appli-cation process, which is cur-rently on, will be on till April 7, 2020.

Eligibility: Candidates ap-plying for non-medical posts must at least have a doctorate degree, while those applying in the medical category must at least have post-graduate level of qualification. Ap-plicants applying must also

BPSC AE recruitment notifi cation issued 31 posts

AIIMS to fi ll up several posts.

compulsory and two elective subjects. The elective ques-tions will be in MCQ format.Eligibility

Age: Applicant should be at least 31 years of age to be eligible to apply. The up-per age for men is capped at 37 and for women it is 40 years. For reserved cat-egory candidates the upper age is 42 years. Age will be calculated as on August 1, 2019.

Education: Applicant must have a degree level in civil engineering of edu-cation from an AICTE-ap-proved institute.

Fee: Candidates will have to pay a fee of Rs 750. Those belonging to Bihar region and falling in re-served category and female candidates will have to pay Rs 200 as application fee.

have some work experiences.Here’s how candidates may apply for the above-said posts

1. Candidates may first visit the official website ai-imsrishikesh.edu.in.

2. After this, they may click on the ‘Job’ tab in the main menu.

3. Now, candidates may click on the ‘Application’ link next to the advertisement link showing the Jammu ad-vertisement.

4. After moving on to the next page, candidates may click on the ‘Register Now’ tab.

5. They may now log-in, using their credentials.

6. Next, candidates may fill up their application forms.

7. They may also upload their images.

8. Candidates may now

HYDERABAD: The Telan-gana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) has released a notification in-viting candidates for re-cruitment to several posts. The vacancy has been listed for the post of Manager (En-gineering) in Hyderabad Met-ropolitan Wa-ter Supply and Sewerage Board Engineering Ser-vice. The mode to fill applica-tion is online. The interested candidates need to visit the of-ficial website of TSPSC at tspsc.gov.in. The last date to submit the application online is March 31, 2020.Important dates:

Beginning of the online

TSPSC announces vacancies for various postsapplications- March 16, 2020

Last date for submis-sion of online applica-tions- March 31, 2020

Admit card- The admit

card or hall ticket can be downloaded seven days before the commencement of the examination.Vacancy details:

A total of 93 posts are

there to be filled through this recruitment drive.

Manager (Civil Engg. branch)- 73 posts

Manager (Mechanical Engg. branch)- 06 posts

Manager (Electrical Engg. branch)- 04 posts

Manager (Electronics & Communication Engg. branch)- 03 posts

Manager (Computer

Science / Information Tech-nology branch)- 01 postAge limit:

The minimum age lim-it for the interested indi-viduals is 18 years while

the maximum age limit has been capped at 34 years as on July 01, 2020. However, there is age relaxation for candidates belonging to re-served catego-ries.Salary:

On selection, an interested ap-plicant will re-ceive a salary in

the pay scale between Rs 37,100 to Rs 91,450.Educational qualifica-tion:

Those candidates who are willing to apply for the

above-mentioned posts must possess a degree in Engineering in the Con-cerned (Civil /Mechanical/ Electrical/ Electronics and Communication / Comput-er Science / Information Technology) Engineering Branch of a University or an equivalent qualifica-tion as recognized by the UGC or AICTE.Application fee:

The interested appli-cant needs to pay an appli-cation fee of Rs 200. Apart from this, the applicants also need to pay an exami-nation fee of Rs 120. How-ever, both the application and examination fee have been exempted for the candidates belonging to reserved categories.

For more details, the applicants are advised to visit the official website of the TSPSC.

NEW DELHI: Xiaomi launched its next-gen Red-mi Note series lineup in In-dia. The series include the Redmi Note 9 Pro and the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max. Both the phones are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor and sport a quad-camera setup at the back. The price of the Redmi Note 9 Pro starts at Rs 12,999 whereas the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max starts at Rs 14,999.Redmi Note 9, Redmi Note 9

NEW DELHI: The Power Grid Corporation of India has invited applications for recruitment to several posts. The vacancy has been released for the post of Ex-ecutive Trainee (Finance). The mode to submit the application is online. The interested applicants need to visit the official website at powergridindia.com. The last date to submit the on-line application is April 06, 2020.Important dates:

Last date to submit on-line application- April 06, 2020Vacancy details:

A total of 25 vacant posts are there to be filled through this recruitment exercise.

General category- 10 posts

Redmi Note 9 Pro Max launched in India

Jobs alert for PGCI vacancies aspirantsOBC (NCL)- 7 postsScheduled Caste- 4 postsScheduled Tribe- 2 postsEWS- 2 posts

Age limit:The upper age limit

of the willing applicants should be 28 years as on April 06, 2020, (Candidates should be born on or after April 06, 1992). For candi-dates be-longing to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe, the upper age limit has been relaxed by five years. However, a re-laxation of three years and ten years is there for can-didates belonging to PwD category.Educational qualification:

The willing applicants must have passed either CA or ICWA (CMA).Application fee:

The interested candi-dates are required to pay an application fee of Rs 500. The application fee is non-refundable. However, the

candidates belonging to reserved categories have been exempted from pay-ing any ap-p l i c a t i o n

fees.Exam pattern:

The final selection of candidates will be done on the basis of written test (computer-based test), Group Discussion and Per-sonal Interview.

Pro pricesThe Redmi Note 9 Pro is

priced at Rs 12,999 for the base model of 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage while the high-end model of 6GB RAM and 128GB storage is priced at Rs 15,999. The phone will be available start-ing March 17 on Amazon India website, Mi.com, and offline stores.

The Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is priced at Rs 14,999 for the base model of 6GB

Examination centres:The recruitment exami-

nation will be conducted at seven cities across the country- Delhi-NCR, Mum-bai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Va-dodara, Hyderabad, Chen-nai.Salary details:

The candidates once se-lected for the job, will get a salary in the pay scale between Rs 60,000, to Rs 1,80,000, during the one-year training period. How-ever, after the completion of the training, the candi-dates will get other benefits as well such as – DA, HRA, insurance, PF, gratuity, leave en-cashing etc.

For more details, the interested applicants need to visit the official website at powergridin-dia.com

RAM + 64GB internal stor-age while the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage model is priced at Rs 16,999. The top-end model of the phone comes with 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM and is priced at Rs 18,999. The phone will be available starting March 25 on Amazon India website, Mi.com, and offline stores.Redmi Note 9 Pro specifica-tions

The Redmi Note 9 Pro features a 6.67-inch dot dis-

play. It draws power from the 8nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor paired with Adreno 618 GPU. The Red-mi Note 9 Pro sports a quad-rear camera setup carrying a 48MP Samsung ISOCELL Bright GM2 sensor as the primary lens. It is clubbed with an 8MP ultrawide-an-gle lens, a 5MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth sensor.

The phone has a 16MP selfie camera placed in the punch-hole. It is backed by a

5020mAh battery with 18W fast charging support in the box and sports a side-mount-ed fingerprint sensor, 3.5mm audio jack, IR blaster, and triple layer Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front and back. The device also comes with NavIC sup-port, also known as Indian Regional Navigation Satel-lite System (IRNSS)– an au-tonomous regional satellite navigation system devel-oped by ISRO.

make their application pay-ments.

Salary: Candidates who are selected for the post of professors will be paid a sal-ary of up to Rs 2,20 lakhs. While candidates selected for additional professors’ post will get a salary of up to Rs 2.11 lakh, those select-ed for the posts of associate and assistant professors, will get a salary of up to Rs 2.09 lakh and Rs 1.67 lakh, respectively.

Application fees: Candi-dates, applying for these jobs will have to pay the applica-tion fee of Rs 3,000. While reserved category candidates are required to pay Rs 500, women candidates are re-quired to pay Rs 100.

Candidates may log on to the official website aiim-srishikesh.edu.in for more information.

Friday, March 13, 2020 5GULF JOBS & CAREERS

Your wellness

Experiencing daytime sleepiness may be associated with the

risk of many diseases, in-cluding diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure in older people, according to a study.

The condition called hypersomnolence is de-fined as excessive daytime sleepiness even after hav-ing seven or more hours of sleep, the researchers said.

It can be debilitating for some people, affecting the way that they perform at work and in other daily ac-tivities, they said.

“Paying attention to

Daytime sleepiness linked with diabetes, cancer risk in elderly

sleepiness in older adults could help doctors predict and prevent future medical conditions,” said study au-thor Maurice M Ohayon, of Stanford University in the US.

“Older adults and their family members may want to take a closer look at sleeping habits to under-stand the potential risk for developing a more serious medical condition,” Ohay-on said.

The study involved 10,930 people, with 34pc of the participants 65 years or older.

Researchers inter-

viewed participants over the phone two times, three years apart.

In the first interview, 23pc of people over 65 met the criteria for ex-cessive sleepiness.

In the second interview, 24pc reported exces-sive sleepiness. Of those, 41pc said the sleepiness was a chronic prob-lem.

The study found that peo-ple who reported sleepiness in the first phone inter-

view had a 2.3 times great-er risk of developing diabe-tes or high blood pressure three years later than those who did not experience

sleepiness.They were also twice as

likely to develop cancer, ac-cording to the researchers.

Of the 840 people who reported sleepiness at the first inter-view, 52 people, or 6.2pc, developed diabetes compared to 74 people, or 2.9pc of those who were never sleepy during the day.

Of the 840 peo-ple who reported sleepiness, 20 peo-ple, or 2.4pc, devel-oped cancer com-pared to 21 people,

or 0.8pc of those who were never sleepy during the day.

The results remained the same after researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect daytime sleepiness, such as gender and sleep apnea.

People who reported daytime sleepiness during both interviews had a 2.5 times greater risk of devel-oping heart disease, the re-searchers said.

People who reported sleepiness only in the sec-ond interview were 50pc more likely to also have diseases of the musculo-

skeletal system and con-nective tissue, such as arthritis, tendinitis and lupus, than those who did not have daytime sleepi-ness, tehy said.

The researchers noted a limitation of the study was that it relied on par-ticipants’ memories, rather than monitoring their sleep length and quality, and daytime sleepiness in a sleep clinic.

The study will be pre-sented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in Toron-to, Canada, from April 25 to May 1.

Caffeine consump-tion may increase the ability to focus

and solve problems, but it doesn’t stimulate creativity, according to a study.

While the cognitive benefits of caffeine -- in-

creased alertness, improved vigilance, enhanced focus and improved motor per-formance -- are well estab-lished, the stimulant’s affect on creativity is less known, the researchers said.

“In Western cultures, caffeine is stereotypically associated with creative occupations and lifestyles, from writers and their cof-fee to programmers and

Taking multiple cours-es of antibiotics with-in a short span of time

may do people more harm than good, suggests new research which discovered an association between the number of prescriptions for antibiotics and a higher risk of hospital admissions.

Patients who have had 9 or more antibiotic prescrip-tions for common infections

in the pre-vious three years are 2.26 times more

likely to go to hospital with another infection in three or more months, said the re-searchers.

Patients who had two an-tibiotic prescriptions were 1.23 times more likely, pa-tients who had three to four prescriptions 1.33 times more likely and patients who had five to eight 1.77 times more likely to go to hospital

Caffeine may boost problem solving ability, not creativity

Multiple courses of antibiotics can make people more sick

their energy drinks, and there’s more than a kernel of truth to these stereo-types,” said Darya Zabelina, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas in the US.

The study, published in the journal Conscious-ness and Cognition, differentiates “conver-gent” from “divergent” thinking.

The former is de-fined as seeking a specific solution to a

problem, for example, the “correct” answer, while the latter is characterised by idea generation where a large set of apt, novel or in-teresting responses would be suitable.

Caffeine was shown to improve convergent think-ing in the study, while con-suming it had no significant impact on divergent think-ing, the researchers said.

with another infection.“We don’t know why this

is, but overuse of antibiotics might kill the good bacteria in the gut (microbiota) and make us more susceptible

to infections, for example,” said Professor Tjeerd van Staa from the University of Manchester in Britain.

The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, is based on the data of two million patients in England and Wales.

The patient records, from 2000 to 2016, covered common infections such as

For the study, 80 volun-teers were randomly given either a 200 milligramme (mg) caffeine pill, equiva-lent to one strong cup of coffee, or a placebo.

They were then tested on standard measures of convergent and divergent thinking, working memory and mood.

In addition to the re-sults on creativity, caffeine did not sig-nificantly af-fect working memory, but test subjects who took it did report feeling less sad.

“The 200mg enhanced problem solving signifi-cantly, but had no effect on creative thinking,” said Za-belina.

“It also didn’t make it worse, so keep drinking your coffee; it won’t inter-fere with these abilities,” she said

upper respiratory tract, uri-nary tract, ear and chest in-fections and excluded long term conditions such as cys-tic fibrosis and chronic lung disease.

The risks of going to hospital with another in-fection were related to the number of the antibiotic pre-scriptions in the previous three years.

A course is defined by the team as being given over a period of one or two weeks.

“GPs (general physi-cians) care about their patients, and over recent years have worked hard to reduce the prescribing of antibiotics,””Staa said.

“But it is clear GPs do not have the tools to prescribe antibiotics effectively for

common infections, espe-cially when patients already have previously used antibi-otics.

“They may prescribe numerous courses of anti-biotics over several years, which according to our study increases the risk of a more serious infection. That in turn, we show, is linked to hospital admissions,” Staa added.

It is not clear why hos-pital admissions are linked to higher prescriptions and research is needed to show what or if any biological fac-tors exist, said the research team.

“Our hope is that, how-ever, a tool we are working for GPs, based on patient history, will be able to cal-culate the risks associated with taking multiple cours-es of antibiotics,” said Fran-cine Jury from the Univer-sity of Manchester.

The Medical Council of India has granted Symbiosis Interna-

tional University (SIU) permission to establish the country’s first women-only medical college from the academic year 2020-21. To be called the Symbio-sis Medical College for Women (SMCW), it will have an an-nual intake of 150 stu-dents, said Dr Rajiv Yeravdekar, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Symbio-sis International (Deemed University).

SMCW will be the first medical college in the country to of-fer free medical edu-cation. Each entrant to the medical college will be ad-ministered an oath on the first day, pledging to con-nect with the community. The college will be located at the campus of the Sym-

Symbiosis to set up country’s first women-only medical college

biosis International Uni-versity at Lavale, Pune.

Inspired by the bio-graphic movie about In-dia’s first woman doctor, Anandibai Joshi, the idea of establishing a medical college with the objective of women empowerment

and contributing to the re-quirement of more women doctors exclusively for women, was born. Present-ly, only 17pc of allopathic doctors in India are wom-en, said Dr Yeravdekar.

“It has attracted faculty from across the country, who will adopt modern interdisciplinary pedago-gies of academic instruc-tion and impart practi-cal ‘hands-on’ training in state-of-the-art ‘Simulation Centre’ and the ‘Cadaveric

Lab’,” he said. SIU has in-stituted five Anandi Gopal Scholarships, which will include a full fee waiver for the entire MBBS pro-gramme.

The Symbiosis Univer-

sity Hospital & Research Centre (SUHRC), with a strength of 900 beds, is the attached hospital. Both the SMCW and SUHRC have been established as con-stituents of the Symbiosis International University (SIU). They are thus inte-

gral to the quality and standards already ex-isting in an A++ ac-credited University.

The SUHRC pro-vides clinical services, which are protocol driven and evidence based. All theatres are ‘modular’ with two-way data trans-fer facilities. The hospital caters to the population in a radius

between 25-50 km from SUHRC. It also provides healthcare services to the large community of stu-dents and faculty currently residing at the University campus (around 4,000).

IIM Nagpur placements over, highest package at Rs 40 lakh

The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) has emerged

among the top 50 institutes in the world for ‘Engineer-ing & Technology’ in the QS World University Rank-ings by Subject 2020 released.

Ranked at 47, IIT-D is three spots behind IIT-Bombay’s 44, the highest ranked Indian institute in the list. IIT-D’s 2020 QS ranking is a big jump from its 2019 ranking, where it stood at 61.

IIT-D Director V Ramgo-pal Rao said, “We are very happy to see a significant improvement in our rank-ing this year. This is due to the various measures we have taken to boost the research ecosystem on the campus, strengthening our connect with external

IIT-Delhi in QS World top 50 for engineering

stakeholders, significantly enhanced internationali-sation efforts from the in-stitute, and various other measures initiated in the last three years. The credit goes to the entire team.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development and alumni of IIT-D have played a very constructive role in making this hap-pen.”

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which had secured a rank of 164 in ‘Arts & Humanities’ in the 2019 QS ranking, has improved its position by two spots this time.

In the ‘Social Sciences & Management’ field too, JNU has improved its rank from 355 last year to 284. However, Delhi University did better than others with a rank of 160, while IIT-D

held a rank of 183 in the cat-egory.

JNU Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar tweeted, “As a university, our focus should only be on

achieving academic excel-lence. Let us work harder to continue to improve our ranking.”

Among private univer-sities, O P Jindal University broke into the QS rankings this year, with its Jindal Global Law School being ranked the top law school in India. In world rankings, it occupied the 100-150 bracket.

The final placement round at the Indian Institute of Manage-

ment (IIM) Nagpur ended with 100 per cent place-ment for its flagship Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management 2018-20

batch. The highest package was recorded at Rs 40 lakh while the average package received by students was Rs 13 lakh per annum.

The institute claims that despite double the batch size as compared

to the previous batch of 2017-19, this year also IIM Nagpur achieved 100 per cent placement two weeks earlier, as compared to last year. The final placement process for IIM Nagpur witnessed 50+ recruiters.

Consulting, followed by Engineering Services, ITES and BFSI recruited more than 79pc of the batch.

The highest domestic package offered saw a 100 per cent increment from Rs 20 lakh last year to Rs 40

lakh this year. The average package offered for the top five per cent and 10pc of the batch was Rs 28 lakh and Rs 21.60 lakh, respec-tively.

This year also wit-nessed a 23pc and 14.49pc

increase in the average package for the top 10pc and 25pc of the batch re-spectively. The top 50pc average for this year has been Rs 15.83 lakh per an-num. The median package for the batch was Rs 12.55

lakh.Strategy, sales and mar-

keting, general manage-ment and operations were the most sought after roles, closely followed by analyt-ics and finance among stu-dents.

IN FOCUS6 Friday, March 13, 2020

GULF FAQs

One of our employees died recently and as a company, we are trying to work out what payment his family is entitled to. We are quite a small company so we, as manage-ment, have not dealt with this kind of issue before. Therefore, we are not sure what we need to do. What happens to the end-of-service gratuity payment that built up over his time with us? Is that lost on death or does it still have to be paid, and if so, to whom?

Should an employee die, any accrued gratuity is payable as if the person had been made redundant, without any reduction. This should be calculated to the date of the employee’s death, which will be deemed the final date of service. The total pay-ment, which is any unpaid salary, the gra-tuity, plus any days of annual leave owed, are payable to the individual’s beneficia-ries. This is set out in Article 136 of UAE Labour Law: “In the event of the worker’s death, his end of service gratuity shall be paid to the beneficiaries thereof”. This is also covered in Federal Law no. 7 for Pen-sion and Social Security. Article 42 of this states: “in the case of death of an insured person, the remuneration payable to him against the period of service shall be paid to his beneficiaries …” It goes on to say: “in the case of non-existence of such beneficia-ries, the remuneration shall be distributed in accordance with the rules of succession in Islamic Sharia”. This is essentially say-ing that the end-of-service gratuity can be paid to the deceased employee’s preferred beneficiaries but if no instruction exists or if this is unclear, the inheritance provi-sions of Sharia law should be applied. If the deceased had a valid UAE visa will then the provisions in that regarding beneficia-ries will apply. To avoid any confusion in the event of the death of an employee, all employers should keep a record of their employee’s next of kin and also who is the preferred beneficiary in respect of any monetary payments.Final settlement

I have resigned from my job and am serving a notice period. Since submitting my resignation in our system, not one of my managers has approached me to dis-cuss why I resigned. During this period, I have to look for another job, so sometimes I need to go for interviews. Can I go to in-terviews during the day and not show up to work as none of my managers seem to care about my resignation? I also have ex-tra hours owing to me and holiday days I have not used up. Will I be paid for these?

An employer is not obliged to ask why an employee is leaving the company and it tends to be the larger companies that have a process for exit interviews even though they are not mandatory. An employer must simply accept the notice of resignation and pay the money due at the end of the for-mal notice period, cancelling the employ-ment visa when this is done. As you are still employed,you can only take time off for interviews with the express permission of your employer. There is no right to take time off work for interviews, even during a notice period.

All employers should present a depart-ing employee with details of their final settlement before their final day of service, which sets out the total payment due as final salary. This should include the last salary payment calculated to the date of departure, any overtime payments owed, payment in lieu for any days of annual leave accrued but not taken, and the end-of-service gratuity, if applicable.

Visa costI plan to resign from my company

but I have been working with them for just 11 months. My contract with them is unlimited. My question is: will I need to pay the company for the cost of my visa and will I get a ban?

Even though you have been with your employer for less than a year, you are not liable for any costs incurred by the em-ployer for arranging her employment visa or ID card. No company should ever ask an employee to pay for such costs; this was

Will dead employee get gratuity benefi t?

covered in Ministerial Order 52 of 1989, Article 6 which makes it clear that all ex-penses incurred in taking on an employee must be borne by the employer and cannot be passed on. Furthermore, as you are on a unlimited contract and has been with the company for more than six months, you will not receive a ban on resigning.Extramarital affair

My husband stays in Dubai and I stay in London with our children. I have come to know that my husband has been living with his girlfriend for over two years. I have also come to know through mutual friends that he introduces her to others as his wife. I also came to know that they go for holidays together. He often visits London to see my children and I have often confronted him to clear the matter. Is it legal for my husband to have the aforementioned extramarital relationship? What legal action can I take against him?

Pursuant to your queries, it may be noted that in the UAE, having an extra-marital affair or engaging in a relationship (sexual) without being married is punish-able by law. This is in accordance with Article 356 of the Federal Law No. (3) of 1987 related to issuance of Penal Code (the “Penal Law of UAE”), which states: Article 356: “Without prejudice to the preceding two Articles, the crime of indecent assault with mutual consent shall be punished by detention for at least one year and if the crime is committed against a male or female who is under 14 years of age, or if the crime is committed by coercion, it shall be punished by temporary imprison-ment.” Therefore, in response to the first part of your query, it may be noted that it is illegal for your husband to have an extramarital affair.

In response to the second part of your query, if you are in the possession of admis-sible evidence and if you are able to bring forth reliable witnesses to prove your asser-tion regarding your husband’s extramarital affair, you may consider filing a criminal complaint with the public prosecutor or the police station having jurisdiction in Dubai.

If your husband and his girlfriend are found guilty and sentenced to a custodial penalty, the court may order the deportation of both. This is in accordance with Article 121 of the Penal Law of UAE, which states: “In case a foreigner is sentenced to a penalty restricting freedom in a felony or a misde-meanour, the court may order deportation out of the state and deportation becomes a must in crimes against honour ...”

Based on the aforementioned provisions of the Penal Law of UAE and the Criminal Procedure Law, the public prosecutor or the police station may register a criminal case against your husband and his girlfriend. You may approach the Dubai Police’s Child and Women Protection Department which may pro-vide you with further assistance in your case.Unpaid leave

I have been in my job for just three months and still on probation but I was ill recently and had to take three days off. I managed to get to the doctor to get a certificate stating I was unfit for work. Management has said they are happy with my work, but I have now found out that they will not pay me for these three days and that the law says they cannot pay me. Is this correct?

Article 83 of UAE Labour Law states: “During the probationary period, the em-ployee is not entitled to any paid sick leave.” Legally an employee is not entitled to be paid, but this is also at the employer’s discretion. They can choose to pay if they wish but have the right not to.Payments

Section 195(6) recently amended by the Finance Act 2015 (applicable w.e.f. 1.6.2015) requires permission to the in-formation regarding payments to non-res-idents. Is it applicable to all payments irre-spective of TDS applicability, like payment of overseas commission, payment against imports or any other payment where payee is having no place of business in India? The amended provisions now require that a person responsible for paying to a non-res-ident not being a company or to a foreign company, any sum, whether or not charge-able under the provisions of the Income Tax Act 1961, shall furnish information relating to payment of such sum, in such form and manner, as may be prescribed. Therefore, the requirement is now being changed and information shall have to be provided with regard to all payments whether taxable or not taxable.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan chairing a high level meeting of the Group of Ministers to review, monitor and evaluate the preparedness and measures taken regarding management of Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).

Expats stuck outside Kuwait dueto corona could face evictionKUWAIT CITY: The spread of coronavirus all over the world saw the suspension of flights between Kuwait and various affected countries. As a result, many people, especially expats living in Kuwait, are stranded abroad and are not able to return. According to the rent law, tenants are obliged to pay rent before the 20th of each month. This deadline is ap-proaching soon and tenants may face problems with their landlords.

According to a judge at the Hawally Court, the landlord has the right to file a case at the court to get

an eviction order against a tenant for being behind on rent. “We don’t have such cases yet, but if the tenant is not able to pay the rent through somebody during the legal period and the landlord files a case, he will have enough time to come back, as the first court ses-sion won’t be held before a month from filing the case. It usually takes between a month and three months to set the date for the session,” he told a TV channel.

“When the tenant comes back to Kuwait and realises a case has been filed by the landlord to vacate the prop-

erty, he should attend the court session and bring all the documents including the airline tickets, passport and so on to prove his absence and for missing the legal pe-riod for paying the rent, and the judge will take this into consideration,” the judge said. According to attorney Mohammed Al-Jassem, if the tenant used to pay the rent in cash to the landlord and can’t pay online from the country where he is now, he can transfer the money to a family member or friend here in Kuwait to pay the rent on his behalf. If he cannot do so, and the

landlord doesn’t provide him an option to pay online and files a case against him to get an eviction order, im-mediately after arriving in Kuwait he should pay the rent he missed while abroad at the court. He should then present the evidence of his excuse at the court session,” he explained. “If his absence lasts for a long period, he can appoint somebody to attend the sessions on his behalf or make a power of attorney for any lawyer for this purpose to follow the le-gal procedures. In this way, he will protect his rights as a tenant,” Jassem added.

Lufthansa to cancel 23,000 fl ights in April

SBI cuts interest rate on savings accountsMUMBAI: The country’s largest lend-er SBI has “rationalised” interest rate on all savings bank (SB) accounts to a flat three per cent, a move affect-ing 44.51 crore account holders. The bank also waived the requirement for maintaining minimum balance in SB accounts. Keeping in mind the “Customers First” approach, the bank further said it has also waived SMS charges, which will bring significant relief to all the customers.

“Bank has also rationalised inter-est rate on SB Account to a flat three per cent for all buckets,” it said. Currently, the interest rate on SB accounts is 3.25pc for deposits up to Rs 1 lakh in SB accounts and three per cent for deposits above Rs 1 lakh. SBI decided to waive maintenance of Average Monthly Balance (AMB) for all SB accounts. “The charges on maintaining AMB are now waived off on all 44.51 crore SBI savings bank accounts,” it said. Currently, SBI customers need to maintain AMB of Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 in metro, semi-urban and rural areas, respectively. The bank used to levy a penalty of Rs 5 to Rs 15 plus taxes on non-maintenance of AMB.

FRANKFURT: German airline Lufthansa has said it would cancel 23,000 flights across the group, a 50pc reduction, as it tries to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

“Due to the exceptional circum-stances caused by the spread of the virus,” Lufthansa said it would scrap 23,000 flights between March 29 and April 24, with more “expected in the coming weeks”. Up to now, Lufthansa had detailed 7,100 cancellations up to the end of its winter flight plan on March 28. The Frankfurt-based group, whose brands include Eurowings, Austrian Airlines and Swiss, reported “drastic declines in bookings and nu-merous flight cancellations”, saying it would slash capacity by 50pc in the weeks ahead. Shares in the group fell trading down 1.2pc at 10.31 euros. Coronavirus disruption has cost Luf-thansa around one-third of its share price since late Feb.

The group said that its “capacity adjustments mainly affect Europe, Asia and the MidEast”, adding that it would aim to keep serving all

destinations with at least one airline from its hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels. Last week, the group said it would not fly routes to China and Iran until late April, while Israeli restrictions on non-resident arrivals from some EU countries prompted it to scrap flights there until March 28.

The group is also looking into temporarily taking “the entire Airbus A380 fleet” out of service in Frankfurt and Munich, amounting to 14 of the mammoth aircraft.

It asked passengers to check their flight status on the Lufthansa website before traveling. Lufthansa has also in-stituted a hiring freeze, offered unpaid leave and is considering slashing work-ers’ hours “to avoid dismissals”. The group is due to release its 2019 results on March 19 and will likely face ques-tions over the expected financial impact of the epidemic. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) recently warned the cost in in lost revenue for the industry could be in the range of $63-$100 billion.

Corona visa ban: no foreign players for IPL till April 15MUMBAI: No foreign player will be available for this year’s IPL till April 15 due to visa restrictions imposed by the government to contain the deadly novel coronavirus out-break, TV channels reported.

A closed-door IPL seems like a real possibility now but even a postponement cannot be ruled out given that 60-odd overseas re-cruits won’t be available to ply their trade, at least in the initial stages of the event starting March 29 in Mumbai. “The foreign players who play in the IPL come under the Business Visa category. As per the government’s directive, they can’t come till April 15,” TV channels reported.

The fate of the IPL itself will be decided on March 14 at the event’s Governing

Council meeting in Mumbai. “All decisions will be taken by the GC in Mumbai,” the source said. The government issued a fresh advisory with a ban on all existing foreign visas, except a few categories like diplomatic and employ-

ment, till April 15 in the wake of new positive cases of novel coronavirus in the country. India has reported 60 positive cases in the outbreak which has led to over 4,000 deaths globally.

The “Details of Visas Granted by India” manual of the home ministry states:

“Foreign nationals who are engaged in commercial sports events in India on contract (including coaches) like Indian Premier League, Indian Soccer League etc. with remuneration. “They may be granted ‘B-Sports’ visa with multiple entry facility for 13 appropri-ate period. Such a foreign national shall comply with all the statutory obligations like payment of taxes, etc.”

The BCCI source said that the government’s di-rective doesn’t specifically exempt those with business visas. “There is a clear dis-tinction between employ-ment visa which has been granted exemption and the business visa. So it’s better we don’t take the risk.”

Having the IPL played in empty stadiums is an option

being explored but without foreign players, it will cer-tainly lack the zing which makes it the most successful T20 event in the world. “The Future Tours Programme is such that if the IPL is post-poned, most of the marquee foreign players might not be available as after this April-May, there isn’t any window available. All other teams have bilateral commitments. At best, we can have it closed doors,” the source said.

The Road Safety Legends T20 meet will be held behind closed doors with matches in Pune cancelled due to eight COVID-19 cases being reported in the city. The Ma-harashtra and Karnataka gov-ernments are already wary of organising home games of Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

CORPORATE NEWSFriday, March 13, 2020 7

Gu r u g r a m - b a s e d food delivery giant Zomato has inked a

strategic partnership with Master Card and RBL to launch a co-branded credit card. Joining the likes of Amazon, Ola and Flipkart in the fintech space, the online food delivery plat-form will offer a host of benefits to the cardholders.

The move is also seen as the company’s efforts to soar Zomato Gold’s mem-bership. Through this col-laboration, RBL and Zoma-to are targeting to issue one million credit cards in the first two years to Zomato users in India. The cards come in two variants — Edition and Edition Clas-sic. The Edition Classic starts with an annual mem-bership of Rs 500 (exclu-sive of taxes). Its features include Zomato credit on every purchase — online

Zomato inks strategic partnership with Master Card, RBL

and offline — both which can be redeemed at Zom-ato-partnered restaurants. It also comes with a com-plimentary Zomato Gold membership. The premium Edition card is priced at Rs 3,000 (exclusive of taxes).

Apart from the basic fea-tures such as Zomato cred-its on every purchase, the cardholders will get lounge access at certain domes-tic airports. Users of the Edition Card version will

be offered the Gold global membership.

The move, said execu-tives, is made keeping in mind the growing popu-larity of dining out among India’s urban millennials, who are increasingly us-

ing apps to order meals at home or eating out. Ben-efits linked to dining could help users sign up for such financial products. “This partnership is an exten-sion to our ‘Partners ka

Bank’ philosophy and is an exciting addition to our comprehensive portfolio of co-branded credit cards,” said Utkarsh Saxena, head of products (credit cards), RBL Bank.

Saxena added that this makes it the first card where a food aggregator has come together with bank to launch a financial prod-uct. Currently, RBL Bank has over 2.5 million credit cardholders and services over 7.8 million customers. Zomato, on the other hand, is present in over 500 cities in India, with over 2 lakh delivery partners that ferry orders throughout the day. The number of restaurant listings globally on Zomato stood at 1.5 million as of September 2019. Its Gold program has 1.4 million subscribers, according to its half yearly report in Oc-tober last year.

Bandhan Bank has expanded its branch network after getting

a relief from the Reserve Bank of India. The city-based bank had restric-tions on branch expansion after it was unable to bring

down its promoter holding within the time set by the regulator.

Bandhan Bank has an-nounced the opening of 125 branches across 15 states. These include 42 branches in Uttar Pradesh, 29 in Rajasthan, 12 in Mad-hya Pradesh, seven each in

Bandhan Bank expands its branch network

Andhra Pradesh and Telan-gana, six in Bihar, five in Chhattisgarh, four in Odi-sha, three in Tamil Nadu, two each in Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Assam, and one each in Delhi and Bengal.

C h a n -dra Shek-har Ghosh, MD & CEO of Band-han Bank, said, “We are happy that with the with-drawal of

restrictions on opening new branches, we will be able to expand business growth rapidly. In our four-and-a-half-year existence as a universal bank, we have been quick to identify opportunities of expanding distribution and setting up our presence.”

Industrial technology gi-ant Rolls-Royce has col-laborated with the Indian

Institute of Technology Ma-dras (IIT-M) to promote joint research programmes.

Rolls Royce will promote upskilling and professional development of its engi-neering talent, and facilitate higher education and re-search. The company will also sponsor select employ-ees keen to pursue Masters and PhD level studies, in partnership with IIT Madras.

To qualify for the pro-gramme, employees must first clear IIT-M’s selection process, and their topic should be aligned with Rolls-Royce strategic re-search priorities and capa-bilities. Rolls-Royce will also roll out a Technical Higher Study Framework to facili-tate higher education for its engineers, in partnership with IIT-M.

Rolls-Royce partners with IIT-M

Maker Village Ko-chi won the ISGF (India Smart Grid

Forum) award for the best incubator in recognition of its efforts to boost the coun-try’s startup ecosystem and encourage innovation.

Prasad Balakrishnan Nair, CEO of Maker Village, received the ISGF ‘Smart Incubator of the Year’ award from Indian Angel Network co-founder Padmaja Ru-parel. The award was pre-

Parliament has passed amendments to the insol-vency law that will help

ring-fence successful bidders of insolvent companies from risk of criminal proceedings for of-fences committed by previous promoters.

The Insolvency and Bank-ruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was passed by voice vote in Rajya Sabha. It was approved by Lok Sabha on March 6. The Bill replaces an ordinance.

Replying to a short debate on the bill, Finance Minis-ter Nirmala Sitharaman said amendments are sync with time and also adhere to a Su-preme Court order in “letter and spirit”.

The minister said need for amendment in the IBC arose because of “changing require-ment” and “requirement of

Indiabulls Dhani, In-dia’s fastest grow-ing digital lending

platform has launched Digital Credit Line – a credit facility which cus-

tomers can avail to shop anything and pay later in easy EMIs. Everyone can avail this in a few minutes using the Dhani

Maker Village wins smart incubator award

Parl passes amendments to insolvency lawIndiabulls launches

Dhani Credit Line v.2sented at the just-conclud-ed India Smart Utility Week (ISUW) in New Delhi.

The 2016-founded Mak-er Village, which is India’s largest electronic hardware incubator and ESDM facil-ity, won the honour for its

performance in the Deep-Tech In-cubator segment. The award, ac-cording to ISGF which is a public-private partner-ship initiative of the Union Min-istry of Power,

“is in recognition of the implementation of a com-prehensive set of facilities, creation of a vibrant in-novation ecosystem and a set of nationally acclaimed startup innovations”.

fine tuning” the law as several MPs wanted to know why the government was bringing in so many amendments to a new law.

Stressing that the govern-ment is “very responsive” and has been talking to the indus-try, she assured the House that amendments to the IBC are not being “unthinkingly done”.

The IBC, which came into force in 2016, has already been amended thrice.

Sitharaman said the gov-ernment was taking care of the interest of home buyers and the requirement of minimum number of home buyers in the IBC has been included to avoid “frivolous litigations”.

The bill seeks to remove bottlenecks and streamline the corporate insolvency resolution process.

App. This credit line facil-ity is the first of its kind offering in the country which comes with Digital & Physical card and can be used anywhere online

and offline. Customers can enjoy shopping any-thing; from coffee to mo-bile phones and pay later in easy EMIs. The product

is a complete package which comes with re-warding points, two per cent cashback and at-tractive offers.

Availing the credit line is simple and instant using the Dhani Mobile App. Now you don’t need to look for products & websites which offer EMI option, with Dhani Credit Line you can buy everything online or at your regular stores in easy EMIs.

This card is a chip & pin card which is com-pletely secure and you can manage, block, un-block, set transaction limits etc. using the Dhani App.

State-owned explorer Oil India is likely to pitch for full control

of the Numaligarh Refinery now that the Assam gov-ernment has increased its stake to 26pc as part of the strategic sale of BPCL.

The central government issued a global expression of interest (EoI) seeking bids for its 52.98pc stake in BPCL.

The government has decided to privatise BPCL after hiving off NRL, which will be sold to a state-owned firm in the oil sec-tor if the Assam govern-ment declines to exercise its first right of refusal to buy the shares owned by BPCL in NRL.

Oil India to pitch for Numaligarh Refi nery controlBPCL holds a 61.65pc

stake in NRL, while Oil In-dia holds 26pc and the gov-ernment of Assam 12.35pc. Finance ministry officials said the state government has conveyed its plans to increase its stake in NRL to 26pc from the cur-rent 12.35pc.

Assam finance minister Himan-ta Biswa Sarma, while presenting the state budget last week, said the equity holding of the Assam government in Numaligarh Refinery will increase to 26pc.

Himanta said: “We have decided to acquire a

13.65pc additional stake. Accordingly, a sum of Rs 1,500 crore in this budget for 2020-21 has been allo-

cated for the extra stake in NRL.”

The balance 48pc held by BPCL (post sale of 13.65pc to the Assam gov-ernment) will be sold to a state-run company, most

likely Oil India Ltd, offi-cials said.

OIL’s stake will jump to 74pc if its buys a 48pc

stake from BPCL, making it the majority shareholder of NRL.

The price discovered for the sale of 48pc of BPCL will be the rate at which the 13.65pc stake will be

sold to the Assam govern-ment, officials said, adding this would avoid the need to discover the price for the state.

The share-sale in NRL will be handled by Deloitte

Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, which has been hired as transaction advisor and asset valuers for BPCL stake sale by the Depart-ment of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM).

Oil India currently holds 26pc stake in NRL. This which will jump to 74pc after buying the 48pc take from BPCL, making it the majority shareholder of NRL.

Industry sources said Indian Oil Corporation may not bid for the 48pc stake unless they are nudged to do so, as internal assess-ment indicated that it may not be a profitable invest-ment.

The Ruia family-owned Essar Group has embarked on

the final leg of its delever-aging exercise with plans to cut down its residual debt by 70pc to about Rs 12,000 crore as it looks to rebuild the conglomerate post-oil and steel business selloffs.

From Rs 1.83 lakh crore of debt in FY17, the group brought down the debt by a staggering Rs 1.40 lakh crore over the last three years.

Now it plans to cut re-

Essar to further cut down debt by 70pcsidual debt from Rs 42,000 crore to about Rs 12,000 crore, according to a mailer Essar sent to policymakers and bureaucrats.

Post the proposed reduc-tion of debt in the power business by over 60pc (Rs 12,000 crore), and simi-lar deleveraging across its portfolio businesses, Essar would have almost cleared all its long-term debts.

The remaining indebted-ness is for working capital in fully operational assets. The Group said it is “poised to embark on a new phase

of growth while driving growth in its existing port-folio.”

Despite selling the oil refinery to Russia’s Rosneft and partners and losing the steel business in insolvency proceedings, the group cur-rently has interests in oil and gas, ports, power, ship-ping and mining projects in India and overseas that give revenue of Rs 1 lakh crore.

Essar in the mailer said, revenues are projected to rise from Rs 94,000 crore in FY19 to Rs 98,000 crore in the current fiscal and then

to Rs 1,01,000 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 1,04,000 crore in the year thereafter.

Indicating it has put the past behind, Essar said it is armed with a substantially lighter balance sheet after it took a conscious call of re-ducing its debt in response to evolving domestic and evolving economic scenar-io.

“Our strong portfolio of companies consistently generates healthy and sus-tainable earnings and have combined revenue of Rs 1,00,000 crore ($14 bil-

lion),” it said.Essar said it has made

capital investments of over Rs 2 lakh crore (about $28 billion) in sectors like ports, steel plants, oil refining and fuel retailing, oil and gas exploration & production, power generation & trans-mission, mining, shipping, and telecom, with substan-tial equity from the Essar Group.

The Group said it will continue to use its entrepre-neurial skills, a vast pool of human resources, and de-cades of experience and in-

novation in pursuing fresh opportunities and creating value for all its stakehold-ers.

The Essar letter was jointly signed by promot-ers Ravi Ruia and Prashant Ruia. Many years back, the Group, which built India’s second-largest Pan-Indian telecom operations with Hutchison, sold its 33pc stake to Vodafone for $5.4 billion (Rs 28,827 crore).

Later it sold its 20 mil-lion tonnes oil refinery at Vadinar and over 3,500 pet-rol pumps to Rosneft and

partners for $12.9 billion (Rs 86,000 crore).

Its BPO business, Aegis was monetised for $910 million (Rs 5,660 crore). Its steel business, which was made up of 10 million tonnes per annum plant and 20 million tonnes of pellet making capac-ity, went for $6 billion (Rs 42,000 crore) in bankrupt-cy proceedings to recover unpaid loans.

Essar said the challeng-es it faced over the years did not stop it from creat-ing world-class assets.

The Centre wants to set up parks that will manu-facture pharma raw materials currently imported from China, while sections within the government

also want sick state-run pharma units, specialised in manufacturing active pharma ingredients, to be revived.

According to top officials, to promote domestic API manufacturing the government could lift price controls on drugs made from domestic bulk drug raw materials. India is dependant on China for some 70 per cent of its API supplies and the current Coronavirus scare, which has seen imports from China stopped, has underlined In-dia’s supply vulnerability.

Nearly 40-odd APIs have been identified whose pro-duction the government wants to encourage, officials said. While incentives will be offered to bulk drug man-ufacturers to scale up their production, sections within the chemicals and fertilizer ministry want the two sick PSUs – Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Ltd and Hindu-stan Antibiotics Ltd – to be revived instead of being sold off or shut down as was earlier planned.

“We can rope in private investors and do the job of re-vival or use incentives which we will anyway pay out to encourage API manufacturers coupled with sale of land banks etc. to work out a revival package,” said officials.

Centre to set up API parks

8 Travel / Entertainment Friday, March 13, 2020

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As on 12th March, 2020 (In rupees)

Currency Buying Selling

Australian Dollar 46.00 49.60 Bahraini Dinar 189.20 203.70British Pound 95.30 99.45 Canadian Dollar 52.70 56.10Emirati Dirham 19.35 20.85Euro 82.80 86.80Kuwaiti Dinar 235.40 249.40Omani Rial 185.10 199.10 Qatari Riyal 19.70 21.20Saudi Riyal 18.95 20.40 Singapore Dollar 51.20 55.20 Swiss Franc 75.30 81.80US Dollar 72.10 75.20

Source:

The rising full moon (Super Moon) crosses behind the Statue of Liberty on Monday evening, March 9, in New York City.

Trump suspends all travel from Europe to US

India not to allow cruise ships till Mar 31India has prohibited en-

try of any international cruise ship, crew or pas-

senger with a travel history to coronavirus-hit countries post-Feb 1, 2020 to its ma-jor ports till March 31.To prevent the spread of the deadly virus, the ministry of shipping said it will al-low only such international cruise ships to call on its major ports that had inti-mated their call to the ports by Jan 1, 2020.

“Only those internation-al cruise ships which had planned and intimated their call to an Indian port not later than Jan 1, 2020 will be

allowed to call on such port.“Any international cruise

ship or any member of its crew or any passenger there-in having a travel history of visiting any of the Covid-19 affected countries... since Feb 1, 2020 will not be per-mitted to enter any Indian port till March 31, 2020,” the ministry of shipping said. The government said international cruise ships will be allowed only at ports having thermal screening facilities for passengers and crew members.

If any passenger/crew member of cruise ships show symptoms of corona-

virus, disembarking will not be permitted, it added. India has 12 major ports -- Deen-dayal (erstwhile Kandla), Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar (earlier Ennore), V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) -- that handled 699.04 MT of cargo during 2018-19. There are about 200 non-major ports under the control of states. The government last month had directed all 12 major ports to immediately put in place screening, de-tection and quarantine sys-tem for disembarking sea-

farers and cruise passengers as a preventive measure against the coronavirus out-break.

The ministry of shipping had issued necessary direc-tions to the 12 major ports to “place a screening, detec-tion and quarantine system immediately for disembark-ing Seafarers or Cruise Pas-sengers”. Directions had also been issued to ports to procure N-95 masks as well as thermal scanners to screen passengers, besides obtaining self-declaration from arriving crews/passen-gers. India has so far report-ed 60 coronavirus cases.

Taking drastic action, President Donald Trump announced

he is cutting off travel from Europe to the US and mov-ing to ease the economic cost of a viral pandemic that is roiling global financial markets and disrupting the daily lives of Americans. Trump made the announce-ment that he is suspending all travel from Europe to the US for 30 days beginning at 11:59 pm Friday during a rare Oval Office address to the nation. After days of playing down the threat, he blamed the European Union for not acting quickly enough to address the novel coronavirus and claimed that US clusters were “seed-ed” by European travellers.

“We made a lifesaving move with early action on China,” Trump said. “Now

we must take the same ac-tion with Europe.”

Trump said the restric-tions won’t apply to the UK and there would be exemp-tions for “Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings.” It also wouldn’t apply to cargo. He said the US would monitor the situ-ation to determine if travel could be reopened earlier. After he spoke, the White House cancelled a planned trip by the president to Nevada and Colorado this week, “out of an abundance of caution.”

The mounting effort to contain the virus and finan-cial fallout intensified on a grueling day: Communi-ties canceled public events nationwide, universities moved to cancel in-person classes, and families grap-pled with the impact of dis-

ruptions to public schools. The number of confirmed cases of the infection topped 1,000 in the US and the WHO declared the glob-al crisis is now a pandemic.

In a week of mixed mes-sages and false starts, as gov-ernment officials warned in increasingly urgent terms that the outbreak in the US will only get worse, Wash-ington suddenly seemed poised to act. Congress, for its part, unveiled a multi-billion-dollar aid package on Wednesday that was expected to be voted on by the house as soon. “I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, direc-tor of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in testimony before the House Oversight

and Reform Committee. He said the virus is “10 times more lethal than the sea-sonal flu.”

Trump spoke after days of confusion in Washington amid mounting calls on the president to demonstrate greater leadership. In the hours leading up to his re-marks, White House aides struggled to determine what action the president could take unilaterally and what required congressional ac-tion, as Trump personally weighed the public and political reactions to the options before him. Trump said he was also directing agencies to provide unspec-ified financial relief for “for workers who are ill, quar-antined or caring for others due to coronavirus,” and asked Congress to take ac-tion to extend it.

Emaar Hospitality will stop taking book-ings at three hotels in

Dubai from March 15 until Aug 31 because of the global effects of the coronavirus on the travel industry and fall-ing demand. The three ho-tels are Address Fountain Views at Downtown Dubai, Vida Creek Harbour near Dubai Creek and Vida Emir-ates Hills located in Emaar’s Emirates Hills master devel-opment in Dubai.

This correspondent tried to book rooms through the hotels’ website, but a mes-sage said: “The property is unavailable for these dates”. Despite the booking freeze, gyms, restaurants and pools at the hotels will remain open during the period, Emaar said. Emaar Hospitality is a subsidiary of Dubai’s top de-veloper Emaar Properties.

“Following the recent global impact on the travel

Emaar stops bookings at threeDubai hotels as demand dips

industry drawing us into a state of force majeure, Emaar Hospitality Group has taken the decision to temporarily refocus its operations on a selected number of assets,” an Emaar Hospitality repre-sentative told a TV channel.

Emaar Hospitality was created in 2007. It owns and manages a portfolio of hos-pitality assets and brands including, Address Hotels + Resorts and Vida Hotels and Resorts, in addition to serviced residences, leisure clubs, restaurants and spas. The novel coronavirus, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has now spread to more than 100 countries, killed more than 3,800 people and in-fected more than one lakh. The rapid spread of Co-vid-19 has disrupted global supply chains, dampened demand for travel and rat-tled stock markets globally.

Arabian Travel Market, a major exhibition for the re-gion’s travel and tourism in-dustry which was due to take place from April 19 to 22 at Dubai World Trade Centre, has been postponed due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. The event will now be held from June 28 to July 1, according to organiser Reed Travel Exhi-bitions. ATM attracts more than 39,000 professionals from the global travel indus-try, generating about $2.5 billion (Dh9.18bn) of new business. The March 17-19 Global Aerospace Summit is now taking place from June 8 to 10. Global airlines are expected to lose $63 billion to $113 billion in passenger revenue this year due to the coronavirus, the Interna-tional Air Transport Associ-ation said, after revising an earlier estimate of a $29.3 billion loss last month.

The police pulled a car out of the Dubai Creek after its driver lost control and drove into the water.

DUBAI: Indian expats in the UAE have been advised to avoid non-essential travel, including to their home country, after the Indian government issued a new advisory to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.

India’s Bureau of Immigration announced a series of new measures and travel advisories related to Covid-19. In addi-tion to the visa restrictions for foreign nationals, especially those from the Covid-19 affected countries, the government also issued a new travel advisory for Indian residents and those living abroad. “Indian nationals presently abroad are advised to avoid non-essential travel. They are hereby in-formed that they can be quarantined for a minimum period of 14 days on their arrival in India,” the advisory stated.

“All Indian nationals are strongly advised to avoid all non-essential travel abroad. On their return, they can be subjected to quarantine for a minimum period of 14 days,” it further added. Posting the latest advisory on Twitter, the Indian consulate in Dubai said: “All citizens and foreign nationals desiring to visit India may kindly see [the] latest guidelines issued by Govt. of India.”

Consul general of India in Dubai told a TV channel: “Given the situation, it is advisable for everyone to avoid non-essential travel right now, even to our home. There could be conditions for them [those who travel] to be quarantined.” He urged Indian citizens to take precautions to protect themselves and others, especially if they are travelling for emergency reasons.

NRIs told to avoid travelling home

Rupee sinks to74.34 against $The rupee on Thurs-

day weakened to a 17-month low of 74.34

per US dollar as global mar-kets slumped after the WHO declared coronavirus as a global pandemic. It, however, somewhat recovered from the lows to trade around 74.14 per greenback. The rupee hit its record low in Oct, 2018, when it was 74.48.

The concerns of the coro-navirus outbreak severely impairing the global economy have off late weighed on the investor sentiments across markets. The declaration of the disease as a pandemic late on Wednesday has further deepened the concerns. Stock markets across the globe have plunged after WHO’s an-nouncement on Wednesday. Indian equities also slumped with the BSE Sensex losing over 2500 points.

Santu Mukhopadhyay with his daughter Swastika.

Bengali actor Santu Mukhopadhyay dead

Renowned Bengali actor Santu Mukhopadhyay, known for his cultured

performances in a large body of films and TV serials, died following a long illness at his south Kolkata residence.

Mukhopadhay (69), a widower, left behind his two daughters, one of them actress Swastika.

Mukhopadhyay, who held his own while working alongside legends of Ben-gali cinema Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee, was suffering from cancer for a long time. He also had hypertension, blood sugar and suffered from sodium-potassium imbalance.

Born in 1951, Mukhopad-hay made his film debut at

the age of 24 in Raja directed by Tapan Sinha. Soon after he got acclaim for his acting

in Sansar Simante directed by Tarun Majumdar. Among his other famous films are

Ganadebata, Harmonium, Bhalobasa Bhalobasa, Prati-ma, Prafulla, Shesh Rakkha,

Dadamoni, Kalankini kank-aboti, Hemanter Pakhi and Tagari. He was also popular on the small screen where he worked in hit serials like Ishti Kutum, Jol Nupur, Ku-sum Dola and Andarmahal.

Mukhopadhyay learnt dance from Gopal Bhattacha-rya and lent his gifted voice to a number of songs in films, His Rabindra Sangeet rendi-tion “gopono kathati rabe na gopone’’ in Bhalobasa Bhalo-basa and aamar hriday tomar apon hater dole’ in Parabat Priya got praise from both high-nosed critics and the common cinema goers.

US airlines see distant recovery

Leading US airlines ditched 2020 forecasts and un-veiled more sweeping

capacity cuts and cost-saving measures in response to the spreading coronavirus, while United Airlines warned of a deep hit to the sector.

Speaking at an industry conference, United President Scott Kirby said he was prepar-ing for a “dire scenario” under which revenue could fall as much as 70pc in April and May and 20pc in Nov and Dec.

The sector has been hard-hit as tourists cancel trips and businesses across the globe clamp down on any-thing other than essential travel over the fast-spreading epidemic, sparking a string of steps by airlines to tackle the impact of the outbreak. Chicago-based United has taken some of the most ag-gressive measures to date, saying it had raised $2 billion in new capital to bring liquidity to $8 billion and slashed its 2020 capital

expenditure by more than a third to about $4.5 billion.

“Let me blunt. Hope is not a strategy,” Kirby told investors, saying it could take the industry two to three years to fully recover.

United will not take jet deliveries or add capacity back to the market until it sees demand returning, he said.