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02 World<br />
Friday, <strong>May</strong> <strong>24</strong>, <strong>2019</strong> | www.goantimes.titosgoa.com | 12 Pages<br />
Hinduja Group<br />
evaluating Jet<br />
Airways opportunity<br />
The Hinduja Group is evaluating a bid<br />
for the cash-strapped Jet Airways, news<br />
agency Reuters reported. A State Bank<br />
of India-led consortium of lenders is<br />
struggling to find a buyer for the airline<br />
which ceased operations around midlast<br />
month due to acute liquidity crisis.<br />
Jet Airways shares were up over 7% in<br />
afternoon trade.<br />
Jet Airways stopped operations<br />
in mid-April after banks refused to<br />
extend emergency funding. Jet, once<br />
the biggest private carrier in the<br />
country, owes vast sums to its lessors,<br />
employees, fuel suppliers and other<br />
parties. It stopped all flights from April<br />
17 after its lenders refused to give it any<br />
more funds to keep the carrier flying.<br />
Jet, also saddled with roughly $1.2<br />
billion in bank debt, was crippled by<br />
mounting losses as it attempted to<br />
compete with low-cost rivals Interglobeowned<br />
IndiGo, SpiceJet Ltd and Wadia<br />
Group-owned GoAir.<br />
It has also lost hundreds of pilots,<br />
cabin crew and engineers to rivals and<br />
seen its valuable slots reallocated to<br />
rivals, further eroding any residual<br />
value and hopes of new investors<br />
stepping in to rescue the airline.<br />
Boeing<br />
acknowledges<br />
defects in 737 MAX<br />
simulator software<br />
Boeing acknowledged Saturday it had<br />
to correct defects in its flight simulator<br />
software used to train pilots to fly the<br />
737 MAX, the aircraft model involved<br />
in two deadly crashes that killed 346<br />
people.<br />
"Boeing has made corrections to the<br />
737 MAX simulator software and has<br />
provided additional information to<br />
device operators to ensure that the<br />
simulator experience is representative<br />
across different flight conditions," the<br />
company said in a statement.<br />
"These changes will improve the<br />
simulation of force loads on the manual<br />
trim wheel. Boeing is working closely<br />
with the device manufacturers and<br />
regulators on these changes and<br />
improvements, and to ensure that<br />
customer training is not disrupted."<br />
Reliance Retail set to<br />
disrupt Amazon, Walmart-<br />
Flipkart: Report<br />
Reliance Retail's upcoming entry into<br />
the online retail sector is the biggest<br />
challenge for Amazon and Walmart-<br />
Flipkart as the Mukesh Ambani-led<br />
behemoth is well positioned to create<br />
massive disruption in the market, a<br />
new report has stressed.<br />
According to the global market<br />
research firm Forrester, the online<br />
retail sales in India will grow at a<br />
five-year CAGR of 25.8 per cent to<br />
reach $85 billion by 2023, despite the<br />
hiccups of demonetization in 2016, GST<br />
in 2017 and the governmental changes<br />
in eCommerce policy announced last<br />
December.<br />
The time is ripe for Reliance Retail,<br />
which operates 10,415 stores in more<br />
than 6,600 cities, with 500 million<br />
annual footfalls - giving the company<br />
the kind of scale required to swiftly<br />
launch India-based operations.<br />
"One of the things that will trouble<br />
Amazon and Flipkart is Reliance's<br />
history of launching operations via<br />
massive discounts," Satish Meena,<br />
senior forecast analyst at Forrester<br />
Research, said on Tuesday.<br />
Reliance is fast working on creating<br />
the world's largest online-to-offline<br />
New Commerce Platform, according<br />
to Mukesh Ambani, Chairman<br />
and Managing Director, Reliance<br />
Industries.<br />
To compete with Amazon and<br />
Flipkart, Reliance will have to<br />
significantly improve the customer<br />
experience, both in stores and on its<br />
online channel, because discounts and<br />
cashbacks will not generate loyalty for<br />
online customers a" as we saw in the<br />
Paytm Mall case.<br />
Amazon has been the most popular<br />
online retailer since it surpassed<br />
Flipkart in 2016, although Flipkart is<br />
still the single-largest online retailer,<br />
with 31.9 per cent market share in 2018<br />
(38.4 per cent if you include Myntra and<br />
Jabong), closely followed by Amazon at<br />
31 per cent.<br />
US court stops<br />
adverse visa<br />
policy, gives<br />
relief to Indians<br />
NEW DELHI: A US district court has<br />
issued a preliminary injunction that<br />
prevents the United States citizenship<br />
and immigration services (USCIS) from<br />
implementing an adverse policy<br />
under which "unlawful presence"<br />
of international students (including<br />
their dependents, such as spouses and<br />
children) is computed retroactively.<br />
This action by the court, pending<br />
disposal of the lawsuit, is significant as<br />
unlawful presence can result in being<br />
barred from re-entering US for a certain<br />
period. It spells good news for the 2<br />
lakh odd students from India currently<br />
studying in the US. An individual who<br />
accrues more than 180 days of unlawful<br />
presence before departing from the US<br />
can be barred from reentry for three<br />
years. An individual unlawfully present<br />
in the US for more than a year is barred<br />
for 10 years.<br />
The order, dated <strong>May</strong> 3, relates to a<br />
lawsuit filed by several colleges, such as<br />
Guilford College, The New School and<br />
others, which TOI had reported in its<br />
October 26 edition.<br />
It is getting tougher for H-1B visa<br />
holders to switch jobs. Even if the new job<br />
is similar, the United States Citizenship<br />
and Immigration Services (USCIS), in<br />
several cases, has denied the application<br />
by the new employer on various grounds.<br />
The most common reason for denial is<br />
that the new position does not constitute<br />
a ‘specialty occupation’.<br />
Soon after the lawsuit was filed, Paul<br />
Hughes, partner at <strong>May</strong>er Brown, and cocounsel<br />
to the lawsuit had told TOI, that<br />
the objective was to protect the rights<br />
of international students. "The new<br />
USCIS policy, which upsets more than<br />
two decades of consistent immigration<br />
practice, is unlawful," he had stated.<br />
The subject matter of the suit is a<br />
policy memorandum issued by USCIS<br />
(which the court has currently blocked<br />
from being enforced), that came into<br />
effect from August 9, 2018. Under the<br />
revised policy, international students<br />
automatically begin to accrue "unlawful<br />
presence" in the US the day after they<br />
violate their "student status" even if their<br />
granted tenure of stay has not expired.<br />
The violation of student status could<br />
be owing to no fault of the student. Even<br />
a simple failure to update the designated<br />
school officer (DSO) of a change in<br />
address or a clerical error by the DSO<br />
in entering information into the Sevis<br />
system (database for international<br />
students) such as additional hours<br />
of on-site campus work beyond those<br />
permissible could result in a student<br />
being regarded as "out of status".<br />
The repercussions are extreme. For<br />
instance, if a student has unknowingly<br />
violated his or her student status, and<br />
this is discovered years later, it is<br />
likely that the 180-day or even 365-day<br />
period would have been crossed. The<br />
retroactive computation would mean<br />
that the student would be barred from<br />
re-entering the US for many years,<br />
jeopardising his or her studies or<br />
career.
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