‘Hands are tied... Can't sleep at night’: Despair over jobs as Jet Airways grounded

Agencies
April 19, 2019

New Delhi, Apr 19: Bhoja Poojari has handled baggage for India's Jet Airways Ltd since it began flying nearly 26 years ago. Now, like many other Jet employees, he fears for the future as the debt-laden airline descends into crisis.

"If this continues, I do not know what to do," said the 53-year-old father of two, who has not been paid in nearly two months and may be forced to sell his house.

"I feel like my hands are tied and I can't sleep at night," Poojari told Reuters. "I haven't told my children anything. They are very young, but they know something is wrong."

Thousands of employees have been stung by the rapid unravelling of Jet Airways, which, saddled with more than $1.2 billion in bank debt, grounded all its planes on Wednesday after lenders rejected a plea for emergency funds.

The shutdown has deepened the crisis as dues to lessors, staff and suppliers pile up and lenders scramble to find a buyer for what was once India's largest private airline.
Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube told employees on Wednesday that the sale would take time and could throw up more challenges, but he was confident the airline would fly again.

Failure would threaten more than 16,000 staff jobs and thousands more tied to the airline, which at its peak operated over 120 planes and more than 600 daily flights.

More than a dozen employees told Reuters they had gone two to four months without pay. Many grapple with unpaid bills, overdue home loans, school and tuition fees.

"We have stopped going out for movies, to restaurants or any other form of entertainment," said a Jet engineer, who is self-tutoring his children after cancelling private tuitions.

He is listed as a defaulter in his community for failing to meet his building maintenance fee payments. "It's a huge stigma for my family," he said, declining to be named.

'Save our family'

Hundreds of angry employees have protested in New Delhi and Mumbai, accusing management of leaving staff in the dark about the airline's worsening crisis.

"Management never gives us a clear picture," airline union leader Chaitanya Mainkar shouted during a protest at Mumbai's international airport on Friday where employees chanted slogans and waved posters that read "Save Jet Airways, Save Our Family."

Jet pilots appealed for intervention from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is facing wider criticism over the scarcity of jobs as he campaigns for re-election in polls now underway.

Last month, Modi asked state-run banks to rescue Jet Airways without pushing it into bankruptcy, averting thousands of job losses. But the airline never received the agreed stop-gap loan of about $217 million.

"At least now we know the talks about caring for employment, creating jobs is all an eyewash," Captain Asim Valiani, vice president of the National Aviator's Guild representing Jet pilots, told Reuters after the shutdown.

"I've been with Jet for 23 years and am shattered today. I don't know what I will tell our pilots," he said, adding the guild would take the airline to court to seek unpaid wages.

Murky future

Jet Airways has lost key employees as the crisis unfolded.

About 400 pilots have moved to other airlines, leaving Jet with about 1,300 pilots, said a senior Jet pilot. About 40 engineers have also left, a senior engineer said.

Some veteran employees remain loyal to the airline and hope it can be restored to its former glory.

"I have worked here from the beginning - first day, first show," said Anil Sahu, a 50-year-old baggage handler with 25 years of service.

"Even after all of this, we have trust in Jet. It's a tsunami that has come, but we hope everything will return to normal," he said.

Other senior employees like Poojari say they will struggle to find work if the airline fails.

"If I had quit earlier there was still a chance of moving on, but after 26 years and having crossed 50 (years of age), where will I find a job?"

Comments

Ahmed
 - 
Saturday, 20 Apr 2019

BJP Pm  alredy informed do PAKODA business lets start MODI PAKODA , SHA PANIPRUI YOGI BEEF FRY ,JATLEEY KCIHDY ,AMABANI BEEF BIRYANI,ADNANI GOBI manchurry SMITHA IRANI fried rice ARONB FORK FRY ...

Abdul basheer
 - 
Saturday, 20 Apr 2019

 BJP slogon they say when congress in ruled  indian not developed  after CHOWKIDAR sit in PM seat jetairways flight grounded all employers lost thier job and carriers NOW modi bhakta whom to blame bank looted BSNL employer not get salary from 6 months airport sold to modi friend ADNANI group HAL gifted  to ANIL AMBANI if next CHOWIKAR sit in Pm seat indain will sold to all gujrathi ...indian capital shifted to gujarath delhi changed to MODI NAGAR indian name changed to MODISHA DESH 

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Agencies
February 7,2020

Washington DC, Feb 7: United States on Thursday asked all countries to speak out against mistreatment of Muslims living in China especially in Xinjiang region by Chinese authorities.

Alice G. Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, while talking to reporters appreciated the steps taken by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China and that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed.

"As a matter of principle we urge all countries, not just Central Asian countries, to speak out against human rights abuses that are evident against Muslims in all of China but certainly in Xinjiang. And the countries of Central Asia, several of the countries of Central Asia have deep first-hand knowledge of those abuses given the direct impact it has on their own populations who have loved ones, family members, that are swept up in these detention centers," Wells said.

"We appreciate steps by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China, that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed. And we also appreciate I think what countries like Kazakhstan can do to promote the free and safe travel of compatriots, ethnic compatriots across the border," she added.

China has been accused of oppressing the Uighurs by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending the community to undergo some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination. However, Pakistan has stayed mum over this issue.

As many as 1 million people, or about 7 per cent of Xinjiang's Muslim population, have been incarcerated in a sprawling network of "political re-education" camps, according to US and UN studies.

In 2018, the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Beijing of a "systematic campaign of human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Beijing says its camps in Xinjiang are "vocational training centres."

Last year, several documents leaked revealed details about Beijing's fears about religious extremism and its wholesale crackdown on Uighurs.

The US had called on the Chinese government to "immediately release all of those who are arbitrarily detained and to end its draconian policies that have terrorised its own citizens in Xinjiang."

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News Network
April 30,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 30: Shares of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd rose almost 9% on Thursday after the Indian drugmaker got an approval to conduct clinical trials with antiviral drug favipiravir, seen as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

Favipiravir, manufactured under the brand name Avigan by a unit of Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp and approved for use as an anti-flu drug in the Asian island country in 2014, has been effective, with no obvious side-effects, in helping coronavirus patients recover, a Chinese official told reporters at a news conference last month.

"After having successfully developed the API and the formulations ... Glenmark is all geared to immediately begin clinical trials on favipiravir on COVID-19 patients in India," Sushrut Kulkarni, executive vice-president for Global R&D, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement. 

The Drug Controller General of India, the country's drug regulator, did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

On Wednesday, another Indian pharmaceutical company, Strides Pharma Science Ltd, said it had developed and commercialized favipiravir antiviral tablets, and had applied to Indian drug authorities to start trials.

Shares of Mumbai-based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, which rose as much as 8.9% to 359 rupees ($4.78), was trading up 5.9%, as of 0407 GMT.

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News Network
June 20,2020

New Delhi, Jun 20: A rare celestial event, annular solar eclipse, which is popularly known as the "ring of fire" eclipse, will be visible this Sunday in India.

It will be the first solar eclipse of this year takes place on the summer solstice, which is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere.

While people living along the path annular eclipse passing through Anupgarh, Suratgarh, Sirsa, Jakhal, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Dehradun, Tapowan and Joshimath will be able to see the annular phase, people in rest of India can witness a partial eclipse, said the Ministry of Science and Technology.

When Moon comes between the Sun and Earth, the shadow falls on the surface of the Earth. The Sun is entirely covered by the Moon for a brief period. Those places that are engulfed by the dark, dense umbral shadow of the Moon experience the total solar eclipse. In the regions that plunge into the soft diffused penumbral shadow of the Moon experience the partial eclipse.

"Annular solar eclipse is a particular case of the total solar eclipse. Like the total solar eclipse, the Moon is aligned with the Sun. However, on that day, the apparent size of the Moon happens to be a wee smaller than the Sun. Hence the Moon covers the central part of the Sun, and the rim of the Sun appear like a 'ring of fire' in the sky for a very brief moment" explains Samir Dhurde of The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune.

During the solar eclipse, the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun by 1 per cent, the expert said.

Allying rumours that the eclipse will mark the end of coronavirus, Aniket Sule, Chairperson, Public Outreach and Education Committee of the Astronomical Society of India, said: "Solar eclipse is caused when the Moon comes in front of the Sun for a short time. As seen from Earth eclipses occur somewhere in the Earth 2 to 5 times a year. Eclipses do not impact microorganisms on Earth. Likewise there no danger in eating of stepping out during an eclipse. No mysterious rays come out of the Sun during an eclipse."

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