Jet Airways fires 16 more employees; continues to lay off in small chunks to cut costs

New Delhi, Feb 10: The government is set to privatise Central Electronics Ltd, a CPSE under the Department of Science and Technology, by selling its 100% stake with management control and has invited the Expression of Interest for the same by March 16.

The selected bidder will be required to lock in its shares for a period of three years during which it cannot undertake the sale of its stake in CEL, the PIM (Preliminary Information Memorandum) said.

"The government of India has 'in-principle' decided to disinvest 100 per cent of its equity shareholding in CEL (which is equivalent to 100 per cent of the total paid up equity share capital of CEL) through Strategic Disinvestment with transfer of management control (Strategic Disinvestment or Transaction)," DIPAM, the Disinvestment Department, said.

The process for the transaction has been divided into two stages, namely, Stage I and Stage II.

After BPCL and Air India, this is yet another CPSE which government is slated to privatise if it gets offers from bidders.

The government has set a challenging target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore disinvestment proceeds from CPSE sell-offs and IPOs, OFSs (Offer for sale) in the next fiscal and it going out all guns blazing to meet that target after revising this fiscal target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore to Rs 65,000 crore.

The Interested Bidders (which can also include employees of CEL) must have a minimum net worth of Rs 50 crore as on March 2019. DIPAM has released complete invitation Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM) of CEL. Resurgent India Limited is the advisor to the Transaction.

CEL is a pioneer in the country in the field of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) with the distinction of having developed India's first Solar cell in 1977 and first Solar panel in 1978 as well as commissioning India's first solar plant in 1992.

More recently, it has developed and manufactured the first crystalline flexible solar panel especially for use on the passenger train roofs in 2015.

Its solar products have been qualified to International Standards IEC 61215/61730. CEL is further working on development of a range of new and upgraded products for signaling and telecommunication in the railway sector.

In the SWOT analysis of the CPSE, DIPAM has stated under weakness that "the company has weak financial loss due to past losses, high manufacturing cost and non payment of dues by state nodal agencies affecting the financial position of the company".

The CPSE has adequate land for expansion, the SWOT analysis said adding "the CPSE faces threat of dumping of solar cells at very low rates which makes solar PV manufacturing industry unviable".

Entry of new players in the market for solar products and railway signalling systems also is cited as a threat.

New Delhi, Apr 22: The number of COVID-19 cases in India reached 20,471on Wednesday, with Maharashtra continuing to be the worst-hit state.

Out of the total number of cases, 15,859 are active cases, 3,959 cured or discharged and 652 deaths.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases across the country, with the count at 5,221, followed by Delhi (2,156) and Gujarat (2,272). Maharashtra reported 251 deaths, the highest fatality rate than any other state.
Fresh cases were reported today from Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Kashmir among other states and UTs.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved Rs 15,000 crore for 'India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package'. The funds sanctioned will be utilised in three phases.

While Rs 7,774 crore has been provisioned for immediate COVID-19 emergency response, the rest would be used for medium-term support (1-4 years) to be provided under mission mode approach.

Briefing mediapersons about the package here on Wednesday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the key objectives of the package include mounting emergency response to slow and limit COVID-19 in India through the development of diagnostics and COV1D-dedicated treatment facilities, centralised procurement of essential medical equipment and drugs required for treatment of infected patients, strengthen and build resilient national and state health systems to support prevention and preparedness for future disease outbreaks.

Javadekar said that no decision has been taken so far regarding the resumption of flight operations.

"No decision has been taken yet on the resumption of flight operations. An announcement will be made on time as to when it will resume," Javadekar told reporters.
Here's a quick read on the COVID-19 related updates:

1. Two Chinese manufactures of rapid antibody test, Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co. Ltd and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics Inc are now the subject of investigations by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as the rapid testing antibody kits of these two companies delivered results with wide variations and low accuracy.

2. Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that 735 doctors have recently been recruited and posted to hospitals in the state.

3. The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has settled 10.02 lakh claims, including 6.06 lakh COVID-19 cases, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) in 15 working days.

4. Secretary of Overseas Indian Affairs in the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, interacted with envoys of nearly 30 Central European countries on Wednesday and shared thoughts on fighting COVID-19.

5. Taking cognisance of the need for essential services like plumbing during COVID 19 crisis, the Indian Plumbing Skills Council (IPSC) aligned to Skill India programme, under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has prepared a database of over 900 plumbers who are ready to provide their services during the lockdown period across the country.

6. Braving all odds, workers of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) are conducting door to door surveys in the Red Zones of Nagpur putting their lives at risk.

7. Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri on Wednesday said that Air India has lifted about 300 tonnes of essential medical cargo so far this month through China-India aerobridge. It is planned that Air India along with SpiceJet and Blue Dart will airlift another 220 tonnes of this critical cargo in the next three days.

8. Ministry of Railways has offered to supply 2.6 lakh meals daily from various railway kitchens wherever the district administration is willing and able to pick up cooked meals and distribute among the needy. This has been communicated to district authorities all over the country.

9. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday said that the state's COVID-19 doubling rate stands at 26.6 days and Uttarakhand ranks third in preventing coronavirus infection.

10. The Central government has brought an ordinance to end violence against health workers, making it a cognizable, non-bailable offence with imprisonment up to seven years for those found guilty.

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.