Will work with like-minded parties to defeat communal forces: Sonia

New Delhi, Jan 13: Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has fired around 50 of its India executives as part of its restructuring in the country, three sources with direct knowledge said.

The move underscores the struggles Walmart has faced in expanding its wholesale business in India. The Bentonville, Arkansas based company currently operates 28 wholesale stores where it sells goods to small shopkeepers, and not to retail consumers.

The firings mostly affected executives in the company’s real estate division because the growth in the wholesale model has not been that robust, two of the sources said.

“It’s happening because focus is shifting to e-commerce rather than physical (stores),” said one source, who declined to be identified as the decision is not public.

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart has placed bold bets on India’s e-commerce sector. In 2018, it paid $16 billion to acquire a majority stake in India’s online marketplace Flipkart, in its biggest global acquisition.

The second source added that while Walmart could slow down the pace of opening new wholesale stores, the focus will increasingly be on boosting sales through business-to-business and retail e-commerce.

Some of the executives were sacked last week and more could be let go on Monday, two sources said.

In a statement to India’s Economic Times newspaper, which first reported the news, Walmart said it was always looking for ways to operate more effectively and that “this requires us to review our corporate structure to ensure that we are organized in the right way to best meet the needs of our members.”

Walmart has around 600 staff in its India head office out of a total of around 5,300 nationally, one of the sources said.

New Delhi, Feb 5: Delhi High Court on Wednesday stated that that death warrant of all convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case should be executed together.

The Delhi prison rules do not state whether when the mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place and from the trial court to Supreme Court all convicts have been held by a common order and a common judgment, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait observed while passing the order.

High Court dismissed the Central government and Tihar Jail authorities plea challenging the Patiala House court's order, which stayed the execution of the four convicts in the case. It also observed that the convicts indulged in a heinous offence of a bone-chilling rape and murder of a girl and that criminal appeals by all convicts were dismissed by the courts.

Moreover, the court observed that the review petitions were filed after long wait and convicts are taking shelter of Article 21 which is available to them till their last breath.

A single-judge bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait had on Sunday kept the order reserved in the matter after special hearing of two days.

Earlier, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Centre, alleged that the convicts were deliberately delaying the execution, adding that any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the convicts.

A Delhi court last week stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.

New Delhi, Jun 1: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday asked airlines to allot seats in flights in such a manner that middle seats are kept vacant to the extent possible.

However, if a flyer has been allotted the middle seat due to a high passenger load "then additional protective equipment like the wrap-around gown of the Ministry of Textile approved standards" must be provided to that passenger in addition to three-layered face mask and face shield, said the DGCA order, which has been accessed by news agency.

India resumed its domestic passenger flights from May 25 after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. International commercial passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country.