Vadodara, Nov 27: A US consulate official today said here that there was an increase of 43 per cent in the number of student visas granted by his country in India last year.
US vice-consul, Mumbai, Jesse Walter gave a presentation on visa procedures, particularly B1 and B2 visas and F1 visas which are of interest to the students and the industry, at a meeting organised by a private firm here.
A total of 6,00,000 visas were granted by the US embassy last year in the country, he said.
Mar 10: Indian energy tycoon Mukesh Ambani is no longer Asia’s richest man, relinquishing the title to Jack Ma after oil prices collapsed along with global stocks.
The rout, exacerbated by mounting fears that the spread of the novel coronavirus will thrust the world into a recession, erased $5.8 billion from Ambani’s net worth on Monday and pushed him to No. 2 on the list of Asia’s richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ma, the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder who relinquished the No. 1 ranking in mid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani.
Oil plunged the most in 29 years on Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia vowed to pump more in a struggle for market share. The slump comes just as the coronavirus is spurring the first decline in demand in more than a decade. That raises questions about whether Ambani’s flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. will be able to cut net debt to zero by early 2021, as he has pledged. The plan hinges on a proposal to sell a stake in the group’s oil and petrochemicals division to Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s biggest crude producer.
While the coronavirus has curtailed some of tech giant Alibaba’s businesses, the damage has been mitigated by increased demand for its cloud computing services and mobile apps.
Reliance Industries, by comparison, has no such silver lining. The Indian conglomerate’s shares plunged 12% on Monday, the most since 2009, extending this year’s decline to 26%. Alibaba’s American depositary receipts have slipped 6.8% so far in 2020.
Ma reclaims crown after Reliance shares were pummeled in 2020.
Few of the world’s billionaires fared well in Monday’s collapse as the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average each plunged more than 7.5%, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, threatening to end the longest bull market in history. But no one did worse than those whose fortunes are underpinned by oil. Wildcatter Harold Hamm’s fortune was cut almost in half to $2.4 billion and fellow oil magnate Jeff Hildebrand lost $3 billion, bumping both from Bloomberg’s 500-member wealth ranking.
In a pivot toward new businesses such as telecommunications, technology and retail, Ambani’s Reliance Industries has piled on billions of dollars of debt over the years.
It spent almost $50 billion -- most of it funded by borrowings -- to build Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which became India’s No. 1 wireless carrier within about three years of its debut. As the mobile venture took off, Ambani also unveiled plans for an e-commerce empire to rival Amazon.com Inc. in India.
Addressing concerns over the liabilities, Ambani pledged in August to cut the group’s net debt to zero from about $21 billion as of last March. The Aramco deal is crucial to that plan for which Reliance Industries has valued its oil-to-chemicals division at $75 billion including debt, implying a $15 billion valuation for the 20% stake that’s for sale.
Signs of a potential delay to that deal unnerved some investors, hammering the stock since it touched a record high on Dec. 19.
Reliance Industries expected the Aramco transaction to be completed by March, but people familiar with the matter said in February that talks were still ongoing to bridge differences between the two parties over the deal’s structure.
Adding to the uncertainty, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has petitioned a court to halt the proposed stake sale, threatening a key source of funds needed to pare net debt.
But Ambani, 62, may soon bounce back from the setback, said Harish H.V., managing partner at ECube Investment Advisors in Bengaluru, India.
“The game isn’t over,” he said. “Ambani has successfully built a robust business model which would keep him in the game. Moreover, his telecom business will start yielding results in coming years.”
The curses of the bank depositors savings which vanished with collapsing economy and fraudlent seems to have gradully affecting riches of Ambani's.
in Holy Quran Allah says; but they plan and Allah plans, and Allah is the best planners..(Surah Al Anfal 8:30)
New Delhi, May 30: The COVID-19 pandemic has left the Indian private healthcare sector in acute financial distress, a new survey said on Friday adding that the healthcare facilities in the country have witnessed at least 80 per cent fall in average revenue.
Post the lockdown from March 24, Indian hospitals have seen a large impact, especially among small and medium-sized hospitals, which are now facing existential challenges.
The survey by healthcare industry body NATHEALTH was conducted in 251 healthcare facilities across nine states and 69 cities to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the domestic healthcare industry.
The findings showed that 90 per cent of the surveyed healthcare facilities are facing financial challenges with 21 per cent facilities facing an existential threat.
"There is a need for a stimulus package to revive the Indian healthcare industry which will be crucial to provide much-needed relief to the healthcare sector which is the frontline defence in this fight against COVID-19," said Dr Sudarshan Ballal, President NATHEALTH.
According to the survey, hospitals in tier 1 and tier 2 cities are experiencing a 78 per cent reduction in OPD footfalls, and a drop of 79 per cent in in-patient admissions.
The study found that 90 per cent of organisations require some form of financial assistance.
The findings indicated that even after the lockdown lift, the situation will remain difficult for the hospitals and nursing homes as patients will hesitate from visiting hospitals.
New Delhi, May 31: The income tax department has notified forms for filing income tax returns for the financial year 2019-20.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified Sahaj (ITR-1), Form ITR-2, Form ITR-3, Form Sugam (ITR-4), Form ITR-5, Form ITR-6, Form ITR-7 and Form ITR-V for the assessment year 2020-21.
The department has revised the I-T return forms for the financial year 2019-20 to allow assessees to avail benefits of various timeline extension granted by the government following the COVID-19 outbreak.
The government has extended various timelines under the Income Tax Act, 1961, through the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020.
Accordingly, the time for making investment or payments for claiming deduction under Chapter-VIA-B of IT Act that include Section 80C (LIC, PPF, NSC etc.), 80D (Mediclaim) and 80G (Donations) for the financial year 2019-20 had been extended to June 30, 2020.
ClearTax founder and CEO Archit Gupta said, "The new forms require a separate table to disclose tax saving investment made in the first quarter of 2020 for availing them in FY 2019-20. Taxpayers must assess their tax liability for FY 2019-20 and make sure they are maximising their Section 80C benefits if not already done so."
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