New Delhi, Jul 20: Former Delhi Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit passed away here on Saturday.
Dikshit was the longest-serving Chief Minister of Delhi, having served in office for 15 years from 1998.
The 81-year-old was appointed as the president of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee earlier this year, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
New Delhi, Mar 19: Hit hard by coronavirus, budget carrier IndiGo today announced that it will cut salaries of senior employees. IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta, who will himself take a 25% cut in salary, said senior vice presidents and above are taking a 20% pay cut while vice presidents and cockpit crew are taking a 15% pay cut.
With precipitous drop in revenues, the very survival of airline industry is now at stake, Dutta said while announcing the pay cut. "We have to pay careful attention to our cash flow so that we do not run out of cash," Dutta said adding that he knew how hard it was for families to take a cut in "take-home pay".
"With a great deal of reluctance and a deep sense of regret, we are therefore instituting pay cuts for all employees, excluding Bands A and B, starting April 1, 2020," the chief executive officer said. Band A and B are the lowest brackets in salary class, where most of the employees are.
IndiGo's flight operations chief Ashim Mitra had written an email to pilots this morning saying that the economic environment has deteriorated significantly and no airline is insulated from this severe downturn.
"It has become a necessity to initiate some tough calls and we are working on a string of measures that will be shared and implemented over the next few days and weeks," Mitra said.
With countries sealing their borders partially or fully across the world due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, aviation sector has been hit extremely hard as most airlines globally have drastically curtailed their flight operations.
Another budget airline GoAir has already terminated contracts of expat pilots amid curtailed operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Citing "unprecedented" decline in air travel, the budget carrier announced it was suspending international operations and offering leave without pay programme to its staff on a rotational basis.
Government-owned Air India may also cut salary of employees by 5% amid its growing financial woes particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has nearly grounded its entire international operations. The reduction will be across the board, according to a PTI report.
The loss-making airline, which is in the process of a second attempt of privatization after failing to get a single buyer nearly two years ago, has already taken some steps such as reduced flying allowances to cabin crew besides withdrawing entertainment allowance to executive pilots, among others.
“Air India is considering a 5 per cent pay cut to its employees as it faces huge financial crisis due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, which has brought almost its entire international operations save the US, Canada and a few other markets, to the ground," a source told news agency.
New Delhi, Jun 29: Fuel prices rose on Monday again after a days pause with oil marketing companies increasing the pump price of petrol by 5 paisa and diesel by 13 paisa per litre in Delhi.
In the national capital, petrol price on Monday stood at Rs 80.43 per litre while that of diesel at Rs 80.53 a litre.
With this increase, fuel prices have moved up on 22 of the last 23 days (with no rise on Sunday). Petrol prices, however, were unchanged for an additional day in between after the daily revision based on dynamic pricing was reinstated by OMCs.
Since the daily price revision resumed on June 7, petrol price has increased Rs 9.17 and diesel rose by Rs 11.14 in the national capital. In the other cities the magnitude of increase was similar.
During the past 23 days, the quantum of price hike gradually declined from around 60 paise raise for a few days, immediately post the resumption of daily price revision, to less than 20 paise during the past few days and now even less than 10 paisa per litre.
In a historic development, the price of diesel surged above that of petrol in the national capital during this period. It continues to remain higher even though on Saturday the quantum of petrol price hike was higher than that of diesel.
Officials in oil marketing companies said that it is hard to predict which of the two fuels will be priced higher in the Capital as the gap between the two is almost negligible. But petrol prices have shown more volatility in international markets that may take it ahead once again in coming days.
Apart from Delhi, the retail prices of petrol and diesel have followed the traditional path in other metros with petrol being priced at a premium of between Rs 5 and 8 per litre. The difference between the auto fuel prices in Delhi and other metros is because of the taxation structure.
While both petrol and diesel are at similar levels of taxes (state and centre) in Delhi, it is higher for petrol in many other Indian cities.
Globally diesel is priced a tad higher than petrol. In India too, the base price of diesel is slightly higher than petrol but taxation at central and state levels changed the complexion of retail prices.
If the price of petroleum products and crude hold their positions in global markets, then petrol and diesel prices rise may stop for a longer period and we may even see marginal fall in prices.
Fuel prices have been increasing since June 7 when oil companies began the daily price revision mechanism after a hiatus of 82 days during the lockdown.
New Delhi, May 18: Very severe cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’, over central parts of South Bay of Bengal, has intensified into extremely severe cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday. The weather department has warned that ‘Amphan’ may turn into a “super cyclonic storm’.
According to experts, North Odisha coast will face the maximum impact of cyclone Amphan when it makes landfall.
“Wind speed expected to be 110-120 kmph, gusting up to 130 kmph. Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj dist can be affected on 20 May (when it makes landfall), IMD Bhubaneswar scientist Umashankar Das told news agency ANI.
The IMD has said that ‘Amphan’ will cross West Bengal - Bangladesh coasts between Digha (WB) and Hatiya island - in the afternoon/evening of May 20 as very severe cyclonic storm.
Earlier, the IMD had warned that ‘Amphan’, over central parts of South Bay of Bengal, will intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm on Monday.
“Very Severe Cyclonic Storm (VSCS) ‘AMPHAN’ over central parts of South Bay of Bengal near latitude 12.5°N and longitude 86.4°E, about 870 km nearly south of Paradip (Odisha). To intensify further into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm (ESCS) in the next six hours,” the IMD said in a tweet on Monday.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has sent its 10 teams to Odisha and seven teams to West Bengal in view of the approaching Cyclone Amphan, news agency reported.
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