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WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has taken a series of steps to prevent abuse and fraud in the employment-based visa programs, including H-1B, a top official from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told lawmakers on Thursday.H-1B is the most coveted foreign work visa for technology professionals from India.The USCIS has implemented rules, policy memoranda, and operational changes that protect the economic interests of US workers and businesses and prevent abuse and fraud in employment-based visa programs, Joseph Edlow, Deputy Director of Policy, USCIS told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing.Prominent among these include ensuring the fees that certain H-1B petitioners must now pay ultimately help to train US workers, clarifying calculation guidelines for the one-year foreign employment requirement for L-1 petitions in order to "ensure consistent adjudication.Among other steps are changing the H-1B cap selection process in order to increase the chances of ...

BENGALURU: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the social network will expand the partnership with Jio platforms on WhatsApp to other commerce customers in India and will take the solution outside of India to other countries."A big part of the partnership that we have with Jio will be to wire up and get thousands of small businesses across India on-boarded onto WhatsApp, to do commerce there. And we’re really excited about the opportunity there. And once we prove that out with Jio in India, we’re planning on expanding it to more folks in India and to other countries as well," Zuckerberg told analysts."It’s very connected to what I was just talking about around messaging commerce. A lot of people use WhatsApp, especially in India, there’s a huge opportunity to enable small businesses and individuals in India to buy and sell things through WhatsApp. We want to enable that. That starts with enabling payments," he said.In April, Facebook announced investm...

New Delhi: Myanmar has decided to involve international partners in the Chinese funded mega Yangon City Project, a key pillar of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Southeast Asian country, marking another pushback against China. The Myanmar government has decided to open up the project for other foreign firms besides China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), as it is not keen that one single company dominates the mega project, according to people aware of the matter.The project has been a source of controversy due to its flood-prone location as well as the CCCC’s involvement, said the people. The Hong Kong-listed, Chinese state-owned company has been accused of corruption relating to development deals in at least 10 countries in Africa and Asia, they said. The CCCC has been accused of being party to a major corruption scandal in Malaysia involving a former PM.During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar early this year, the two sides had inked a letter of inten...

MUMBAI: Covid-19 has sparked political battle in Pune as the cases in the city soar to almost three times that of Mumbai.Amid the BJP and NCP-Shiv Sena clashes, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday held a review meeting with district officials in Pune. The visit has been overshadowed by political wrangling as the BJP-run Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) expressed its inability to pay its share for building three mega covid health centres in the city. The Maharashtra government had said that the PMC, Pune Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) and the state government would pay up Rs 300 crores that is going to be used to build three jumbo covid hospitals in Pune. The PMC that has the BJP in power has, however, said that it does not have the funds to pay for it, claiming that it is running short of case has it has already spent Rs 250 crores during the pandemic. The refusal of the PMC to pay it share is be...

New Delhi: While religious, cultural or social functions continue to be banned as per the Unlock 3 guidelines, the ‘bhoomi poojan’ in Ayodhya will be held on August 5 as the Centre is citing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued during Unlock 2 for opening religious places.Those SOPs issued on June 4 had laid down social distancing measures for opening religious places from June 8. These norms included that individuals must maintain a minimum distance of six feet, use of face covers or masks are mandatory and large gatherings are prohibited. Both officer on special duty in health ministry Rajesh Bhushan and joint secretary (health) Lav Agarwal referred to the same when asked on Thursday about the upcoming event at Ram Janmabhoomi. Citing the same SOPs, a senior Uttar Pradesh government official, on condition of anonymity, said all required social distancing measures will be followed and the gathering will “not be a large one as it is being limited to 200 people”.“The health minis...

We are arguing that you should build a portfolio towards stuff that is a little bit more defensive, says Aditya Narain, Head of Research. There is liquidity, a surge in gold and a strong view in the market that the worst is behind us. But there is also a strong view that markets are not factoring in FY22, they are factoring in FY23 and FY24. What are you telling your clients to do in this market?Our fundamental advice to clients is to be a little cautious. Our market target for June next year is actually a couple of percentage points lower than where we are at this point in time. We are arguing that you should build a portfolio towards stuff that is a little bit more defensive. The key stance that we are taking is that FY22 is going to be a normal year. If you want a benchmark earnings or multiples we have to look there but let us not look at supply. There is a lot of excitement in the market because supply has gone up, capacity utilisations have gone up and this is just a reversal fro...

By Vrishti BeniwalInfrastructure projects in India are infamous for cost overruns and delays, and they are set for even more pain as the coronavirus sweeps through Asia’s third-largest economy.Construction of everything from roads to ports were behind schedule by an average three-and-a-half years, according to an analysis by the Statistics Ministry. Costs of 1,682 projects have shot up by a combined Rs 4 lakh crore over their life cycle, the ministry’s latest update as of April shows.A nationwide lockdown for more than two months since March 25 and continuing restrictions to contain the Covid-19 pandemic are the newest threat. The casualties are expected to be flagship projects such as the 3,300-kilometer freight rail network to connect India’s eastern and western regions.Conceived in 2006, the state-run Dedicated Freight Corridor Corp. of India Ltd. was originally scheduled to complete the work by 2016, but has missed several deadlines. The rail link is now expected to be ready by Dec...