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Holly Willoughby look can land women top job: Poll

September 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Sep 14 (ANI): A new survey has revealed that women, who look like new ‘This Morning’ host Holly Willoughby, have a better chance of landing good jobs.

Researchers have found that 28-year-old Willoughby’s natural appearance and glossy lips are a winning formula for interviews.

Willoughby has managed to come out ahead of Cheryl Cole and Myleene Klass in the Boots poll, with sixty three per cent saying she looks more appealing to an employer.

“She’s polished but not too made up, which is a winning look,” the Sun quoted celebrity make-up artist Lisa Eldridge as saying of her. (ANI)

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Mumbai TV actress accused of child abuse gets bail

August 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Mumbai, Aug.22 (ANI): A local court here on Saturday granted bail to Mumbai-based TV actress Urvashi Dhanorkar, who has been booked under the Juvenile Justice Act and the Child Labour Act, for allegedly physically abusing her 10-year-old housemaid Rameshwari.

She was produced before the Bandra Holiday Court.

Dhanorkar’s lawyer, Nitin S. Satpute, contended the black marks and swelling on the child’s face were created by bee stings and the burn scars on her forearms were caused by boiling water fallen on her.

“Under the Juvenile Act, my client was arrested. She was produced in the court. Police asked for her remand but the court rejected the police plea and granted her judicial custody. Later, the court granted her bail,” said Satpute.

The actress was arrested on Saturday morning after medical reports confirmed that Rameshwari was physically abused.

Rameshwari was allegedly punched in her eye and was left with black and bruised marks, besides burns on her forearms.

The girl was rescued by her neighbours on Friday (Aug 21) night, when she was playing the children of her employer in the garden.

“When I saw this child her hands were burnt, eyes were red. She was scared. Residents gathered and took her to hospital. After examining, the doctor said it was marks of beating up. Secondly, according to the child labour (laws), hiring any child as a domestic help is a crime. We phoned police and it came for our help,” said Bindu Bhosle, Chairperson of Mahan Shakti a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) and neighbour of Rameshwari. (ANI)

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Jackson’s ‘secret girlfriend was his kids’ former nanny’

July 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 5 (ANI): Michael Jackson’s long-standing secret girlfriend was Grace Rwaramba, the former nanny of his children, according to the late singer’s personal photographer.

Ian Barkley, who trotted the globe with the star for three years as his snapper, made the astonishing revelation.

Ian said that the duo’s relationship was known to the staff while Grace looked after the King of Pop’s three children Prince Michael, 12, Paris Katherine, 11 and six-year-old Prince Michael II.

“Grace loved Michael and he loved her. The kids called her ‘Mom’,” the Mirror quoted him as saying.

Jackson’s bodyguard Matt Fiddes recently revealed that the icon had a secret girlfriend though he declined to identify her.

Another of the artist’s bodyguards said: “Matt was referring to Grace. They were more like a married couple than employer and employee.”

The minder added: “Grace was the closest person to Michael and the kids. She will be broken-hearted. The children were always their joint priority and like any couple they’d row if they disagreed about how they were being brought up.

“But the difference between Grace and other women in Michael’s life was that she had absolutely no interest in fame. It was something she actively avoided and Michael was determined to keep her and their relationship out of the public gaze.

“The romance was well-known among staff but it was made very clear to them that this was not something that should become part of the public domain.” (ANI)

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Seven Indian barbers claim Malaysian boss abused them for four years

July 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Penang/Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), July 2 (ANI): Seven Indian nationals have lodged a complaint with the Indian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, accusing their employer in Penang of abusing them and failing to pay their salaries regularly for the past four years.

According to The Star, the men, aged between 20 and 28, were employed at a barbershop in Paya Terubong.

They alleged that their employer made them work 12 hours daily with only a 10-minute break for meals. They were not given any day off, except on Deepavali.

Vadivel Rajan, from Madurai, said they were hired for a monthly salary of RM1,000 and that the employer had told them their pay would be forwarded to their families every month.

He claimed his employer only paid him RM10 daily as food allowance.

According to him, the employer withheld the workers’ salaries for five months to renew their working permits, but had not done so.

He claimed that their employer would hit them whenever they asked him about their salaries or work permits.

Vadivel said they decided to run away after finding out that their permits had not been renewed for the past two years.

They saved the money from their food allowance to travel to Kuala Lumpur to file their complaint and also to make a police report at the Sentul police station. (ANI)

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Informa India brings global leaders’ series to India for the first time

May 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Mumbai, May 15 (ANI/Business Wire India): Informa, the owners of information super-brands including Lloyd’s List, Taylor and Francis and Datamonitor, have announced the first Indian edition of the world’s largest series of leadership events.

Leaders business fora command audiences of 1000s of top corporate executives every year, with speakers most recently including Kofi Annan, CK Prahalad, Philip Kotler, Stephen Covey, Richard Branson and Steve Forbes.

Leaders in India, is the latest edition of what is widely regarded as the world’s largest series of business leadership events, which so far have taken place annually in major international cities including London and Dubai.

Informa, producers of the event, have received a particularly strong response from Indian and international organisations, with GE, JSW, Johnson and Johnson, Birla, Nokia and Abbot amongst many others already having confirmed their delegations to the event.

“India is one of the most dynamic markets of the world, where innovation, business, and technical acumen will continue to grow and thrive for many years to come,” said Trump Jr.. “I look forward to bringing many incredible projects to this market, which is now primed and ready for world class development.”

Donald Trump Jr., has announced ambitious plans for investment in India’s real estate sector, and will elaborate on successfully dealing with the obstacles faced by international companies when entering the Indian market.

Tom Peters, among the most influential management gurus of today, and renowned author of ‘In search of excellence’, will provide practical tools to tackle one of the most pressing issues on every CEO’s mind – ‘how to win the war for talent.’

In spite of a more favorable employer’s market at present, the ‘war for talent’ is expected to remain one of Indian business’ paramount challenges as the country continues to develop rapidly over the coming decades.

On why Informa has decided to bring ‘Leaders’ to India, Abhaey Singh, Managing Director, Informa India, said, “Indians are ideas people – we love inspiration, and Leaders in India will be two days packed with the proverbial tingles down your spine.”

“But more than just that, our country is gradually positioning itself at the fore of the 21st Century knowledge economy. From our legendary IITs and IIMs, to our booming media and information industry; and from complex analyses performed for global firms in our KPO centres, to continual advances in indigenous rocket science – India’s inherent knowledge resources are now being more comprehensively harnessed by and interconnected with Indian and global business. So we think it’s an excellent time to leverage the hugely respected Leaders brand into this very exciting country”, added Singh.

Featuring Indian leaders such as Adi Godrej, Kishore Biyani and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, along with special guest speakers Abhinav Bindra and Shashi Tharoor, the event will also host The “IIBAAs” (Indo-International Business Achievement Awards), which has been instituted to acknowledge exceptional entrepreneurial and innovative talent, effective and responsible leadership and management, and the setting of new standards within Indian and global businesses. (ANI)

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Chinese computer technician gets over 8 months in jail for Chen sex scandal

May 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, May 14 (ANI): A Chinese computer technician involved in the stealing of sexually explicit photos of Canto pop star Edison Chen Koon-hei has been sentenced to eight-and-a-half months in jail.

The Kowloon City Magistrate Court found Dicky Sze Ho-chun, 24, guilty of dishonestly obtaining access to the intimate photos showing Chen in sex acts with female celebrities, including Gillian Chung, Cecilia Cheung and Bobo Chan.

But his defence counsel has declared that he would file an appeal, reports the China Daily.

Sze has been accused of stealing the pictures while Chen’s computer was being repaired at Elite Multimedia Limited, where he was an employee, and he is said to have shown the photos to two female staff at a household store.

He also burnt a compact disc containing 1,300 sex images for one of them.

Pleading for leniency before Chief Magistrate Tong Man, defence counsel Kevin Tang said that Sze was only 21 when he committed the crime and was ignorant of the law.

“The defendant had no malicious intention in showing the nude images to others. He was an innocent boy willing to share his experience with people who asked him to do so. He regrets what he did,” said Tang, adding Sze accepts responsibility for the incident.

However, Magistrate Tong ruled out suspending the sentence owing to the seriousness of the crime.

“Though the defendant realized no monetary gain, he gravely invaded the privacy of others and breached the trust of his employer,” he said.

Although there was no evidence to prove Sze was responsible for touching off the high-profile scandal by distributing the photos on the Internet, he did expose private information of others in an extremely dangerous situation, he added.

The magistrate refused to grant bail pending appeal, and ordered that Sze be jailed immediately.

Chief Inspector of Police Kenny Wong Tak-cheung said that the judgment served as a warning to the public that it is a serious offence to use a computer dishonestly.

“Hong Kong Police is determined and capable of combating technological crimes,” he added. (ANI)

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Canadian Indian origin MP cites political conspiracy behind nanny scandal

May 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Ottawa/Toronto (Canada), May 9 (ANI): Canada’s Indian-origin Liberal MP Ruby Dhall on Friday described herself as a victim of a political conspiracy over allegations that she mistreated two Filipino caregivers.

“Who’s really behind them and who orchestrated or assisted or enabled these former employees of her brother to suddenly come forward one year after the last of them worked providing care for her mother?” the Globe and Mail quoter her lawyer, Howard Levitt, as saking.

Dhalla told reporters that her brother, Neil Dhalla, hired both the caregivers and that she understands the trials of immigrants, having been raised by an immigrant mother.

“Anyone who has ever entered our home has always been treated with love, with care, with compassion and respect,” Dhalla said at her constituency office in Brampton.

“As such, the allegations that have been brought forward against myself have come as a big shock and have been devastating to both myself and my family, friends and supporters,” she added.

She asked Canadians to “hold judgment and give my family the privacy as we go through this due process.”

Levitt said that receipts and other documents, which he held up at the conference, show not only that the allegations are false, but also that his client had nothing to do with the employment of the caregivers.

“I’m not going to permit Ruby Dhalla to deal with her brother’s issue or potentially her mother’s issue. … It’s not her issue. She was not the employer,” she said.

He called the claim that the caregivers cleaned the family’s chiropractic clinics “absolute nonsense,” and showed documents from contract cleaners who did the task daily.

“It’s easy to make allegations. … But again, the allegations are absolute nonsense,” he said.

The allegations first emerged on April 25 at a public meeting and then in a Toronto newspaper earlier this week. Two caregivers claimed they were forced to work in Dhalla’s family home, and were paid 250 dollars a week for 16-hour days of household chores.

Magdalene Gordo, 31, compared the job with slavery; Richelyn Tongson, 37, said Ms. Dhalla withheld her passport for weeks.

Dhalla stepped down from her post as the Liberal Party’s youth and multiculturalism critic this week, and a third worker came forward with similar allegations.

The executive director of Intercede, a Toronto-based agency that helps domestic workers, said she spoke with Dhalla about a year ago, after Tongson complained to them that her passport was being illegally withheld.

Agatha Mason said she called Dhalla and told her to return the caregiver’s passport or she would involve the police.

Mason said the conversation with Dhalla stood out in her mind because its tone was so unpleasant and because she was kept waiting on hold for some time.

Dhalla’s dramatic appearance comes a day after a Conservative MP announced that the two caregivers who allege they were mistreated will be called to testify before a Commons committee next week as other federal parties seize the chance to prolong Liberal woes.

Dhalla will also be asked to testify. And Ontario provincial Labour Minister Peter Fonseca and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, who failed to act on the allegations they first heard at a meeting in Toronto on April 25, may be called. (ANI)

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Obese people with diabetes ‘less effective at workplace’

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 01 (ANI): Obese people with type 2 diabetes are less effective at workplace than their normal-weight co-workers, a new study has found.

“We obtained information directly from individuals on how effective they were at the workplace to provide their perspective of the impact of diabetes and obesity on patients’ lives,” said study co-author Kathleen Fox, Ph.D.

In a survey of 7,338 working adults with or at risk for diabetes, participants answered questions about missed work time, reduced on-the-job effectiveness and impairment in daily activities.

The analysis found that being obese and having diabetes predicted on-the-job problems with productivity.

Fox said that obese people with type 2 diabetes experienced the most work impairment, losing 11 percent to 15 percent of work time – about 5.9 hours per week – because of health problems that affected productivity on the job.

On the other hand, normal-weight participants at low risk for diabetes reported losing only 9 percent of work time – about 3.6 hours per week – due to health problems.

Obese workers with type 2 diabetes also experienced the most problems off the job, reporting impairment during 20 percent to 34 percent of their daily activities, like shopping, exercising and childcare.

“From an employer’s perspective, this study provides evidence that workplace wellness programs that include weight loss and weight management would be beneficial for obese employees with or at risk for diabetes,” Fox said.

The study appears in the May/June issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. (ANI)

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Award Winning Nair and Co. opens new office in Indore

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Indore, Apr 29 (ANI/Business Wire India): Award winning Nair and Co., a leading global integrated solution provider helping companies expand internationally, has officially opened their newest office in Indore.

Nair and Co.’s Indore operations are aimed at supporting the company’s local headquarters in Mumbai.

Nair and Co.’s co-founder and the President of the NRI Institute, Dr. Shan Nair and Jagmohan Singh, National Secretary General of the NRI Institute performed the ceremonial ribbon cutting to a small gathering of local business owners and friends of Nair and Co. on 9th of April at the new office.

“There is a lot of potential in this location if the right steps are taken now,” said Dr. Nair.

“The ribbon cutting was an excellent way to celebrate this landmark in our company’s history. We are excited about opening offices in Indore and looking forward to rapidly becoming a major employer of high caliber professionals here,” Dr. Nair added.
Nair and Co.’s office is located in Indore’s most popular commercial center, which also is home to corporations like Reliance Communication and Bharti Axa.

Nair and Co. has been named as Top 100 Outsourcing Service Provider in the World by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP).

Nair and Co. provides businesses an integrated solution geared to making your company’s thrust to expanding business overseas less risky, stress free and more strategic in the finance, tax, HR, compliance and legal arenas.

Specialized in working with the unique challenges of U.S.-based technology companies, Nair and Co. has headquarters in the U.K. and offices in India, China, U.S.A. and Japan and currently acts for 700+ foreign operations in over 40 countries.

Nair and Co. employs highly qualified international specialists as your one point of contact client service directors to support your international registration, tax, accounting, compliance, HR and payroll needs. (ANI)

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Lok Sabha ticket, job offer for shoe throwing scribe

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Chandigarh, April 7 (IANS) Iraqi journalist Montadher al-Zaidi, who is biding time in a prison after his shoe-throwing action on then US President George W. Bush last year, is not going to like it.

The main protagonist of the Indian version of his act, journalist Jarnail Singh who hurled a shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi Tuesday, has not only been released but is getting attractive offers.

The Akali Dal (Amritsar) led by radical leader and former IPS officer Simranjit Singh Mann has offered a Lok Sabha ticket to Jarnail Singh.

Mann has offered to give his party’s ticket for the Amritsar seat, from where cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is seeking re-election on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.

‘Jarnail has done a big act of bravery. We all Sikhs take pride in what he did to highlight the injustice against Sikhs. He is a warrior of the community,’ Mann said.

The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the mini-parliament of Sikh religious affairs, has offered to give a job to Jarnail Singh if his employer (Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran) fires him from his present job after his action.

Jarnail Singh’s employers, in a press statement, have already said disciplinary action was being initiated against him.

The cash-rich SGPC, which has an annual budget of Rs.4.48 billion (448 crore), also offered to take care of Jarnail Singh and his family.

The Delhi unit of the Akali Dal has already announced a reward of Rs.200,000 to the shoe-throwing scribe.

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China has harshest tax regime, India adds most misery

April 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 5 (IANS) China has the harshest tax regime in the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong offers the friendliest, but India has added the most misery to its tax regime last year, according to Forbes Asia.

While New Delhi still maintains a relatively low rank of 23rd least friendly tax climate in this year’s Tax Misery Index, India saw its misery score rise by 24 points to 113.4 after it raised social security charges for employers and employees, the business magazine said in its latest survey.

New Zealand made the biggest improvement in the Asia-Pacific region after it eased individual and social security taxes.

‘This move is part of a trend in Asia toward increasing social security coverage to a level comparable to that in Europe,’ Forbes said.

India was ranked 35th least tax friendly jurisdiction in the 2008 list. In India’s total score of 113.4 points in this year’s index, corporate and personal income tax rates contribute 42 points and 34 points respectively, 12.4 points are for VAT/sales tax, 12 points come for each of employer and employee social security and one point is contributed by wealth tax.

The top-end corporate tax rate of 42 per cent in India is higher than any other jurisdiction in the world, except for two in the US, where New York City has 46.2 per cent and Illinois has 42.3 per cent corporate tax rates. With a corporate tax rate of 41 per cent, Japan is ranked third after the US and India.

Forbes said China’s tax ‘misery score’ rose seven points to 159 from last year after Beijing imposed higher employer and employee social security taxes as its economy took a hit from the global economic downturn.

China levies a 25 percent tax on corporate income, 45 percent on personal income, 49 percent for employers’ social security, 23 percent for employees social security and a 17 percent tax on goods and services, the survey showed.

By contrast, Hong Kong’s tax misery score of 41.5 ranked the best in the Asia-Pacific region. Hong Kong’s corporate tax stands at 16.5 percent, personal income tax at 15 percent and employer and employee social security levy at 5.0 percent each, it said.

‘This year, most Asian jurisdictions continue to have (a) more tax-friendly environment compared with other parts of the world,’ Forbes said.

‘The survey shows that outside of China and Japan, the rest of Asia continues to enjoy stable, low tax advantage.’

Japan’s misery score of 122.6 ranked it as having Asia’s second-least friendly tax environment after China, while Taiwan followed Hong Kong as the region’s second-most friendly with a score of 75, the survey said.

Eight of the 10 least tax-friendly countries on the list are European, it added. Worldwide, France topped the list by having the least friendly tax regime with a misery score of 167.9 among all the 50 jurisdictions surveyed.

Forbes calculates the misery score by taking the sum of the corporate, personal, social security and sales tax rates. It is used to assess whether a jurisdiction’s tax policy attracts or repels talent and capital.

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Asha Goel murder: Lie detector test on accused

April 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

MUMBAI: The metropolitan magistrate’s court has granted crime branch the permission to conduct brain mapping and lie detector tests on Praveen
Vatsa, an accused in the Asha Goel murder case. A police team will take Vatsa to the government forensic lab at Bangalore next week.

Asha, a Canada-based doctor, was found murdered in a flat on Malabar Hill on August 23, 2003. She had come to the city to settle property disputes between her brothers, Subhash and Suresh. Asha wanted to ensure that her third brother, Shekhar, got his dues.

In September 2003, the police arrested one Pradeep Parab, whose interrogation led to the arrest of three more persons-Pawankumar Goenka, Manohar Shinde and Narendra Goel. Narendra was Asha’s relative. Vatsa, Narendra’s domestic help, was arrested last week after officials found out that he had lied about his employer’s whereabouts.

Police believe that Vatsa was part of the murder conspiracy. While Suresh died in 2004, the police have sought Interpol’s help to bring in Subhash, who is in Canada.

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AIG ex-CEO Greenberg, Congress spar over company mess

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Maurice Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group Inc and creator of the doomed unit whose investments triggered its downfall, came under fire from U.S. lawmakers on Thursday who questioned his claims of ignorance.

“Crumbling of AIG began on your watch,” Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House oversight and government reform panel, said in opening remarks, noting that Greenberg’s credibility was compromised amid various ongoing government probes.

Several congressional committees are probing the causes of the rise and fall of AIG, which got nearly $180 billion in government funds to prevent a bailout and is the largest recipient of government money. Taxpayers now own 80 percent of AIG.

Greenberg, who was the insurer’s CEO for more than 35 years and created the financial products unit that traded in credit default swamps, rejected claims that he had a role in ramping up the risky credit fault swaps business.

The fragile-looking, 83-year-old Greenberg said he knew of no losses from the products that were initiated during his tenure.

“As far as I know there were no losses … on the credit default swaps,” said Greenberg, who is mired in lawsuits with his former employer and various government bodies. “When I left the company, it was healthy.”

Greenberg was forced out by AIG’s board in 2005 after he refused to cooperate with an internal investigation into off-balance sheet transactions that were being scrutinized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and various state attorneys general.

The probes did not have any connection to the financial troubles that nearly toppled AIG last September.

Asked by Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, if he took any responsibility for the subsequent collapse of the company, and noting that AIG lost its AAA bond rating days after he left, Greenberg said: “No, I do not.”

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Wisden breaks 120 yr old tradition, names woman as player of the year

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Apr 3 (ANI): Cricket bible Wisden has broken with 120 years of tradition by naming a woman as one of its players of the year.

England women’s star batsman Claire Taylor has been selected along with four male players as the magazine’s Five Cricketers of the Year for 2009.

It is the first time since the highly respected accolade started in 1889 that it has been conferred on a female player, the Daily Express reports.

Taylor earned the honour after a series of outstanding performances that helped England win an Ashes series in Australia last year, with last month’s World Cup triumph capping her achievements.

The 33-year-old, who has played 109 one-day internationals, was player of the tournament in March after scoring a hundred and two half-centuries.

Taylor, who played for a men’s first eleven while she was at Oxford University, holds down a day job as a management consultant, with employer Reading University allowing her generous time off for cricket.

She spoke of her pride at the award, telling The Times: “It is an absolute honour to be part of the pantheon of players who have graced Wisden.”

The four other players named as Wisden’s cricketers of the year are the England fast bowler James Anderson, and the South Africans Dale Benkenstein, Mark Boucher, and Neil McKenzie. (ANI)

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Oil falls over $1 as U.S. inventories rise

April 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Oil fell more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday, as U.S. data showed crude stocks were at a fresh 16-year high after growing again last week.

U.S crude futures settled down $1.27 a barrel at $48.39, eroding Tuesday’s 2.6 percent gain. London Brent crude settled down 79 cents at $48.44

The Energy Information Administration data showed a 2.8 million barrel increase in crude oil inventories.

Gasoline stockpiles increased by 2.2 million barrels, running counter to forecasts of a 1.4 million-barrel decline.

“There is no indication in these (EIA) numbers that the economy is strengthening. It looks like more of the same,” said Joseph Arsenio, managing director at Arsenio Capital Management in Larkspur, California.

Oil prices have fallen $100 from highs above $147 a barrel in July 2008 as the economic downturn dents global energy demand.

U.S private sector job losses accelerated in March to 742,000, more than economists’ expectations, according to a report by ADP Employer Services.

The U.S. economy is bracing for job data from the U.S. Labor Department on Friday which monitors public and private sector job losses in the world’s largest energy consumer.

OPEC COMPLIANCE

Producer group OPEC reached agreements in September to remove 4.2 million barrels per day to stem the slide in oil prices, and has delivered almost 80 percent of the promised reduction.

Reuters latest survey put compliance at 79 percent for March, the seventh consecutive month in which the group’s output has declined.

In deciding not to lower its output targets further in March, OPEC said it was giving the world a chance to recover from the economic downturn and looked ahead to this week’s G20 meeting in London to stimulate the economy and help shore up fuel demand.

Few expect instant results, but many analysts say OPEC, which meets again at the end of May to reassess the situation, has taken out enough oil to bolster prices.

In the immediate term the demand outlook is weak, and a flurry of bearish economic news emerged on Wednesday that weighed on stock markets and added pressure on oil prices.

Business confidence in Japan, the world’s second largest economy and the third largest oil consumer, tumbled faster than ever in the first quarter to its worst on record, the Bank of Japan’s Tankan corporate survey showed.

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn predicted the world economy would contract between 0.5 and 1 percent this year, following on from IMF reports predicting a decrease of up to one percent this year.

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Indian workers deported from Malaysia

March 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Chennai, Mar 7 (ANI): At least 43 workers from Tamil Nadu who returned from Malaysia complained of ill-treatment on Friday.

The youths from Villupuram, Vellore and Tiruvannamalai districts of the state, were employed in a hotel in Malaysia since February last year.

“I paid 85,000 rupees to seek immigration for Malaysia but were not given worker’s visa permit and were tortured inhumanely,” said Yasin, a youth.

The youths said they were not paid any salary after working for a month in the hotel. Later they were asked to vacate the hotel.

The workers decided to lodge a complaint with the Indian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. However, the bus they were travelling was intercepted by the police.

They were arrested and handed over to the immigration department that detained them.

“When we were behind bars, nobody came for our rescue, neither Malaysian and Indian government or our employer. It is only after one-and-a-half months, we were released. Has our country no responsibility towards us, are we not Indian citizen?” asked Satish Kumar, another youth.

They were later released after approaching the High Commission through a local social worker.

Malaysia is a magnet for cheap labour from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The country is home to two million legal foreign workers, as well as another 500,000 to 700,000 working illegally. Many resort to bribery to speed up their visa applications or to avoid deportation. (ANI)

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India Infoline signs up with First Advantage for VerifyDirect

March 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Mumbai, Mar 2 (ANI/Business Wire India): The Employer Services segment of First Advantage Corporation, Asia-Pacific’s largest background screening and talent acquisition solutions provider, today announced that India Infoline has become the first company to sign up for VerifyDirectT, Asia-Pacific’s first-ever, contributory, database-driven, online background screening service.

VerifyDirect provides a cost-effective solution by reducing time-to-hire and enabling human resources personnel to focus on more productive and strategic functions, rather than investing a great part of their valuable time in trying to obtain and provide past employee information from/to various third parties.

Upon receiving the individual’s consent, VerifyDirect can be used by any bonafide company for conducting background checks on potential employees, contract/vendor staff or customers through secure online transactions 24/7.

Ashish Dehade, managing director (West Asia) of First Advantage, said, “The signup with India Infoline reaffirms the faith of Indian corporates in the need for a digitized database that has the potential to optimize cost and time opportunities in the existing process of verification of background information.

VerifyDirect, aiming to be the largest verification database in the country and the Asia-Pacific for employment history and education records, will make available data in the public domain and will be consent-driven. This will add to the transparency and authenticity of the process.”

Capt. Rahul Sharma, Senior Vice President – Human Resource and Training of India Infoline, added, “In times when background screening of human resources is becoming extremely crucial, a contributory database like VerifyDirect can streamline the process and lead the drive for greater information sharing among all companies.

The fact that the database could also simplify the process for getting credit for people through readily available information 24/7 adds a greater appeal to the India Infoline group.” (ANI)

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Nair and Co. opens a new office in India

February 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Indore, Feb 17 (ANI/Business Wire India): Nair and Co., a leading global integrated solution provider helping companies expand internationally, has announced it is opening a new office in Indore.

Nair and Co.’s Indore operations are aimed at supporting the company’s local headquarters in Mumbai.

Indore is a relatively low-cost location when compared to major business and IT centers like New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, but offers good infrastructure, close proximity to key financial and industrials hubs in northern and western India and a local pool of highly educated workers.

“There is a lot of potential in this location if the right steps are taken now and we plan to rapidly become a major employer of high caliber professionals in Indore,” said Dr. Shan Nair, co-founder of Nair and Co., who recently received the prestigious ‘Bharat Samman’ (Pride of India) and ‘Hind Rattan’ (Jewel of India) awards for global leadership and his outstanding achievements in business.

Nair and Co.’s office is located in Indore’s most popular commercial center, which also is home to corporations like Reliance Communication and Bharti Axa.

A formal inauguration ceremony for the office is planned for the next quarter. Government officials and representatives of local business organizations are expected to take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Nair and Co. provides businesses with an integrated solution in the HR, finance, tax, compliance and legal arenas making a company’s move overseas less risky, stress free and more strategic.

Headquartered in U.K., it has 700+ client operations in 40+ countries with key offices in India, China, U.S.A., and Japan. (ANI)

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