Junior Digest

New Delhi, Jun 16 :  IT industry should help India build a USD 1 trillion digital economy within four years by creating affordable technology and an inclusive environment, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

Highlighting multi-billion dollar opportunities that exist in areas like IT and IT enabled services, e-commerce, electronics manufacturing, digital payments and cyber security, he said that achieving USD 1 trillion digital economy is not a “tall claim”.

“I don’t have any doubt that it will become USD 1 trillion in 7 year. My humble request is why to wait for 7 years. Can we do it in 3-4 years?” the law and IT minister said in a keynote address to technology leaders here.

The meeting on building India’s digital economy was attended by experts like Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar, Google India’s Rajan Anandan, Wipro’s Rishad Premji, Indian Cellular Association National President Pankaj Mohindroo, Internet and Mobile Association of India President Subho Ray and Hike Messenger CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal among others.

The Indian IT sector has crossed Rs 10 lakh crore in revenue and exports have crossed Rs 7.5 lakh crore, Prasad said, adding that the country needs to develop its own model for digital development that is inclusive.

“Create a technology which is affordable, create infrastructure which is developmental, create an environment which is inclusive,” he said.

Companies can also make India a hub of low-cost technology for cyber security, he added.

Minister of State for Law and IT PP Chaudhary said that cyber security is of immense important and companies should look at storing all data within Indian boundaries in secure manner.

The US central bank, as widely expected, voted Wednesday to raise interest rates by another quarter point to between 1 and 1.25 per cent.

“The Committee expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant gradual increases in the federal funds rate,” the Fed’s rate-setting committee said in a statement.

Its latest forecasts indicate one more rate hike in 2017 and a further three in 2018.

The Fed, chaired by Janet Yellen, also said it was preparing to start reducing its $4,500bn balance sheet later in 2017, although it didn’t give a specific date.

Kolkata:  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee  said the Centre must announce a farm loan waiver across the country and claimed that the farmers were in distress “due to demonetisation”.

“When the farmers are agitating, GOI cannot be silent.

This farmer distress is the effect of #DeMonetisation,” she wrote on Twitter.

“An assurance was given by the ruling party and now they must fulfill their commitment without trying to pass the buck to the States (sic),” she said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had stated on Monday that the Centre would not extend financial help to the states in waiving the farm loans and made it clear that the cost had to be borne by them.

The Centre’s stance assumes significance in the backdrop of the Maharashtra government announcing a farm loan waiver as violent protests were staged by the farmers in Madhya Pradesh recently demanding a loan waiver.

New Delhi, Jun 14 :  A student who wrote the class XII board exams this year from Saudi Arabia has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the CBSE’s November last year decision to do away with re-evaluation of answer sheets.

A bench of justices S Muralidhar and C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Central Board of Secondary Examinations (CBSE) and its controller of exams and sought their stand on the student’s plea also seeking re-evaluation of his Physics, Chemistry and Maths answer sheets.

The petitioner has claimed that CBSE had recently made a statement before the Orissa High Court that the facility of re-evaluation of answer sheets is still available.

The submission was made during hearing of a plea by some students who were seeking re-evaluation of their answer sheets.

Subsequently, the Orissa High Court had allowed the students to apply for re-evaluation and had directed the Board to set up an expert committee to carry out the exercise within three days, the petition has said.

The petitioner student from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, has sought parity with the students from Odisha who were allowed to apply for re-evaluation of their answer scripts.

The Delhi High Court while seeking the CBSE’s reply to the petition by June 21, also directed the Board to place on record the statement made by it before the Orissa High Court.

The petitioner student has also challenged the CBSE’s May 29, 2017 notification which lays down the process and fees for re-verification of the marks and for obtaining the photocopies of the evaluated answer sheets.

As per the May 29 notification, Rs 700 per subject has to be paid for getting a copy of the answer sheet and Rs 500 per subject for re-verification of the marks, the petition has said and added that neither process provides a student with a remedy if the evaluation has been erratic.

In the instant matter, the petitioner student has contended that he and several other students whose exam centre was at the Al Alia International School in Riyadh, have been awarded very low marks, especially in Science stream, due to erratic evaluation of their answer sheets.

New Delhi, Jun 14:  Farmers will continue to get short-term crop loans up to Rs 3 lakh at an interest rate of 7 per cent and prompt repayers at 4 per cent as the government on Tuesday approved extending a scheme with Rs 20,339 crore funds to make available cheaper loans to the farming community.

That apart, farmers will get loans for post-harvest storage of their produce at a subsidised interest rate of 7 per cent for six months.

To provide relief to farmers affected by natural calamities, the government has decided to give 2 per cent interest subsidy for first year on the restructured amount.

These decisions were taken at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The Cabinet has approved the Interest Subvention Scheme (ISS) for farmers for 2017-18… The government has earmarked a sum of Rs 20,339 crore for this purpose,” an official statement said.

Stating that credit is a critical input in achieving higher farm output, the government said the institutional credit will help in delinking the farmers from non- institutional sources of credit where they are compelled to borrow at usurious rates of interest.

Since the crop insurance under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is linked to availing of crop loans, the farmers stand to benefit from both farmer-oriented initiatives of the government.

The interest subvention scheme, which has been running since 2006-07, will continue for the current fiscal and will be implemented by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) and the Reserve Bank.

Normally, farm loan attracts an interest rate of 9 per cent. But the government has been providing interest subvention to make available short-term farm credit at an affordable rate and help boost farm output.

Under the scheme, the government will continue to provide 2 per cent interest subsidy to ensure farmers get short-term farm loan of up to Rs 3 lakh at an effective rate of 7 per cent for 2017-18.

Additional, 3 per cent interest subsidy will be given to those who repay on time. Only 4 per cent interest will be charged from prompt repayers, the statement said.

As an interim measure, the Reserve Bank last month had asked the banks to continue giving the discount on interest on short-term crop loans in the current fiscal.

The interest subvention will be given to public sector banks (PSBs), private lenders, cooperative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs) on use of own funds and to Nabard for refinance for RRBs and cooperative banks.

The Cabinet decision to continue the interest subvention comes at a time when farmers are in agitation mode in several parts of the country, especially in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, demanding loan waiver. The northern state of Uttar Pradesh and the west central Maharashtra state have already announced such waiver.

The government said all short-term crop loan accounts will be Aadhaar-linked from the current year.

For 2017-18, the target of agriculture credit has been raised to Rs 10 lakh crore, from Rs 9 lakh crore in 2016-17.

Colombo, Jun 14 :  Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today directed the police to take action against those involved in the recent spate of attacks against the Muslim community in the Buddhist-majority country.

“The police has taken action to arrest some of them and produce them in court. Further action will be continued,” Wickremesinghe said.

The premier said the Cabinet had decided yesterday to condemn the violence against the Muslim community.

“We are deeply concerned by the recent incidents of violence targeting places of religious worship, shops and business enterprises and houses. We denounce in the strongest terms these acts of violence and hatred, including hate speech by certain individuals and groups aimed and inciting violence,” a statement released by the Cabinet said.

The minority Muslim community has been complaining of increasing attacks against them. Since mid-April over 30 such incidents had been recorded.

Muslims, who account for around 9 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population of 21 million, have blamed the attacks on the Body Bala Sena, or Forces of Buddhist power, an organisation that says the spread of Islam threatens Buddhism as the dominant religion.

The police this week made three arrests after charges that they had turned a blind eye to the incidents purportedly carried out by the BBS.

“Police has not neglected their duties, they are proceeding,” Wickremesinghe said.

However, the BBS leader Galagodaatte Gnanasara remains at large despite a police hunt for his arrest over his responsibility to attacks against the Muslims.

Yesterday, he had filed a petition in the Supreme Court to prevent his arrest.

Gnanasara is facing contempt of court charges. His failure to attend court is currently being probed as he had cited medical reasons and death threats against him for his failure to attend court.

Scientists have developed a new form of ultra strong, lightweight carbon that is elastic and electrically conductive, and may serve a wide variety of applications from aerospace engineering to military armour.

Researchers, including those from Carnegie Institution for Science in the US, pressurised and heated a structurally disordered form of carbon called glassy carbon.

They brought the glassy carbon starting material to about 250,000 times normal atmospheric pressure and heated to over 980 degrees Celsius to create the new strong and elastic carbon.

The newly created carbon is comprised of both graphite- like and diamond-like bonding motifs, which gives rise to the unique combination of properties, researchers said.

Under the high-pressure synthesis conditions, disordered layers within the glassy carbon buckle, merge and connect in various ways, they said.

This process creates an overall structure that lacks a long-range spatial order, but has a short-range spatial organisation on the nanometre scale.

“Light materials with high strength and robust elasticity like this are very desirable for applications where weight savings are of the utmost importance, even more than material cost,” said Zhisheng Zhao, professor at Yanshan University in China.

“What is more, we believe that this synthesis method could be honed to create other extraordinary forms of carbon and entirely different classes of materials,” Zhao added.

Prime Minister Theresa May was fighting to hold on to her job on Friday as British voters denied her the stronger mandate she had sought to lead the country into divorce talks with the European Union. With no clear winner emerging from Thursday’s parliamentary election, a wounded May signalled she would fight on, despite being on course to lose her majority in the House of Commons. Her Labour rival Jeremy Corbyn said she should step down.

An updated BBC forecast predicted May’s Conservatives would win 318 of the 650 seats, eight short of a majority, while Corbyn’s left-wing Labour would take 267 — producing a “hung parliament” and potential deadlock.
Sky News predicted May would score somewhere between 315 and 325 seats.

With talks of unprecedented complexity on Britain’s departure from the European Union due to start in just 10 days’ time, there was uncertainty over who would form the next government and over the fundamental direction Brexit would take.

“At this time, more than anything else this country needs a period of stability,” a grim-faced May said after winning her own parliamentary seat of Maidenhead, near London.
“If … the Conservative Party has won the most seats and probably the most votes then it will be incumbent on us to ensure that we have that period of stability and that is exactly what we will do.”

The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the law making Aadhaar mandatory for allotment of PAN and filing of Income Tax(IT) returns but exempted those without it for now until the larger privacy issue is decided.

In effect, those who possess an Aadhaar card must link it to their Permanent Account Number(PAN) card and those who have enrolled and not yet got their Aadhaar card are also exempted from mandatory linkage and the penalising invalidation of their PANs if they don t link it.

The apex court while upholding the validity of a fresh provision in the Income Tax (IT) law making Aadhaar compulsory for allotment of PAN and filing of IT returns imposed a partial stay on it till its constitution bench decides the right to privacy issue connected with it.

Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of income tax returns and making application for allotment of PAN with effect from July 1 this year.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, which upheld the legislative competence of the Parliament in enacting the law to this effect, said there was no conflict between the impugned provision of the Income Tax Act and the Aadhaar Act.

It said that PAN card without Aadhaar number would not be treated invalid till the Constitution bench decides the larger issue of Right to Privacy.

The bench said that previous transactions won’t be affected or nullified with partial stay on the new law till privacy issue linked to Aadhaar is decided.

Further, the bench also clarified that there would be no retrospective implementation of the provision to invalidate the PAN for non-compliance of unique identification number under the Aadhaar scheme.

While reading the operative portion of the judgement, the bench said, “we are of the opinion that till Article 21 (concerning right to privacy) of the Constitution is decided by the Constitution bench, a partial stay is required (on section 139 AA of IT Act).”

Upholding the validity of Section 139AA of the IT Act subject to the outcome of the batch of petitions before its Constitution bench which is examining if Aadhaar scheme infringes on the Right to Privacy and if there is threat of data leakage, the bench said PAN holders already having Aadhaar have to link both.

The bench clarified that it has not touched upon the issue of Right to Privacy and other aspects that the Aadhaar scheme also affects the human dignity which has to be decided by the Constitution bench.

However, the bench asked the government to take appropriate steps to ensure there was no leakage of data from the Aadhaar scheme as apprehensions have been expressed that there was a possibility of the data being compromised.

“The government to take proper and appropriate steps and the scheme in this regard has to be devised at the earliest till confidence among the citizens that the data would not be leaked,” the bench said.

The bench rejected the contention that since the apex court has been passing orders time and again on the issue of Aadhaar, government should not have come out with a provision in the IT law to make UIDAI mandatory for the purpose of allotment of PAN and linking it with the ITR.

“We have rejected this (argument). We have also rejected that it violates Article 19 (1) (g) and Article 14 of the Constitution,” the bench said.

The court had on May 4 reserved the verdict on a batch of petitions challenging section 139AA of the I-T Act, which was introduced through the latest budget and the Finance Act, 2017.

The Centre had earlier said that the programme of PAN had become suspect as it could be faked, while Aadhaar was a “secure and robust” system by which the identity of an individual could not be faked.

While opposing the government’s move, thepetitioners, including CPI leader Binoy Viswam, have contended before the bench that the Centre cannot “belittle” the apex court’s 2015 order holding the unique identification number as voluntary.

They had argued that government should not have enacted section 139AA in the Act to make Aadhaar mandatory for PAN as the apex court’s five-judge bench order was clear that Aadhaar was voluntary and not mandatory.

However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had contended that Aadhaar was made mandatory for allotment of PAN to weed out fake cards which were used for terror financing and circulation of black money.

Rohatgi had said that with the implementation of Aadhaar, the government had saved over Rs 50,000 crore on various schemes to benefit the poor as well as pension schemes.

The Centre had also told the court that fake PAN cards were being used to “divert funds” to shell companies.

The Supreme Court had observed that it was yet to be “tested” whether Aadhaar violated protection of life and personal liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution, which was pending hearing for an authoritative pronouncement by a five-judge Constitution Bench.

Danushka Gunathilaka and Kusal Mendis were the heroes as Sri Lanka chased down 322 runs to upset India by seven wickets at the Oval on Thursday and throw Champions Trophy Group B wide open.

Shikhar Dhawan’s superb 125 had led India to an imposing total of 321 for six but Gunathilaka (76) and Mendis (89) shared a second-wicket partnership of 159 to set up an unlikely win for Sri Lanka, who achieved the highest successful run chase in the tournament’s history.

All four teams in Group B have one victory from two matches going into the final round of games in which Sri Lanka face Pakistan and defending champions India meet South Africa.

India, who had beaten Sri Lanka in 14 of their last 17 one-day internationals, were given the perfect start by Dhawan and Rohit Sharma who shared a composed opening stand of 138 under slate grey skies.

Sharma was the more aggressive, hitting three sixes and six fours before he was caught in the deep by Thisara Perera off Lasith Malinga for 78.

Captain Virat Kohli had the perfect stage to display his array of attacking strokes but he immediately nicked Nuwan Pradeep to wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella, sending the Indian fans into a stunned silence as he headed back to the pavilion for a duck.

Yuvraj Singh contributed seven scratchy runs and it was left to Dhawan to increase the tempo along with former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Dhawan cut Pradeep for his 13th four to reach his 10th one-day international century and following his dismissal Dhoni took charge, bludgeoning 63 off 52 balls to lift his side to a commanding score.

Sri Lanka’s chase started badly when they lost Dickwella for seven but Gunathilaka and Mendis played freely from the start.

The former got to his fifty off 47 balls, including two sixes and five fours, and Mendis soon followed him to the milestone.

The Indian bowlers looked short of inspiration and it took a Sri Lankan error of judgement to end the partnership when Gunathilaka was needlessly run out going for a risky second.

Mendis was also run out following a brilliant pick-up and throw by bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar but the double blow did not upset Sri Lanka’s concentration.

Kusal Perera and captain Angelo Mathews added 75 runs off 63 deliveries before Perera was forced to retire hurt on 47 due to a hamstring injury.

But Asela Gunaratne (34 not out) joined Mathews who finished unbeaten on 52 as Sri Lanka eased to a famous victory with eight balls to spare.

An air force source confirmed to AFP that a navy search and rescue ship had found pieces of the plane in the sea an hour’s flight south of Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital. The commander in chief’s office said the plane lost contact at about 1:35 pm (local time) off Myanmar’s southern coast. There was conflicting information about the number of people on board.

Giving an updated figure, the office said 106 passengers were on board — soldiers and family members — along with 14 crew. The air force source said more than a dozen of those on board were children. Four naval ships and two air force planes were sent to search for the plane, which was flying at an altitude of more than 18,000 feet (5,486 metres).

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of bad weather at the time the plane went missing. The plane was a Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop, a Chinese-made model still commonly used by Myanmar’s military for transporting cargo. The army said it was delivered in March last year and had logged 809 flying hours.

The former military junta bought many of the aircraft from Myanmar’s giant neighbour during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions. A former executive at the aviation ministry said many of the aircraft in Myanmar’s fleet were old and decrepit. “Myanmar air force has very bad safety performance,” he said, asking to remain nameless.

Myanmar’s military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes. All five crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago. A surge in demand for air travel as Myanmar opens up has stretched the impoverished country’s aviation infrastructure, in particular in remote airports.

Commercial jets have also suffered frequent incidents. The worst in recent years was in 2012 when an Air Bagan jet crash-landed in thick fog and burst into flames short of the runway at Heho airport, killing one passenger and a motorcyclist on the ground.

Comey said Trump told him at a dinner on Jan. 27, a week after the president took office, that: “I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.”

Comey, who Trump fired last month, is to deliver his testimony in person at a much-anticipated hearing at the intelligence committee on Thursday.

During the dinner, the president asked him if he wanted to stay on as FBI director, Comey said. The former FBI head said he became concerned that Trump was trying to create “some sort of patronage relationship.”

Probes of the Russia allegations have hung over Trump’s presidency since he took office and threaten to overwhelm his policy priorities, with several congressional committees conducting their own investigations of the alleged meddling by Moscow.

The Kremlin denies U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Trump’s favor, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump has denied any collusion.

Moscow, Jun 8 : Russian officials today angrily rejected allegations that Russian hackers breached Qatar’s state news agency and planted a fake news story that led to a split between Qatar and the other Arab nations.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, today dismissed yesterday’s CNN report containing the claim as “yet another fake, another lie.”

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen cut diplomatic ties with the tiny Gulf state, accusing Qatar of harbouring extremists and backing Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran. Qatar has denied the allegations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also dismissed CNN’s report yesterday, saying it “further undermined its reputation as an independent and objective media outlet.”

“CNN and some other media sit and wait for any kind of scandal … to automatically and without any evidence blame it on Russia or Russian hackers,” he said at a news conference following his talks with Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis.

Tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia – a Middle East heavyweight – bubbled to the surface two weeks ago when Qatar said its state-run news agency and its Twitter account were hacked to publish a fake story claiming the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, had called Iran “a regional and Islamic power that cannot be ignored.”

State-linked media in the region ignored Qatar’s denial and continued to report the comments. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt blocked access to Al Jazeera and launched an aggressive campaign accusing Qatar of supporting terrorist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, destabilising the region and stabbing its allies in the back.

Putin had a telephone conversation with the emir of Qatar yesterday, urging dialogue. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the allegations of Russian hacking weren’t discussed.

Lavrov emphasised that “it’s important to settle any differences at a negotiating table to ease concerns that emerged and pool efforts in the fight against the main regional threat, terrorism.”

Andrei Krutskhikh, the Russian president’s special envoy for cybersecurity, told the Interfax news agency that Tuesday’s CNN report contains “zero evidence” that the Russian government was behind the news story.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee at the upper chamber of parliament, today dismissed the accusations as “an attempt to push the US against Russia as key players in the Middle East.”

“The world has gone crazy,” Dzhabarov said. “Whatever happens, there is a Russian trace there, the trace of Russian hackers.

Mumbai, Jun8 : The Reserve Bank on Wednesday said nearly 83 per cent of the currency has been remonetised so far and denied there was any shortage of cash in the system.

“According to our latest data, 82.67 per cent of the currency has been remonetised and in volume terms, it is 108 per cent,” RBI deputy governor B P Kanungo told reporters here on Wednesday.

The government had demonetised old INR 500 and INR 1,000 notes on November 9, junking nearly 87 per cent of the currency in circulation.

In a reply to questions in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal on December 2, 2016, had said the day on which demonetisation was announced (November 8), there were 17,165 million pieces of INR 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of INR 1,000 notes in circulation.

The data on the amount of demonetised notes returned back however continues to be elusive.

Kanungo further said it would be wrong to assume that there is any shortage of currency in the system.

Customers across the country have been complaining of severe shortage of currency at the banks and ATMs.

Kanungo admitted that there could be shortage in some areas but said RBI is monitoring the situation on a regular basis and has made enough arrangements to replenish cash.

“Yes, there could be shortage of currency in some pockets but whenever such things come to our notice, we respond immediately through various measures including inter-chest remittances.

“I won’t agree to the view that there is cash shortage on a longer term basis or persistent basis at any place,” he said.

On shortage of cash at ATMs, the deputy governor said in an area where there are seven to eight ATMs, there is always one or two ATMs which would be dispensing cash.

New Delhi, Jun 7: Passengers flying on Indian carriers to Qatar will face increased travel hours as airlines have been forced to take longer routes over Pakistan and Iran, amid airspace curbs in the Gulf region.

Jet Airways, Air India Express and IndiGo are now operating flights to Qatar’s capital Doha through Pakistan and Iran airspace following restrictions imposed by the UAE.

Apart from longer flying hours, the airlines would see a spike in costs for operating these flights due to higher fuel burn and the need for having additional human resources.

In a major diplomatic face-off in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and various other countries have severed their ties with Qatar, accusing the latter of extending support to extremists.

The development has impacted flight operations in the region with airspace restrictions in place and the UAE imposing curbs on flights to and from Doha using its airspace.

As per official data, little over 28 lakh passengers flew to and from Indian cities and Doha in 2016.

Air India Express CEO K Shyam Sundar said its flights to Doha have started taking the alternative route following restrictions in the UAE airspace.

“The duration of our flights to Doha will increase by an hour and a half or so in either direction. We will have to avoid the UAE airspace and fly over Pakistan and Iran instead,” Sundar told PTI.

An Air India Express flight takes nearly three hours and 30 minutes to complete Mumbai-Doha flight while the duration is around four hours for the flight between Kozhikode and Doha.

Air India Express, part of Air India group, has 14 flights from Kozhikode, Mangalore and Mumbai.

A spokesperson for IndiGo — which operates a flight each from Delhi and Mumbai to Doha — said it is now operating through Pakistan and Iran airspace.

“We have tactically altered our routes from today pending future course of action by UAE… Flights originating from Mumbai will be extended by 30-40 minutes and from southern cities it will be even more. Flights from Mumbai will now have to fly over Karachi (Pakistan), Bandar Abbas (Iran) to Doha,” the spokesperson noted.

The airline also plans to introduce flights to Doha from Chennai and Kozhikode.

A Jet Airways spokesperson said all its scheduled flights to and from Doha would operate on the alternative northern route via Iran avoiding the UAE airspace.

“The flights will see additional flying time of about 10 -40 minutes and the airline intends to augment the number of its crew members on the Doha flights for the additional flying time,” he said.

He also said the airline is continuing to work with the UAE authorities to seek permissions for overflying the UAE airspace.

“We continue to serve our guests with six flights between various Indian cities and Doha,” he said, adding that steps are being taken to maintain its network integrity, minimise inconvenience and ensure safety of guests.

Jet Airways, whose strategic partner is UAE-based Etihad Airways, operates flights from Delhi, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mumbai and Thiruvananthpuram.

A longer flight also means an increase in operational costs as planes burn more fuel.

For the time being, Sundar said Air India Express is not thinking of revising fares for the Doha flights.

“Not at this time. Cost of operations is going to increase but fares will be determined by how the markets react. If it (diplomatic tension) is a short-term thing then we will take it as it is without any revision,” Sundar said.

Air India Express flights to Doha would now have a layover at Doha to adhere to Flight and Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) for pilots and crew. This would also result in higher expenses such as for hotel accommodation for the airline crew.

On the flip side, industry insiders hope that the ongoing crisis in the Gulf region could result in benefits for Indian carriers.

“The major carriers to US and UK are Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Lufthansa, British Airways… These airlines might also fly through India and that could mean more passengers for Indian carriers,” an official at a domestic airline said.

Qatar Airways flies to 14 Indian cities and carries a substantial number of transit passengers.

For such passengers, the restrictions would mean fewer options while planning their travel.

As many as seven countries — Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Yemen, Libya’s eastern-based government and the Maldives — have severed diplomatic ties with Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain and Egypt have also closed all transport links by air, land and sea resulting in Qatar Airways suspending flights to these countries.

On Monday, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said it was closing the airspace and seaports for all Qataris. Besides, there is a ban on transportation, coming to or leaving the UAE, from crossing, entering or leaving the UAE territories.

“… taking all legal measures in collaboration with friendly countries and international companies with regards to Qataris using the UAE airspace and territorial waters, from and to Qatar, for national security considerations,” it had said in a statement.

Aviation think-tank CAPA South Asia’s CEO and Director Kapil Kaul said unless the issue is quickly resolved, Qatar Airways would be severely and strategically hurt and the Middle East aviation significantly damaged in the near term.