Supreme Court imposes Rs 10 lakh fine on SpiceJet for offloading disabled flyer
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed budget airline SpiceJet to pay Rs 10 lakh as damages to a flyer, suffering from cerebral palsy, who was forcibly offloaded in 2012, saying the manner in which she was deboarded depicts total lack of sensitivity. The apex court noted that the disabled flier Jeeja Ghosh was not given appropriate, fair and caring treatment which she required with due sensitivity and the decision to de-board her was uncalled for. On our finding that SpiceJet acted in a callous manner, and in the process violated Rules, 1937 and Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), 2008 guidelines resulting in mental and physical suffering experienced by Ghosh and also unreasonable discrimination against her, we award a sum of Rs 10,00,000 as damages to be payable to her, a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and R K Agrawal said. Ghosh was offloaded from a SpiceJet flight on February 19, 2012 from Kolkata when she was going to attend a conference in Goa hosted by NGO ADAPT (Able Disable All People Together), the second petitioner in the case. The apex court said the decision to offload Ghosh was taken by the airlines without any medical advise or consideration and her condition was not such which required any assistive devices or aids. “Even if we assume that there was some blood or froth that was noticed to be oozing out from the sides of her mouth when she was seated in the aircraft (though vehemently denied by her), nobody even cared to interact with her and asked her the reason for the same. No doctor was summoned to examine her condition. Abruptly and without any justification, a decision was taken to de-board her without ascertaining as to whether her condition was such which prevented her from flying. This clearly amounts to violation of Rule 133-A of Rules, 1937 and the CAR, 2008 guidelines,” the bench said. Phillip Gaines Jersey
Bangalore’s Aequs Aerospace to supply titanium machined parts to Airbus
Airbus on Thursday said that it has contracted Bangalore’s Aequs Aerospace to supply over 100,000 titanium machined parts for the A320neo (new engine option) programme. These parts will be delivered to the Airbus plant in Toulouse, France where they will be assembled onto the pylon structure, used to mount engines on the aircraft wing. Aequs will make the parts at its aerospace machining facility at Belagavi, Karnataka. It was purpose-built to manufacture aerospace machined components for Airbus. Airbus annual procurement from India in 2015 was over $500, up 15% on 2014. Overall, Airbus’ procurement from India has grown 16 times in the last decade. Cameron Meredith Womens Jersey
Vistara, AirAsia may soon fly abroad as key ministries support abolition of 5/20 rule
Vistara and AirAsia will soon be able to fly abroad as all key ministries have supported abolition of the five-year 20-aircraft rule that airlines had to meet before commencing international operations. The aviation ministry had sought response from ministries such as finance, home, external affairs and commerce on the proposed new civil aviation policy, before sending it to the Union Cabinet for approval. Abolition of the 5/20 rule was one of the key proposals in it. “Comments from ministries are in support of the abolition of 5/20. The Cabinet note, which has the approval of both ministers (Cabinet Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju and junior Minister Mahesh Sharma), is likely to be sent by the end of this week,” said a senior civil aviation ministry official, who did not want to be named. According to the proposed rules, airlines must allocate 20 aircraft or 20% of their total fleet of aircraft, whichever is higher, to the domestic sector if they wish to fly overseas, ET had reported first on March 9, 2016. The abolition of the minimum time requirement will mean Vistara and AirAsia India, which were launched in 2015 and 2014, respectively, will not have to wait five years for flying abroad, as long as they have a fleet strength of 20. At present the airlines, both part-owned by the Tata Group, have nine and six aircraft, respectively. Government officials in the know also said the external affairs ministry has approved the aviation ministry’s proposal to conduct auction of bilateral traffic rights. The support from the external affairs ministry on auctioning the bilateral is crucial, as it HAD created a rift between both the aviation ministers as well as officials of the aviation ministry. Government officials in the know said minister Raju and a few senior ministry officials wanted auctioning of bilateral rights to bring in transparency in the system of allocation of bilateral rights, as allocation of bilateral rights has created a lot of controversy in the past. Bud Dupree Womens Jersey
Civil Aviation Minister to review Air India performance on May 16
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju will review next week the performance of Air India, which is expected to have eked out “operating profit” last fiscal after being in the red for a decade. The minister will be reviewing the “operational and financial performance” of the national carrier on May 16, according to senior officials. The review meeting, likely to be attended by Raju’s deputy Mahesh Sharma and Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey along with other senior officials, comes ahead of the second anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre. A senior official at the airline said the minister will be taking a review after nearly six months. The last such meeting took place in November last year. The Civil Aviation Secretary takes a review of the carrier every fortnight, he added. Grappling with tough market conditions and intense competition, Air India has been registering losses for quite some time, but the airline’s performance has improved in the last few quarters. “Air India’s all-time performance has increased. This year, it is making profit, which is the first time in the last 10 years. It is making an operating profit. Air India is doing good work,” Raju had said in Parliament last week. The carrier is expected to post an operating profit of Rs 8 crore in 2015-16. In March, Sharma had said the airline is “expected to earn operating profit of Rs 8 crore as compared to the operating loss of Rs 2,636.18 crore in the previous year”. “This is the first time that the company is going to achieve operating profit since its merger in 2007-08,” he had told the Rajya Sabha. Air India ran up losses to the tune of Rs 5,859.91 crore in 2014-15. The improvement is anticipated mainly on account of a steep fall in the jet fuel price, which accounts for 40 per cent of an airline’s operating expenses. In 2012, the government had extended a Rs 30,231-crore lifeline to the national carrier under a turnaround plan stretching over a period of nine years to keep it afloat. This equity infusion includes the financial support towards repayment of principal as well as interest on government-guaranteed loans taken for aircraft acquisition by the airline. As per the 2012 Turn Around Plan (TAP), the government will infuse Rs 18,929 crore for repayment of government- guaranteed loans/interest till 2010-21. Michael Hutchinson Authentic Jersey
Oil supply grows in India, falls at global level: IEA
A global oil glut that has sent prices tumbling is set to “shrink dramatically” later this year, as wildfires have disrupted Canada’s output and demand in India soars, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday. Demand for oil worldwide is set to grow at a “solid” rate in 2016, with India as the “star performer”, the 29-nation IEA said in its monthly report, adding to it they believed “the global supply surplus of oil will shrink dramatically later this year”. “This provides further support for the argument that India is taking over from China as the main growth market for oil,” the 29-nation IEA said in its monthly report. The oil market has for months been depressed by a vast oversupply. Oil prices surged to six-month highs this week and are now well over USD 46 a barrel after plummeting below USD 30 early in the year. They are nevertheless far below the USD 100-a-barrel mark of mid-2014. But the IEA said it believed “that the global supply surplus of oil will shrink dramatically later this year”. In Canada devastating wildfires near Fort McMurray forced a production curb early this month, which, the IEA said, would result in oil supplies falling to just over 3.7 million barrels a day in May, nearly 1 mb/d less than at the start of the year. The IEA said the events in Canada, however, had not sent oil prices sharply higher, as would have been expected some years ago, with Brent crude hovering around USD 45 a barrel showing little reaction. Iran, the IEA said, had provided the other surprise. Its oil production and exports increased slightly faster than expected following Iran’s return to the market after the lifting of sanctions under its nuclear deal. Iranian oil production in April was nearly 3.6 mb/d, a level last achieved in November 2011 before Western sanctions against Tehran were tightened, the IEA noted. “Even more important for global markets, oil exports reached 2 mb/d, a dramatic increase from the 1.4 mb/d seen in March,” it added. Teemu Selanne Jersey
As LPG demand balloons, India to become more reliant on imports
A raft of government initiatives has propelled India’s insatiable appetite for LPG to record highs, leading analysts to believe that growth is expected to hover close to double digit levels in the near to medium term as New Delhi intensifies its push towards cleaner fuels. But with LPG domestic demand growing at a much faster rate than output, the country, where refiners find it more profitable to focus on middle distillates rather than boosting LPG output, will be increasingly dependent on imports to meet its incremental consumption growth, analysts added. LPG demand in March hit a record high of 1.835 million mt, up 14.16% year on year, taking the cumulative demand in January-March 2016 to 5.254 million mt, up 11.28% year on year, data from India’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed. Top officials of Indian oil companies and independent analysts recently told Platts that even though demand growth is unlikely to hold at those lofty levels, LPG demand will continue to grow around 7%-9% over the coming years. “Lower prices and various affirmative government initiatives will support India’s robust LPG demand growth in the medium term,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, Senior Consultant and Asia Downstream Specialist at Facts Global Energy. Paravaikkarasu said around 2.1 million new LPG connections were added across the country in March, which contributed to the surge in demand. In addition non-subsidized LPG consumption grew by 35% year on year in March. “We expect demand growth to remain strong in the coming quarters, albeit at slightly reduced levels than that seen in recent months,” Paravaikkarasu said. PPAC said that LPG demand from India’s auto sector grew 3.3% year on year n March, while cumulative growth was 4.3% over fiscal year 2015-2016 (April-March). “Even commercial LPG is now substantially cheaper than gasoline/diesel due to the multiple hikes in excise duties on these liquid fuels. This makes LPG attractive for auto LPG usage too,” Macquarie said in a research study on India’s oil sector. India’s LPG demand rose 8.6% year on year to 19.55 million mt in fiscal year 2015-2016, while the country imported 8.88 million mt of LPG over the period to meet its domestic needs. Industry sources have said that India’s LPG imports could surge in fiscal year 2016-2017, prompting the country to compete with Japan and China for the title of Asia’s biggest importer. “India’s LPG imports will keep rising,” said Paravaikkarasu. “Other than the recent Paradip refinery, we are not going to see any other grassroot additions in the near future. This will restrict growth in domestic supplies.” Paravaikkarasu said she expects India’s LPG imports to rise 30,000 b/d year on year during fiscal year 2016-2017. Expanding The Reach The BJP-led government, since coming to power in 2014, has undertaken a series of initiatives to help boost LPG penetration across the country. In its push towards making 2016 the “year of LPG consumers,” the Indian government has set an ambitious target of opening 10,000 new LPG dealerships across the country this year, in addition to the 16,000 that already exist. It has urged the more affluent class of society to give up their subsidized LPG connections. Around 10 million consumers have given up their LPG subsidies already. The growth in March meant that LPG consumption has recorded positive growth over 31 months in a row. Jordan Oesterle Womens Jersey
MRPL Says Owes About $2.6 Billion In Oil Dues To Iran
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd currently owes about $2.6 billion to Iran and wants to settle the dues as soon as a payment mechanism is worked out, Managing Director H. Kumar said. The state-run refiner, which operates a 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in southern Karnataka state, is a key oil client of Iran. The central banks of India and Iran have reached an arrangement to use European banks to process pending oil payments to Tehran, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Reuters last week. MRPL has shut a 60,000 bpd crude unit, a coker and a diesel hydrotreater, along with some other units since May 3 due to an acute water shortage in the state. The local authorities have stopped water supply to the refinery. “Our endeavour is to run the units till the last day… If it doesn’t rain till May 17-18 then we will review the situation. We may have to shut some more units,” said Mr Kumar. Because of the shutdown, MRPL’s diesel and liquefied petroleum gas production has been halved while gasoline consumption has been cut by 30 percent. Jonathan Ogden Authentic Jersey
Cairn gives 2 more yrs to Vedanta for $1.25 billion loan repayment, at higher interest
Cairn India has extended the repayment period for a $1.25 billion loan to a group company by two years but at a higher interest rate. The loan was given for two years in May 2014, to THL Zinc (TZL), a foreign subsidiary of Vedanta, the parent entity. Cairn India Holdings (CIHL), a subsidiary abroad of Cairn India Ltd, has decided on a two-year extension, the BSE was informed. A CLSA report had earlier suggested Cairn India seek a clarification from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, since the loan comes under Section 49 of the latter’s listing agreement rules which applied from October 2014, after the loan was granted), and as the loan crossed the threshold set by the clauses for a shareholder vote. A person close to the development said shareholder approval was not required since the transaction did not come under the norms in this regard, with both the companies being foreign entities and not listed in India. The loan extension is on an ‘arm’s length’ basis, at a revised rate of interest of Libor plus 450 basis points in the first year and at Libor plus 475 bps in the second year (compared to the existing rate of Libor plus 300 bps). It is on terms that are market standards, including change of control provisions, and will continue to be secured by a guarantee from Vedanta Resources Plc, said the company. The return from the said loan will provide higher yield to CIHL, compared to the return it is earning from its existing investment out of its cash and cash equivalents, which are denominated in dollars, it added. TZL is the holding company of the Vedanta group’s international zinc business, with assets in South Africa and Namibia. Cairn India reported a historic quarterly loss of Rs 109.48 billion last month for January-March 2016. It also undertook an impairment of Rs 116.74 billion for the full year ending March 2016. The continued fall in crude oil prices has pulled down its performance. The company closed 2015-16 with a loss of Rs 94.32 billion and a normalised profit after tax of Rs 21.45 billion, compared to Rs 44.80 billion profit the previous year. The company had also taken an impairment of Rs 5.05 billion last year in the fourth quarter on account of its Sri Lankan assets. The company’s realisation was down 42 per cent to $28.2 a barrel of oil equivalent, compared to the quarter ending March 2015. It was almost $41 for 2015-16, a 46 per cent fall over the previous year. Rishard Matthews Authentic Jersey
Billionaire Ruias Seek to Pump India’s First Shale Natural Gas
Essar Oil Ltd. has approached the government for permission to further explore shale formations in its eastern India coal-bed methane block as part of its effort to maximize the production of unconventional resources. The company’s current production of coal-bed methane, which generates a large volume of water, can complement shale gas exploration, which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals underground to release fuel, according to Manish Maheshwari, chief executive officer of Essar Oil’s exploration and production business. “The unconventional can become the new conventional in India,” Maheshwari said in an interview. “The unconventional will include CBM, shale and tight gas.” Essar Oil’s optimism about shale production from its Raniganj block in West Bengal has been further boosted by a streamlined government hydrocarbon policy announced in March that allows companies to explore and produce for all forms of hydrocarbons in a designated area under a single license. The company is currently producing around 900,000 cubic meters a day of coal-bed methane from the Raniganj block and plans to double the volume by March. It aims to hit peak output of 3 million cubic meters a day by March 2019, a delay of four years, which the company attributed to reservoir and technical difficulties. Essar Oil is part of a group of companies that includes shipping, steel and energy units controlled by the billionaire Ruia brothers. Extracting both shale and CBM from the same block won’t be easy for Essar, said Sachin Mehta, an analyst at Centrum Broking Ltd. “It could be technically very challenging to extract shale gas out of coal-bed blocks and then the cost required to achieve that could make it more difficult,” he said. “Commercial viability is an issue as shale is viable only at a certain price.” The Raniganj block holds proved, probable and possible reserves of 1.1 trillion cubic feet of coal-bed methane, according to Maheshwari. It’s also contains 1 trillion cubic feet of gas trapped in shale formations, using the Society of Petroleum Engineers classification as “best estimate” resources, he said. Jordan Howard Womens Jersey