New US H-1B norms won't make much difference: Nasscom
Bengaluru: The United States' latest move on issuing H-1B visas to software engineers will not make much difference to Indian IT firms, apex industry body Nasscom said on Friday.
"The new measure will be an unnecessary and expensive burden that will not make much difference to our member firms, which are in the business of providing solutions to client companies," said the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) in a statement here.
In line with US President Donald Trump's "Buy American and Hire American" policy, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday declared that the hiring firms have to prove that their employees working at a third-party worksite have specific and non-qualifying speculative agreements in specialty occupation.
The H-1B programme offers temporary US visas that allow firms to hire skilled overseas professionals working in areas with shortage of qualified American workers. Indians get most of the H1-B visas, although there are no national quotas for the facility nor is it specifically designed for Indians.
Of the 65,000 H-1B visas the USCIS issues for October 1-September 30 period every year, about 40,000 are bagged by Indian firms, mostly in the services sector. The top 10 global firms, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL and Tech Mahindra, corner about 20,000-25,000, with the remaining shared by mid-size and smaller Indian firms.
Under the new policy, the USCIS says the employers must provide contracts and itineraries for employees who will work at a third-party location.
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Indigo flights chaos: SCR to run special trains to clear passenger rush
Hyderabad (PTI): The South Central Railway on Saturday announced that it would run four special trains to manage the surge in passengers resulting from the large-scale cancellation of IndiGo flights here.
The move comes as flyers face significant disruption and long queues at the airport due to the cancellation.
A press release from the SCR said it is running the special trains to clear the extra rush of passengers to Chennai, Mumbai and Shalimar (Kolkata) from Hyderabad today.
Meanwhile, as many as 43 outbound Indigo flights were cancelled from here on Saturday, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport sources said.
Similarly, 26 incoming flights are also likely to be cancelled during the day, they said.
The flight cancellations drew ire from passengers, who thronged the IndiGo counters at the airport demanding to know the exact situation.
“This is utter nonsense! Digiyatra done, message received that departure has been rescheduled ahead of the scheduled departure and now upon arriving at Hyderabad airport coming to know at the security checkpoint that Indigo flight is cancelled,” Tarun Singha, former Ministry of Defence spokesperson said in a post on X.
“But the thing is if you don’t shout they do nothing. Example at Hyderabad Airport, there was no staff no flight information for an hour. Then a fellow passenger started shouting on mic and an Indigo staff appeared finally,” a netizen said in a post.
On Friday, when IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports, its CEO Pieter Elbers apologised in a video message for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.
In the one-way video communication, Elbers also said that the airline was expecting fewer than 1,000 flights on Saturday.
