By: Saritha RaiUS President Donald Trump’s plan to ban spouses of high-skill visa holders from working will likely push 100,000 people out of jobs and negatively affect the visa holders and their employers, according to a new research study.The Trump Administration has been tightening the rules for H-1B visas, which allow foreign workers to take jobs in the US for several years, and plans to revoke the ability of spouses to work as part of the effort. In that context, Christopher J. L. Cunningham of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Pooja B. Vijayakumar from the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick set out to study the implications of such a policy change.They found that such a shift would likely isolate spouses socially, raise domestic tensions and strain the family’s financial resources. It would also probably hurt the visa holder’s satisfaction and increase the risks that they continue in a foreign posting. The cost of failed expatriate assignments ranges from $250,000 to $1 million, in addition to indirect costs, they wrote.“Policy changes like the one being considered for America are often made in the absence of complete information that might help policy makers better understand the true breadth of likely consequences,” the study said.The US began allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in 2015, under the preceding Obama Administration. For their research, the authors studied the experiences of H-1B families in 2014. They contacted 1,800 Indian expatriate to participate in the research and the final sample consisted of 416.Behind the Push to Reform U.S. Work Visa Programs: Quick Take Q&AThe work visa programs, which date back to 1952, were originally designed to allow U.S. companies to hire workers from abroad temporarily when they couldn’t find qualified Americans. But the programs evolved with many allegations that companies, particularly India’s outsourcing giants, had been abusing the visas to get less expensive labor. Trump came into office vowing to overhaul the programs and protect American workers.In that context, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security began the process of reversing the eligibility of H-1B spouses to work. Technology industry groups -- which represent Google and Amazon.com Inc. among others -- have pushed back against the plan, arguing it will hurt spouses, typically women, as well as the visa holders.H-1B visa holders explained myriad problems when spouses couldn’t work. “Very unfair to her, so going back to India,” one told the researchers. “My wife is frustrated that she is unable to further her career,” said another.The researchers said that a reinstated ban likely “will be more critical and difficult for expatriate families than what was experienced in 2014, as many of these individuals who were temporarily benefited by the previous presidential administration’s immigration policies may have, in this time, bought a home or started their own businesses.”Cunningham specializes in industrial, organizational and occupational health psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Vijayakumar is a researcher currently studying expatriation and cross-cultural management.

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Several traders and retailers have taken to the streets across 500 cities to protest against US retail giant Walmart’s potential acquisition of online retailer Flipkart, raising concerns about losing business if the deal concludes. Organised by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the protest is aimed at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to reject Walmart’s proposal to pick up a 77% stake in Flipkart. The trade body is also demanding for an ecommerce policy and an ecommerce regulatory body. “We hope for the government to respond to this protest and take an action against the Walmart-Flipkart deal,” said Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general, CAIT. “We are also waiting to officially hear back from CCI as we have filed a petition with them as well.”That said, Walmart believes that this deal will benefit India by providing ‘quality and affordable’ goods to customers and opportunities to small suppliers, farmers, and entrepreneurs.“In line with government’s FDI policy that allows 100% FDI under automatic route in marketplace ecommerce model, our partnership with Flipkart will provide thousands of local suppliers and manufacturers access consumers through the marketplace model,” said a Walmart India spokesperson. “This partnership will support SME suppliers, farmers in the country to get access to the market through this platform and boost local manufacturing in India.”Currently Walmart India operates its cash-and-carry business across 21 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in India. The company plans open 50 more stores in the next few years with 5-7 set to be launched this year.

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Several traders and retailers have taken to the streets across 500 cities to protest against US retail giant Walmart’s potential acquisition of online retailer Flipkart, raising concerns about losing business if the deal concludes. Organised by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the protest is aimed at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to reject Walmart’s proposal to pick up a 77% stake in Flipkart. The trade body is also demanding for an ecommerce policy and an ecommerce regulatory body. “We hope for the government to respond to this protest and take an action against the Walmart-Flipkart deal,” said Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general, CAIT. “We are also waiting to officially hear back from CCI as we have filed a petition with them as well.”That said, Walmart believes that this deal will benefit India by providing ‘quality and affordable’ goods to customers and opportunities to small suppliers, farmers, and entrepreneurs.“In line with government’s FDI policy that allows 100% FDI under automatic route in marketplace ecommerce model, our partnership with Flipkart will provide thousands of local suppliers and manufacturers access consumers through the marketplace model,” said a Walmart India spokesperson. “This partnership will support SME suppliers, farmers in the country to get access to the market through this platform and boost local manufacturing in India.”Currently Walmart India operates its cash-and-carry business across 21 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in India. The company plans open 50 more stores in the next few years with 5-7 set to be launched this year.

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The Adani group's buyout of Kattupalli port near Chennai from Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T) is likely to boost trade in the region, experts said."With this buy the Adani group gets a major presence in the Eastern Coast catering to the southern market. This may be another Mundra Port for the group but on the Eastern Coast," Ashish Nainan, analyst in Care Ratings, a credit rating agency, told IANS."Under the Adani group, Kattupalli Port will give a big run for its money to the Chennai Port for container cargo," industry watchers told IANS.The Gujarat-based Adani group, through its Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), is a major private player in the sector with presence on the western coast (Mundra Port, Dahej Port, Hazira Port, Vizhinjam Port and terminals in Tuna, Murmugao) and eastern coast (Dhamra Port, Kattupalli Port and terminals in Kamarajar Port and Visakhapatnam Port).In totality, the Adani group has a presence in 10 locations along the Indian coast.On June 29, L&T, in a regulatory filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange said it has executed a Share Purchase Agreement between Marine Infrastructure Developer Private Limited (MIDPL), L&T Shipbuilding Limited and Adani Kattupalli Port Private Limited to acquire 97 per cent shares of MIDPL. MIDPL is the developer and operator of Kattupalli Port.The total purchase price is Rs 1,950 crore enterprise value of which Rs 388 crore is the consideration for sale of shares and remaining Rs 1,562 crore is towards settlement of MIDPL's liabilities.Kattupalli Port is one of the most modern ports in India emerging as Chennai's new gateway for export-import trade in the Chennai/Bengaluru region and provides a whole new dimension of services with speed and sophistication.Amongst its many advantages is its unique location -- 30 km north of Chennai and with connectivity to the hinterland of North Tamil Nadu, Chennai and Bengaluru regions, as also locations in south Andhra Pradesh that are highly industrialised, the Adani group said.It is these regions that the Chennai and Kamarajar ports cater to."We are going to start construction to diversify the cargo of the port and will be adding 40 MMT of new capacity in next three years. We are confident that with our superior infrastructure and efficient handling of cargo we will be able to reduce the logistics cost of industries in the region and be one of the engines of growth," APSEZ CEO Karan Adani said.The APSEZ plans to transform Kattupalli port into a multi-commodity facility to handle cargo-like containers, automobiles, break bulk, general cargo, liquid cargo and project cargo.Presently the Chennai and Kamarajar ports handles these cargoes.According to an industry expert, Kattupalli Port, being the private sector, will have the flexibility and speed in decision-making when it comes to customer acquisition, which may not be so in the case of the Chennai and Kamarajar ports."With a string of ports along the western and eastern coasts, the Adani group can command good business from its clientele," he added.Kattupalli Port presently has two berths with a quay length of 710 meters, six quay cranes, 15 rubber-tyred gantry cranes and 5,120 ground slots capable of handling 1.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent containers) per annum.With a backup area of 322 acres, Kattupalli provides ample space for future expansion of port to facilitate trade requirements."The efficiency level at the Mundra Port is great. Similarly, Kattupalli Port will also be heavily mechanised and the efficiency will be high in terms of turnaround time," Nainan of Care Ratings opined."Owing a full port and operating a terminal in a port are entirely different things. Owing a port has several advantages like offering storage capacity," Nainan added.

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The Supreme Court today directed the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to set up a facility for safe storage of radio-active spent nuclear fuel at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) by April 2022. The apex court, which had earlier granted time till May 30 this year for the purpose, extended the time for the NPCIL to set up the 'Away From Reactor Facility' (AFR) to store the spent nuclear fuel. A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud considered the submission of Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the corporation, that the deadline for setting up of the storage facility be extended till April 30, 2022. The bench, however, made it clear that no further extension of time shall be granted to the corporation for setting up of the AFR at the nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu. The apex court had earlier allowed the Centre to operationalise the nuclear plant subject to compliance of various safety measures including the safe storage of the spent nuclear fuel.

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Dipen Sheth, Head- Institutional Research, HDFC Securities, tells ET Now that for midcaps to deliver as a class meaningfully over the next 6 to 12 months is going to be an uphill task. But there will be some exceptions.Edited excerpts: How much more to go for markets before we have a firm bottom in place for mid and smallcap stocks? That is a difficult call. We have to be cautious in this year. It is not going to be like 2017. We are not going to get a one-way ride. There is just too much uncertainty floating around. The smart guys are beginning to sense that maybe some of the greed in the markets might yield to fear over a period of time and this might be just the year when that happens. I do not want to sound like a doom sayer right now but frankly there is very little of rational money left to be made at this point of time. If you are a midcap junky, you will still go out and buy the fall in midcap angles as I would call them, but the more mature investors are going to be a little more circumspect this year. What should an average HNI/retail investor do? For those who are active in the market, 60% to 70% of their portfolio has been in mid and smallcap stocks. A large part of our viewers are here to make quick money and unfortunately because of the meltdown in mid and smallcap stocks, they have either lost their gains or are losing their money. If you have made a hell of a lot of money in midcaps and you have lost a little bit recently, without getting into the stock specific discussion, you can still take money off the table. It is not a problem. For midcaps to deliver as a class meaningfully over the next 6 to 12 months is going to be an uphill task. I do not think it is going to happen. That said, there are always high quality exceptions. It is not that I want you to sell all stocks in barrels but a lot of the midcaps are looking challenged and the biggest thing in the midcap space is lack of liquidity and the fact that interest rates are heading higher. High PE multiples cannot co-exist with higher interest rates. There is more risk than reward in the midcap space. Of course, there will be good stocks worth buying and that is the kind of opportunity that one should wait for but if one is already invested and if some of the stocks where one is invested are not really high quality names, then an exit at just about any price is okay. Would metals be that space given the underperformance we have seen in the year to date? 2017 has been very solid. Assuming that the cyclicality is still benefitting metal as a play, would you be a buyer in the dips that some of these metal stocks have given of late? Officially we do not have coverage on most of the metal names. These are global cyclicals that are best left to global brokerages to figure out. Barring perhaps Coal India, most metal names have so many linkages with global events that it is difficult to take a call. A lot of them like Tata Steel have large moving parts overseas. We have stayed away from it and cannot give you a view cast in stone here. What about IDBI Bank? The IRDA also has given its green signal for LIC to go ahead and buy that 51% stake. We still do not know the valuation at which the deal is going to happen. That depends on SEBI but the number being talked about is Rs 13,000 crore and that is only the initial sum that IDBI or that LIC is going to put in for that 51% stake and then to capitalise the bank and makes sure it is up and running. It is going to be a long-drawn process. Yes it is. What is interesting here is the basic fact, the basic contour of this case is something that holds true for the PSU bank pack and not just an overbeaten name like IDBI. Last year saw an accelerated stress recognition by the RBI but that still did not give investors confidence as to whether the worst is over. That is one part. Whatever adjusted book value that you might want to bake into the numbers is a function of the stress recognition that has officially taken place.Two, how many of the loans which are considered good today are going to remain good? It is not just the PSU bank pack here. You have large private sector banks like an Axis Bank which is sitting on about Rs 9,000 crore of sub-investment grade loans. I do not know how many more worms are going to crawl out of the woodwork. When you ask me whether Rs 13,000 crore or Rs 20,000 crore or Rs 30,000 crore is a good number, there is no way I can give you a confident answer. There is a systemic problem in recognising and providing for stress in our banking system. There is also a systemic problem in terms of solving that stress which is largely being met. It is a slow process but it will happen over a period of time in the IBC or NCLT resolution.As we move forward, there are two or maybe three cases which are getting resolved even as we speak and the claims that things all the 12 headline cases will get solved by may be September is over ambitious. But even if half a dozen cases get solved by September and another half a dozen resolved by March, that should set the tone for a sentimental recovery. But to put a fix on numbers today is very challenging.What about some stock ideas? What about ICICI Bank? Somehow attractive valuations and the environment and the positioning of subsidiaries is not helping the stock. Building a largecap portfolio requires patience, especially, in stormy times like this. If we are going through a macro storm as a country, ICICI Bank is going through a much bigger storm. Whether it’s management changes, whether there is heavy stress on their books right now, whether it is some of the other concerns around resolution of stress at the NCLT, IBC cases like I said earlier, it is all coming together. This is the worst that you can see ICICI Bank going through. Remember it has built a superb retail franchise whether on the assets or the liabilities side, it has built a number of wonderful subsidiaries including insurance broking and asset management subsidiaries which come immediately to mind. Headline valuations are resting low. Today, it is at less than 1.5 times adjusted for sums. I do not think there is much more to lose here but you might see three months or six months of drift. If there is faith to be placed in things eventually turning around, it is some of the private sector banks rather than the public sector that I should see the first signs of a turnaround whether on the business front or on the follow through investor sentiment which will happen once the business turns around. Both Axis and ICICI would fall into that category. Our preference is clearly for ICICI Bank given the fact that we suspect much more of stress recognition might play out at Axis Bank. So we would go out on a limb here and say okay nothing might happen for the next six months but if you are going to do a stock SIP in a large financial name today, it has to be ICICI Bank. You still like Sun Pharma and Lupin. Why is it so? I do not know about two years but a year would be possibly the worst case and which is why I would add these stocks also to a stock SIP for serious long-term investors and here are some reasons why. The last two or three years have seen a steady and sharp erosion in the price of generics in the US. Recent evidence suggests that much of that price erosion is actually easing out now. From high double digit, you are now down to middle or maybe high single digit. So, this is one part. The deterioration in the quality of the business has slowed down. I am not saying it is gone away completely. Even in the face of this deterioration, you would have expected short sighted managements to close the tap on R&D expenses and they have not done that.Whether it is Sun, Lupin or Cadila, these guys have been spending in the mid teens in many cases as percentage of revenues on R&D. Look at their adjusted margins and they have been expensing out these spends completely. And somewhere these high spends into R&D are likely to deliver as you said although you are a little more impatient than I am on the complex generics bit. There is a whole line of complex generics which is going to get released between say six months from now for the next two or three years. Following that or maybe a year from now, and for high quality companies it is the promise and increase in visibility on the promise rather than actual delivery. Maybe these guys will see runups in stock prices even as earnings go through another quarter or two of decline, that is the suspicion I have. I may have much longer term faith and much higher level of faith in what you do at this point of time/ I am happy to disagree today and hopefully will be proved right in some time. As research analysts, we were among the earliest in the Street to take a call on IT. We are still very bullish on IT by the way and some day I suspect you will call me back on this show and tell me that I was right today on pharma. Would you like to call yourself a lone ranger in private banks by calling a sell there or so you want to be a part of crowd there? The thing about high quality business is that you write a sell on them when you see a deterioration in the quality of the business and not just because you see valuations being high. I completely agree that private bank valuations look high today and I am not talking about all of them. But that does not make me less than constructive on them. Right now, given the published target price that we have on IndusInd Bank, technically you might say that it is in neutral zone. Does that make me less bullish about their future as a stock? I do not think so. Look at the smaller banks. There a City Union Bank which is an excellently managed bank. It has consistent 1.5% ROAs and not showing any sign of letting go of that franchise and 2.5 times and a little more on F20 basis also does not scare us. An IndusInd Bank in the making if I would call it. Another example is RBL Bank, where we are building in faith and we do not mind giving them even three times adjusted book on FY20 given the fact that we see their micro finance stress falling off, their retail book growing, their spreads increasing.So, there is a whole lot of candidates there but it is not that we have blind buys on all the private sector banks. We still have a neutral on Axis where we are cautious on future asset quality especially for the next two or three quarters. We are flying a kite on KVB where there are early signs of a turnaround but two more quarters of or maybe one more quarter of stress recognition has to be seen through. But here is a very high quality management which is going about clearing up the mess at the bank. We are building in longer term faith at KVB. Unless the sector does something that is silly or the bank in question does something that is silly and changes the longer term momentum and direction or trajectory of the business, we would be loath to convert our buys into sells early in the game, no way.

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Samsung Galaxy On6 is powered by an Exynos 7870 1.6GHz, Octa-core processor, 3,000 mAh battery.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Honor 9i is powered by Huawei's Kirin 658 and runs Android 8.1 oreo operating system.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Walmart says it runs 21 cash-and-carry stores in India and supports local manufacturing in India.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Qualcomm's QCC3026 chip is targeted at headsets which are for the entry-level and mid-range category.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Tencent's browser requires the camera to scan the QR code and so it prompts the device to pop-out the camera.

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By Harshal Dewangan

A SIM card operator was able to successfully forge fingerprints by downloading Aadhaar credentials

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By Harshal Dewangan

Honor recently revealed that the company will soon launch a bigger version of the Honor 10.

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By Harshal Dewangan