Visa Curbs Eased; OCI Card Holders Can Visit India, Not For Tourism

Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders and foreign nationals can visit India for any purpose, except on tourist visa, the government said today as it eased visa and travel restrictions imposed amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a big move to get air travel back on track, the government has restored the validity of all existing visas, nearly eight months after they were suspended in the wake of the virus crisis and the nationwide lockdown.

“The government has decided to make a graded relaxation in visa and travel restrictions for more categories of foreign nationals and Indian nationals who wish to enter or leave India,” an order from the Union Home Ministry says.

Under this graded relaxation, the government has decided to restore with immediate effect all existing visas, except electronic visa, tourist visa and medical visa, the statement said.

The permission for Overseas Citizens of India and foreign nationals to enter the country includes authorised air or water routes, including flights operated under the Vande Bharat Mission air transport bubble arrangements or by any non-scheduled commercial flights as allowed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

All such travelers will, however have to follow the guidelines of the Union Health Ministry regarding quarantine and other Covid protocols.

The government had restricted air travel – inward and outward – since February this year due to the pandemic.

Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Top features why a dedicated WordPress hosting is best for your website

Dedicated servers are often looked upon as over-expensive web hosting solutions. You may consider them an overkill for your business, but there is no denying the fact that they are the best hosting solution out there. Today, we will tell you some features of a dedicated WordPresshosting that makesit the best for your business. Reliability This is the key factor why most businesses choose a dedicated WordPress server hosting to host their website. A dedicated WordPress hosting server is administered and maintained by a team of professionals who provide online support and work towards optimising the performance of the server. Unlike shared and VPS hosting plans which give you access to limited resources, dedicated server hosting provides a good hosting support. This in turn increases the reliability. Scalability Every business aims to grow their customer base and increase revenues. However, with the limited resources provided by theshared hosting, it can be challenging to handle the high
Read more

Elon Musk's "Use Signal" Post Spurred Massive Rally For The Wrong One

A two-word app recommendation from Elon Musk has turned into a massive rally in the shares of a tiny medical device company in another case of mistaken identity. “Use Signal,” the Tesla Inc. chief executive officer wrote on Twitter on Jan. 7, apparently referring to the encrypted messaging service. By the end of the day, Signal Advance Inc. shares had surged more than sixfold. That was enough to push Signal Advance’s rally more than 5,100% in three trading days giving it a market valuation of $390 million. Despite reports about the confusion on Friday, the stock has continued to rally. Shares of the Rosharon, Texas-based company surged as much as 885% on Monday before paring the gains. “We strongly recommend people do their due diligence and always invest with care,” the company’s chief executive officer, Dr. Chris Hymel, said when reached by phone on Monday. Signal Advance doesn’t have an association with Musk or the Signal app, he said. Signal Advance hasn’t filed an annual report wi
Read more

RBI Policy: MPC may keep policy rate unchanged at 6%; owl may sound hawkish

N- Urjit Patel, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and his five colleagues on the Monetary Policy Committee will not find it too hard to keep the key policy interest rate unchanged at the upcoming policy review on February 7. The 2-day deliberations on February 6 and 7 by the MPC on the repo rate decision are expected to remain tilted towards a pause mode, keeping the near term outlook hawkish. However, they may raise rates later given the risks of higher inflation with fiscal slippages and higher food prices with the government planning to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP). In the Budget last week, the government promised to ensure MSP of key crops at 1.5 times the cost of production. This could mean at least a 50-70-basis-points increase in the headline inflation number. While banks and bond markets have already signaled the end of the interest rate easing cycle, the MPC may keep the repo rate unchanged at 6 percent. Inflation risks Although, experts suggest the infl
Read more