News digest: 300K govt jobs up for grabs, foreign travel demand, and more

Also, US CEOs may avoid Riyadh conference but not Saudi money

In election season, India goes on a hiring spree

The central and state governments seem to be on a hiring spree ahead of the 2019 general election in which unemployment could be a key issue. This includes the world’s largest recruitment drive by the Indian Railways at a time when the Narendra Modi government is facing criticism over alleged jobless growth. Read More... 

Foreign holidays in high demand despite price rise

Foreign leisure trips are 7-10 per cent costlier because of the rupee's weakness. Demand, however, remains strong and many customers are paying 60 days in advance to lock in better rates, say tour operators. Read More...

Three-fourths of 419,600 H1B visa holders in 2018 are Indians: US report

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there were 419,637 foreign nationals working in the US on H1B visas as of October 5. Of these, 309,986 are Indians, the USCIS said in its report ‘H-1B petitions by gender and country of birth fiscal year 2018’. Read More...

HDFC Bank’s Q2 net up 20.6%

HDFC Bank on Saturday reported a 20.6 per cent year-on-year increase in its net profit to Rs 50.05 billion for the July-September quarter (Q2), a tad short of Bloomberg consensus estimate of Rs 50.33 billion. Operational parameters, however, remained healthy. The private sector lender had registered a net profit of Rs 41.51 billion in the year-ago quarter. Read More...

CEOs may avoid Riyadh conference but not Saudi money

Saudi Arabia is pouring $20 billion into a new investment fund run by Wall Street’s Blackstone Group. The French oil giant Total just inked a nine-billion-euro petrochemical deal with the kingdom. The British defense company BAE Systems is selling 48 Typhoon combat jets to Riyadh for an estimated five billion British pounds. Read More...