UAE’s new 5-year visa scheme
Why in news?
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced a five-year multiple-entry visa scheme for all nationalities, in a move that is geared towards promoting tourism in the country.
About UAE’s new visa scheme:
- According to the Dubai-based Gulf News, prior to this, tourists could get single or multiple-entry visas for a duration of 30 or 90 days.
- In the new five-year multiple-entry system, visa holders may be allowed to stay for six months at a stretch.
- The details of the scheme are yet to be announced.
- The country’s Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship will be implementing the decision.
Key highlights:
- The UAE currently receives more 2.1 crore tourists annually, and has recently increased its pace of rolling out policies to boost its trade and tourism sectors.
- In July 2019, the UAE allowed women employed in the country to sponsor work permits for their husbands, fathers, and adult children, and reduced the fees for obtaining work permits by 50 per cent to 94 per cent for 145 services and transactions.
- In the same month, the Emirate of Dubai said it would accept the Indian rupee (INR) for transactions at duty-free stores.
Akbar Padamsee
Why in news?
- Noted painter and artist Akbar Padamsee passed away at the age of 91.
About:
- Akbar Padamsee (1928 – 2020) was an Indian artist and painter.
- He is considered one of the pioneers in Modern Indian painting along with S.H. Raza, F.N. Souza and M.F. Husain.
- Over the years he also worked with various mediums from oil painting, plastic emulsion, water colour, sculpture, printmaking, to computer graphics, and photography. Padamsee always explored new plastic genres.
- Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship, Kalidas Samman from the Madhya Pradesh Government and Padma Bhushan.
California’s data privacy law
Why in news?
- California’s new privacy law — the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — is first-of-its-kind data legislation, which went into effect on January 1.
Key facts
- The law gives Californians new controls over how companies use their data. These controls include the right to access the data, the right to ask for its deletion, and the right to prevent its sale to third parties.
- The law only applies to businesses with gross annual revenues of more than $25 million; those that buy, receive or sell the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers in California; or those that derive more than half of their annual revenue from selling consumers’ personal information.
- The law applies to businesses collecting information of Californians; not just to businesses that operate in the state.
- Unintentional noncompliance will lead to fines of $2,500 per violation; intentional noncompliance will attract a penalty of $7,500 per violation.
- Because of the global nature of the Internet, these changes will affect users worldwide. Even Indian companies that have customers in California would have to comply with the law.
Comparison of this act with India’s proposed data protection bill:
- Several of these rights are also in India’s Personal Data Protection Bill.
- These include the right to access a copy of your data, and the right to deletion. India’s bill goes further in some regards, including the right to correction.
- However, India’s bill is more focused on users’ rights over collections, while California’s act is focused more on the third-party sharing and selling of a user’s data.