During a recent discussion the following point came into notice
According to the announcement made on April 21, 2008 (available @ link ), there are some changes to the Post Graduate work permit program (details @ link). A recent seminar highlighted some points which are of concern to the Queen's MBA (or any similar 1 yr program) international students.
| Before | Now |
| Job Offer required for applying for work permit | Job Offer NOT required for applying for work permit |
| Application for work permit to be submitted within 90 days of course completion | --No change/Same as previous-- |
| Duration of work permit = 1 calendar year | --No change/Same as previous-- |
| Work Permit has an employer's name on it | Work permit DOES NOT have any employer's name |
| While on Post Graduate Work Permit, if a person changes a job, he needs a new work permit (new work permit might/might not be post graduate work permit) | Person can change job. No new work permit required |
| At the time of application of work permit, student's permit should be valid | --No change/Same as previous-- |
| Health insurance coverage under Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) | No health insurance coverage |
| Passport should be valid till the date of work permit sought. Otherwise, work permit will be only till the validity of passport. However work permit can be extended (same type of work permit) after getting passport renewal for the remaining duration | --No change/Same as previous-- |
| Labour Market Opinion (LMO) or HRSDC approval not required | --No change/Same as previous-- |
| The job has to be in relation to the field of study | It can be ANY job--job need NOT be in relation to field of study |
Some questions related to the above changes
Q: What if my student's visa/permit expires before my 90 days limit?
A: The student's visa/permit can be renewed to get benefit of full 90 days period
Q: What is meant by course completion?
A: For courses requiring a thesis submission, the date of submission of revised thesis is considered as the course completion date. For courses requiring exams, the date of availability of the course's final total marks on the mark-sheet is taken as the course completion certificate.
Q: Can I apply when I am outside Canada to inside Canada office?
A: Not recommended. Someone else can send your completed application from inside Canada to an office inside Canada. A Canadian address is required on the form
Q: When does the 1 year period start?
A: The date of issue of the work permit marks the start of the 1 year work permit period.
Q: What if I go on a vacation during this 1 year period?
A: You are "eating into" your 1 year work permit period.
Q: What after my Post-Graduate work permit expires?
A: A normal work permit has to be applied. The company applies for it as it has to get a LMO approval. It is suggested that the company mentions on its work permit application form (submitted on behalf of the person) that the person was originally hired as a part of post-graduate work permit program.
Note: LMO approval takes about 6-8 months. So start the process through your employer taking this time into consideration...i.e. apply about 6-8 months before your post graduate work permit expires.
Q: What are the changes in the health insurance?
A: Earlier work permits carried a name of employer and the employees were covered under Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) {for companies in Ontario}. Now since the work permit carries no name of employer, the work permit holder has to get the insurance himself. This might require him to buy from private companies. There is a provision of extension of his University Health Insurance Plan (UHIP) till some months in future.
Note: More details are awaited on this point.
Q: I am already on a Post Graduate work permit. Can I still take benefit of these changes?
A: Yes. The work permit can be changes accordingly.
Q: What all is required for getting a work permit?
A: Details at link
Note: Social Insurance Number (SIN) is required for getting a salary. Once you get a work permit, the same can be obtained within few days.
Useful Link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/index.asp
Note: At the time of this blog post, the details of the new policy were not updated on the CIC web-site.
Disclaimer: The blog post author takes no responsibility for the correctness of the information posted here. The information can change or maybe applicable in a different manner for different people. Complete disclaimer at bottom of blog
Vancouver, April 21, 2008 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today announced changes to work permits for international students who graduate from eligible programs at certain Canadian post-secondary institutions, making it easier to attract foreign students to Canada.
Effective immediately, and for the first time, these international students would be able to obtain an open work permit under the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program, with no restrictions on the type of employment and no requirement for a job offer. In addition, the duration of the work permit has been extended to three years across the country. Previously, the program only allowed international students to work for one or two years, depending on location.
“The Government of Canada wants more foreign students to choose Canada and we want to help them succeed,” said Minister Finley. “Open and longer work permits provide international students with more opportunities for Canadian work experience and skills development. This will, in turn, help make Canada a destination of choice, and help us keep international students already studying in Canada.”
The increased flexibility offered by the expanded program will benefit graduates and employers alike as the program will help international students get important work experience while responding to Canada’s labour market needs. Canada will benefit in the long run as the professional experience gained will help graduates meet the requirements to stay permanently in Canada
More at link
By MARCUS GEE , Globe & Mail, Canada
MUMBAI — The story of the world's cheapest car begins on a rainy day in Bangalore.
Ratan Tata was in the south Indian city on business and on his way to the airport. The head of India's most famous business empire told his driver to be careful on the slick roadway.
As usual in India's crazy traffic, the streets were full of dodging scooters, many of them carrying whole families: father at the controls, mother holding on behind, children riding on their laps. Typically, none of them were wearing helmets.
Suddenly, a scooter turned in front of the Tata car and lost control, sending a family of four spilling onto the pavement.
“No one was hurt, but we could have run over the whole family; we were just behind them,” remembers Mr. Tata. He had seen before how vulnerable scooter riders were in the traffic, “but that was the first instance that scared me.”
He began to think: How could he make driving safer for Indian families?
His first notion was to build a safer scooter. Trained as an architect, he made notepad doodles of new designs – a scooter with two wheels at the back, a scooter with a protective cage – none of them very practical.
Then he played with the idea of an open-sided “rural vehicle” with safety bars in place of car doors. He decided “no one wanted a half a car.”
Finally, he hit upon the simplest and most audacious idea of all. Why not simply build a tiny car – just big enough to carry a family like the one that crashed in front of him that day in Bangalore, but cheap enough for a scooter-driving family to afford.
Thus was born the one-lakh car.
Read more at link (Copyright, Globe & Mail)
Note: The article contains views expressed by original author
By MARCUS GEE , Globe & Mail, Canada
On Aug. 11, 1966, Azim Premji got the phone call that would change his life. The 20-year-old was studying for summer exams at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., just two terms short of graduation. It was his mother on the line. His father, M.H. Premji, had died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of just 51.
Summoned home, he discovered himself in charge of the family business, a small vegetable oil concern called Western India Vegetable Products, Wipro for short. He found its methods primitive at best.
One of its lines was making cakes and shortening from peanut oil. Its buyers would test a farmer's peanuts by biting them to gauge how much oil they might yield, then make the farmer an offer. Mr. Premji, then just 20, had a better idea. Why not ask the farmer for a sample of his peanuts, weigh them to gauge their oil content, then strike a deal.
That simple step to upgrade methods and measure results laid the foundation for what Mr. Premji calls the Wipro Way. A cerebral, fastidious man who often seems more college professor than tycoon, he has built a $5-billion (U.S.) information-technology outsourcing company on a cult of continuous self-improvement.
In the process, he has helped invent an industry that is launching India into the 21st century. Once, when people imagined India, they pictured rajahs and beggars. Today, the icon of the new India is the bright young techie in his office cubicle in Bangalore.
Read more at link (Copyright, Globe & Mail)
Note: The article contains views expressed by original author
(Article by Kim Isaacs @ Monster Canada)
A huge challenge career changers face is preparing a winning resume. After all, it's arduous enough when you have ample related experience. Writing this crucial document becomes even more painstaking when you're looking to take a completely new career direction.
Your saving grace: Transferable skills.
By MARCUS GEE , Globe & Mail, Canada
HYDERABAD, INDIA — Entering the new airport in this booming south Indian city is like passing through a portal between different worlds.
Approaching from downtown, visitors travel along a road choked with cars, taxis, scooters, motorized rickshaws, ancient buses and the occasional hand-pushed cart. Women in saris dig at the median with crude hoes in an attempt at landscaping. Barefoot boys block a lane of the roadway with rocks so a creaking steamroller can lay asphalt.
Overhead, a new flyover that is supposed to transport travellers above the bedlam stands unfinished – like just about every public building project in India, way behind schedule.
At the access road to the airport, everything changes. Smooth, freshly laid asphalt leads past an immaculate 3,500-space parking lot lined by palm trees. A massive terminal building with a wave-like roof and towering glass walls rises in the foreground. All is new, clean and modern.
This is the world of G.M. Rao, the man who would rebuild India.
To first-time visitors, India sometimes seems like a place where everything is dirty or broken and nothing ever gets done. Their introduction to the rising “New India” is often a rundown airport with smelly toilets – followed by a ride in a rattletrap taxi through slum-lined streets to a city where the lights go on and off for lack of power.
Mr. Rao wants to change all that. The barrel-chested former jute trader who has made a fortune building airports and power plants says there is no reason on earth why India has to be a living museum for crumbling roads, half-finished overpasses and congested seaports.
To prove that his country can do better, he has just built a temple of aviation that rivals anything in China, Japan or Singapore. “We want to show that Indians can also build airports,” he says. “We want to show the world.”
If anyone can do it, it is Mr. Rao....
Read more at link (Copyright, Globe & Mail)
Note: The article contains views expressed by original author
By MARCUS GEE , Globe & Mail, Canada
MUMBAI — Anand Mahindra was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year when Robert Lane, chairman of U.S. farm equipment concern Deere & Co., approached him.
"I've been to your dealerships and seen all your manuals," he told Mr. Mahindra, whose Mumbai-based Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. has been taking on the maker of John Deere tractors in the U.S. market.
Well, replied Mr. Mahindra with a laugh, "that's good news and bad news."
The bad news is that the world's biggest tractor maker has put Mahindra & Mahindra in its sights. The good news, both for Mr. Mahindra and India, is that a behemoth like John Deere is worried enough to bother.
Indian manufacturers have never troubled the sleep of executives in the rich world. India is well known for its outsourcing and information technology skills - even, more recently, for the global shopping sprees of its acquisitive billionaires - but its manufacturers are minnows beside the sharks of China, South Korea and Taiwan.
Gradually, that has begun to change.
India's manufacturing industry grew at an annual rate of 9 per cent over the past four years, on pace with its booming economy. Boston Consulting Group predicts that India will be the 11th-biggest global manufacturer by 2015 and the seventh-biggest by 2025, up from 14th in 2005.
Read more at link (Copyright, Globe & Mail)
Note: The article contains views expressed by original author
