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The Hindu Dated April 16, 2020 India on Wednesday came down hard on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom for its criticism of the country based on a “misguided” report  that COVID-19 patients in a hospital in Ahmedabad were segregated on the basis of their religious identities . The US Commission expressed concerns over the way India is fighting the coronavirus pandemic following a media report that a government-run hospital in Ahmedabad segregated the infected patients on the basis of their religions. “As if its peremptory commentary on religious freedom in India is not enough, the USCIRF is now spreading misguided reports on the professional medical protocols followed to deal with spread of COVID-19 in India,” MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said. He said no segregation of patients is being done in the civil hospital on the basis of religion as clarified by the Gujarat government. Mr. Srivastava said the USCIRF “must stop adding religious colou...

Hindustan Times  Dated April 16,2020 By Rhythma Kaul New Delhi Two of the three Indian manufacturers of antibody-based Rapid Test Kits (RTKs) for Covid-19 have begun production after the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), the national regulatory body for pharmaceuticals and medical devices, issued manufacturing licenses. The move comes at a time when the RTKs that the Indian government ordered from China and which were supposed to arrive first by April 5, then April 9 and finally by Wednesday, have still not reached. Earlier this month, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) validated samples of RTKs manufactured by three companies, Vanguard Diagnostics in New Delhi, the state-owned HLL Lifecare Limited in Kerala and Voxtur Bio Limited in Gujarat, following which they applied for, and received, their manufacturing licenses. While HLL and Voxtur have begun production — the former expects to deliver its first batch of 100,000 RTKs by April...

Hindustan Times Dated April 16, 2020 The incident of humans contracting coronavirus from bats is an extremely rare event, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, adding that a Chinese research showed that the Sars-CoV-2 virus which has causes Covid-19 in humans is in a mutated form. “Coronavirus is found in bats. We have come to know from the research in China so far that the virus which has affected humans either may have been because the bat virus developed such mutations that it developed the capacity to cause disease in humans or it got transmitted to pangolins from bats first and then to human beings. This question is being asked because we started a survey on emerging infectious diseases and to see if those viruses can be found in bats. We found the presence of coronavirus in two bat species but they are not capable of affecting human beings adversely,” senior ICMR scientist R Gangakhedkar said on Wednesday. “The instances of transmission of virus from bat...

Hindustan Times Dated April 16, 2020 Evidence of the coronavirus’ devastating impact on the US economy has been steadily emerging, and the signs have grown ominous. Sales at stores and restaurants plunged in March by the largest amount on records dating back to 1992. The nation’s industrial output fell by the largest amount since the end of World War II. And the outbreak keeps ravaging the global oil market. That was just Wednesday’s news. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “You don’t want to look, but you know you have to.” The picture will likely worsen in the coming weeks and months. Retail sales — a primary driver of the U.S. economy — are almost surely suffering further during April because business shutdowns will have been in effect for the entire month, compared with just half of March. Sales of homes and cars will also keep declining. And economists have forecast that Thursday’s weekly report on appl...

Hindustan Times Dated: April 16, 2020 “India entered the pandemic turmoil in the midst of a credit crunch-induced slowdown and its recovery prospect becomes more uncertain,” Chang Yong Rhee, the Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, told reporters during a news conference here. “Despite the economic slowdown, the government implemented a nationwide lockdown and we support India’s proactive decision,” Rhee said. On March 25, India entered a three-week lockdown, which was slated to end on April 14. The lockdown was extended till May 3. The impact of the coronavirus on the Asia-Pacific region will be severe, across the board, and unprecedented, he said, adding that Asia’s growth in 2020 will come to a standstill. This is worse than the annual average growth rates throughout the Global Financial Crisis (4.7 percent) or the Asian Financial Crisis (1.3 percent). Actually, Asia has not experienced zero growth in the last 60 years, he said. “That said, Asia’s growth ...

Hindustan Times Dated April 16, 2020 Digital commerce platforms can play a critical role in maintaining social distancing while facilitating economic revival in the country, industry executives said on Wednesday, welcoming the government’s move to allow e-commerce operations amid the nationwide lockdown. Under the first phase of lockdown between March 24 - April 14, the government had only allowed delivery of essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment through e-commerce platforms. It has now been extended till May 3 and the government on Wednesday issued detailed guidelines for allowing select activities amid the lockdown. According to the latest guidelines, e-commerce companies will be allowed to operate. Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be permitted to ply with necessary permissions. However, it was not clear whether companies will be allowed to offer just essential or all kinds of products through their platforms. An  Amazon...

Business Line Dated: April 13, 2020 By Tina Edwin On April 6, in an unexpected move, the Union government suspended the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for two years and decided to transfer the sum that members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were entitled to annually, to execute developmental projects in their constituencies, to the Consolidated Fund of India for Covid-19 related spending. The decision drew sharp criticism from Opposition parties because it meant that MPs would not be able to recommend any new MPLADS projects for two years. A total of  ₹ 7,900 crore of MPLADS money is to be transferred to the Consolidated Fund of India to augment resources for Covid-19 management. Each MP is entitled to  ₹ 5 crore annually to spend on projects for community use in his or her constituencies, and if a politician were to decide, elsewhere in the State from which he or she was elected. The unspent amount is kept in a non-lapsable account w...

Business Line Dated April 13, 2020 By  K Giriprakash An industry body has asked the Centre to lift the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverage (alco-bev) products, stating that the revenue loss for the States collectively is a whopping  ₹ 700 crore per day. Amrit Kiran Singh, Chairman of the International Spirits & Wines Association of India, which represents Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Bacardi, Beam Suntory and others, told  BusinessLine  that the total revenue generated by all the States put together from excise duty during FY20 from the sale of liquor was  ₹ 2.48 lakh crore. Any delay in lifting the ban could lead to the proliferation of illicit liquor, which last year killed several hundred people. We are sitting on a time bomb. Not just that -- when the States are desperate for revenue to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to review the ban,” he said. Singh said he has written a letter to the Secretary, Department of Consumer Affair...

Business Line Dated: April 13, 2020 By Palak Shah Market regulator SEBI will be closely monitoring share transactions by Chinese companies and banks, especially in times when stock valuations are at historical lows, sources said. This is after People’s Bank of China’s (PBC) move to hike its stake in HDFC to 1.01 per cent, during the March quarter, from 0.8 per cent earlier. A report suggested the Finance Ministry was ruffled as regulators had not raised flags when PBC was buying shares over the past few weeks. PBC now holds 1.74 crore HDFC shares. HDFC said PBC earlier held a 0.8 per cent stake. Shareholding below 1 per cent in not disclosed by exchanges publicly. It is not clear when PBC’s stake reached 0.8 per cent. Transactions by Chinese institutions have come under global scrutiny as assets currently may not be reflecting their intrinsic value due to the coronavirus-led slowdown. There are fears over China buying assets cheap or at low valuations, market experts t...

The Hindu Dated: April 13, 2020 By Vijaita Singh The  Indian Council of Medical Research  (ICMR) expanded the number of laboratories that could conduct  COVID-19  tests on an intervention by the Union Home Minister. After the first COVID-19 positive case was detected on January 30, all samples were sent only to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. As cases surged and need was felt to ramp up testing, the ICMR was asked to enable more laboratories to conduct the tests. Owing to multiple factors, including paucity of kits, the ICMR follows strict guidelines before samples are collected from a person showing symptoms. In a meeting in March, Home Minister Amit Shah asked ICMR Director General Dr. Balram Bhargava to include more facilities that could carry out the tests, else the responsibility would be given to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). On March 17, the ICMR activated 72 more laboratories to test for COVID-19 and re...