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 The Wire, Tarushi Aswani, October 30, 2020 New Delhi:  More than seven months after the communal riots that shocked northeast Delhi with instances of looting, vandalism and targeted killings of Muslims and their properties, survivors still report harassment and humiliation within their immediate neighbourhoods. A month ago, 14-year-old Fiza’s family sold their house in Shiv Vihar so they could move to a safer location. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, they not only moved out but also accepted the abysmal amount they received when they put their property on the market. In ordinary times, the house, which they had bought in 2010, would have sold for Rs 20 lakh. However, with the property market down due to the pandemic, they could sell it for just Rs 12 lakh. The loss of Rs 8 lakh was worth it, they said, since they continued to feel unsafe in their Shiv Vihar neighbourhood long after the overt violence ended. “Hindus in our lane had been making daily life difficult for us since ...

 The Telegraph online, October 30, 2020 Pidilite Industries, the makers of the popular Fevicol brand of adhesives, is acquiring the Indian subsidiary of Huntsman Group for Rs 2,100 crore. The acquisition will give it well-known brands such as Araldite, Araldite Karpenter and Araseal. Pidilite will be acquiring Huntsman Advanced Materials Solutions Pvt Ltd (HAMSPL), which makes adhesives, sealants and other products. In a regulatory filing to the stock exchanges, Pidilite said while the acquisition will be done in cash, it excludes customary working capital and other adjustments, subject to certain preconditions being met prior to the closing of the transaction. The deal also includes the company’s Indian subcontinent business, apart from a trademark licence for West Asia, Africa and Asean countries Huntsman will receive around 90 per cent of the cash consideration at closing and the balance under an earn-out within 18 months if the business achieves sales revenue in line with 2019....

 The Telegraph online, G.S. Mudur, October 31, 2020 A top medical virologist has proposed that vaccine candidates against the coronavirus disease shown to be safe and generating a good immune response in humans should be offered to high-risk individuals in parallel with phase 3 efficacy trials. The proposal by T. Jacob John, former head of clinical virology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, represents a dramatic departure from standard practice that allows vaccine roll-outs only after efficacy has been established through large-scale phase 3 trials. “There is a strong case for allowing emergency use of any Covid-19 vaccine already in phase 3 or ready for phase 3,” John said in a peer-reviewed paper co-authored with Mumbai-based paediatrician Dhanya Dharmapalan and set to appear in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. A phase 1 trial on a small number of healthy volunteers evaluates a vaccine for safety, while a phase 2 trial on a few hundred volunteers examines whether th...

 Moneycontrol, October 31, 2020 Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is likely to submit a proposal to the Institute of Ethics Committee to begin Phase 3 clinical trials of Bharat Biotech's coronavirus vaccine candidate Covaxin by early next week. Bharat Biotech  received approval for Phase 3 trials  on October 22. AIIMS Delhi is one of the hospitals selected for the final-stage trials to be conducted across India. "The proposal is being prepared for the Phase 3 trials and within a couple of days we will be submitting it to the  institute of ethics committee  for approval," Hindustan Times quoted Dr Sanjay Rai, professor, department of community medicine, AIIMS Delhi, as saying. AIIMS plans to recruit between 2,000 and 5,000 participants for the trial, the report said. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) rules require an ethics committee to oversee clinical research and review the proposal at any site before allowing the trial. ...

 First post, PTI, October 30, 2020 In a display of its growing combat prowess, the Indian Air Force on Friday successfully test-fired an air launched version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile from a Sukhoi fighter aircraft in the Bay of Bengal, official sources said. The missile hit a sinking ship with deadly accuracy and the test-firing produced desired results, they said. The aircraft, belonging to Thanjavur-based Tigersharks squadron, took off from a frontline airbase in Punjab and it was refuelled mid-air before the missile was released, they said. The test firing of the missile came in the midst of India's bitter border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh. The missile was fired after the Su-30 MKI aircraft travelled for over three hours covering a "significantly long distance", the officials said. In May last year, the Indian Air Force for the first time had successfully test fired the aerial version of the BrahMos missile from a Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft. ...

Firstpost, October 30, 2020   Tens of thousands of protesters across South Asia vented their fury at France on Friday, with a crowd in Bangladesh burning an effigy of President Emmanuel Macron as anger flared over his tough stance on Islamic extremism. Macron defended freedom of expression and condemned Islamist violence earlier this month after the beheading of a teacher in Paris who showed pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, prompting a backlash across the Muslim world. France remains on edge after a knife-wielding man killed three people at a church in the southern city of Nice on Thursday. Huge crowds took to the streets of Dhaka to condemn the French leader after Friday prayers -- the Bangladeshi capital's second anti-France protest in five days. "We are all soldiers of Prophet Mohammed," chanted the crowd at the city's main protest site, where demonstrators called for a boycott of French goods and some burned an effigy of the leader. Police said 12,000 peo...

 Firstpost, October 30, 2020 His sister, Laneeka Barksdale, died of COVID-19 in late March in Detroit — and since then, so have more than 2,26,000 Americans. Many were Black Americans whose communities were disproportionately devastated by the virus. Omari Barksdale, a Black man, watched with alarm as the toll of the country’s racial injustice mounted. People of color bore the brunt of pandemic-related job losses. Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her Kentucky home, and a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into George Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd gasped, "I can't breathe," in his final moments. The convergence of the pandemic, joblessness and police brutality has forced the US to confront its centuries-old legacy of systemic racism this year. And for Barksdale and many Black Americans, it's turned next week's presidential election into a referendum on the future of race relations, an opportunity to take steps toward healing ...

 India’s economy picked up speed in September as a revival in demand and business activity helped drive the South Asian nation toward recovery from the pandemic-induced slump. Five of the eight high-frequency indicators, including exports, tracked by Bloomberg News improved last month, while three were steady. That helped move the needle on a dial measuring the so-called ‘Animal Spirits’ to 5 from 4 in August -- a level arrived at by using the three-month weighted average to smooth out volatility in the single-month readings. Click here for full Covid-19 coverage Economists, including those at the Reserve Bank of India, attributed the recovery to pent-up demand after a strict lockdown imposed in March to contain the coronavirus outbreak hit the consumption of goods and services. While inventory re-stocking will underpin business activity in the coming months, the improvement might still not be enough to prevent Asia’s third-largest economy from contracting in the financial year to ...

 Hero MotoCorp Ltd, India’s largest two-wheeler maker, reported a robust recovery in demand in rural and semi-urban markets after the government eased the nationwide lockdown. Net profit rose 8.9% from a year earlier to Rs953 crore for the September quarter. Two-wheeler sales rose 7.7% to 1.82 million units, a more than threefold jump from the 565,000 units sold in the preceding quarter. The New Delhi-based company generates around 60% of its total sales from the rural market, and its performance is considered a proxy for consumption trends in rural India. Hero witnessed a surge in sales of its entry-level motorcycles in the rural and semi-urban markets after the lockdown measures were relaxed, helped by bountiful rain, a good summer crop, increased government spending and a shift towards personal mobility during the pandemic. “The earnings in the second quarter of FY21 reflects a strong performance, signalling a gradual revival from the negative impact of the global pandemic. The ...

 Amazon.com Inc., which won interim relief against Future group in a Singapore court, is likely to move an Indian high court by next week to enforce the verdict if Future declines to pursue arbitration proceedings in the city-state, two people aware of the development said. Amazon and Future have a week’s time to mutually agree on whether to continue with the arbitration proceedings at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre failing which, a long-winding legal tussle between both sides is likely, the people said seeking anonymity.The Singapore court restrained Future from selling its assets to Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Sunday. The dispute between the two parties relates to Future’s sale of its retail, wholesale and warehousing assets to Mukesh Ambani’s RIL for Rs24,713 crore. Amazon, which owns a 5% indirect stake in Future Retail Ltd, has contested the sale in the Singapore court, claiming that its 2019 investment agreement bars Future group from selling its assets t...