The decision was taken after the state agriculture department approached the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR), Nagpur, seeking advice against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the country.

Nearly 60% employees of GoAir’s will be put on “temporary leave without pay”, the airline’s promoters Nusli and Jeh Wadia in a joint letter informed employees.

It said Axis Bank identified that more than 10% of its customers (25% of its loan book by value) as on April 25 availed the payment moratorium.

A Barclays report estimates that the central government’s revenue benefit from the additional hikes in fuel taxes could be as much as Rs 1.4 lakh crore on an annual basis.

Suvarna Jagtap, chairperson, Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), told FE that three cases of coronavirus were reported at Lasalgaon at a distance of 3 km from the main market yard.

Lifting of the lockdown would release pent-up demand from incomplete repainting projects but we do not expect much new repainting work (especially in urban markets), nor a pick-up in fresh painting (construction activity).

Since Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund closed six debt schemes on April 23, there has been a rush by the investors to redeem the money from several categories of debt schemes like credit risk funds and low duration funds.

By expanding the scope of equalisation levy to cover foreign e-commerce platforms, India has rushed to incrementally cast its net wide insofar as the digital service user-base is concerned.

The decrease in WiFi usage can also be attributed to people staying at homes.

App Annie’s latest report highlights that Zoom is the most downloaded app on iOS amongst all users. But it has also put focus on privacy and security.

A study by two India-origin researchers at the University of Cambridge, is based on the SIR approach, but takes into account age and social contact structure to assess the impact of the lockdown and social distancing measures adopted before it.

The Facebook-owned company explained that its previous exercise of limiting a forwarded message to five chats led to a 25% reduction in message forwards globally at the time.

Startups must maintain their financial health by conserving cash, cutting down on costs and renegotiating their existing contracts.

Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said this was a good opportunity for the sector. The association also raised its long-standing demand of allowing active infrastructure sharing to include internet service provider (ISP) players, which is available to all other licences.

BSE Sensex tanked 723 pts, its second biggest single day fall since Narendra Modi govt took over; Salman Khan, GST, others field the blame.

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) recently announced a set of guidelines that will help celebrities to perform due diligence on a product or brand they wish to endorse.

A key feature is the peer-to-peer money transfer facility within the app.

Yes Bank has seen a 30.2% increase in its net profit for the March quarter, due to strong growth in advances and growth in low-cost CASA deposits.

We don't really drive our strategy based on what's happening around. Our approach is to give maximum return on investments to our sellers

The latest launch by Samsung will compete with Apple's iPhone as well as products from Sony, LG and Asus.

Interview: Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, deputy MD and chief information officer, State Bank of India.

Manpasand reported a healthy quarter overall albeit EBITDA/PAT were below our estimates. Overall, FY2017 was broadly in line with company guidance at start of the year and both Mango Sip and Fruits Up posted robust growth.

Investors in ACC have reason to cheer as volume posted double digit growth in Q2CY17, up 10% y-o-y, after a gap of >5 years and is set for ~10% jump in CY17, on low base of ~9% dip in H2CY16.

Kotak Mahindra Bank on Thursday reported a surge in its first quarter net profit while maintaining the asset quality.

Credit Suisse Asset Management's NEXT Investors has invested an undisclosed amount in Indian software product company Sapience Analytics.

Caracas, which buys medicines and other products from India, is looking for alternative payment methods after the United States imposed stringent sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA in a bid to push out President Nicolas Maduro.

Fino Payments Bank aims to break even in the next 18-24 months, executive vice president and head-products & alliances Ashish Ahuja tells Mitali Salian.

The board had been holding regular workshops with both farmers and buyers to encourage exports, he said, adding that the board had taken huge efforts to ensure that more mango growers register their orchards with MangoNet.

With India exporting roughly one-third of its cotton yarn production every year, trends in export demand play a crucial role in determining the overall performance of the domestic spinning sector. 

Industry members claim that the turnaround time after loan sanctions through the portal has been long. In a meeting with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier this month, an industry association raised a complaint to this effect.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the FY20 Budget abolished MDR charges for all merchants having a turnover of over Rs 50 crore which would lead the payment companies taking a hit on their margins.

Traditionally, our response to laws failing to arrest healthcare violence has been to simply increase the quantum and severity of punishment the next time.

As more governments integrate the service—Himachal Pradesh was latest to do so, on April 21—one can expect traffic to increase.

If the government were to follow FICCI’s recommendations and put out a package of 5-6% of GDP, with a focus on both the poor and the MSME sector, it is possible that the rupee may decline to, say, 85 or 90.

In the long term, the govt will have to deepen its procurement operations, expanding from the wheat-paddy complex.

This trend continues even for local governments, which come to rely more on state transfers to run the administration.

Covid-19 presents an opportunity for UGC to push for US SAT-style common entrance exam

Everyone in the banana supply chain seems to be gaining from the lockdown, except growers.

Coronavirus COVID 19 vaccine news, latest update, human trials: Sanofi's Pasteur division has an established track record in influenza vaccines. Last month it had teamed with its British rival GSK to produce a vaccine candidate hoping that it will be ready in 2021.

In another release, the ministry said the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) and Tata Sons have signed a licensing agreement for a paper strip-based test called Feluda for Covid 19's rapid diagnosis.

The study said that the increase in frequency of this strain is happening at an alarming rate, which indicates that this strain has an advantage over the original strain from Wuhan in terms of fitness.

Three children, including a five-year-old boy, have died of a mysterious inflammatory syndrome resembling Kawasaki disease or a toxic shock, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, as the state authorities began an inquiry into the cases.
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United States President Donald Trump sent a message of congratulations to Dana White and the UFC for being the first major sports league to return to action following the Covid-19 shutdown.
Read Full Article at RT.com

According to Dun & Bradstreet's latest Economy Forecast, the changes in consumer behaviour will determine the segments that are likely to flourish after the pandemic is brought under control.

Kumar said as long as the lockdown continues, economic activity will remain tepid, but "demand should be there in the economy" and the question of logistics can be taken care of. The SBI chairman also said complete easing of the curbs is still some time away.

MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced that exporters, traders, food processors, etc, can open a private mandi and can buy the agriculture produce by visiting the farmer’s land or house.

The sale of fertilisers shot up by 45.1 per cent on-year in April 2020.

BHEL has released an Expression of Interest (EOI) inviting global companies to leverage its facilities and capabilities for setting up a manufacturing base in the country.

As most of the small and medium scale industries have started operations from 20th April, the normal consumption level of petrol and diesel is likely to be achieved by July 2020.

In what could be seen as a silver lining for employees, as many as 50% of the organisations have reported no change in the planned salary hike budgets despite the headwinds that the novel-coronavirus pandemic has brought.