Month: May 2021

‘You have to make cruel choice amid scarcity of black fungus drug’: HC tells Centre, Delhi govt

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Central government to form a policy on the distribution of Amphotericin-B, the drug used to treat black fungus patients.

The court also asked them to take the “cruel decision” of excluding a certain age group or class of people till the drug is in shortage.

Citing an example, it said that if there are two patients — one is 80-year-old and other is 35-year-old and there is only one dose of medicine then it should be given to whom. That’s a bullet you have to take it and you have to take this cruel decision which is not at all an easy task, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, making it clear that it was not at all saying life of any person is less important than another.

The bench asked them not to leave the decision to the doctors and form a clear policy in this regard and told the counsel for the Centre and Delhi government to come back with instructions on Tuesday.

The court also told the Centre’s counsel that as a matter of policy, the government will have to say till the drug is not available in appropriate quantity, it will have to leave some patients and you have to exclude some. The 80-year-old man has lived his life, he has no more responsibility, of course, there is support from his side to the family. Whereas, the 35-year-old patient has two children to support. If we have to make a cruel choice, we have to take a decision. Will you give it to the 80-year-old patient or to whom who has two children to support, the bench said.

Earlier, the Centre on Friday placed a report giving the steps taken by it to source the medicine and overcome shortages.

According to the Union Health Ministry, people catch mucormycosis by coming in contact with the fungal spores in the environment. It can also develop on the skin after the fungus enters the skin through a cut, scrape, burn, or another type of skin trauma. The disease is being detected among patients who are recovering or have recovered from COVID-19. Moreover, anyone who is diabetic and whose immune system is not functioning well needs to be on the guard against this, the ministry has said.

(With inputs from PTI)

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Investor wealth jumps over Rs 3.93 lakh crore in 4 days

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Investors have gained Rs 3,93,349.08 crore in four days following a strong rally in the equity markets amid a declining trend in COVID-19 cases. In four consecutive sessions of gains, the 30-share BSE Sensex has climbed 1,299.91 points or 2.56 percent.

The BSE benchmark index on Monday closed at 51,937.44, a gain of 514.56 points or 1 percent.

In four days, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies zoomed Rs 3,93,349.08 crore to close at a record high of Rs 2,22,99,810.27 crore on Monday.

“After making a flat start, market extended gains throughout the session. Investor sentiments remained bullish over hopes of revival in the global economy and a declining trend in COVID-19 cases continues to offer comfort to investors.

“Index heavyweight Reliance and large banking stocks like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were among the top contributors to benchmark gains in today’s session,” said Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director, Choice Broking.

Reliance Industries was the biggest gainer in the 30-share frontline companies pack, jumping 3.13 percent, followed by ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy’s, Maruti and ITC. In contrast, M&M, Infosys, L&T and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.

In the broader market, the BSE midcap and smallcap indices gained up to 0.50 per cent. “The rise in heavyweights supported the rally and sectors like metal, private banks and energy witnessed maximum gains in anticipation of better economic growth,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Ethereum extends gains to rise 8%; bitcoin firms

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Cryptocurrency Ethereum extended gains to rise more than 8% on Monday to $2,587 but remained 40% below a record high of above $4,300 hit earlier this month.

At 1153 GMT, it was trading up 7.4% at $2,565.69.

Larger rival Bitcoin also gained in its wake with the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency rising 3.7% to $36,977 in quiet trading with London and U.S. markets shut for holidays.

Bitcoin has been less volatile in recent days but is down by more than 35% this month, weighed by growing regulatory pressures on the sector.

Latest positioning data for the week ended May. 25 confirmed the trend with net short positions nearly doubling from the previous week, which was the smallest net short since late March last year.

In the latest salvo against the cryptocurrency, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said much of the trading was speculative. His remarks followed China’s recent efforts to crack down on mining activities.

It is currently trading at levels last seen in February and at roughly half its peak value of $65,000 seen in April.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Funding modern, low-cost Indian healthcare infrastructure

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Indian Healthcare sector has challenges of inadequate distribution of healthcare service providers and the need for low-cost (and yet impactful) healthcare solutions for increasing diseases (especially chronic ones).

India has a doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:10,189—much lower than the 1:1,000 recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). India also has a huge shortage of doctors, nurses and paramedics. Estimates indicate that we need 10 lakh new doctors to relieve the burden in the medical fraternity. Obviously, this challenge cannot be addressed in one year. An increase in the number of seats in the existing medical colleges can help meet the demands of skilled doctors, but parallelly, we need to prepare a pool of qualified teaching staff for running the new medical colleges and providing quality medical education.

India’s hospital bed density is less than half the global average of three hospital beds per 1,000 people — implying that an estimated 2.2 million beds will be required over the next 15 years. Average Life expectancy is also expected to exceed 70 years by 2022 and hence more healthcare services required. Enough public data and research studies are available to showcase the dangers that nearly 1/3rd of the Indian population could be prone to Obesity & Diabetes (O&D) in the years to come.

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have emerged as one of the largest contributors of death in India, accounting for 15 percent of the global NCD deaths and 60 percent of total deaths in India. NCD prevention is most effective when it works at the origin of the problem and if the intervention starts right at its beginning. Taking timely action is important to reduce premature mortality related to NCDs by a third by 2030—which is a sustainable development goal (SDG) that India has signed up for!

To solve all these, we need to create high-quality health centres and hospitals in rural areas. That’s the only way to decongest Urban medical centres. Having quality healthcare infrastructure would encourage doctors to practice outside the big cities. After all, the rural population accounts for more than 63 percent of the total population.

How to fund this growth?

In a COVID-19 world where every nation has been impacted, global corporate majors and investors would want to look at future opportunities. So the private sector investment would come in, where there is a promise of the safety of investments and opening up of the sector to private business management.

As India starts rebuilding its economy post-coronavirus, it would need a massive outlay of capital for long-term infrastructure projects. However, health care would also need governmental spending to go along with those private investments.

The current fiscal situation would not permit us that luxury. In the same breath, we need to be prudent about global borrowing programs. Where would India generate that from? After all, we cannot create a larger debt pile for our future generations.

Let’s take a leaf from the suggestion for an “Elephant bond” recommended by a High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) set up by the Minister of Commerce in 2019, and tweak it for better outcomes for all stakeholders.

“Healthy India 2034 fund”

• Idea: Open an amnesty scheme to declare undisclosed income/wealth. Open a window for 3 months for Indians to declare any undisclosed income/wealth (currently lying in any securities form, anywhere globally) without fear of prosecution.
• Collect 20 percent of the declared amount as tax to be deducted at source (or call it “amnesty-tax”)
• Allow the declarer to hold 30 percent as legal tender with themselves.
• The declarer has to compulsorily deposit the balance 50 percent with GoI into a “Healthy India 2034 fund” with a 12-year lock-in. (In today’s covid-hit fragile human sentiments, having seen deaths in families and societies, longer tenure lock-in of investments will not act as an incentive!).
• The interest rate on the investment bond can be a “reverse-repo” rate. The interest earned on such bonds can be credited (post TDS) to the depositors’ account annually or once every 3 years. It also increases the income-tax revenues on this base for the subsequent 12 years.

At present, the Indian Government faces a weighted average borrowing cost of close to 8 percent. Such an amnesty scheme, if successfully done, could bring down the cost of government borrowings to reduce the overall interest burden.

In a black swan event like the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to be open to all ideas to ensure the ability to develop the national infrastructure and to fund it self-sufficiently! After all, we cannot have our healthcare development goal as a sine-die situation.

This is not the time to worry if such an “amnesty” scheme will upset the optics of the “politics & morality” in the run-up to 2024 national elections. Use the perceived “sinned” funds for developing the global-best grassroots healthcare system by 2034. Healthcare funding could well be Hobson’s choice!

—Srinath Sridharan is an independent markets commentator, startup mentor and CEO coach. The views expressed are personal

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

In comfortable position, agree with govt’s projections on COVID vaccination, says Dr NK Arora

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Two days after the government assured to vaccinate all Indians by December this year, the Centre’s lawyer, soliciter general Tushar Mehta reiterated that statement before the Supreme Court. He promised that the government can procure more vaccines and complete inoculation of all adults by December or earlier. But, the apex court pointed out what it called “various flaws” in the government’s vaccination strategy and has asked for a policy document.

To begin with, the apex court pulled up the Centre for its vaccine procurement policy saying it can’t put the onus on states or municipal bodies to procure vaccines. The court made it clear that it is the union government of India that needs to procure vaccines for the entire country.

Court also questioned the issue of differential pricing of vaccines. The apex court asked why vaccine manufacturers are setting different prices for state government and private hospitals.

The top court also questioned why the Centre has excluded 18 to 44 age group from free vaccination. Court asked on what basis has the central government excluded those below 45 in its strategy.

Further, the court slammed the Centre for mandatory Co-Win registration and asked how will people in rural areas, those who are poor and vulnerable will go online to seek a vaccine. Mincing no words, the court said the government needs to “wake up and smell the coffee”– and amend policies to address the digital divide.

The Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction over the Centre’s submissions of an affidavit on the vaccine policy, the court demanded the government to submit its policy document to understand its intent.

To take the discussion forward, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Dr NK Arora, Head-Operations Research, Natl COVID-19 Taskforce Advisor, AEFI National Committee.

Dr Arora said, “India did the prioritisation exercise last September-October 2020 and based on the projections of vaccine availability to the highest fatality group and also those who are likely to have severe diseases and hospitalisation. It was at that time 50 years plus was considered as priority group along with three other groups which are at high risk of exposure to the virus.”

On vaccination, he said, “Vaccination to be opened up for all the age group including as we all are aware that paediatric trial is going on in fact there are 2-3, so with this in the background and the volume we should be able to immunise almost the whole population the adult population with the vaccine. We are in a very comfortable position and I completely agree with what the government has said.”

“Overall we would be having at an average 30 crore doses per month or in other words, we are ready to immunise 1 crore population every day for nest 6 months starting from the second half of July or so.”

For full interview, watch accompanying video…

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

COVID second wave shatters business confidence, says FICCI survey

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The latest FICCI Business Confidence Survey has revealed that a majority of participants felt their businesses were directly impacted by the second COVID-19 wave and the ongoing lockdowns and restrictions. The Overall Business Confidence Index fell by over 20 points to stand at 51.5 from 74.2 in the last survey. However, the Index score still didn’t fall as much as it did during last year’s lockdown (42.9).

The survey by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) was conducted during the months of April and May and questioned its participants on their expectations for the period between April to September.

The demand conditions were also expected to be weaker as 70 percent of the respondents claimed that the current situation had weaker demand than during the previous survey segment. The slow demand is expected to be a result of permanent loss of incomes in many households due to lost livelihoods and deaths. The weak demand condition is expected to last long as many households have already tapped into and exhausted savings.

Only 31 percent were expecting better sales prospects in the coming months, down from 66 percent in the last survey. Profits were also not expected as only 16 percent of those surveyed were hoping for higher profits over the next six months. Respondents were similarly bearish on hiring prospects and only 37 percent of them indicated higher outbound shipments.

Only 19 percent of the respondents hoped for better hiring.

The respondents said the government needed to improve its vaccine procurement so that the mass vaccination drive could run at full speed. The respondents also believed that only mass vaccination could stop another pandemic.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India FY21 GDP contracts 7.3%; Jan-March growth at 1.6%

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian economy contracted 7.3 percent in FY21 against a 4 percent expansion in the preceding FY20, official data showed on Monday. The slump was not as bad as the Street had expected thanks to a 1.6 percent rise in March quarter GDP. A CNBC-TV18 poll had also estimated the GDP to shrink by 7.5 percent.

The National Statistical Office (NSO), which released the data, had first projected a GDP contraction of 7.7 percent in 2020-21 in its first advance estimates of national accounts released in January this year. It was revised to an 8 percent contraction later in the second revised estimate in February.

In contrast, the GDP in the March quarter of 2020-2021 grew by 1.6 percent, the data showed on Monday, before the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic engulfed India forcing restrictions across multiple states impacting economic activity.  A CNBC-TV18 poll had estimated the Q4 GDP at 0.9 percent and gross value added (GVA) reading is seen at 3 percent.

The fourth-quarter growth was better than the 0.5 percent expansion in the previous October-December quarter of 2020-21. The GDP had expanded by 3 percent in the corresponding January-March period of 2019-20, according to NSO data.

Among sectors, the agriculture growth for FY21 has been estimated at 3.6 percent, while mining contracted by 8.5 percent. The manufacturing shrunk by 7.2 percent, while electricity growth came in at 1.9 percent.

FY21 #GDP at -7.3% Vs CNBC-TV18 poll of -7.5%

*Follow thread for more on internals* pic.twitter.com/gcv2VeYpty

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) May 31, 2021

The growth in construction contracted by 8.6 percent, while trade, hotels grew at a negative rate of 18.2 percent. The financial and real estate sector shrunk by 1.5 percent, while public administration growth too was negative at 4.6 percent.

Meanwhile, India’s fiscal deficit came in at 9.3 percent of GDP in 2020-21, down from the revised estimate of 9.5 percent.

Fiscal Deficit Data | April #FiscalDeficit at Rs 78,700 cr Vs Rs 2.79 lk cr (YoY) pic.twitter.com/H2Wy6pVO51

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) May 31, 2021

A Reuters poll had reported a median forecast of 1 percent on-year growth for the March quarter, which is up from 0.4 percent in the previous quarter. It also said that economists are less upbeat about the current quarter ending in June.

The news agency had forecast the three-month media growth between April and June at 21.6 percent, which was lower than an earlier estimate of 23 percent. For the full-year fiscal year 2022, the median forecast is down from a previous estimate of 10.4 percent growth to a 9.8 percent expansion.

Indian economy had recorded an 11-year low GDP growth rate of four percent in 2019-20, down from the previous 6.5 percent.

India has recorded over 2.8 crore COVID-19 infections, behind only the United States, and 329,100 deaths as of Monday, although the rise in coronavirus cases has begun to slow.

Also, catch all the live updates on GDP data today with our live blog

—The story has been updated with more details

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow