Month: July 2021

Govt panel recommends against allowing SII to conduct trial of Covovax on children aged 2-17 yrs

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

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An expert panel of the country’s central drug authority on Wednesday recommended against granting permission to the Serum Institute of India (SII) to conduct the phase 2/3 trial of COVID-19 vaccine Covovax on children aged 2 to 17 years, sources said. The SII applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on Monday seeking permission for conducting a trial of Covovax on 920 children, 460 each in the 12-17 and 2-11 age groups, at 10 sites.

“The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), which deliberated on the application, noted that the vaccine has not been approved in any country,” a source said. “It also recommended that the Pune-based company should submit the safety and immunogenicity data (of Covovax) from the ongoing clinical trial in adults for considering the conduct of a clinical trial in children,” the source said.

The recommendations are learnt to have been approved by the DCGI. In August 2020, US-based vaccine maker Novavax Inc. had announced a licence agreement with the SII for the development and commercialisation of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, in low and middle-income countries and India.

The clinical trials of Covovax began in India in March and the SII hopes to launch it by September for adults. In January, the SII had rolled out the Covishield vaccine in the country. It had entered into a collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine.

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

Petrol, diesel prices kept unchanged for second day in a row

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

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The oil marketing companies (OMCs) kept fuel prices unchanged for the second consecutive day on Thursday.

Accordingly, the price of petrol and diesel was static at Rs 98.81 and Rs 89.18 per litre in the national capital, as per Indian Oil Corporation, the country’s largest fuel retailer. In Mumbai, the petrol price was unchanged at Rs 104.90 per litre on Thursday. The cost of diesel was stable at Rs 96.72 a litre.

The prices of petrol and diesel are reviewed by oil marketing companies such as state-run Indian Oil (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) on a daily basis and any revision is implemented from 6 am in the morning.

On the global front, oil prices traded sideways on Thursday as investors waited for a decision from key producers on whether they would maintain or ease supply cuts in the second half of the year, according to news agency Reuters.

Brent crude for September edged up 1 cent to $74.63 a barrel by 00:48 GMT while the US West Texas Intermediate crude for August was at $73.46 a barrel, down 1 cent but near its highest since 2018 of $ 74.45, Reuters said.

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

MarketBuzz Podcast With Sonia Shenoy: Sensex, Nifty likely to open flat; Auto stocks in focus

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

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The Indian market is likely to open flat Thursday amid mixed cues. The trend on SGX Nifty also indicates a flat start for the broader index in India. The Nifty futures were trading 18.00 points or 0.11 percent higher at the 15,765.00 level on the Singaporean Exchange at 8:15 am.

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The CNBCTV18.com podcast on the big themes, vital news and key events that you should know before the opening bell, powered by CNBC-TV18 anchors. MarketBuzz is your daily morning briefing by CNBC-TV18 research analysts and anchors Sonia Shenoy, Ekta Batra, Anisha Jain, Nigel D’Souza and Mangalam Maloo to jumpstart your stock market investing. Subscribe to our free podcasts on Audioboom or listen on the featured podcast page on CNBCTV18.com.

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

Twitter outage: Profiles, threads not loading, users report several other issues

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

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Thousands of Twitter users reported several issues with the microblogging site on Thursday morning, as they couldn’t post or share content and couldn’t access various profiles and threads.

According to Downdetector, a website that keeps track of outages, Twitter is facing problems since 9:33 pm EDT or 7:03 am IST.

While the users reported issues with tweet loading, other features like timeline content, Twitter trends, and follow buttons seem to be working fine.

Per Downdetector, 78 percent of users are facing issues on the desktop website, while some 19 percent on Android app and fewer than 3 percent on iOS app.

Until now it remains unclear what the cause of the outage is or how long it will last.

To be updated.

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

Oil prices nudge higher before OPEC+ meet

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

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Oil prices edged higher on Thursday, supported by lower US inventories, as investors waited for a decision from key producers on whether they would maintain or ease supply cuts in the second half of the year.

Brent crude for September gained 17 cents, 0.2 percent, to USD 74.79 a barrel by 03:55 GMT while the US West Texas Intermediate crude for August was at USD 73.68 a barrel, up 21 cents, or 0.3 percent, close to its highest since 2018 of USD 74.45.

WTI rose more than 10 percent in June while Brent added over 8 percent, touching highs since 2018, as summer travel picked up and more people got vaccinated.

Analysts had forecast a wider supply deficit globally in the second half as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, known as OPEC+, maintained production cuts while demand rises.

OPEC+ is easing supply cuts between May and July by 2.1 million barrels per day and will meet on Thursday to decide whether to leave production unchanged or boost output, possibly by more than 1 million bpd or by a more modest 0.5 million bpd in August. The group is expected to also discuss whether to extend the supply reduction deal to beyond April 2022.

“Sideline discussions indicate that Russia is proposing to boost supply while Saudi Arabia wants a more cautious approach,” ANZ analysts said in a note.

Analysts at Citi bank said global oil market fundamentals should be robust enough to justify an easing of production cuts, adding that they were factoring a 1 million barrels per day (bpd) surge in OPEC supplies in August.

Even after accounting for higher OPEC+ production, Citi expects the market to remain in a deep deficit of more than 3 million bpd through the third quarter with a high probability of Brent hitting around USD 85.

However, outbreaks of the Delta virus variant are raising concerns demand recovery may falter. Renewed lockdowns and rising costs have already weakened momentum in Asia’s factory activities in June.

In the United States, crude stockpiles fell last week for the sixth straight week in response to rising demand, data from the Energy Information Administration showed.

A drop in crude inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI, to the lowest since March 2020 also underpinned the US benchmark, squeezing its discount to Brent to the narrowest since June 2020 on Wednesday.

Brent was seen averaging USD 67.48 a barrel this year and WTI USD 64.54, both up from forecasts in May, a June Reuters poll showed.

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

Inflexor marks final close of early-stage VC fund at Rs 600 crore; to invest in 25 startups

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

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Early-stage venture capital firm Inflexor Ventures has marked the final close of its fund at over Rs 600 crore, surpassing its initial domestic target corpus of Rs 500 crore.

Launched in 2020 by the founders of the erstwhile Parampara Fund, Inflexor Ventures had made the first close of the Rs 500 crore fund in August 2020, at Rs 230 crore.

“We started the fundraise during the first wave of COVID-19 last year and did the final close during the second wave. Despite the tough conditions, we are happy that we exceeded our domestic fund corpus target. While the pandemic posed serious challenges globally, it has also acted as a catalyst for technology based automation and digitization efforts around the globe, and we hope to invest in startups that will benefit from this trend that was underway even before the onset of the pandemic,” said Venkat Vallabhaneni and Jatin Desai, Managing Partners at Inflexor Ventures.

“We thank all our investors for joining the Fund as LPs and we hope to also leverage their expertise and reach to provide further value add to our portfolio companies.”

This is the second fund launched by the company which invests in early-stage companies from seed to Series-A+ stages. The first fund of Rs 75 crore was deployed in 12 companies, including Atomberg, PlayShifu, Bellatrix Aerospace, Entropik Technologies, and CloudSEK.

The tech-based fund is now looking to invest in 25 startups through the new fund. It will primarily look to back fintech, healthtech, consumertech, agritech and others along with futuristic sectors like spacetech, the company said in a statement. It will also participate in Pre-Series A to Series B rounds with amounts ranging from Rs 5-20 crore, in addition to follow-on rounds based on portfolio company performance and funding stage.

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

PPF, other small savings schemes interest rates kept unchanged for September quarter

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

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The government on Wednesday kept interest rates on small savings schemes, including PPF, NSC and SCSS unchanged for the second quarter of 2021-22 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Provident Fund (PPF) and National Savings Certificate (NSC) will continue to carry an annual interest rate of 7.1 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively, in the second quarter as well.

“The rates of interest on various small savings schemes for the second quarter of the financial year 2021-22 starting from July 1, 2021, and ending on September 30, 2021, shall remain unchanged from the current rates applicable for the first quarter (April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021) for FY 2021-22,” the finance ministry said in a notification.

Amid the state assembly elections last quarter, the government after reducing rates on small savings scheme rolled back the rate cut, terming it an “oversight”. With that, the rates of such schemes continued to remain as they were during the January-March quarter.

It must be noted that interest rates for these small savings schemes are notified quarterly. Currently, India Post or Department of Posts, which runs postal services in the country, offers nine types of small saving schemes.

Here’s a look at the existing interest rates of small savings schemes:

These schemes carry the least risk among all investment options as they are recognised and validated by the government, according to experts.

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