There could be multiple measures announced in quick succession, not only by the finance minister but also other ministers regarding their respective sectors, and by the Reserve Bank of India. The total size of these announcements could rival that of other G-20 nations as a percentage of GDP.
Top Indian IT services companies - TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech - have said that they would continue to hire freshers through campus interviews, though lateral hiring will be mostly on exception basis.
The finance minister is ready to present a second financial package. The Centre has ruled out a mega stimulus and will rely on targeted, incremental packages. Industry is clamouring for a bailout, the liquidity upheaval in capital markets is nowhere close to being sorted out, and all budgetary forecasts now stand irrelevant, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
The ministry of home affairs has made the use of Aarogya Setu app mandatory for all employees, both private and public, and pinned the responsibility for compliance on the head of respective organisations.
The beneficiaries of the second set of announcements are expected to be micro, small, and medium enterprises, farmers, women, poor, migrant workers, and other marginalised sections of the society, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
WhatsApp limited the number of times a frequently forwarded message can be sent further to only one chat at a time. This resulted in 70% plunge in viral forwarded messages globally, WhatsApp told GoI.
'The numbers are null and void now. Look, we can give out projections now, but we know that a week later those numbers will also be irrelevant. So we need to wait,' a top government official said.
The exponential number of downloads can be attributed to a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking people to have the app on their mobiles, combined with the government's push for downloading of the app through other channels, reports Neha Alawadhi.
A government official said out that with hardly any economic activity, an immediate duty hike will not be productive and could be announced once the lockdown eases and demand revives.
This is because the bond market has factored in the Rs 4.88-trillion gross borrowing for April-September 2020.
Given that people have been reluctant to order cooked food - which worsened due to a couple of cases of delivery personnel testing positive for COVID-19 - food delivery platforms have included grocery delivery as part of their services.
The stimulus package is expected anytime this week and will be aimed at the urban and rural poor; disadvantaged sections of society; MSMEs and some of the worst-affected sectors.
Sources said a merger could benefit both as Grofers' private labels business would be a draw for Zomato, as well as its experience in the online grocery delivery space.
It is likely the government will divide the country into different zones during the proposed extended period of lockdown and might permit a few services to function in safe zones.
The downward surprise in Q2 stemmed from a stronger-than-anticipated drag from gross fixed capital formation and marginal weakness in private final consumption expenditure. In Q3, projection errors emanated mainly from a steep unanticipated contraction in gross fixed capital formation, which was the deepest in the new series of GDP.
'We have to plan for whatever the new normal is.'
Even with the Rs 20,000 crore distributed among states, it will still be a fraction of what they have been demanding in financial support and clearance of pending dues.
This permission was given some time late last month, before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 31 issued the indicative borrowing calendar for the states for April-June and the one for the Centre for April-September.
'If many start-ups lose in this environment, there will be less number of people willing to start new businesses.'
Over the past week, several unusual partnerships among start-ups, traditional businesses and hospitals have been announced, and several more are likely to materialise soon. The trend could see increased importance of gig workers, who are taking considerable risk to deliver goods to people in the time of a pandemic.
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