India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
Apart from favipiravir and remdesivir, its key Covid-19 products, DRL has already launched nutraceutical products and hand sanitisers during the pandemic.
While the process of extracting plasma itself is simple, doctors say that it is the screening of donors, testing and filling up of numerous forms that takes time.
Pune's Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker by volume, is placing its bets on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate AZD1222 with CEO Adar Poonawalla stating he would start manufacturing at personal risk.
Companies say that unlike in the US and other countries, in India the high cost of rentals and lower ticket price makes it unviable to run an operation without half the seats available for sale.
Chingari, Roposo, Khabri and Trell are seeing huge traction as people are looking at options to earn incentives from home. Music streaming app Gaana, which is strongly placed in the market with 150 million users, recently opened up its short video platform for subscribers.
The two cities finally got their act together by ramping up the testing capacity and implementing stricter quarantine norms.
Reliance is leveraging the technological change of building a virtualised 5G network which would see the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.
Apart from digital advertising revenue, both companies want to reach out to the 'next billion' Indian customers. After all, around half of the 1.3 billion population is still not on the net and this represents a challenge as well as an opportunity.
The Drug Controller General of India has sent a letter to the Glenmark seeking clarifications on pricing as well as claims of therapeutic efficacy. While Glenmark has claimed this drug is effective in comorbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension, according to protocol summary (of clinical trials) the trial was not designed to access the Fabiflu in comorbid conditions.
According to software company Mavernir, the new virtualised networks would lead to a saving of 40 per cent in capex and 34 per cent in terms of lower operations cost for operators.
Beside RIL's Jio Switch and Jio Browser, smaller Indian app companies who have been overwhelmed by TikTok are again seeing a big rush - even though till the second week of June they might not have been even listed in the top 100 apps in the country.
The Indian authorities feared that these apps were transferring consumer data to locations outside the country, especially China, in an unauthorised and surreptitious manner. With servers in India, the data of local consumers would be stored in the country.
There are 12 sites across India, including private and public hospitals, conducting Phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Based on an earlier letter by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to the 12 sites, volunteer recruitments for the clinical trials were to begin by July 7. At least three sites are yet to kick-start the process.
India lost its competitive advantage as China gave fiscal benefits to its local manufacturers. Besides, recent policy flip-flops have, however, dented India's image as the 'pharmacy of the world'.
JioMeet, which has already got the endorsement of top government officials and politicians, saw a huge surge in its ranking on Google Play, based on its downloads.
The mobile phone manufacturers are planning to plead with the government that the new rules suggested by the DoT could leave them with no option but to stop introducing new phone models in the country if the stringent rules are eventually approved.
Apart from them, consignments of 11 top importers, including LG, Samsung, Toyota, Honda, and Siemens, will also be allowed entry, relieving them of the 100 per cent inspection rule.
Globally, the focus has moved back to India, especially in terms of telecom assets. Vodafone Idea, with some 300 million customers, continues to be attractive with shares available at a low price.
Hetero has priced the injectable drug at Rs 5,400 per 100 mg vial. With More drugmakers in line to launch the drug soon, the prices may see a further erosion.