India remains an attractive destination for foreign direct investments (FDI) on account of healthy prospects of economic growth and its skilled workforce, according to a survey by Deloitte. A large proportion of international business leaders remain confident in India's short- and long-term prospects and are readying plans to make additional and first-time investments in the country, it said on Tuesday. "The survey, which questioned 1,200 business leaders of multinational corporations in the US, UK, Japan and Singapore, found that India remains an attractive destination for investments, scoring highly for its skilled workforce and prospects for economic growth," the survey - India's FDI Opportunity - said.
Crisil Ratings on Wednesday said a broad-based recovery is on for India Inc currently, and upgraded its credit quality outlook to 'positive' from the earlier 'cautiously optimistic'. The rating agency said the credit ratio, which illustrates the number of upgrades to downgrades, rose to over 2.5 times in the first four months of the fiscal, as compared to 1.33 times in the second half of FY21, it said in a statement. The rating agency said it has also done a study of 43 sectors, excluding the financial sector, accounting for 75 per cent of the overall Rs 36 lakh crore in outstanding debt, which shows that the current recovery is broad-based.
Communications between the USTR and the world's most powerful pharmaceutical and trade lobbying groups reveal that many raised concerns about India's push to exempt Covid vaccines from intellectual property.
Rediff reader K Srinivasan, 54 who works as associate general manager, corporate relations at BGS Gleneagles Global Hospitals in Bengaluru shares his story.
The government said that "in exercise of extraordinary powers in public interest, conferred by paragraph 19 of the DPCO, 2013", the ceiling prices of 21 key formulations had been increased. These formulations include common medicines like BCG vaccines, penicillin, malaria and leprosy medicines (Dapsone), life-saving drugs like Furosemide (used to treat fluid build-up due to heart failure, liver scarring, or kidney disease), vitamin C, some common antibiotics, and anti-allergy medicines.
The BCCI will be expecting the two new IPL franchises to go for Rs 7000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore each at the bidding process which begins in Dubai on Monday.
The only category of pharmaceuticals that showed a negative growth in exports this time was herbal products, exports of which stood at $299 million as compared to $ 312 million in the previous year.
The company will now focus on specialty products in Japan; it is open to inorganic opportunities, especially in India.
India and the US are the world's largest democracies and the two countries are committed to taking on the toughest challenges together, President Joe Biden said after his first-ever in-person meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.
Though there is no official word, the sources said the government is not ready to give in to the indemnity demands of the US drug manufacturers against liabilities in case of adverse effects.
Fund managers said investors remained positive on the pharma manufacturing activity in India, which further strengthened during the Covid-19 period, on account of restrictions imposed on pharma imports from China.
Fresher hiring sentiment is highest in India, with 17 per cent employers keen on recruiting fresh graduates in the July to December 2021 period against 6 per cent globally. According to the Career Outlook Report by TeamLease EdTech, conducted across 18 sectors and 14 cities, the hiring sentiment in the country has registered a 2 percentage point increase over the February-April 2021 period. In terms of sectors, those that have been able to withstand the impact of the pandemic and witnessed a stronger hiring sentiment are information technology (31 per cent), telecommunication (25 per cent) and technology start-ups (25 per cent).
If the vaccine is recommended for use as a booster against Omicron, it may significantly boost the demand for Covishield in India.
While sales in the domestic market declined 4.2 per cent during the April-July period, exports grew steadily at 9.5 per cent during the same period.
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Moving quickly towards ending a retrospective tax dispute with a firm that gave India its largest oilfield, the government has accepted Cairn Energy PLC's undertakings which would allow for the refund of taxes, sources said. Meeting the requirements of the new legislation that scraps levy of retrospective taxation, the company had earlier this month given required undertakings indemnifying the Indian government against future claims as well as agreeing to drop any legal proceedings anywhere in the world. The government has now accepted this and issued Cairn a so-called Form-II, committing to refund the tax collected to enforce the retrospective tax demand, two sources with direct knowledge of the development said.
The decision to open Kartarpur shrine was taken by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Saturday due to the approaching death anniversary of Sikhism founder Baba Guru Nanak Dev on September 22.
This is apart from the requirement to stock hydroxychloroquine (200 mg) and Azithromycin (500 mg) tablets for patients requiring ICU management, asymptomatic healthcare workers and asymptomatic household contacts of positive cases.
The trial is being conducted in three phases by segregating children into categories according to their age. The first trial was started in the age group of 12 to 18 years followed by the age group of 6 to 12. Trials for children between the ages of and 2-6 years are currently undergoing trials.
It is understood that India's border row with China figured in the talks between Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale though there was no mention of it in the press statements issued by the two sides.
According to the IVCA-EY report, July recorded 10 large deals worth $3.1 billion compared to 13 large deals worth $7.1 billion in July 2019.
The groups plan to take on well-entrenched players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm by merging their offline businesses with e-commerce initiatives.
Consumption is among the most diversified and sought-after themes in Indian equities. Over the past five years, consumption theme funds have given an annualised category average return of 15.17 per cent, according to the data from Value Research. But this theme has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which impacted jobs and livelihood.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the signing of a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement, a kind of a free trade pact, between India and Mauritius which is aimed at liberalising norms to boost two-way commerce
The Indian government has paid Cairn Energy Plc Rs 7,900 crore to refund taxes it had collected to enforce a retrospective tax demand, ending a seven-year-old dispute that had tarred the country's image as an investment destination. The company, which is now known as Capricorn Energy PLC, in a statement said it has received "net proceeds of $1.06 billion", of which nearly 70 per cent will be returned to the shareholders. The tax department had used a 2012 legislation, which gave it powers to go back 50 years and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India, to seek Rs 10,247 crore in taxes from Cairn.
The UK's National Health Service was already lining up thousands of medics and volunteers to be ready to deliver jabs up and down the country.
"India expands its vaccine basket! Johnson and Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is given approval for Emergency Use in India. Now India has 5 EUA vaccines. This will further boost our nation's collective fight against COVID-19," tweeted the minister.
The Quad partnership is on track to produce at least a billion vaccine doses in India by 2022, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday, asserting that nothing is more urgent than working together to defeat COVID-19 so the world is much better prepared for future pandemics.
Sources said the pandemic and the response of the government is likely to be discussed in the virtual meet.
Vinay Umarji
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has granted restricted emergency use authorisation to two new vaccines and a drug for COVID-19, taking the number of preventives and treatments available in India to 12.
These items will remain under essential commodities segment till June-end, a move aimed at ensuring availability at reasonable prices and cracking down on hoarders/black marketeers.
Dr Reddy's, Glenmark, Wockhardt have lined up alternatives for Zytiga
The South African authorities said the detected cases and percentage of people testing positive are both increasing quickly, particularly in particularly in most populated province of Gauteng, North West and Limpopo regions of the country.
June indicates a change in trend from previous quarters in terms of how much companies are spending on employees. The worst hit sectors included steel, air transport service and automobile firms.
This will be the second all-party meeting called by the government to discuss the COVID-19 situation since the outbreak of the pandemic.
The one-year returns for equity-oriented mutual fund (MFs) schemes have largely mirrored the gains made in the secondary market. However, schemes that invest in infrastructure (infra), small-cap, and public sector undertaking (PSU) banks have emerged standout performers, with gains in excess of 100 per cent in some cases. Of the total 484 equity schemes, 353 have managed to beat the Sensex, reveals the data provided by Value Research. Around 20 have delivered returns in excess of 90 per cent and six schemes have given returns of over 100 per cent in the past one year. The S&P BSE Sensex Total Return Index (TRI) has given returns of 51 per cent in the last one year, ended October 29.
The IPO rush will continue in September with two more companies Vijaya Diagnostic Centre and Ami Organics launching their initial share-sales on Wednesday to raise a total of Rs 2,465 crore. This comes after eight companies including Devyani International, Nuvoco Vistas Corporation and CarTrade Tech floated their initial share-sales last month to mobilise Rs 18,243 crore. So far in the current fiscal, a total of 20 companies have mopped up more than Rs 45,000 crore through IPOs. This is much higher than Rs 31,277 crore raised by 30 firms in the entire 2020-21.
A key lesson for the pharmaceutical sector in this case is to not downplay the significant impact that regulatory non-compliance can have on operations.
'If the third wave of Covid infections is as bad as the second one, the market may get very polarised with a preference for blue-chips with low volatility.'
On April 14, 2016, the crime branch of the Thane police had seized over 20 tonnes of ephedrine and 2.5 tonnes of acetic anhydride drugs from a pharmaceutical factory - Avon Life Sciences - in Solapur and other locations in Thane and Ahmedabad.
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