Industry leaders said April-June quarter would be a washout even for the high and mighty.

India Inc’s first attempts to move goods across states after the easing of lockdown curbs were hobbled by expired e-way bills which made it near impossible for transporters to cross checkpoints.

Charge filings, which indicate new loans or additional collateral towards past loans, fell 57.4% to 277 in March and April combined from 650 in January and February, according to data compiled by Propstack, a financial data intelligence provider.

It took for the company’s HR department to visit the villages and show them the letters of approval received from the ministry of textile, local administration and to explain to the residents how this will help the country’s effort to fight the pandemic. HR departments face the additional task of convincing not just employees but their neighbours too of the hygienic conditions.

On Monday, the court had also said that the order is not sustainable in view of the fact that orders and/or directions were passed interfering with the holding of AGM by the companies that are separate juristic entities without first deciding the issue of jurisdiction.

The decision of the Birlas comes in spite of a favourable verdict from a two-judge division bench of the Calcutta High Court which on Monday had asked the probate court to hear the appellant MP Birla Group companies afresh, which was one of their key petitions.

Industry captains say economy and jobs must be central focus now, and policymakers have to recognise that the country will have to live with and work around Covid-19. India Inc’s growing call on reopening India for business comes amidst a blizzard of grim economic forecasts. Economic growth in FY21 can be negative, according to Nomura, ICRA and others.

CLSA maintained its 'buy' rating on the stock, with a target price of Rs 1,770.

​​Fed fund futures are now pricing negative fed rate by June 21.

But the economy can’t rev up too quickly, not as long as the virus is still loose.

Knowing and following the fundamentals takes much of the risk out of investing.

Car and bike-makers are gearing up to sell more in Bharat to counterbalance shortfall in demand in the cities.

Component makers are also working overtime to restart factories, but delays in getting approvals are causing hindrance in some states, especially in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu that have the biggest automotive manufacturing hubs, industry insiders said. This, they said, could weigh on the plans of the automakers.

“I have been trying for the last two years to pursue the scrappage policy. I have asked the Secretary (ministry of road transport and highways) to expedite the scrappage policy. Because this will help reduce production cost,” Gadkari said in an interaction with SIAM Institute on Thursday.

German car maker BMW commenced operations at the Chennai plant in accordance with the government-initiated guidelines. The company also stated that the BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad dealerships across the country would restart the operations in adherence to local government directives.

About 20% of the auto retail network, or 3,500 outlets, opened for business this week, with one-third staff to comply with social-distancing norms. As of Wednesday evening, some 50,000-60,000 employees were back at work, industry insiders said.

The company in its statement said that in 4 steps, a customer can avail of online exchange, finance and insurance, personalize & own their chosen Mahindra vehicle.

The decision to extend warranty on tyres has been taken to express solidarity with customers amidst the continued lockdown, Ceat Tyres said in a statement. The extention is valid on tyres whose warranty is due to expire between March 1 and May 31, it added.

Areas designated as Green and orange zones, where the spread of Covid-19 infections is under control, account for more than 80% of India’s 733 districts, Uber said.

The timing of the peak will depend on how India is able to control physical distancing and on the level of infection spreads after restrictions are relaxed, they said.

IIT Kanpur is developing a vaccine against Covid-19, while researchers at Madras and Kanpur have built desi drones for surveillance and IIT Ropar has produced robots to deliver food and medicines to patients in hospitals and quarantine zones. These innovations are in various stages of development.

Recent reports have suggested that the combination of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, and the antibiotic azithromycin may help patients with COVID-19, said scientists from the New York University School of Medicine in the US.

While over 20 technical and scientific institutions are working on developing a vaccine for coronavirus, IITs have already set up "COVID-19 specific research centres", encouraging developments in the innovation ecosystem.

The tale of ITER’s missing shims shows how even the best-laid contingency plans have had to be rewritten.

Texas A&M is the first US institution in the clinical trial to have federal clearance for testing on humans. Researchers hope to demonstrate that Bacillus Calmette-Guerin or BCG mitigates the effects of the novel coronavirus, allowing fewer people to be hospitalised or to die from COVID-19.

The study, published in the journal Pathogens, found that all four drugs were effective in inhibiting, or blocking, the coronavirus' RNA proteins from making genomic copies of the novel coronavirus.

CSIR's Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad and Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh are currently sequencing the genomes of the novel coronavirus, he said. Other CSIR institutes are also expected to join the process.

Mortality and morbidity apply to enterprises, too; MSMEs more pronounced than most. Baseline GDP growth was already in slowdown mode and a capital crunch was compounded by lockdown’s labour constraint.

Nitin Gadkari, the minister for MSME and road transport and highways, also called upon the retailers to start exploring option of home delivery.

Seven companies including Aditya Birla Financial Services, Mahindra Financial Services, Bajaj Finance, Tata Capital and L&T Finance collectively raised ₹3,544 crore out of the targeted ₹10,400 crore on Monday and Tuesday.

In the past two weeks, at least five companies have either issued, or announced plans to issue, non-convertible debentures worth a total of Rs 5,500 crore, as per information available from filings with stock exchanges.

These will be issued in three tranches of Rs 500 crore, Rs 300 crore and Rs 200 crores with redemptions due on September 30, 2022, November 28, 2022 and December 29, 2022 respectively, it added.

Perpetual bonds are a standard instrument in the kitty of capital markets today.

In Europe, investment grade-rated companies raised $83.2 billion in April, according to Refinitiv data.

The decision did not apply to the ECB's PEPP coronavirus pandemic-fighting programme.

The board has considered and approved the proposal to raise debt of up to Rs 2,000 crore, a company statement said.

The coupon on the bonds, to be maturing in December 2021, has been fixed at 7.06 per cent per annum.

The central bank has been aggressively raising liquidity levels in the system.

A hike in taxes on fuels, which will add to government’s revenue, helped lift sentiment.

The gross borrowing programme for the year has been increased to Rs 12 lakh crore.

The issue price for Series I (April 20 to 24, 2020) was Rs 4,639 per gram of gold.

FTMF stunned all by deciding to shutter operations of six schemes with assets under management of more than Rs 25,000 crore late Thursday evening, citing redemption pressures and market volatilities in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the first instance when a fund house is shutting its schemes because of coronavirus related pandemic.

However, record-low yields are pointing to an undercurrent of worry in the market.

Though bleak, that number was smaller than analysts’ expectations of 22 million jobs lost.

Bitcoin’s technology was designed in such a way that it cuts the reward for miners in half every four years, a move meant to keep a lid on inflation.

Analysts in an ETNow poll had projected the number at Rs 3,000 crore.

The Covid-19 outbreak brought the world to its knees, leading to sealing of borders, ban on travel, and postponement or cancellation of all major sporting events. So, here they are now, confined to their homes with the Games delayed by a year, no competitions, no proper training and no sign of light at the end of the tunnel.

The postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be cancelled if the coronavirus pandemic isn't brought under control by next year, the organising committee's president said in comments published Tuesday.

"After New Delhi didn't fulfill its obligations to pay host fee as mentioned in the Host City Agreement terms, AIBA has terminated the contract. Therefore, India would have to pay a cancellation penalty of USD 500," the AIBA said in a statement.