Merger of 10 PSU banks into 4 effective from today; 6 banks cease to exist

The biggest ever consolidation exercise in the public sector banking space is slated to take shape on Wednesday when six PSU lender will be merged into four in a bid to make them globally competitive.
The exercise assumes significance as it is taking place at a time when the entire country is under the grip of COVID-19 outbreak. It has triggered 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly virus.

Experts said merger at this point of time will not be very smooth and seamless. However, heads of the anchor banks are exuding confidence. "We don't foresee any problem it is going as per the plan. We have reviewed in the light of this situation also. Certain modification in implementation. We have done so that there is not any disruption for employees and customers. We are ensuring zero disruption," Union Bank of India Managing Director Rajkiran Rai G told PTI.
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The four anchor banks -- PNB, Canara Bank, Union Bank and Indian Bank -- are postponing some part of the implementation and processes due to the lockdown. "For merging banks, we have not changed some of the process like loan process etc, which we proposed to do earlier. However, because of the prevailing situation we will be continuing old system till the situation comes under control," he said.
With the merger, the bank looking at more than Rs 2,500 crore of synergy benefits in the next three years, he added. As per the mega consolidation plan, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will merge into Punjab National Bank (PNB); Syndicate Bank into Canara Bank; Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank into Union Bank of India; and Allahabad Bank into Indian Bank.
Following the consolidation, there will be seven large public sector banks (PSBs), and five smaller ones. There were as many as 27 PSBs in 2017. The total number of public sector banks in the country will come down from 18 to 12 beginning next financial year.
Speaking on preparedness, Indian Bank MD Padmaja Chunduru said harmonisation of products -- both on the loan and deposit sides -- has been completed and the same products will be offered to all customers.
She also said all the deposit and loan products, including access to Indian Bank's emergency credit lines launched in the wake of Covid-19 would be made available to the customers of Allahabad Bank.
"We have focused all our resources on the important things that matter for day one -- treasury integration has happened and IT integration to the extent of product harmonization and rolling out of the same products has happened," she said.
She expects the entire IT integration to be completed by December 2020. Following this merger, PNB will become second largest after the State Bank of India (SBI), Canara Bank fourth, Union Bank of India fifth and Indian Bank seventh biggest public sector lender.
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Commenting on the consolidation, Canara Bank MD L V Prabhakar said, "We are delighted that following the amalgamation as a single legal entity, we will become a powerful banking institution that is globally competitive and efficient working towards providing differentiated customer experience excellence across all our products and services". The combined entity will be large but with an unchanged approach to grass-root banking, customer delight, and satisfaction, Prabhakar said.
The merger will result in the creation of seven large PSBs with scale and national reach, with each amalgamated entity having business of over Rs 8 lakh crore and it would help create banks with scale comparable to global banks and capable of competing effectively in India and globally.
In addition, consolidation would also provide impetus to merged entities by increasing their ability to support larger ticket-size lending and have competitive operations by virtue of greater financial capacity.
Last year, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank were merged with Bank of Baroda. Prior to this, the government had merged five associate banks of SBI and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with the public sector bank. These were State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Hyderabad effective April 2017.

MARKET LIVE: Sensex extends fall, down 700 pts; broader indices outperform

The Indian equity markets slid lower, in line with their Asian peers, in the first trading session of FY21 on Wednesday.
The S&P BSE Sensex was down 702 points, or 2.4 per cent, at 28,750 levels, and the Nifty50 index slipped 210 points, or 2.5 per cent, to 8,380 levels. Kotak Mahindra Bank (down 8 per cent) was the top drag on the Sensex while State Bank of India (down 4 per cent) and HDFC Bank (down 3 per cent) were the other major losers. On the other hand, IndusInd Bank jumped as much as 9 per cent intra-day. Among sectors, Nifty Bank index slipped over 3 per cent.
The broader market, on the other hand, relatively outperformed. The S&P BSE MidCap index was down 0.6 per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap index was flat.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian shares faced another leg lower on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.86 per cent in early trade, while E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 traded 1 per cent lower. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, however, gained 0.35 per cent.
In the US, the Dow Jones fell 1.84 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 1.60 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.95 per cent.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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Surveillance: How Kerala's immigration hotspot curbed Covid-19 transmission

Pathanamthitta: On March 11, 2020, Pathanamthitta, a migration hotspot in southeastern Kerala, became the district with the highest number of cases in the state. Among the districts with lowest poverty rates in the state in India, it had nine cases, all linked to foreign travellers and their primary contacts.
Most of those who were infected had travelled widely across the district before they were diagnosed with the infection, it was later found. This, along with the fact that the virus’ reproductive number--the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual--is 2 to 2.5 persons, had led to fears that the district was looking at an unmanageable contagion.

But over nearly two weeks to March 23, 2020, the district managed to limit the cases to 10. On March 29, 2020, it had a total of 12 cases. Kasaragod, in north Kerala, is now the district reporting the maximum cases, mostly Gulf returnees and their contacts.
How did Pathanamthitta manage to minimise the transmission of the virus and ensure adherence to rules of quarantine among its residents? Rigorous and unrelenting surveillance by the district control team was the solution, we found, as we travelled to the district to understand how a team of doctors, medical and field staff, and officials worked through days and nights to track the virus’ journey.
Through contact tracing, the team was able to track nearly 98% of all primary and secondary contacts, who have been advised home- or hospital-isolation, district collector PB Nooh told IndiaSpend.
It was 2 a.m. on March 8, 2020, the day after the first set of diagnoses, when an extraordinary video conference was held at the collectorate between the collector, the district surveillance officer (DSO) and the state health secretary. There was a reason for the panic: When swabs had been taken from a family of five for diagnosis, no one had expected every one of them to test positive.
“We were so taken aback that most of the team were here by 7 a.m. the next morning--there was no time to lose,” said A L Sheeja, the district medical officer (DMO) in charge of coordinating the efforts at the district level.
By 7 a.m. on March 8, 2020, a Sunday morning, calls were already going out to doctors, medical staff, drivers and vehicles to gather by 8 a.m. at the collectorate so that 10 teams could trace the travel history of the patients. Every contact of the infected family that had returned from Italy was to be traced from the time it landed in India on February 29, 2020, to the time of its isolation.
From then on, how the team worked on surveillance, gathering travel history, contact tracing, and ensuring quarantine by providing essential and psychological support offers an insight into how the district managed to control the spread of the virus. Today, the team spends much of its time following up on primary and secondary contacts of the first few patients, keeping a watch on other travellers and developing software for its data dashboard and ensuring that the essential needs of those in isolation are met.
There were more than 4,800 people--foreign travellers, primary and secondary contacts, and healthcare workers--in isolation in the district, according to March 25, 2020, district data accessed by IndiaSpend.
Kerala had the highest COVID-19 cases (202) in India, as of March 30, 2020 (as on 9.30 p.m.), according to Coronavirus Monitor, a HealthCheck database.
India declared a three-week total lockdown on March 24, 2020, to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus which has infected 1251 and killed 31 in the country (as on 9.30 p.m., March 30). Kerala leads the country in testing, having cumulatively tested 4,516 samples, indicating states with higher testing are reporting more cases, IndiaSpend reported on March 25, 2020.
Surveillance war room
The district control cell includes multiple teams--surveillance, call centre, psychological support, training and awareness, community-level volunteers, media monitoring among others.
The din of more than 100 people--doctors, public relations officers, mental health counsellors, and volunteers from engineering colleges--working together in the surveillance war room did not seem to bother Resmi MS, a doctor who specialises in community medicine, and leads the surveillance with a team of 450 people at the district control cell. At the far end of the room, volunteers of an engineering college sit, developing a heat map to visualise the clusters and households under quarantine.
Although surveillance was set up soon after the first case was reported on January 30, 2020, it was stepped up after the five cases were confirmed in Pathanamthitta, said Resmi. She has been here every day since, leaving her eight-month-old baby in her parents’ care because her husband, a naval officer, is posted in Mumbai.
On March 8, 2020, the teams went to locations visited by the affected family. “We did two things--got their travel history, and got the field teams to visit every location and check as many CCTV footages as possible to ascertain their primary and secondary contacts,” said Resmi.
Although the quarantined family spoke to Nandini C S, the district surveillance officer (DSO) over the phone about their movements in the days following their return from Italy, it soon became clear that there were many critical gaps in their story. Amjith Rajeevan, also a community medicine expert, then decided to visit them in the isolation ward to protect them.
He walked into the ward, shielded by personal protective equipment (PPE), to convince them to share all their contact details. “I told them it was important to contain the spread,” he recalled. Rajeevan then stepped out of the room and got the details down over the phone--inside the ward, pen and paper are not allowed.
The contact tracing team then got to work. They mapped the family’s movements on a flow chart and shared it with the public and found over 1,000 primary and secondary contacts who now needed further monitoring. “We got around 175 calls and established that there were three primary contacts and 42 secondary contacts,” said Resmi.
Calls and follow-up
The activities of the team have been streamlined since the call centre was set up on March 10, 2020. Now it routinely calls those in home isolation, including those who returned from abroad and have to be quarantined for 14 to 28 days. Almost all the 76,542 people under surveillance in Kerala are in home quarantine and 532 in isolation facilities, as per March 25, 2020 state government data.
“We started the call centre to monitor and ensure that people were in quarantine,” said Harikrishnan B, 33, a doctor leading the call-centre operations. “If they were not at home, we needed to know why they are not.” He has been in calls and meetings, providing crucial feedback for the daily district report, unable to even visit his pregnant wife, now mother to twins.
he team calls all those in isolation to check on their existing medical conditions, and their medical and non-medical needs. “We realised that people were not following quarantine because they had to step out to get provisions, medicines, livestock fodder, among other essentials,” said Harikrishnan. The surveillance cell began separating medical and non-medical needs and redirected the requirements to the respective primary health centres (PHCs) and panchayats (local self-government bodies). These essentials were then delivered to the homes of those in isolation.
During these calls, Harikrishnan also filled in an isolation adherence form based on a tool developed at the Government Medical College at Thiruvananthapuram to determine how closely patients and families were following quarantine rules. The call-centre team provides three inputs to the data collated: medical, non-medical, and symptomatics.
Initially, it was observed that very few followed isolation rules strictly. Family members, for example, were sharing utensils, towels and bathrooms, not allowed under home quarantine guidelines. Based on their adherence score, the families were counselled. Within two days, nearly 30% of those in isolation improved their scores and the proportion of those faring badly in the scrutiny fell to fewer than 30%, as per Harikrishnan.
The team calls 40-60 people a day, mostly to counsel those distressed. “We explain why they need to be in isolation,” said Laya Chacko, a district coordinator for accredited social health activists (ASHAs) who works with the call-centre team. “Most respond well although a few get upset”, Chacko said, as multiple teams call them to ask about their well-being, from the call centre and the field ASHAs or health staff.
Priority was given to providing essentials to the elderly, those with comorbidities (other diseases), or households in isolation where members needed palliative care. Among those affected most were families that had to deal with the devastating 2018 floods in the state. There were elements of trial and error in their strategy, admitted Harikrishnan, but the team learned along the way.
The district administration had instructed traders and local delivery services to streamline deliveries. “All these efforts converge,” said Abey Sushan, district programme manager with the National Health Mission.
Field staff offer ground support
The district has mobilised a 1,000-strong field team of ASHAs, junior public health inspectors and nurses to ensure widespread awareness about the disease and provide ground support. This is in addition to the 450 led by Resmi. The field staff go from home to home, seeking travel details. These home surveillance squads make more than 2,300 home visits in a day, as per the March 25, 2020, data accessed by IndiaSpend.
Surveillance: How Kerala's immigration hotspot curbed Covid-19 transmission
Pathanamthitta district has 920 panchayat and municipality wards with at least one ASHA worker each. Their familiarity with local households makes surveillance easier.
Sini K, an ASHA worker since 11 years in Ward 25 of Pathanamthitta municipality, gets tipped off by the district hospital and residents about the need to monitor certain neighbourhoods. Ten persons in her ward have been under surveillance, and one--a Qatar returnee--tested positive.
“We do wear masks and use sanitisers--although both are in short supply--but do not enter their homes, maintaining social distancing,” said Sini. She calls each person in quarantine everyday to enquire about their well-being and reports to the health staff at the general hospital in Pathanamthitta.
Ward sanitation committees, chaired by ward members and convened by a junior health inspector with ASHAs, anganwadi and Kudumbashree workers, have been asked to step up vigil. “Their role is to meet all home-quarantined people at least once in three days,” said Nooh, the district collector. If required, police are called in to enforce isolation compliance.
The emergence of more positive cases has convinced local authorities and health workers of the need to step up the campaign, said Geetha Kumari T, 53, a public health nurse at the district hospital. “We have set up help desks at bus stands and at the hospital,” she said.
The district has also released two exclusive phone numbers which will help people inform the authorities if they find a quarantined individual outdoors.
Mental healthcare during isolation
The state government has a district mental health programme (DMHP) in each district across the state, and after the 2018 floods had offered mental health support through its Pariraksha initiative. These teams are helping counsel those in quarantine.
There are 22 counsellors from the DMHP, 26 Integrated Child Development Services counsellors, three psychiatrists, a psychologist, and a psychiatric social worker offering assistance to those affected currently. The team has made thousands of calls to people in quarantine, both at home and in hospitals. On March 25, 2020 alone, it made 856 calls and 204 follow-up calls for psychological support, as per the district data accessed by IndiaSpend.
“When we call people in quarantine, we introduce ourselves as mental health professionals, and check if they need support in connection with mental health,” Rashmi A P, 38, district project officer for Pariraksha. “We share our personal numbers and DISHA [Direct Intervention System For Health Awareness] is a toll-free number [government health helpline number] in case of any [urgent] need.”
Rashmi’s day starts with calls to people in hospital isolation. The counsellors escalate to her acute cases of anxiety or stress, which she then forwards to psychiatrists based on her assessment. “There are more stigma-related issues around COVID-19 than anxiety,” she said.
People complain mostly about insomnia, the boredom of isolation and guilt around the infection they may have spread among family and friends, said Sukesh G, a psychiatrist at the Kozhencherry district hospital.
Streamlining through tech
Aswin Mohan, 21, a fourth-year computer science student, is developing a ‘corona relationship management’ software to streamline data collated on a daily basis. This will help the entire surveillance team access one dashboard and not sift through entire worksheets. “Sometimes there is more than one phone number assigned to a household with multiple members in quarantine,” he said, “This will allow us to avoid repeat calls to the family, help us list details together, and ensure that follow up is streamlined.”
He was able to develop the software and carry out a trial run at the call-centre, all within three days to March 18, 2020. The software is yet to be opened up to the larger district control team.

Coronavirus: Labourers' exodus throws supply chain, production out of gear

As grocery stores, across the country, are grappling with panic buying and dwindling supplies of fresh stocks, the exodus of labourers have added more fuel to the fire by affecting the entire supply chain of essential commodities, ranging from wheat flour to pulses and biscuits to edible oils.
Majority of grain markets are shut, oil and rice mills are operating with minimum workforce, and truck operators are finding it difficult to move fast moving consumer products (FMCG) across the cities, mostly sealed during the nationwide 21-day lockdown. If the situation aggravates, the country might witness hoarding of goods and price rise of several items.

Despite the efforts of Central as well as state governments to ensure proper supply of FMCG and other essential goods, the fear of COVID-19 pandemic is keeping away the labourers and workers from working in the mills and factories.
"The coronavirus fear has affected the production. Nearly 80 per cent of dal mills are inoperative due to unavailability of labour and supply of raw material. Though the government has now allowed plying of trucks, still issues with transportation remains," says Suresh Agarwal, of All India Dal Mills Association adding, "even as authorities have allowed truckers to operate, the police of different states, particularly on the borders creates hindrance in transporting goods."
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Obviously in weeks to come, supply of different varieties of pulses, an essential part of the diet, could be crippled. "But if labour gets back to work, and transport issues are quickly sorted out, the supplies could be smoothen, thus maintaining a balance between supply and demand," hopes Suresh Agarwal. Some varieties of Arhar was quick to disappear from shelves of local grocery stores in Delhi.
"There was a panic buying on the eve of the lockdown on 25 March. I somehow managed to procure stock of Arhar and atta (flour) through a local trader. But things are getting difficult now," said owner of the Sanjay Stores in Vasant Kunj, a large residential area close to Delhi Airport.
Indian kitchens, particularly in the country's cow belt, cannot be run without atta (wheat flour) required to make roti (bread). Atta, comes through hundreds of flour mills located in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi and its neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
"My flour mill is open. I had managed a few labourers too. But the problem is I am not able to procure wheat as nearby grain markets are shut," Rajat Gupta a flour Mill owner told IANS.
According to him, once the flour mills starts getting adequate supply of wheat from the traders, the mills will work to its optimum capacity. Subsequently due to a shortfall in supply, prices of Atta have increased. Bhanu, a grocery shop owner of Greater Noida said that he used to sell a 5 kg packet of Ashirwad Atta at Rs 180 but now it is available at Rs 220.
In fact the entire operation of grain markets, flour mills, rice mills including production and supply of FMCG remained affected due to transport and labour issues said millers, distributors and industry bodies.
Om Prakash Garg, a prominent FMCG distributor of Delhi said that since past week, he has been facing problems in transporting goods to wholesalers and retailers.
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"Stocks of biscuits, chocolates, milk powder and other items are available at depots but due to disruption in transportation, supply of these food items and dry fruits have been affected," said Garg.
Another distributor, Rajesh Gupta, dealing in spices in dry fruits was of the view that fresh stock of spices is not reaching him from production units. According to him, a famous brand of biscuits, manufactured in Delhi by prestigious company is reportedly running its their factory at its half strength, thus creating a shortage in supply of biscuits and rusks.
However, Industry bodies expect after intervention of the Centre, restoration of supply chain of the essential goods would be seen resulting in a delivery of FMCG and other essential items to the retailers.
Atul Chaturvedi, President, Solvent Extractors Association of India, said that restoration in the supply chain of edible oil, sugar and other food items has started. He said, around 40-50 per cent of the supply chain of edible oil, sugar and other food items has been reinstated.
Laxmichand Agarwal, President, Central Organisation for Oil Industry Trade (COOIT) said expellers producing mustard oil are in operation and its supply will be uninterrupted.
However, he accepted that prices of mustard oil have edged up amid supply disruption of food products but ruled out any expectation of further spikes in mustard oil as arrival season of new crop is going on and farmers are directly selling their crops to the expeller,
Similarly Jitu Bheda, Chairman, India Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA) also expect restoration in supply chain of food items soon. He said, "In fact, labourers are back to their home which is a major hurdle in restoration of supply and things will improve in the next 5-6 days."

Raincoats, helmets protect Kolkata, Haryana doctors in coronavirus fight

Shortages of protective health gear in India are forcing some doctors to use raincoats and motorbike helmets while fighting the coronavirus, exposing the weak state of the public health system ahead of an anticipated surge in COVID-19 cases.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Monday said India was trying to procure bulk quantities of such gear, called personal protective equipment (PPE), domestically and from South Korea and China to meet the shortages.
But more than a dozen doctors on the front lines of treating the novel coronavirus, which has so far infected 1,251 people in India and killed 32, told Reuters they were concerned that without proper masks and coveralls, they could become carriers.
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According to one projection, more than 100,000 people could be infected by mid-May, putting India’s underfunded health system and scarce doctors under severe strain.
In the eastern city of Kolkata, junior doctors at the major coronavirus treatment facility - Beleghata Infectious Disease Hospital - were given plastic raincoats to examine patients last week, according to two doctors there and photographs reviewed by Reuters.
“We won’t work at the cost of our lives,” said one of the doctors, who declined to be named because he feared retaliation from the authorities.
The hospital’s medical superintendent in-charge, Dr. Asis Manna, declined to comment.
In northern Haryana state near New Delhi, Dr. Sandeep Garg of ESI Hospital said he had been using a motorbike helmet because he didn’t have any N95 masks, which offer significant protection against virus particles.
“I put on a helmet - it has a visor in front so it covers my face, adding another layer over the surgical mask,” Garg said.
India’s health ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters queries.

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The plight of doctors in the pandemic has cast a light on a dilapidated and overburdened public health system that has for years been starved of funds and an overhaul. India spends about 1.3% of its GDP on public health, among the lowest in the world.
Delhi-based firm manufactures personal protection kits for doctors, health workers to combat COVID-19
Amid surging demand for protective gear for medical staff in the situation created by the outbreak of COVID 19, a Delhi-based company is manufacturing Personal Protection Kits (PPKs) for doctors and healthcare workers.
The protection gear being manufactured by Surgilife Medical Devices Pvt Ltd includes gown, gloves, face masks, goggles and shoe covers.
Sandeep Sareen, director of the company, said the demand is up by 200 per cent but the production is less due to lockdown.
He said the company usually provides dressing material to medical professionals. "We manufacture gowns, mask and clothing used for surgical purposes. To combat coronavirus, Surgilife Medical Devices Pvt Ltd is manufacturing Personal Protection Kits (PPKs)for doctors and medical healthcare workers. It will protect doctors and nurses from coronavirus. It is a pack of five things - white gown, surgical hand gloves, mask, specs and shoe cover," he said.
“We are living on a prayer, it’s not that we can save ourselves by relying on the health system,” said a senior federal government official in New Delhi, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation.
In a state-run hospital in the city of Rohtak in Haryana, several junior doctors have been declining to treat patients unless they have adequate safety equipment.
They also established an informal COVID-19 fund, to which each doctor contributed 1,000 rupees ($13.27) to buy masks and other face coverings, one of the doctors said.
“Everybody is scared,” the doctor said. “Nobody wants to work without protection.”

Amazon staff join US gig workers strike, 'speak up' against work conditions

Warehouse, delivery and retail gig workers in the United States went on strike on Monday to call attention to safety and wage concerns for people laboring through the coronavirus crisis.
Among the strikers were some of the roughly 200,000 workers at U.S. online grocery delivery company Instacart, according to strike organizer Gig Workers Collective, founded earlier this year by Instacart worker Vanessa Bain.
Fifteen workers at an Amazon.com Inc warehouse in Staten Island, New York, also walked off the job on Monday following reports of COVID-19 among the facility's staff.
Amazon said later it fired an employee who helped organize the action for alleged violations of his employment, including leaving a paid quarantine to participate in the demonstration. New York's attorney general said her office was "considering all legal options" in response to the firing, citing the right to organize in the state.
Workers have also protested in other countries. Dozens of Amazon workers at a facility near Florence, Italy, went on strike on Monday.
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French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said last week that pressure on Amazon employees to work despite inadequate protections was "unacceptable."
From delivery drivers to grocery store clerks, shelf stockers and fast-food employees, workers have kept food and essential goods flowing to people who have been told by their governments to stay home to stop the spread of coronavirus.
More than 738,500 people have been infected across the world and about 35,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, said it has taken "extreme measures" to clean buildings and obtain safety gear and that "the vast majority of employees continue to show up and do the heroic work of delivering for customers every day." Less than half a percent of its more than 5,000-person workforce at the Staten Island site protested, it said.
In statements on Monday, Amazon disputed comments from one of the striking Staten Island employees, Christian Smalls, who had accused the company of mishandling warehouse operations after a confirmed case of coronavirus.
Amazon said Smalls was on a paid quarantine after having close contact with a diagnosed worker, and had "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines," leading to his dismissal.
Smalls responded in a statement distributed by Athena, a labor and activist coalition.
"I'm going to keep speaking up. My colleagues in New York and all around the country are going to keep speaking up. We won't stop until Amazon provides real protections for our health and safety," he said.
Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, issued a statement calling the firing "disgraceful" and also asked the National Labor Relations Board to investigate. Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment on the attorney general's statement.
Hazard pay, sanitizer
San Francisco-based Instacart - which lets customers place online orders from grocers, retailers like Costco Wholesale Corp and CVS Health Corp's CVS Pharmacy - said in a statement that the strike of its contractors had "absolutely no impact to Instacart's operations."
On Monday, Instacart said it had 40% more shoppers on the platform than on the same day last week and sold more groceries in the last 72 hours than ever before.

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"The health and safety of our entire community - shoppers, customers, and employees - is our first priority," it said in a statement.
It was not clear how many Instacart workers were participating in the strike, Bain told Reuters. Bain has created a Facebook group with 15,000 members. She said hundreds more have reached out to her in light of Monday's campaign.
In posts on social media, people who said they were Instacart workers demanded hazard pay to account for the dangers of working while most people stay home to comply with state, local and federal government guidance.
They also asked for the company to provide hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and soap to clean their cell phones, cars and shopping carts.
"We don't have to have 100 percent participation to ... force Instacart to maneuver on these issues," Bain said in a phone interview.
Instacart said on March 23 that it wanted to hire another 300,000 gig workers because of a surge in demand.
Staff in one supermarket of French retailer Carrefour will receive protective masks after some walked out over health risks, a union said on Monday.
Employees of McDonald's Corp, as well as people who said they worked at Walmart Inc, supermarket chain Harris Teeter, Waffle House, Family Dollar and Food Lion, boycotted work at North Carolina locations on Friday.

MARKET: Sensex surges 1,028 pts, oil & gas stocks rally; India VIX down 10%

A surprise expansion in China's manufacturing activity in March lifted investor sentiment on Tuesday, thus leading to around 4 per cent rally in the benchmark indices. China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 52 in March from a collapse to a record low of 35.7 in February.
The S&P BSE Sensex gained 1,028 points or 3.62 per cent to settle at 29,468.49 on the last day of the financial year 2019-20 (FY20). Of 30 constituents, 26 advanced and 4 declined. FMCG major ITC (up around 8 per cent) emerged as the top gainer of the index. RIL (up around 8 per cent), ONGC (up 7.64 per cent), and Tata Steel (up over 6 per cent) were the other major gainers.
NSE's Nifty ended at 8,598, up 317 points or 3.82 per cent.
Oil and gas stocks gained big during the day on sharp decline in the crude oil prices. The S&P BSE Oil & Gas index rallied around 9 per cent to 10,021 levels. BPCL, HPCL, and GAIL were up in the range of 15-8 per cent. READ MORE
FMCG and metal stocks too made decent advances. While the S&P BSE Metal index jumped over 5 per cent to 5,713 levels, the S&P BSE FMCG index added around 6 per cent to 10,255 levels. Among individual stocks, Nestle India rallied 5 per cent to Rs 16,425 in intra-day trade. The stock ended at Rs 16,289, up around 4 per cent.
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) hit its fresh 52-week high of Rs 2,311.85 in the intra-day session before settling at 2,298, up over 5 per cent. READ MORE

On the other hand, IndusInd Bank tanked around 15 per cent to Rs 351 apiece on the BSE. READ MORE
Volatility index India VIX slipped over 10 per cent to 64.49 levels.
In the broader market, the Nifty MidCap 100 index gained over 2 per cent to 11,704 and the Nifty SmallCap index rose over 3 per cent to 3,595 levels.

Global Markets
Asian shares were set to close out a calamitous quarter by eking out a small rally on Tuesday as factory data from China held out the hope of a revival in activity, even as much of the rest of the world shut down. China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) bounced to 52.0 in March, up from a record-low 35.7 in February and topping forecasts of 45.0.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.94 per cent but that still left it down 22 per cent for the quarter, its worst performance since 2008. Shanghai blue chips rose 0.4% and South Korea 1.87%. Japan’s Nikkei eased 1%, to be down 20% since the start of the year.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 were flat, EUROSTOXX 50 futures rose 0.7 per cent while FTSE futures fell 0.25 per cent.
In commodity market, oil recovered ground on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to talks to stabilize energy markets, with benchmarks climbing off 18-year lows hit as the coronavirus outbreak cut fuel demand worldwide.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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04:07 PM
MARKET COMMENT | Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services
"Mirroring positive global market, Indian markets also reacted positively on the last day of the financial year. Almost all sectoral indices were up & volatility index was also down by 10%. Chinese economic data, Industrial production numbers improved and helped the global momentum, especially in Metals, Pharma and FMCG. FII selling also slowed down over the last 2 days, although that may not be sustainable. The performance of global market will be the key driver for Indian market in the near-term".
03:55 PM
Sectoral gainers and losers on the NSE
03:50 PM
MARKET AT CLOSE | Top gainers and losers on the S&P BSE Sensex
03:40 PM
CLOSING BELL
The S&P BSE Sensex rallied 1,028 points or 3.62 per cent to end at 29,468.49 while NSE's Nifty50 ended at 8,598, up 317 points or 3.82 per cent. 29,468.49
03:25 PM
BROKERAGE VIEW:: ICICI Securities on VST Tillers Tractors
The VST Tillers & Tractors stock witnessed a sharp re-rating tracking the weak P&L performance and consequent deterioration of return ratios in the recent past. Return ratios for VST have corrected from consistent 20%+ RoCE levels seen till FY18 to 11.5% in FY19. With limited margin improvement guidance, we foresee return ratios remaining below 10%, which is below our comfortable range. VST is a net cash positive company (cash & investments on books at ~ Rs 150 crore) but its incremental spend on new product development catering to the >15 hp crowded tractor space erodes our margin of safety on the stock. We assign a HOLD rating to VST, valuing the company at Rs 660 i.e. 12.5x P/E on FY22E numbers. We will wait for an improvement in financials before any meaningful change in our stance.
03:18 PM
MARKET CHECK
03:09 PM
SpiceJet announces 10-30% cut in March salary for all employees
Budget carrier SpiceJet has decided to cut 10-30 per cent salary of all its employees in March, with Chairman Ajay Singh opting for highest 30 per cent trimming in compensation, the airline said in an e-mail communication to the staff on Tuesday. "SpiceJet management has decided to implement a pay cut between 10-30 per cent in March across our employee base. Our Chairman and Managing Director (Ajay singh), in fact, has opted for the highest cut of 30 per cent in compensation," the airline said in the communication. READ MORE
03:03 PM
MARKET UPPDATE:: Broader indices underpeform benchmarks
03:02 PM
Maruti Suzuki India chairman on challenges, price hike after BS-VI shift
Amid the nationwide lockdown to check the Covid-19 spread, India will quietly transition to BS-VI, the most stringent emission standard for the automobile industry anywhere in the world. R C Bhargava, chairman of Maurti Suzuki India, speaks to Arindam Majumder about the learning, challenges, and scope of a price hike in a bruised economy. READ INTERVIEW HERE

02:56 PM
Heatmap: S&P BSE Sensex at this hour

Covid-19: Telangana govt announces up to 75% salary cuts for its employees

In a high-level review meeting conducted in the wake of the state's financial situation amid coronavirus outbreak, the Telangana government on Monday decided a huge pay cut for its employees ranging from 10 per cent to 75 per cent.
The meeting was held at Pragathi Bhavan in view of the state's economic situation which has been affected adversely due to the coronavirus scare. It was decided that there will be a 75 per cent cut in the salaries of the Chief Minister, state cabinet, MLCs, MLAs, state corporation chairpersons, and local bodies representatives.

Whereas, there will be a 60 per cent salary cut of IAS, IPS IFS and other such central services officers and for all other category of employees, there will be 50 per cent salary cut.
ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: Need honest information from govt, says Sitaram Yechury
For the Class IV outsourcing and contract employees, there will be 10 per cent cut in the salary while for all category of pensioners there will be 50 per cent cut.
There will be a 10 per cent cut in the salary for the Class IV retired employees and for all the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), Institutions employees, that are receiving the government grants, there will be cut in their salaries as well. There are 71 confirmed coronavirus (Covid-19) cases in the state, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the death toll due to Covid-19 has risen to 32 and the number of total coronavirus cases reached 1,251 on Monday. There are 1,117 active cases in the country, said Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India coronavirus dispatch: Debunking some myths around Covid-19 pandemic

Here is a roundup of articles in Indian news publications on how India is dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. From increasing our testing capacities, to a post-pandemic global economy, and why experts insist that Covid-19 is not a product of a bioweapons lab — read these and more in today’s India coronavirus dispatch.
Expert Speak

From conspiracy theories to community transmission, two Indian experts answer questions: Did Covid-19 escape from a bioweapons lab? When will the peak outbreak take place in India? Is there a high probability of community transmission already in India? Dr Gagandeep Kang, clinical scientist and executive director of Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, and Dr Shahid Jameed, virologist and chief executive officer of Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance, debunk myths surrounding Covid-19 and explain in detail what this pandemic means for the country. Read more here.
Citizens Under Lockdown
Following lockdown, many stare at financial instability in Delhi: A cab driver struggles to sustain a family of five. A sole bread winner of her family has not had work for a week. A shop owner borrows money to eat a meal in a day. The 21-day lockdown has left several pockets empty with little to survive on. Here are voices from those struggling to make ends meet. Read more here.
Cabin fever can lead to rage and anxiety; talking is a de-stressor: Feelings of isolation, anxiety, helplessness and rage, driven by being cooped up in a confined space for several days can lead to what is referred to as “cabin fever”, and may heighten personality conflicts. Read more about the mental health impact of a lockdown, and how NASA astronauts survive isolation.
Long Reads
Coronavirus: Amid lockdown, how is doorstep delivery of food and medicine working in urban India? Few Indians shop for groceries online regularly, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that more are trying to buy essentials from e-commerce sites. Read more about the challenges and the mitigation efforts by e-commerce firms during the lockdown.
Opinion
Researchers in India must join the fight against Covid-19: India has a long history of dealing with infections. It also has a disease surveillance programme for epidemic detection and response since 2004. The failure of the Indian research community to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic with sufficient alacrity is surprising. Read here to understand what Indian researchers should do to urgently address the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keeping poor safe in lockdown is state responsibility, not an act of charity: Christophe Jaffrelot and Utsav Shah explain why the time has come for the government to revive vital functions of the welfare state, minimise the concentration of power at the Centre, and maximise aid to the poor and vulnerable. Read more here.
Managing Covid-19
This is how the Kerala govt, police and residents are helping the poor and fighting Covid-19: Kerala, which now has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country, has found innovative ways to manage the crisis. These include community kitchens, masks and sanitisers, unique policing, among other means. Read more on the state’s management strategy.
Data – To reduce coronavirus spread, India needs to test more, lockdown notwithstanding: The growth of Covid-19 cases has not been exponential, nor has it flattened out. The curve lies somewhere in the middle, and this picture is misleading, because India has a poor testing rate. As witnessed in countries which imposed strict restrictions but saw a surge in cases later, a nationwide lockdown may not be enough. See the data here.
Understanding Covid-19
Covid-19 has been milder in children, but not clear how malnourished children might be affected: Despite ongoing research, there is little knowledge of how Covid-19 affects children and pregnant women, especially in places like Africa and Asia, where malnourishment is a big problem. Read this interview with Karen Kotloff of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a specialist in infectious diseases and pediatrics, on how Covid-19 affects this population.
Video
How Covid-19 will change the world: The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed how interconnected and deeply globalised our world is. What is the future of global trade? How do we ensure that basic levers of the global economy continue to function? Watch this online conversation with Shyam Saran and Shivshankar Menon moderated by Yamini Aiyer, to understand all this and more about the world after the Covid-19 pandemic.

World coronavirus dispatch: Australian contraction, German recession

A total of 17,742 new cases came up overnight in the US, forcing President Donald Trump to go back on his earlier stance that things would return to normal by Easter. He said “social distancing” would remain in place till April 30, and that things might start to recover after June 1.
Some say the US is at the tip of an iceberg. Death toll in the North American country could rise to 200,000, Anthony Fauci, director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has warned.

Meanwhile, governments globally continue with monetary cushions to curtail the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on economic activity. Australia has announced a record A$130-billion ($80-billion) jobs-rescue plan, pledging to subsidise workers’ wages.
Singapore’s central bank has fixed the currency exchange rate to a higher range – an unprecedented move – for companies to take benefit of export-driven growth.
China has pledged to increase its fiscal deficit and raise funds through special sovereign debt bonds, while in Europe, the push for the so-called ‘coronabonds’ is gaining support among leaders.
Let’s look at global statistics:
Total confirmed cases: 732,153
Change over the previous day: 53,433
Total deaths: 34,686
Total recovered: 154,673
Nations hit with most cases: US (143,055), Italy (97,689), Spain (85,195), China (82,198), and Germany (62,435).
Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center
Germany in recession
The German government’s economic advisors predict that the coronavirus pandemic will give the nation its worst recession since the global financial crisis. The output is expected to shrink by 2.8 per cent this year. Read more here.
Australia GDP contraction
Bloomberg Economics research shows the Australian economy is poised for its deepest recession in 90 years owing to corporate restrictions. The country’s GDP may decline by 10 per cent in the first three quarters of 2020 before a gradual recovery in the final three months. Read more here.
Automaker continue lockdown
Three of America’s biggest automakers – Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler – are extending production shutdowns into April. The lockdown, which started on March 18, was earlier planned till March 30. It may now go on until late April. Read more here.
Foxconn profits down
Apple’s chief hardware maker, Foxconn, has reported a 23.7 per cent drop in profit in the October-December 2019 quarter. The Taiwanese company in February saw its steepest sales dip in seven years and said its business would fall 15 per cent in the January-March quarter. Read more here.
Partners may not get salaries
The ‘Big Four’ — KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and EY – along with top law firms and other accounting firms in the UK are preparing to withhold payouts to partners. “We are already being hit by cash protection measures from our clients, some of which are extending their time to pay invoices,” said a senior person at EY. Read more here.
Meghan Markle, Prince Harry move to LA
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have moved to Los Angeles, quietly behind the curtain of the unfolding pandemic. The pair had been living on Vancouver Island since they decamped from the UK and are now in lockdown in the Hollywood area with their 10-month-old. Read more here.
Tokyo Olympics rescheduled
The Tokyo Olympics have been rescheduled to start on July 23, 2021, after deliberations among the International Olympic Committee, Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee and the international federations. Japan has spent more than $26 billion to ready Tokyo for the games. Read more here.
Wall Street executive dies due to coronavirus
The 56-year-old CFO of Jefferies, a large investment bank, has died of Covid-19, in one of the first reported deaths due to the disease among senior Wall Street figures. Read more here.
Bunkers demand rises
The demand for bunkers is at an all-time high, as the super-rich plan to ensure survival of their families, should the pandemic turn into international catastrophe. Rising S Bunkers, a Texas, US-company, says queries are 2,000 per cent higher. “It’s not the disease, but the possibility of civil unrest.” Read more here
Essential Reads
How South Korea managed a sharp decline in coronavirus cases?
Behind its success is the most expansive and well-organised testing programme in the world, combined with efforts to isolate infected people, trace, and quarantine their contacts. South Korea, a country of 50 million, tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5,200 tests per million inhabitants — second only to Bahrain. Read more here.
Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France
A prayer meeting on February 18 at Christian Open Door church in Mulhouse – at the border of France, Germany and Switzerland – was identified as the source site for over 2,500 cases. That was before France sealed borders with Germany; there were only 12 confirmed cases at the time. Read more here.
Older people die without seeing their children
One of the deeply unsettling consequence of the coronavirus pandemic is having the elderly retire from life without having the chance to say goodbyes to their families, especially young children. For grandparents all over the world, being protected from the pandemic has meant a piercing distance from their loved ones.

Politics over pain: Migrants' long walk home and the Centre-state tussles

Tired of walking miles after the lockdown was announced on March 24, hundreds of migrants had gathered at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Friday in the hope of getting back home by bus once the word had spread that the administration was arranging transport for them. Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) were still undecided on whether to give a green signal to a proposal to screen and transport workers to their domicile states while visuals of the migrants’ long walk made international news.
The governments in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand had started making arrangements to transport migrants from their states. In fact, Ila Giri, the assistant resident commissioner of the Uttarakhand government, moved fast to issue a notice even before the lockdown kicked in. The notice said the state government would make arrangements to pick up stranded workers from two bus stations in Delhi.

It’s another matter that the Uttarakhand government could not ply the buses as planned-- the Centre’s lockdown order had put a ban on the movement of people within or outside the states, except if they were travelling for essential services or were under the exempt list. Frustrated migrants however were already on the road to Uttar Pradesh, hoping to cross the border on foot, leaving the remaining home-bound journey to luck.
“By Friday, around midnight, (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath decided to send buses to pick the migrants from the state. The bus drivers and conductors of the state government buses were called in and it was decided to start the service,” UP CM's advisor Mrityunjay Kumar told Business Standard recalling the events of the past few days. He added that by then, the state had made arrangements to bring in 150,000 migrants by putting them under quarantine facilities in governments schools or colleges in villages. In the past three to four days, around 300,000 had reached UP, Kumar said.
By Saturday noon, when Adityanath’s office said on Twitter that 1,000 buses had been arranged “to help migrant workers reach their destination without any hassle’’, buses had started arriving in various parts of UP, the word spread like wildfire in Delhi.
Within half an hour of the UP government’s official announcement, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that about 100 buses of the Delhi government were carrying people who were trying to leave Delhi. At the same time, Sisodia appealed to the migrants to follow the lockdown. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too made an appeal, requesting migrants to not return to their villages as the state had made arrangements for food, shelter and whatever else they needed. The Central government, which had imposed a lockdown, remained silent.
On the roads of the national capital, a sense of understanding was visible between the authorities as the Delhi Police helped migrants board the buses. The Delhi Police, which comes under the Union Home Affairs Ministry, even prevented workers from walking on the highway while making them reach the Anand Vihar bus station, where the UP government buses were lined up.
“The Delhi government had been making appeals to the migrants not to move out. We didn’t want to promote any kind of movement. We observed that people had started making a move from the state on March 26 and according to our estimates 60 per cent were from Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan who were passing through Delhi,” Delhi’s Dialogue and Development Commission vice-chairman Jasmine Shah said.
He added that though these were manageable numbers, “the chaos” started with the UP government’s announcement on Saturday. “No governments had made special arrangements till then. We had made all arrangement for workers living in Delhi.”
But Kumar said the Delhi government had started moving buses from various industrial areas of the national capital towards the UP border on Friday, which led to huge crowds. The UP government was left with no option but to bring the migrants back, he added.
“The Delhi government buses were deployed only to disperse huge crowds within the city as it was counter-intuitive in tackling coronavirus. So, we did send buses to some locations in UP,” Shah said.
By Saturday afternoon, around 50,000 people had gathered at the UP border to catch buses to their home destinations. This was a direct result of the UP government’s decision, taking the central government into confidence, to ply the 1000 buses, Shah pointed out.
The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation had sent a communiqué to all the district magistrates within the state to allow the entry of buses which have been deployed to pick people stuck across various points at border districts of Delhi. “The government has now taken a decision to allow these passengers en route to reach their destination…The special task of carrying people from Delhi border to various districts in UP will continue today and on March 29,” UPSRTC managing director Raj Shekhar had said in a letter.
The UP government fell short of buses as the crowd swelled at the border and it had to dial up the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana government for help. Some buses came from Faridabad and picked up people even on Sunday to take them to UP. By then, migrant workers from other states had also started moving in the hope of returning home. Soon, the exodus and the crowd breaching all lockdown norms sent out panic waves in the power corridor and the Central government intervened on Sunday.
Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla held a video conference on Sunday morning with the top bureaucrats and police officers of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi. “In the meeting, they expressed their alarm and unhappiness at the large-scale movement of migrant labour on the roads by foot followed by the accumulation of a large number of people especially at the Anand Vihar Bus Terminal. In order to disperse the crowds from this area, buses had to be provided in large numbers on March 27 and 28 evening,” a communication sent by Haryana Director General of Police Manoj Yadav to officers within the state on Sunday stated.
The central government decided to immediately seal the borders and stop movement of people. It also ordered the state governments to offer relief measures for the migrants, instructing them to pick up workers travelling on foot on highways. The Centre was clear that the migrants must be returned to the localities from where they had started.
By Sunday night, the Central government had suspended two senior Delhi government officials – one in the transport department and another in finance, while issuing a showcause notice to a state official in the home and buildings departments and the sub-divisional magistrate of Seelampur (in-charge of Anand Vihar bus terminal area), indirectly putting all the blame on the Delhi government.

Coronavirus spread: Govt's U-turn on 'limited community transmission'

A day after a health ministry document mentioned “limited community transmission” of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, the government asserted on Monday it had reached only a “local transmission” stage.
Offering little explanation of why the phrase “limited community transmission” was used in a standard operating procedure (SoP) document to transport a Covid-19 positive patient, health ministry’s Joint Secretary Luv Aggarwal reiterated it was only local transmission. The term used in the website of the ministry was only to highlight the government’s “action on the field”, he said, without elaborating.
“We would be the first ones to get back to you to explain that, yes, there is community transmission in the country if need be,” he said.
The government did not clarify if there was any intermediate stage between local and community transmission. A public health expert, however, said on grounds of anonymity that chances were high that community transmission had started in India.
“In fact, community transmission has started in all the countries where Covid-19 has affected the population,” the expert said.
The expert clarified that there was “no intermediate stage between local and community transmission”.
Stage one of the pandemic is when cases are imported from affected countries and people with travel history test positive for the disease. In stage two, local transmission begins when the source can be traced. So, people who have come in contact with someone with travel history or any Covid-19 positive case also test positive.
In the third stage, called community transmission, the source of infection cannot be traced and, hence, it becomes difficult to isolate such cases. In the fourth stage, there are several clusters of the disease in a country and the spread becomes uncontrollable.
chartThe health expert said while stage three was inevitable, it can be delayed. “How we control the spread of the disease in stage two and three, that is if we can plateau the spread, the fourth stage can be avoided,” the expert said.
Last week, a tweet by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal about receiving a report from a panel of doctors who recommended measures to prepare for a potential stage three outbreak in Delhi had also hinted that the danger was still alive and not very far.
Aggarwal said that of the cases that had come up till Monday evening (1,071), the number of cases where the authorities were doing contact tracing so as to identify where they got the infection from was very limited or miniscule, without specifying the exact numbers.
He cautioned against “going into the semantics” in context of the word “community” and, on a lighter vein, even said it would be dropped from future communication. His responses on other indicators of a wider spread of infections, i.e. the hotspots, were rather guarded. Hotspots are areas with more number of cases or limited cases but in a densely populated area.
chart“As part of that strategy we identify the containment zone as well as the buffer zone still around it and we form special teams, the district administration coordinates the efforts,” he said.
Aggarwal cited some numbers trying to show how the spread of the disease has been arrested through a lockdown — while it took India12 days to reach from the 100th to the 1,000th case, the same number of days saw other, more developed and less populated countries, reporting anywhere between 3,500 and 9,000 cases. However, the relatively low number of cases can also be attributed to fewer tests in India.
Numbers aside, the massive exodus of migrant labourers to their native places last week also left the possibility of rapid transition alive.
Meanwhile, India is using this period to build treatment infrastructure on war footing. Experts have said that after the lockdown, India would need to engage in massive testing to ensure the spread is under control.

Crew getting substandard Covid-19 protective gear in flights: Air India

Air India crew members are being provided with substandard, ill-fitting and flimsy personal protective equipment (PPE) on special flights being operated during the lockdown, a union of the airline's pilots complained to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday.
With India under a 21-day lockdown till April 14 to curb the spread of coronavirus, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this period
However, carriers such as Air India have been permitted by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to fly special flights to transport test kits, medicines, relief material and Indians coming from abroad or foreigners going to their countries.
"Our pilots and cabin crew are being provided substandard, ill-fitting and flimsy PPE that tear/disintegrate easily on rescue flights. Sanitisers are not provided in sufficient quantities and disinfection processes are short of industry best practices," the Executive Pilots Association (EPA) said in a letter to Puri.
"These inadequacies compound the chances of viral exposure and equipment contamination - and may even lead to a community (Stage 3) transmission of COVID-19 infection within crew members, passengers and the public at large, since most reside in large residential societies," it said.
The EPA stated that Air India's medical services department has chosen to "lock its doors and wash its hands off" the flying crew amid the pandemic.
As the carrier's medical services department has decided to work from home and limit its services to just phone calls, the association requested the minister that the department's doctors, ambulances and infrastructure be made available 24x7 to support the flying crew.
"This is the minimum level of support expected from an organisation that sends its employees to a biohazard frontline," it added.
The union also requested Puri to issue directions so that at least one senior executive each from medical services, personnel and finance departments is onboard each special flight to boost the crew's morale and gain a better understanding of field requirements.
Taking senior executives of other departments on rescue flights would also lead to creation of more efficient work processes related to the COVID-19 crisis, "which are non-existent at this time", the EPA noted.
The union said there is no additional insurance policy to cover any risk related to COVID-19 for pilots and cabin crew members who are operating these rescue flights.
According to the union, families of pilots and crew members have been left "extremely anxious and vulnerable" as the insurance companies may invoke the force majeure clause in case there is mass COVID-19 outbreak to not pay any money.
Force majeure is a clause in contracts which frees the parties from liability or obligation on account of extraordinary event or circumstance beyond their control.
The EPA said, "Our flying-related allowances, comprising 70 per cent of our total emoluments, remain unpaid since January 2020... To add insult to injury, we have also recently been informed by our management of a substantial pay cut, while in the midst of the above mentioned COVID-19 rescue operations!"
During the last few weeks, Air India has operated multiple flights to coronavirus-hit cities such as Wuhan in China and Rome in Italy to bring back Indians stranded there.
Between Tuesday and Friday, the national carrier will be operating nine flights to Frankfurt from Delhi and Mumbai to fly back Germans who are stranded in India amid the coronavirus lockdown.
The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 1,071 and the death toll climbed to 29 in India on Monday, according to the Union Health Ministry.
Air India to conduct eight cargo-only flights on Tuesday

Air India will undertake eight flights on Tuesday to transport cargo across various cities of the country amid the 21-day lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic, said a senior airline official on Monday.
"As required by the civil aviation ministry, Air India would be conducting three flights using the same A320 aircraft on Mumbai-Delhi route, Delhi-Guwahati route and Guwahati-Mumbai route," the official stated.
The other three flights with cargo would be flying using another A320 aircraft on Delhi-Hyderabad route, Hyderabad-Chennai route and Chennai-Delhi route, the official noted.
As India is under a 21-day lockdown from March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this period.
However, cargo flights, special flights conducted with the approval of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), offshore helicopter operations and medical evacuation flights have been exempted from the flight ban.
The official from Air India stated: "Another A320 aircraft would be used to fly cargo from Chennai to Port Blair. The plane would return the same day to Chennai."
India is reeling under the coronavirus pandemic that has infected 1,171 people and killed 29 people till now in the country, according to the Union health ministry.

Nizamuddin Covid-19 shock: Crisis for govt as 6 die in Telangana, 1 in J&K

A religious congregation of 2,000 people at a mosque in Delhi's Nizamuddin area, which has thrown up several corona positive cases maybe a ticking time bomb as six of the persons who returned to Telangana after attending the congregation have died from the virus and positive cases are emerging from at least five other regions including J&K, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Over 1,500 people have been quarantined in the Markaz itself. A facility is coming up for these people in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, according to several reports. Even on Tuesday morning, people continue to board buses in the Nizammudin area in order to be taken to different hospitals for a checkup.

Number of infected cases in Delhi shoot up to 97 by Monday evening from 72 on Sunday
Six people from Telangana who attended the congregation died
1 who attended from Kashmir dies
253 admitted to hospitals, 24 test positive
Around 800 people went to different states, police begin the search for those people
Such is the magnitude of this incident.
How did this happen?
Tableeghi Jamaat is an Islamic missionary movement, which was started in 1926. It has headquarters in Delhi's Nizamuddin area, with followers from across the globe. From March 13 to 15, there was a religious congregation attended by nearly 2,000 people, including foreigners. This has now become the latest and the biggest hotspot for the virus in the country. People who attended the event have travelled to various states. The Delhi government has ordered the lodging of an FIR against the head of Markaz, Maulana Saad Kandalvi for endangering the lives of thousands of people.
Markaz Delhi issued a statement stating: On 24th March, a notice was issued by SHO P S Hazrat Nizamuddin, seeking closure of Markaz premises. It was responded on 24th March, stating that compliance of directions regarding the closure of Markaz is underway and around 1,500 people had departed the previous day, thus leaving around 1,000 visitors of different states and nationalities in Markaz. It was also informed that Ld. SDM concerned had been requested to issue vehicle passes so that the remaining people could be sent back to their native places outside of Delhi. List of 17 vehicles with registration numbers along with names of drivers plus their license details were submitted to Ld. SDM so that stranded visitors/guests could be ferried towards their destination. The requisite permission is still awaited.
Situation in Delhi
The total number of coronavirus cases in the national capital climbed to 97 on Monday, with 25 fresh cases being reported in a day, according to the Delhi Health Department. This was 72 till previous night i.e. Sunday which included two deaths. According to the Delhi Health Department, out of the 97 cases recorded, 89 are admitted to various hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police cordoned off a major area in Nizamuddin West in south Delhi where several people showed symptoms of being infected with the virus after taking part in the congregation earlier this month, an official said.
"As many as 85 people were brought to LNJP Hospital on Sunday from Nizamuddin area and 68 were brought today, so a total of 153 are admitted in isolation wards and being tested for infection," LNJP MS Dr J C Passey said.
ANI
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@ANI
Delhi: People continue to board buses in the Nizammudin area, to be taken to different hospitals for a checkup. A religious gathering was held in Markaz, that violated lockdown conditions and several #COVID19 positive cases have been found among those who attended the gathering.
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Six dead in Telangana
Six people from Telangana who attended the religious congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin between March 13 and 15 died due to novel coronavirus, the state government said on Monday.
"Coronavirus has spread among some of those who attended a religious prayer meeting from March 13 to 15 at Markaz in Nizamuddin area in Delhi," according to an official release. "Among those who attended were some persons from Telangana."
Two of the six died at the Gandhi Hospital, one each in two private hospitals, and one each in Nizamabad and Gadwal towns, the statement said, without mentioning the time of their deaths.
Search and treatment
People who attended a religious prayer meeting from March 13-15 at Markaz in the Nizamuddin area of Delhi were sent to Lok Nayak Hospital for coronavirus test on Monday night. The government appealed to all those who had attended the Markaz prayers in Delhi to inform the authorities.
"All those, who went for the Markaz prayers in Delhi should inform authorities. The government would conduct tests and offer treatment to them free of cost. Anyone who has information about them should alert the government and authorities," the Medical and Health Department of Telangana stated in a statement.
Two persons died in Gandhi Hospital while one each died in Apollo, Global Hospital, Nizamabad and in Gadwal. Search has begun in various states. Uttar Pradesh government has given orders to look for them in 18 districts.

MARKET LIVE: Sensex gains 700 pts, Nifty tests 8,500; metals rally

The Indian equity markets were trading higher on Tuesday, tracking positive cues in the global markets and a sizable improvement in Chinese manufaturing data for March, although the increasing tally of coronavirus cases capped the gains
China’s official purchasing manufacturers’ index bounced to 52, from a record-low 35.7 in February while services PMI stood at 52.3 versus the previous 29.6 as factories began to re-open.
Among headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 710 points, or 2.5 per cent, to 29,150 levels. The Nifty50 index was up 210 points, or 2.6 per cent, at 8,495 levels. Metal stocks were the top contributors to the indices' gain today. The Nifty Metal index was up 3.5 per cent. Among individual stocks, Tata Steel was up 4 per cent while HDFC and Reliance Industries were up 2 per cent each. On the other hand, IndusInd Bank slipped another 20 per cent.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap and the S&P BSE SmallCap indexes were up over 1 per cent each.
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11:30 AM
Why are the markets punishing Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv?
“Bajaj Finance is a company that is involved in consumer financing... With the 21-day lockdown, consumption has slowed down considerably, and discretionary buying is out of sight. In my view, the strong growth that the company was clocking over the past few years is not coming back for at least six months now,” says A.K Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital. READ MORE

11:25 AM
MARKET CHECK | Top 5 gainers on the BSE at this hour
11:15 AM
MARKET CHECK | ONGC jumps around 5%
11:02 AM
Covid-19: Recession for world economy; India, China likely exceptions: UN
The world economy will go into recession this year with a predicted loss of trillions of dollars of global income due to the coronavirus pandemic, spelling serious trouble for developing countries with the likely exception of India and China, according to a latest UN trade report. With two-thirds of the world's population living in developing countries facing unprecedented economic damage from the COVID-19 crisis, the UN is calling for a $2.5 trillion rescue package for these nations. READ MORE
Economy
10:51 AM
IT stocks trade higher
COMPANY LATEST(RS) CHG(%)
INFOSYS 658.85 5.05
WIPRO 192.50 4.56
TCS 1823.50 2.67
HEXAWARE TECH. 229.85 10.03
TECH MAHINDRA 536.10 1.44
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10:42 AM
It is a great time to invest in stocks: Sampath Reddy, Bajaj Allianz Life
It is possible that markets may fall another 10 per cent, even 20 per cent. At the same time, it is equally possible that the correction is over and we have reached the bottom. But whatever be the situation, it is a very good opportunity to invest in equities. I am sure that three months, six months or one year down the line, markets will be far higher than the current levels. READ MORE
Sampath Reddy, CIO, Sampath Reddy, CIO, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance
Sampath Reddy, CIO, Bajaj Allianz
10:40 AM
Top gainers on BSE
COMPANY PRICE(RS) CHG(%)
PC JEWELLER 11.55 10.00
MAHINDRA LOGIS. 227.80 10.00
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VRL LOGISTICS 154.00 9.45
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10:34 AM
BROKERAGE VIEW:: ICICI Securities on IndusInd Bank
We attended the conference call hosted by IndusInd Bank (IIB) wherein the management indicated slowdown in loan growth, comfortable liquidity position despite deposit outflows and possibility of deterioration in asset quality. We believe the impact on asset quality may be for a short term and that it will be important to track borrower behaviour after completion of moratorium period. Working capital loans and unsecured loans like PL and credit card are at higher risk of default. Despite some concerns on stressed telecom account, higher vehicle book and uncertainty around COVID-19, we believe IndusInd Bank is a good value proposition given it is trading at 0.9x P/ABV FY21E.
Retain BUY with a target price of Rs1,268 (earlier: Rs1,796)
10:31 AM
BROKERAGE VIEW:: ICICI Securities on Dr Lal Pathlabs
The company has initiated conducting COVID-19 test at its national lab in Delhi at a price of Rs4,500. Due to lock-down across the country, the company is witnessing slowdown in both the B2B and B2C businesses since past few days. The supply chain is also disrupted but it is expected to improve in the near term. There doesn’t seem to be a structural impact in the business and expect speedy recover in volumes post normalisation. The management has started working on cost rationalisation to mitigate the impact to a certain extent. The company has been able to consistently report strong growth with incremental free cashflows in normal course of business.
Maintain BUY with a DCF-based target price of Rs1,724/share implying 40.0xFY22E EPS and 26.6xFY22E EV/EBITDA.
Key downside risks: Higher-thanexpected competition, pricing pressures and prolonged COVID-19.
10:23 AM
BUZZING STOCK:: Amara Raja Batteries up 6%

Coronavirus LIVE: 5 new cases in Maharashtra, 3 in Guj; India tally at 1251

Coronavirus LIVE update: Despite the 21-day lockdown, the number of Covid-19 cases in India has seen a steady rise. On Monday, India’s cumulative coronavirus infections reached 1,251, registering the highest single-day increase of 227 cases; the death toll rose to 32. The government needed to take "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" measures like a nationwide lockdown for three weeks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday as his government denied a community outbreak of the disease.
Worldwide, the number of coronavirus cases has reached more than 785,807, while nearly 38,000 have died so far.
Coronavirus world update: Italy has so far had 11,591 fatalities, with 101,739 cases. Spain has recorded 7,716 fatalities and 87,956 infections. China has declared 3,304 deaths and 81,470 cases so far. The United States, with 163,490 diagnosed cases and 2,148 deaths, has the highest number of infected people. Germany has so far had 66,885 cases and 645 deaths.
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11:26 AM
Coronavirus LIVE Update: 17 new coronavirus cases in Indore
17 new coronavirus cases in Indore; Madhya Pradesh tally jumps to 66: Health official
11:18 AM
Delhi coronavirus cases: 24 people who participated in Nizamuddin event test positive
24 people who took part in religious congregation in Nizamuddin West have tested COVID-19 positive: Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain
11:14 AM
Three new COVID-19 cases in Gujarat; total reaches 73: Official
11:09 AM
Coronavirus in Karnataka: Those in home quarantine directed to send selfies every hour to govt
The home quarantined coronavirus suspects and patients will have to send their selfies on the Quarantine Watch, a mobile application developed by Karnataka government's revenue department to keep a track of the isolated persons.

The government warned the home quarantined people that they will be sent to mass quarantine centres if they violate the rule. READ ON...
11:01 AM
Crew getting substandard Covid-19 protective gear in flights: Air India
Air India crew members are being provided with substandard, ill-fitting and flimsy personal protective equipment (PPE) on special flights being operated during the lockdown, a union of the airline's pilots complained to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday. READ ON...
10:59 AM
Coronavirus in India: Need clear, honest info from govt on Covid-19, says Sitaram Yechury

Sitaram Yechury
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@SitaramYechury
First, we need clear and honest information from the central govt on Covid-19 virus. The attempt to divert & obstruct genuine queries is akin to playing with the lives of millions of Indians. Why is the health minister and the home minister not leading the briefing every evening? https://twitter.com/scroll_in/status/1244546153577758721 …
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@scroll_in
Health reporters have 10 questions for the government as India’s coronavirus crisis deepenshttps://scroll.in/pulse/957613/health-reporters-have-10-questions-for-the-government-as-indias-coronavirus-crisis-deepens …
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Sitaram Yechury
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@SitaramYechury
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Replying to @SitaramYechury
Six, attempts to create social disharmony, tarnish sections, ostracise workers and the vulnerable by communal, casteist & sectarian forces must be resisted. If not, India's health and humanitarian crisis - with Centre’s knee-jerk responses - will only worsen the situation.
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Sitaram Yechury
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@SitaramYechury
Finally, when a PM National Relief Fund already exists, what is the need for a new fund? There is no clarity about the new fund, which raises questions about this collection. We can't forget that this govt brought opaque electoral bonds and collected 1000s of crores anonymously. https://twitter.com/logic/status/1243888629593731072 …
Srikanth ஸ்‌ரீகாந்த்
@logic
Why is https://pmnrf.gov.in/ not used and a personal branding named fund being used for this? PMNRF has receipt generation, in existance for ages. PM-CARES attempts at profiting out of disaster. #DisasterPayments https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1243861543185305603 …
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10:54 AM
Imperative for businesses to join hands with govt, civil society and healthcare institutions to halt spread of novel coronavirus: Infosys Ltd CEO Salil Parekh
10:47 AM
Covid-19: Over 300 European tourists flown from Goa to Frankfurt by special flight
10:45 AM
Coronavirus in Gujarat: Two new Covid 19 positive cases in Gujarat
Two new COVID 19 positive cases in Gujarat- A 55 year old man from Ahmedabad and a woman from Gandhinagar; Total number of positive cases in Gujarat is 73: Jayanti Ravi Principal Secretary (Health), Gujarat government
10:40 AM
Nizamuddin Coronavirus cases: 1,500-1,700 people had assembled at Markaz building, says Delhi minister
ANI
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@ANI
We are not certain of the number but it is estimated that 1500-1700 people had assembled at Markaz building. 1033 people have been evacuated so far - 334 of them have been sent to hospital & 700 sent to quarantine center: Satyendar Jain, Delhi Health Minister #Coronavirus
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10:33 AM
Nizamuddin Coronavirus cases: At least 1,500 muslims from Tamil Nadu paricipated in Tablighi Jamaat meet in Delhi
As Tamil Nadu recorded 17 more Covid-19 cases on Monday and at least a score more suspected to be infected, the state’s anti-Covid-19 machinery swung into action to trace the 980 Tamil Muslims who took part in a Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) conference in New Delhi and returned home.

CM Edappadi K Palaniswami confirmed that 10 were members of the TJ delegation from Erode.

A 65-year-old TN Muslim preacher of TJ, which is a religious outreach organisation, passed away on Sunday and several others in a mosque in Delhi’s West Nizamuddin showed Covid-19 like symptoms, triggering panic among the hundreds of inmates.

At least 1,500 Muslims from TN participated in a three-day conference that ended March 23.

Covid-19: Recession for world economy; India, China likely exceptions: UN

The world economy will go into recession this year with a predicted loss of trillions of dollars of global income due to the coronavirus pandemic, spelling serious trouble for developing countries with the likely exception of India and China, according to a latest UN trade report.
With two-thirds of the world's population living in developing countries facing unprecedented economic damage from the COVID-19 crisis, the UN is calling for a $2.5 trillion rescue package for these nations.
According to the new analysis from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the UN trade and development body titled 'The COVID-19 Shock to Developing Countries: Towards a 'whatever it takes' programme for the two-thirds of the world's population being left behind', commodity-rich exporting countries will face a $2 trillion to $3 trillion drop in investments from overseas in the next two years.
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The UNCTAD said that in recent days, advanced economies and China have put together massive government packages which, according to the Group of 20 leading economies (G20), will extend a $5 trillion lifeline to their economies.
"This represents an unprecedented response to an unprecedented crisis, which will attenuate the extent of the shock physically, economically and psychologically," it said.
It added that while the full details of these stimulus packages are yet to be unpacked, an initial assessment by the UNCTAD estimates that they will translate to a $1 trillion to $2 trillion injection of demand into the major G20 economies and a two percentage point turnaround in global output.
"Even so, the world economy will go into recession this year with a predicted loss of global income in trillions of dollars. This will spell serious trouble for developing countries, with the likely exception of China and the possible exception of India," the UNCTAD said.
The report, however, did not give a detailed explanation as to why and how India and China will be the exceptions as the world faces a recession and loss in global income that will impact developing countries.
Further, given the deteriorating global conditions, fiscal and foreign exchange constraints are bound to tighten further over the course of the year.
The UNCTAD estimates a $2 trillion to $3 trillion financing gap facing developing countries over the next two years.
In the face of a looming financial tsunami this year, the UNCTAD proposes a four-pronged strategy that could begin to translate expressions of international solidarity into concrete action.

ALSO READ: China's growth could come to a halt, raising poverty, World Bank warns
This includes a $1 trillion liquidity injection for those being left behind through reallocating existing special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund; a debt jubilee for distressed economies under which another one trillion dollars of debts owed by developing countries should be cancelled this year and a 500 billion dollars Marshall Plan for a health recovery funded from some of the missing official development assistance (ODA) long promised but not delivered by development partners.
The speed at which the economic shockwaves from the pandemic has hit developing countries is dramatic, even in comparison to the 2008 global financial crisis, the UNCTAD said.
"The economic fallout from the shock is ongoing and increasingly difficult to predict, but there are clear indications that things will get much worse for developing economies before they get better," UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.
The report shows that in two months since the virus began spreading beyond China, developing countries have taken an enormous hit in terms of capital outflows, growing bond spreads, currency depreciations and lost export earnings, including from falling commodity prices and declining tourist revenues.
Lacking the monetary, fiscal and administrative capacity to respond to this crisis, the consequences of a combined health pandemic and a global recession will be catastrophic for many developing countries and halt their progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Even as advanced economies are discovering the challenges of dealing with a growing informal workforce, this remains the norm for developing countries, amplifying their difficulties in responding to the crisis.
"Advanced economies have promised to do 'whatever it takes' to stop their firms and households from taking a heavy loss of income," said Richard Kozul-Wright, UNCTAD's director of globalisation and development strategies.
He added: "But if G20 leaders are to stick to their commitment of 'a global response in the spirit of solidarity', there must be commensurate action for the six billion people living outside the core G20 economies".
According to reports, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has soared past 35,000 while the number of confirmed cases topped 750,000 globally.

Delay in regulatory leeway likely to prove costly affair for banks

The sharp rally in banking stocks, which rose 10-12 per cent, in the first half of Thursday’s trade did not sustain fully as hopes of relief or bailout measures for the sector from the finance minister did not materialise. The minister though has kept the option open for more relief measures as and when needed, which suggests that some relaxation (from the Reserve Bank of India or RBI) on asset classification norms (critical for classification of non-performing assets or NPA) may come through for the sector. While hopes of some relief have been around for over 10 days, any further delay could prove costly for banks. Analysts are already downgrading their earnings expectations, with private banks likely to see a sharper cut. In fact, an across-the-board earnings downgrade is also the first of its kind for private banks.
The nation-wide lockdown, which was initially to be more a problem for small and medium enterprises (SME) exposure of banks, is beginning to spread. “The current pan-Indian lockdown will certainly affect cash flows of borrowers, both individual and corporate, which may lead to an increase in corporate as well as retail NPAs,” say analysts at ICICI Securities. “The lockdown will adversely impact most sectors and may not be restricted to chemicals, textiles, electronics, and entertainment,” they add.

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The last time when banks received dispensation on asset recognition was in 2016, after demonetisation. The RBI gave a 90-day window for classifying certain retail loans as NPAs. “Without a similar dispensation being extended from the March quarter, banks could find it very difficult to sail though,” said a top executive of a state-run bank. Another senior banker said unless such dispensations are soon given, it may be difficult, especially for private banks, to lend support to customers. While most state-owned banks have come out with special schemes for their customers battling the lockdown, private banks are yet to act. “The longer it takes to roll out these relief measures, the prolonged will be the period of dull growth for banks,” he adds while mentioning that business volumes have been quite negligible in the last two weeks.
Investors need to remember that loan growth has been pale at single-digit in CY20, so far. Therefore, unless the RBI temporarily relaxes its NPA norms, banks may find the going getting tougher. PhillipCapital estimates that NPAs could rise by 250 basis point for the sector if relaxations are not given.
Thus, “Until there is clarity on the sort of dispensation the RBI is willing to roll out, investors should not be fancied by the steep correction in banking stocks,” says a research analyst of a foreign brokerage.