Media, entertainment biz to reach Rs 1,86,600 cr revenue in FY22: Report

 The media and entertainment sector, which was badly hit due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to rebound to touch a revenue of Rs 1,86,600 crore in 2021-22, due to acceleration of digital adoption among users across geographies, according to a report.

The sector should recover and post a 33 per cent growth in 2021-22, following a contraction of 20 per cent in 2020-21, which still implies a loss of around two years of growth, said KPMG in India Partner and Head (Media and Entertainment) Girish Menon.

He was quoting the KPMG Media and Entertainment (M&E) report, 'A year off script: Time for resilience', which examines the performance of the M&E sector during a particularly challenging period.

The two areas that offer encouragement are the continued economic growth of India and the universal acceleration of digital adoption among users across geographies, he said.

"As per our revised estimates, India could be home to a billion digital users by 2028 rather than the earlier projected 2030 timeline," he added.

Menon added that there have been several structural changes to digital behaviour on account of the experience of the lockdown resulting in a new homogeneity among users. "It is our belief that many of these changes will translate into a more democratic and sophisticated digital citizen within the country."

According to the report, the overall revenue of the sector during 2019-20 stood at Rs 1,75,100 crore that is expected to contract to Rs 1,40,200 crore during the current financial year and recover to Rs 1,86,600 crore in 2021-22.

There will be a deeper integration of digital technology across the M&E value chain from content production to distribution. Technology adoption could, however, face some challenges in terms of skill development and the shift to a digital-first mindset but will result in operational cost savings and potentially lower lead times over the longer term, Menon said.

India was already experiencing a slowdown in economic activity even prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, and the onset of the global pandemic and ensuing lockdown dealt a severe blow to the Indian economy, the report said.

The M&E sector has been affected but to varying degrees like the outdoor entertainment formats (films and events), and traditional media (print and TV to some extent) have been badly impacted as people stayed indoors and advertising spends dried up, it said.

Digital advertising, over-the-top (OTT) and gaming fared much better, with massive spikes in digital consumption during the lockdown across geographies and socio-economic classes, it said.

The digital advertising spends are now set to overtake those on TV by 2020-21, which is an important milestone and turning point in the evolution of media and entertainment in India, the report said.

"The distinction among segments of M&E has become more pronounced with the lockdown. Marketing spend has moved perceptibly towards digital media and away from traditional segments like print, radio and to some extent TV," KPMG in IndiaPartner and Head (Technology, Media and Telecom) Satya Easwaran added.

Easwaran added that a greater reliance on subscription and other paid options as well as the development of a credible digital business model are going to be inevitable for these traditional media segments.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

After 29% rally in H1FY21, the best in a decade, analysts cautious on mkts

 After a phenomenal rally in the first half of the current fiscal 2020-21 (H1FY21), analysts are now turning cautious on the markets and expect the second half of FY21 (H2FY21) to be marked with volatility. Given the slew of events lined up over the next few months, they believe, the markets are entering a phase of uncertainty.

The first half of the current fiscal (H1FY21) started on a somber note for the economy and markets with a nation-wide lockdown to stem the spread of Covid-19 pandemic that lasted a little over two months. Yet equity markets gained handsomely, with the frontline indices – the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 – rising 29 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively during this period. The rise in the first half has been the sharpest since 2008-09 (H1FY09) when both these indices had surged 76 per cent and 68 per cent, respectively.

The rally in H1FY21 comes on the back of a gush of liquidity. This far in H1FY21, the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have pumped in a net Rs 76,253 crore ($10.1 billion) in the Indian equity markets. On the other hand, domestic institutions (DIIs) have sold equities worth Rs 25,279 crore during this period, data show.

“The outcome of the US presidential election is one such event that the markets will focus on. That said, it remains to be seen how long can the markets and economy be supported by central bank liquidity. There is a clear disconnect with earnings. The markets are discounting FY22 and FY23 earnings as well at this stage. Ideally, the markets should be at least 20 – 30 per cent lower from where they currently are,” said Jigar Shah, chief executive officer at Maybank Kim Eng Securities. Among sectors, he prefers defensives and expects IT, pharma, consumer sectors to do well. That apart, he likes telecom and rural economy oriented sectors.

At the bourses, mid-and the small-cap indices outperformed the frontline indices in H1FY21 with a gain of 39 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively. Total 162 stocks have seen their market value more than double from their respective March 31, levels. Among individual stocks, Aarti Drugs, Ramco Systems, Mastek, Laurus Labs, Adani Green Energy, IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals and Neuland Laboratories were the key gainers that surged 300 per cent – 500 per cent during H1FY21.

Markets, according to U R Bhat, managing director at Dalton Capital, are pricing all possible positives at the current level – be it a V-shaped economic recovery, possible cure / Covid-19 vaccine and geopolitical stability in H1FY21. “If any of these conditions surprises negatively there can be a correction. Though the markets will not re-test their March 2020 low, I don’t rule out a 10 per cent correction in case of a negative surprise on the above-mentioned factors,” he said.

The economic recovery, however, remains fragile with economists already cautioning the demand for goods and services could taper off in the months ahead, as pent-up demand gives way to households grappling with job losses and pay cuts.

“After a swift recovery in activity thus far, we expect the sequential pace of activity to slow in H2FY21, as new infections remain at elevated levels and as the pandemic is having an adverse impact on household jobs and firm profitability. We forecast overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth of -10.8 per cent in FY21, with growth likely to remain negative over the next three quarters (-10.4 per cent in Q3, -5.4 per cent in Q4, -4.3 per cent in Q1 2021),” wrote Sonal Varma, managing director and chief India economist at Nomura in a September 28 co-authored report with Aurodeep Nandi.

Covid-19 has claimed a million lives already; real toll may be way higher

 The world officially recorded 1 million deaths from Covid-19 in one of the most sobering milestones of the pandemic, but the real tally might be almost double that.

Actual fatalities from the worst outbreak in a century may be closer to 1.8 million -- a toll that could grow to as high as 3 million by the end of the year, according to Alan Lopez, a laureate professor and director of the University of Melbourne’s global burden of disease group. The coronavirus’s rapid spread and ability to transmit in people who show no signs of the disease have enabled it to outrun measures to accurately quantify cases through widespread diagnostic testing.

“One million deaths has meaning by itself, but the question is whether it’s true,” Lopez said in an interview before the tally was reached. “It’s fair to say that the 1 million deaths, as shocking as it sounds, is probably an underestimate -- a significant underestimate.”

chart

Even in countries with sophisticated health systems, mortality is difficult to accurately gauge. Tens of thousands of probable Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. weren’t captured by official statistics between March and May, a study in July found, frustrating efforts to track and mitigate the pandemic’s progression.

The dearth of accurate data undermines the ability of governments to implement timely strategies and policies to protect public health and promote economic recovery. If the mortality from Covid-19 reaches 3 million as Lopez predicted, it would rank the disease among the world’s worst killers. An undercount in deaths could also give some people a false sense of security, and may allow governments to downplay the virus and overlook the pandemic’s burden.

No System

India has confirmed more than 6 million Covid-19 cases, but accounts for only about 95,000 of the 1 million reported deaths worldwide, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The country, which has the highest number of infections after the U.S., lacks a reliable national vital statistics registration system to track deaths in real time. Meanwhile, in Indiana in the U.S. researchers found that although nursing home residents weren’t routinely tested for the virus, they represented 55% of the state’s Covid-19 deaths.

“Yes, cases are reported daily everywhere, but as soon as you get to the next tier down, like how many were admitted to hospitals, there have just been huge gaps in the data,” said Christopher J. Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. Medical data, including duration of illness and symptoms, help to ascribe a probable cause of death, he said.

Patients with heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic conditions are at greater risk of dying from Covid-19. Some governments, including Russia, are attributing the cause of deaths in some of these patients to the pre-existing condition, raising questions about the veracity of official mortality data.

WHO Guidelines

In July, Russia recorded 5,922 fatalities due to Covid-19. At least 4,157 other deaths were linked to the coronavirus, but not included in the tally because of how the nation defines such deaths. Overall, it recorded 29,925 more deaths in July than in the same month of 2019.

The WHO laid out guidance for classifying coronavirus deaths in June, advising countries to count fatalities if patients had symptoms of the disease regardless of whether they were a confirmed case, and unless there was a clear alternative cause. A Covid-19 fatality should be counted as such even if pre-existing conditions exacerbated the disease, said the organization. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released similar guidelines.

Still, it may take health workers certifying deaths time to adopt the methodology, the University of Melbourne’s Lopez said. His research has received funding by Bloomberg Philanthropies, set up by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News’ parent Bloomberg LP.

“Doctors often are learning as they go along, so they’re not certifying all the deaths that are due to Covid as Covid deaths,” Lopez said.

Japan Drop

Although the pandemic has altered mortality patterns worldwide, not all of the changes are a direct result of the pandemic, he said. Physical distancing measures may have reduced road fatalities and deaths caused by influenza. In Japan, which has been scrutinized for its lack of widespread testing and relatively lax containment efforts, deaths fell by 3.5% in May from a year earlier even as Covid-19 cases peaked.

“The pandemic actually works in contradictory ways to affect mortality,” Lopez said.

Likewise, the economic cost of the pandemic -- which may top $35.3 trillion through 2025 -- will be driven more by changes in people’s spending patterns than number of deaths and government-mandated “lockdown” measures, according to Warwick McKibbin, a professor of economics at the Australian National University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“We estimate this outbreak is going to cost tens of trillions to the world economy,” McKibbin said in an interview. “The change in economic outcomes is caused by individuals changing their behavior, not because the government mandated a shutdown.”

Worldwide, the growth in the number of daily deaths has eased since spiking in March and April, helped by improved medical care and ways to treat the disease. But as resurgences flare in Europe and North America ahead of winter and the flu season, Covid-19 fatalities may rise sharply again. It took nine days for cases in the U.K. to double to 3,050 in mid September, compared with the previous doubling time of five weeks, the BMJ journal said last week.

Chart

Covid-19 patients between ages 75 to 84 are 220 times more likely to die from the disease than 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the CDC. Seniors over 85 years have a 630 times higher risk of dying. The older age of fatal Covid-19 cases has made some people think “they’re old people, they’re going to die anyway,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“I have a really hard time with that,” Osterholm said in an interview. “That’s an unfortunate and very sad way to come to understand this pandemic. Many of those people who died are very important loved ones to so many of us that it’s hard to just dismiss it as it’s just a number.”

Bengal coronavirus update: 3,181 fresh cases reported; toll rises to 4,721

 The COVID-19 death toll in West

Bengal on Saturday went up to 4,721 with 56 more people succumbing to the disease, the state health department said in a bulletin.

The tally increased to 2,44,240 after 3,181 people tested positive for the infection.

In the last 24 hours, 2,955 patients recovered from coronavirus taking the states discharge rate to 87.61 per cent, the bulletin said.

The number of active patients is now 25,544.

Altogether 43,285 samples were tested for COVID-19 in the state since Friday.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Online grocery segment to touch $3 billion by year-end: Report

 COVID-19 induced tailwinds, coupled with participation from large conglomerates like Reliance are expected to drive growth in the online grocery segment in India, expanding the market to USD 3 billion by year-end, according to a report.

With supply ramping up in time to match the surging demand, eGrocery will grow very fast to be USD 18.2 billion by 2024 from USD 1.9 billion in 2019 - growing at a CAGR of 57 per cent, the report by consulting firm RedSeer and online grocery player BigBasket said.

"During COVID-19, consumers have shown increased propensity to order online. A lot of this behaviour is likely to stick...Entry of large players like Jio will drive adoption among tier II + cities (a large, relatively untapped market). Renewed interest from large horizontals like Flipkart/Amazon, among other online players will further boost penetration," the report said.

It added that while the growth in eGrocery in the lockdown has been impressive, the segment is expected to see about 2.6X growth in GMV (gross merchandise value) run-rate by the end of the year.

"For all of 2020, the GMV will be over 70 per cent higher than 2019, which would indicate a fundamental shift in how eGrocery is perceived as a business. With traditional players increasingly leveraging the local ecosystem in their offerings, that could be the preferred way for players to scale beyond the top cities," it said.

This, and more such innovation and partnerships, will be the way forward for Indian eGrocery, the report added.

It said while there were some challenges in the initial days of lockdown, the eGocery category grew 73 per cent during that period.

Fresh vegetables and fruits saw 144 per cent growth, while FMCG products grew 150 per cent.

"We expect the growth of online to be steady for the rest of the year (2020) to reach USD 3 billion plus," it added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

This is why coronavirus may be life-threatening for some patients

 When two brothers fell critically ill with Covid-19 around the same time in March, their doctors were baffled. Both were young -- 29 and 31 years old -- and healthy. Yet within days they couldn’t breathe on their own and, tragically, one of them died.

Two weeks later, when a second pair of Covid-stricken brothers, both in their 20s, also appeared in the Netherlands, geneticists were called in to investigate. What they uncovered was a path leading from severe cases, genetic variations, and gender differences to a loss of immune function that may ultimately yield a new approach to treating thousands of coronavirus patients.

The common thread in the research is the lack of a substance called interferon that helps orchestrate the body’s defense against viral pathogens and can be infused to treat conditions such as infectious hepatitis. Now, increasing evidence suggests that a significant minority of Covid-19 patients get very ill because of an impaired interferon response. Twin landmark studies published Thursday in the journal Science showed that insufficient interferon may lurk at a dangerous turning point in SARS-CoV-2 infections.

“It looks like this virus has one big trick,” said Shane Crotty, a professor in the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. “That big trick is to avoid the initial innate immune response for a significant period of time and, in particular, avoid an early type-1 interferon response.”

CoronavirusMembers of the medical staff treat a patient who is wearing helmet-based ventilator in Houston.

The work highlights the potential for interferon-based therapies to enlarge a slowly accumulating range of Covid-19 treatments. These include Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir and convalescent plasma, a component of the blood of recovered patients that may contain beneficial immune factors.

These treatments provide limited benefit and are typically used in very sick, hospitalized patients. The possibility that interferon may help some people is enticing because it appears most efficacious in the early stages of infection, when life-threatening respiratory failure could still be averted. Dozens of studies of interferon treatment are now recruiting Covid-19 patients.

“We think timing may be essential because it’s only in the very early phase one can really battle the virus particles and defend against infection,” said Alexander Hoischen, head of the genomic technologies and immuno-genomics group at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen that analyzed the DNA of the two sets of brothers.

Being male, elderly, and having underlying medical conditions can all raise patients’ risk of life-threatening Covid-19. But even within these groups, disease severity varies widely. Scientists have speculated other factors influence susceptibility, including pre-existing levels of inflammation and immunity, the amount of virus that starts an infection, and patients’ genetic makeup.

New Nexus

Interferon’s role represents a new nexus in Covid-19’s complex interaction with the human immune system. Many patients suffer their worst complications because of an immune overreaction sometimes called a cytokine storm, and may benefit from dexamethasone, a cheap generic that calms these storms.

“It’s a very interesting disease because too little immunity is no good,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sept. 10 in an on-line briefing for Massachusetts General Hospital staff. “Too much immunity is really, really bad.”

Whether sufficient interferon is available early or late in Covid-19 cases has a major bearing on disease severity, according to Yuen Kwok-Yung, chair of infectious diseases in the University of Hong Kong’s department of microbiology. Ideally, production of the antiviral substance would be triggered when immune cells encounter SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, stopping rapid viral reproduction inside the body and averting complications, he said.

“But the SARS-CoV-2 virus has anti-interferon genes which can stop or antagonize the production or effect of interferon,” said Yuen, who measured the effects in human lung tissue. If the interferon response is delayed and the amount of virus in the body peaks at a high level, other parts of the immune system will be “awakened.”

‘Really Disastrous’

That may trigger lung-injuring inflammation -- collateral damage from an excessive immune reaction to the virus. “This is really disastrous,” he said.

Some people are known to have trouble fighting infections because they make antibodies that deactivate their own interferon. On Thursday, a global consortium of researchers said such immune reactions to the protein could account for life-threatening Covid-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men.

Hospital, CoronavirusBreathing tubes hang next to a Covid-19 patient on a ventilator in Connecticut.

Interferon-blocking antibodies appeared in 101 of 987 patients with severe disease, but none of 663 people with an asymptomatic or mild case, according to the study in Science. Patients over age 65 were also more likely than younger ones to have the autoimmune abnormality, which was “clinically silent until the patients were infected with SARS-CoV-2,” the group of more than 100 scientists said.

‘First Explanation’

“These findings provide a first explanation for the excess of men among patients with life-threatening Covid-19 and the increase in risk with age,” the researchers led by Jean-Laurent Casanova, head of Rockefeller University’s St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases in New York said. “They also provide a means of identifying individuals at risk of developing life-threatening Covid-19.”

Genetic analysis of Covid-19 patients published in the same journal revealed two dozen gene mutations that had been “silent” until patients were infected by SARS-CoV-2. Researchers -- many of them also involved in the antibody study -- sequenced the genomes of 659 patients with life-threatening cases of the disease; 3.5% carried genetic variations that inhibit interferon production.

Those genetic flaws were similar to the ones that Hoischen and his colleagues from a dozen Dutch centers described in the Journal of the American Medical Association two months ago. The two sets of brothers had inherited a gene mutation that impaired the interferon response, keeping their immune systems from fighting the coronavirus until it had replicated for days.

In the Dutch men, the effects were cruel. The first, a young father from a town in the southern Netherlands, suffered shortness of breath, cough and fever at home for eight days before admission to intensive care. He was to spend 33 days in the hospital, 10 of them on a ventilator.

Raging Fever

His 29-year-old brother succumbed to Covid-19 in an intensive care unit in Rotterdam, after being treated for shock and a fever that soared to 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit). When doctors at Radboud learned of his younger sibling’s case, as well as a second pair -- 21- and 23-year-old brothers also in respiratory failure -- they went looking for a genetic cause.

They found a mutation that was carried on the X chromosome. Defects on this chromosome are more likely to affect men, who have only one copy, while women have two.

The men’s mutations are rare -- occurring in 1 in 10,000 people -- and an unlikely explanation for the vast majority of severe Covid-19 cases. But the studies in Science indicate that various forms of interferon dysfunction may underlie as many as 14% of critical patients, and that screening and targeted treatment might prevent severe illnesses and deaths.

“If we manage to get them into our university medical center early enough,” Hoischen said, “our clinicians may be able to treat them with interferons.”

Other ways of overcoming autoimmunity, like the removal of antibodies against interferon from the blood, called plasmapheresis, could also help patients. On the other hand, patients who produce antibodies against interferon shouldn’t donate blood products for treating other patients.

“The rare diseases and the more common forms of the same disease may converge, and we can learn from each other,” said Hoischen. “That’s the hope.”

Covid-19: Indian banking system to be among the last to recover, says S&P

 Hit by economic slump due to Covid-19, the banking systems in emerging markets like India, Mexico, and South Africa will be slower to recover to 2019 levels and it will happen only beyond 2023, according to rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P).

The Indian banking sector is considered a late-exiter. Its recovery will be longer. But some ratios may return more quickly to levels as they were weak prior to the onset of Covid-19 (in contrast with many other jurisdictions).

There were significant asset-quality issues in India prior to the onset of Covid-19, while asset quality was on an improving trend in many other jurisdictions, rating agency said.

Rating agency today released report "Global Banking: Recovery Will Stretch To 2023 And Beyond."

Emerging-market banks will likely see a sharp increase in credit losses in 2020. There is potential for a gradual improvement in the following years if economic activity rebounds.

Given the banks' relatively strong profitability, there seems to be some cushion to absorb the anticipated weak performance in the loan portfolio.

Recovery to pre-crisis levels could occur for the Chinese banking system by end-2022. Other emerging markets may recover in 2023 or later. The full effect of the asset quality deterioration on banks' balance sheets is expected in 2021.

The path to recovery will be more painful for emerging markets such as India. The banks' recovery to long-term averages for key asset quality and profitability ratios will take years, it added.

Covid-19 and the oil price shock of 2020 are taking a heavy toll on global banks. The agency has taken 335 negative rating actions globally since the outbreak began. “We anticipate it will be difficult for the financial strength ratings on financial institutions to return to pre-crisis levels”, it said.

Rating agency does not expect the world's largest banking sectors, including more than half of G20's, to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels until 2023, or beyond.

Recovery will vary across banking jurisdictions. There is expectation of an economic rebound in 2021 following the release of a vaccine by about the middle of that year. “We anticipate a lag between when an economic recovery takes hold and when the credit strength of banks stabilises”, S&P added.

Even for the least affected--the likely early-exiter banking jurisdictions--stabilisation and recovery may take a full 18 months or more after an economic rebound.

There will be much uncertainty on the recovery pathway. Banking sector recovery will not just depend on the economic recovery. It would also be influenced by the nature and extent of the economic damage affecting firms and households prior to the onset of the economic recovery, and the extent to which this will hit banks, agency added.

Over 10 mn migrant workers walked to their states in March-June: Govt

 More than one crore migrant labourers returned to their home states on foot during March-June 2020, including those who travelled during the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown, the government said on Tuesday.

"COVID-19 has resulted in migration of large number of workers from destination states to the home-states, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways V K Singh told Lok Sabha in a written reply. As per the data compiled by Ministry of Labour and Employment, more than 1.06 crore migrant workers, including those who travelled on foot during the lockdown, returned to their home states, he said.

As per provisional available information, 81,385 accidents occurred on the roads (including national highways) during the period March-June 2020 with 29,415 fatalities, he informed Parliament.

However, he said that the ministry does not maintain separate data in respect of migrant workers who have died in road accidents during the lockdown.

He said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued regular advisories to state/union territories to take all necessary measures to provide shelters, food, water, health facilities and also proper counselling to migrant workers.

"This ministry had assisted the movement of migrant labourers walking on foot on the various national highways all across the country by providing them food, drinking water, basic medicines and foot wears, etc," the minister said.

They were also provided with the resting places to take rest and assistance in terms of the arrangement of transport with the help of local administration to take them to the places nearest to their destinations, he said.

MHA vide orders dated April 29, 2020, and May 1, 2020, allowed movement of migrant workers to their native places by buses and Shramik special trains, respectively, he said.

India's single-day recoveries surpass new cases as 94,612 people recuperate

 India's single-day recoveries surpassed the number of new infections for the second consecutive day on Sunday, with 94,612 people having recuperated from COVID-19, even as the total caseload sprinted past 54 lakh, according to the Union Health Ministry's data.

A total of 94,612 people recovered from coronavirus in a span of 24 hours, taking the national recovery rate to 79.68 per cent, while92,605people tested positive for the disease during the period, taking the total COVID-19 cases to 54,00,619.

The death toll climbed to86,752 with the virus claiming 1,133 lives in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The total COVID-19 recoveries have surged to43,03,043.

The COVID-19casefatality rate was recorded at 1.61 per cent.

There are10,10,824 active cases in the country which comprises 18.72 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and it went past 50 lakh on September 16.

According to ICMR, a cumulative total of 6,36,61,060 samples have been tested up to September 19 with 12,06,806 samples being tested on Saturday.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Oxford vaccine: Phase-3 trial to begin in Pune next week, volunteers enrol

 The phase-III human clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) will begin at the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune next week.

Dean of the state-run Sassoon General Hospital Dr Muralidhar Tambe told this to PTI on Saturday.

"The phase-III trial of 'Covishield' vaccine will begin at Sassoon hospital from next week. It is likely to start on Monday. Some volunteers have already come forward for the trial. Around 150 to 200 volunteers will be administered the vaccine candidate dose," he said.

"From Saturday, the hospital started enrolling volunteers for the trial. Those who are willing to volunteer for the vaccination should contact the hospital," he said.

Under phase-II, trials were conducted at Bharti Vidyapeeth Medical College and also KEM Hospital in the city.

The SII has partnered with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Covid-19 vaccine candidate, developed by the University of Oxford.

Earlier this month, the SII had paused the clinical trials of the vaccine candidate in the country.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had on September 11 directed the SII to suspend any new recruitment in the phase-II and III clinical trial of the vaccine till further orders after AstraZeneca paused the trials in other countries because of "an unexplained illness" in a participant in the study.

However, on September 15, the DCGI gave permission to the SII to resume clinical trial of the vaccine.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

India tanks to 105th spot from 79th in global economic freedom ranking

 India's ranking in economic freedom tumbled to 105th among 162 countries in 2018 from 79th the previous year. It should be noted that this drop cannot be attributed to the Covid-19 crisis, whose impact would become evident only two years later.

A major disappointment for India came on the parameter of "freedom to trade internationally", on which India ranked 139th, compared with 137th in 2017, showed the ‘Economic Freedom of the World’ report — it measures how policies and institutions of countries support economic freedom — released today by Centre for Civil Society and Canada’s Fraser Institute.

Another key disappointment was India's ranking on "regulation", where it stood 122nd in 2018, against 114th a year earlier.

However, the country gained one place to 88th on "sound money" in the latest report, against 89 in the previous one. It retained its position at 79th on "legal systems and property rights". On the size of the government, a major claim of the Narendra Modi government, the country's ranking declined to 54th in 2018 from 36th the previous year.

ALSO READ: Economic freedom in agriculture

India reported a fall in each component of economic freedom. While a score closer to 10 indicates a higher level of economic freedom, the country’s score fell on each — to 7.16 from 8.22 the previous year on the size of the government, to 5.07 from 5.17 on legal system and property rights, to 8.34 from 8.37 on sound money, to 5.71 from 6.08 on freedom to trade internationally, and to 6.53 from 6.69 on regulation of credit, labour and business.

Parth J Shah, president of the Centre for Civil Society, said: "The Centre and state governments have initiated business process re-engineering to simplify business registration and compliances. No doubt that some of these efforts have had a bearing on India's score.”

He said since the ranking was based on 2018 data, many of the new restrictions on international trade, besides tightening of the credit market due to NPAs and the Covid impact on debt and deficits were not reflected in India’s score.

The government still continues to play an overbearing role in many areas of economic life. The prospects for increasing economic freedom in India depend on next-generation reforms in factor markets and in greater openness to international trade, he said.

Teflon-coated: Why Modi remains popular despite many crises staring India

 India’s Covid-19 cases continue to climb, even as the economy tanks. China is pressing forward on the two countries’ disputed Himalayan border, where dozens of Indian soldiers have been killed. Tax revenues have plummeted, state governments are unhappy and 21 million of India’s rare salaried jobs vanished in the last few months. And yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who recently posted pictures of himself feeding peacocks in his serene garden — remains as popular as ever.

How does Modi do it? While they have responded to the coronavirus in different ways, many of his fellow populists are struggling. Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, faced with crashing poll numbers, flatly refuses to believe they are true. Multiple missteps in recent months have brought Boris Johnson’s Tories practically level with Labour in some recent U.K. polls. Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party is facing a tough set of local elections. And, of course, there’s U.S. President Donald Trump, whose re-election campaign seems to be based largely on pretending the pandemic doesn’t exist.

Modi seems to understand something that the others do not about the relationship between a populist leader and voters. In a crisis, you can, like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, temporarily push your numbers up through cash transfers. Or you can, like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, use identity politics to distract people from your bungles; that’s being tried in India as well.

ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: India sees 96,535 new cases; Oxford vaccine trial paused

But there’s another factor Modi exploits to the hilt. The most adept populist leaders don’t only detach the electorate’s perception from inconvenient facts, providing an alternative narrative in which they, and they alone, are the stars. To repeat that trick in the face of disasters such as a recession or a pandemic, they also need to act. They have to make the sort of big decisions around which their supporters can construct a convincing narrative: a decision that comes across as brave, or stern, or wise, or fatherly or, ideally, all of those things.

When Modi, with just a few hours’ notice, withdrew 86% of India’s currency in November 2016, it was unquestionably a disaster. People lost jobs and livelihoods, economic growth was mortally injured and, given that all the money eventually returned to circulation, none of the exercise’s goals were actually met.

What Modi learned from the experience, however, is that it does not matter whether the decision you make pans out or not. All that matters is that people believe that you did something big, something that only you would dare to do, and that you did it for the best reasons.

ALSO READ: LIVE updates: India, China agree on 5-point plan to resolve Ladakh face-off

That’s what many Indian voters thought about “demonetization”: If the gambit didn’t work, it was everybody else’s fault. At least Modi tried to stamp out corruption, supporters said, doing something no other prime minister in India’s history, no other world leader had done. (For good reason.)

Just months after demonetization, while Indians were still suffering from its after-effects, Modi’s party won crucial elections in India’s largest state. The political scientists Rikhil Bhavnani and Mark Copelovitch discovered that, in fact, Modi’s party did relatively better in those areas where people were hurt the most by demonetization. Apparently, the worse the medicine tastes, the more the doctor must care about the disease and want to cure it.

When Modi shut down the Indian economy in March in response to Covid-19’s arrival on our shores, he did so relatively early. India’s was also perhaps the most draconian such shutdown globally.

While people suffered, every voter in every part of the country knew that Modi alone had shut the economy down in response to the threat. By taking action early and on the grandest possible scale, he essentially inoculated his popularity against the pandemic’s political effects. No rival can now accuse him of not doing enough and be believed by voters.

The chances are that the decision to go big will work out far better for leaders such as Modi and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, who also shut down early and hard, than denying the pandemic will for others, from AMLO to Trump. Denial and delay was, in any case, the wrong course. Now the consequences of not acting are entirely on them.

In India, they’re on everyone else. If the pandemic spreads, that’s because bureaucrats, or state governments, or the people themselves failed to live up to the leader’s vision.

Some have hoped that the pandemic will cause voters around the world to once again demand “competence” from their leaders. That’s just wishful thinking. The evidence from India is that nothing has changed. The populist playbook is still effective, as long as it’s in hands as skilled as Modi’s.

5 reasons why Morgan Stanley is bullish on ICICI, Axis and HDFC Bank

 Amid steady uptick in the Covid-19 cases and gradual re-opening of the economy, Indian banks seem to be walking on the tightrope. In the wake of these two conflicting scenarios, outlook on the banking sector has remained subdued due to a lack of clarity around bad loans (non-performing asset) cycle and growth outlook.

Despite this, analysts at Morgan Stanley have turned positive on HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and ICICI Bank, and believe they are at the inflexion point of growth trajectory.

“We expect earnings to inflect for large private banks in H2F21. They could provide aggressively for bad loans (unlike the banking system) and accelerate the pace of loan market share gains as the economy stabilizes. Given this, we expect re-rating and strong returns over the next one year,” noted Sumeet Kariwala, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley India, in a co-authored report with Subramanian Iyer, Rahul Gupta, and Himanshu Khona.

This scenario, they say, is not priced-in which could push share-prices upwards by 30-40 per cent over the next 12-15 months.

Among the key growth drivers, recent capital raise by the banks gives analysts at Morgan Stanley comfort from NPA absorption view point. Assuming threshold capital level at 10-12 per cent, the brokerage’s analysis points out that the said banks are best placed to absorb bad loans up to around 13-16 per cent of loans.

Second, Morgan Stanley deduced that these banks will likely see a 3-5 per cent increase in impaired loans due to Covid-19. “The bulk of their lending in recent years has been to either highly rated corporate borrowers or to prime retail customers with existing liability relationships... Moreover, we note that large banks have built aggressive provisions over the past few quarters... Therefore, these banks are much better placed compared to mid-size banks/public banks,” it said.

On the issue of weak loan growth due to a muted macro environment, Morgan Stanley expects ICICI, HDFC and Axis Bank to do better than peers.

“FY21 will be tough but we see loan growth at 4 per cent YoY for Axis/ICICI Bank and 12 per cent for HDFC Bank. We expect loan growth to recover to a 15-18 per cent run-rate for the large private banks by end-F22,” it says.

That apart, analysts at the brokerage expect net interest margins to bottom in H2F21, for the banks under consideration, driven by peak NPA slippages, and bottoming-out of loan to deposit ratio. Add to it, they expect pre-provision operating profit (PPoP) margins to bottom out in H2FY21 largely driven by higher liquidity on the balance sheet, and pressure on loan spreads.

“Over the past few years, weak competition from private banks has led to strong improvement in credit spreads across retail product segments. This, coupled with reduced risk weights and increasing share of internal loan originations, has led to sharp improvement in return on equity (RoEs). As the loan market share continues to consolidate in favour of large private banks, we expect profitability to continue to improve,” it observes.

Lastly, Morgan Stanley believes the valuations look attractive as they remain 10-40 per cent below mean levels.

It has a target price of Rs 1,450 on HDFC Bank (Rs 1,590 in base case; Rs 790 in bear case; and Rs 1,945 in bull case). ICICI Bank commands price target is Rs 525 (Rs 560 in base case; Rs 300 in bear case; and Rs 875 in bull case), while Rs 600 is set for Axis Bank (Rs 625 in base case; Rs 355 in bear case; and Rs 1,170 in bull case).

At the bourses, the stocks of these banks have underperformed on the BSE thus far in the calendar year 2020, ACE Equity data show. While the stock price of Axis Bank has crashed 41 per cent; that of ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank has tumbled 31 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex has slipped 6 per cent till Thursday.

AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine study paused after one 'unexplained' illness

 Late-stage studies of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine candidate are on temporary hold while the company investigates whether a recipient's "potentially unexplained" illness is a side effect of the shot.

In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, the company said its "standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data".

AstraZeneca didn't reveal any information about the possible side effect except to call it "a potentially unexplained illness".

The health news site STAT first reported the pause in testing, saying the possible side effect occurred in the United Kingdom. An AstraZeneca spokesperson confirmed the pause in vaccinations covers studies in the US and other countries.

Late last month, AstraZeneca began recruiting 30,000 people in the US for its largest study of the vaccine. It also is testing the vaccine, developed by Oxford University, in thousands of people in Britain, and in smaller studies in Brazil and South Africa.

Two other vaccines are in huge, final-stage tests in the United States, one made by Moderna Inc. and the other by Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech. Those two vaccines work differently than AstraZeneca's, and the studies already have recruited about two-thirds of the needed volunteers.

Temporary holds of large medical studies aren't unusual, and investigating any serious or unexpected reaction is a mandatory part of safety testing. AstraZeneca pointed out that it's possible the problem could be a coincidence; illnesses of all sorts could arise in studies of thousands of people.

"We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline," the company statement said.

It's likely the unexplained illness was serious enough to require hospitalization and not a mild side effect such as fever or muscle pain, said Deborah Fuller, a University of Washington researcher who is working on a different Covid-19 vaccine that has not yet started human testing.

"This is not something to be alarmed about," Fuller said. Instead, it's reassuring that the company is pausing the study to figure out what's happening and carefully monitoring the health of study participants.

Dr Ashish Jha of Brown University said via Twitter that the significance of the interruption was unclear but that he was "still optimistic" that an effective vaccine will be found in the coming months.

"But optimism isn't evidence," he wrote. "Let's let science drive this process."

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York, tweeted that the illness may be unrelated to the vaccine, "but the important part is that this is why we do trials before rolling out a vaccine to the general public".

During the third and final stage of testing, researchers look for any signs of possible side effects that may have gone undetected in earlier patient research. Because of their large size, the studies are considered the most important study phase for picking up less common side effects and establishing safety.

The trials also assess effectiveness by tracking who gets sick and who doesn't between patients getting the vaccine and those receiving a dummy shot.

The development came the same day that AstraZeneca and eight other drugmakers issued an unusual pledge, vowing to uphold the highest ethical and scientific standards in developing their vaccines.

The announcement follows worries that President Donald Trump will pressure the US Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine before it's proven to be safe and effective.

The US has invested billions of dollars in efforts to quickly develop multiple vaccines against Covid-19. But public fears that a vaccine is unsafe or ineffective could be disastrous, derailing the effort to vaccinate millions of Americans.

Representatives for the FDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening.

AstraZeneca's US-traded shares fell more than 6 per cent in after-hours trading following reports of the trial being paused.

Coronavirus LIVE updates: Odisha Covid-19 tally crosses 28,000-mark

Coronavirus update: India recorded 47,703 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 1,484,136. The country's current Covid-19 death toll stands at 33,448. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have both crossed the 100,000-case mark, while Tamil Nadu's Covid tally has risen to 220,716.
Coronavirus world update: As many as 16,629,652 people around the world have been diagnosed with Covid-19. While more than 10,217,573 have recovered, 655,873 have died so far. The US on Monday recorded 60,500 new cases and Brazil 23,467.
Stay tuned for all coronavirus LIVE updates
CATCH ALL THE LIVE UPDATES
Auto Refresh
02:00 PM
Puducherry reports 141 new Covid-19 cases; CM and Ministers test negative
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, his cabinet colleagues and legislators of various political parties here tested negative for coronavirus on Tuesday. The results came negative after testing of the swabs collected from them at a special camp held on the premises of the Assembly Monday.

The testing of the CM, Speaker, Ministers and MLAs besides the staff of the Assembly Secretariat and of offices of the Ministers was necessitted after opposition AINRC legislator N S J Jayabal, who had attended the recent budget session, had tested positive and hospitalised.

Meanwhile, 141 fresh COVID-19 cases and four related deaths were reported in the Union Territory during the last 24 hours ending 10 a.m. on Tuesday, taking the tally to 3,011.
01:48 PM
Odisha's coronavirus tally crosses 28,000-mark, death toll climbs to 154
Odisha's COVID-19 tally breached the 28,000 mark with 1,215 new cases, and the death toll climbed to 154 as seven more patients, including a five-year-old boy, succumbed to the infection, a Health Department official said on Tuesday.

The state's virus caseload now stands at 28,107 as 1,215 positive cases have been reported from 28 of 30 districts of the state. While 753 cases have been reported from different quarantine centres, the remaining 462 are local contacts.

Contact tracing and follow-up action is underway, said the Health and Family Welfare Department.
01:43 PM
Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren inaugurates Plasma Donation Centre for seriously ill Covid-19 patients
01:25 PM
Himachal Pradesh's Covid-19 case tally rises to 2,282. There are 1,029 active cases, 1,224 recovered cases and 12 deaths: State Health Department
01:22 PM
Gold hits record peaks on profit taking, helps dollar regain value
Gold hurtled to record peaks on Tuesday before the sheer scale of its gains drew a burst of profit taking, which in turn helped the dollar from two-year lows and curbed early equity gains.

The precious metal had stormed almost $40 higher at one point to reach $1,980 an ounce, only for a wave of selling to slap it back to $1,940 in wild trade. Read on...
01:19 PM
Pakistan's coronavirus tally reaches 274,908
Pakistan's coronavirus tally reached 274,908 with the detection of 936 new cases in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Twenty-three more people died overnight due to coronavirus-related complications, pushing the nationwide death toll to 5,865.

As many as 242,436 patients have recovered so far in the country, the ministry said.
01:18 PM
Nitrogen dioxide levels fell by more than 70% during Covid-19 lockdown in New Delhi: UN
Levels of nitrogen dioxide fell by more than 70 per cent during the lockdown in New Delhi, a UN policy brief said on Tuesday, warning that the environmental gains could be temporary if the cities re-open without policies to prevent air pollution and promote de-carbonisation.
12:58 PM
Conduct last rites of coronavirus suspects without waiting for test report: Odisha govt to Collectors
The Odisha government has instructed all district collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and health officials to conduct the last rites of COVID-19 suspects without insisting on testing of swab or waiting for the report, an official said. The state government issued a letter on Monday after it was noticed that cremation of bodies were being delayed as officials waited for the corona test reports of the victim after his/her death, the official said.

In Ganjam district, the body of a policeman was allegedly abandoned at the hospital and nobody touched it because his corona test report was awaited. "It is clarified that as we are in the midst of a global pandemic, as a measure of abundant precaution, in all such cases the dead body may be disposed of as per COVID norms, in compassionate consultation with the family of the deceased," Additional Chief Secretary of Health Department PK Mohapatra said in the letter to all district collectors and municipal corporation commissioners.
12:56 PM
Coronavirus update: Bengaluru cases rise to 46,923
12:55 PM
Head of China CDC gets injected with experimental coronavirus vaccine
The head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention says he has been injected with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an attempt to persuade the public to follow suit when one is approved.

I'm going to reveal something undercover: I am injected with one of the vaccines, Gao Fu said in a webinar Sunday hosted by Alibaba Health, an arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant, and Cell Press, an American publisher of scientific journals.

I hope it will work. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that a state-owned Chinese company injected employees with experimental shots in March, even before the government-approved testing in people a move that raised ethical concerns among some experts.

Human clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccine begin in different sites

Indian Council of Medical Research Chief Balram Bhargava said human trials of vaccine had begun in different sites, and each of which will do clinical testing of vaccine on 1,000 volunteers. “Sixty per cent of vaccines supplied in the world are of Indian origin...Any vaccine produced in any part of the world will have to be scaled up by India or China...We are putting all our efforts to fast track the vaccine,” he said.
The health ministry on Tuesday said the rate of growth in daily Covid-19 cases had declined to 3.24 per cent in July, from over 31 per cent in March, even as India crossed the 900,000-mark for Covid cases.
The country had seen more 28,000 new cases daily for the past three days. With several states and cities re-imposing lockdown due to rise in cases, the ministry said this was just an expansion of containment areas and should not be linked to lockdown or unlockdown.
ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: 86% of total active cases confined to just 10 states
“All containment areas have to follow a strict perimeter control or the cases will rise. Whenever there is a surge in any region, then it has to follow all containment protocols,” said ministry’s officer on special duty, Rajesh Bhushan.
Ten states account for 86 per cent of the total cases, and two of these — Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — make up for half of total cases in the country. “It is not like Covid is spreading in the same way and pace across the country. There are many big states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh that are not in these top ten cases,” Bhushan said. The ministry said 22 states were conducting more than 140 tests a day per million population, which is the benchmark set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for comprehensive testing. India is conducting 201 tests a day per million, according to the ministry.
“We have advised states to ramp up testing to meet the WHO benchmark. It will help in early detection of cases and therefore provide timely treatment,” Bhushan said.

Covid-19 may turn extra Rs 1.67 trn debt into delinquent assets: Ind-Ra

The impact of Covid-19 pandemic and the associated policy response is likely to turn an additional Rs 1.67 trillion borrowings of top 500 debt-heavy private sector firms into delinquent asset between FY21-FY22, according to India Ratings.
This is over and above the Rs 2.54 trillion anticipated prior to the onset of pandemic, taking the cumulative quantum to Rs 4.21 trillion. This constitutes 6.63 per cent of the total debt (previous estimate: 4 per cent).

Given that 11.57 per cent of the outstanding debt is already stressed, the proportion of stressed debt is likely to rise to 18.21 per cent of the outstanding quantum. Ind-Ra expects the corresponding credit cost, money set aside as provision for bad loans, to be 3.57 per cent of the total debt.
The rating agency said it has analysed the degree of vulnerability of the top-500 debt-heavy private sector issuers, after assessing the mix between productive and non-productive assets held by each issuer along with their refinancing risks.
ALSO READ: Public debt accounts for 91% of Centre's Rs 94-trillion liabilities
It has placed issuers in five categories of vulnerability – low, moderate, high, extreme and stressed. Based on these buckets, the agency has arrived at the estimates of debt at risk and expected credit costs.
If funding markets continue to be highly risk averse, corporate stress could increase further by Rs 1.68 trillion, resulting in Rs 5.89 trillion of corporate debt (9.27 per cent of the total debt) becoming stressed in FY21-FY22, India ratings said.
The resultant credit cost could be higher at 4.82 per cent of the outstanding book. Consequently, 20.84 per cent of the outstanding debt could be under stress in the agency’s stress case scenario.
Further revisions in economic growth estimates for FY21 GDP by themselves may not lead to a change in estimates. But the risk of a significantly prolonged recovery in the economic activity through FY22 and a larger-than-anticipated dent on demand could even result in stresses surpassing the agency’s stress-case estimates, it added.

Govt eases air travel norms for persons recovered from coronavirus

The Civil Aviation Ministry has tweaked a rule to enable persons recovered from coronavirus to travel by air.
As per earlier norms issued on May 21 passengers had to submit a declaration that they have not tested positive for Covid-19 in last two months.
This clause has now been changed to three weeks. "Covid-19 recovered persons fulfilling this condition will be allowed to travel upon showing a Covid-19 recovered/discharged certificate from any institution dealing with Covid-19 subject," joint secretary Usha Padhee said in an office memorandum today.
Domestic air travel resumed on May 25 and around 1.9 million passengers have flown till now. The ministry said the rule was being updated so that cured people don't face hardship in travelling by flights.

Covid-19 pulls India's service sector into contraction mode in March: PMI

India's services sector activity contracted during March as the COVID-19 pandemic dented demand, particularly in overseas markets, while public health measures aimed at stemming the outbreak curtailed discretionary spending, a monthly survey said on Monday.
The IHS Markit India Services Business Activity Index was at 49.3 in March, down from February's 85-month high of 57.5, as the new coronavirus pandemic pulled the service sector into contraction.

The headline figure fell by over 8 points, undoing the strong gains in growth momentum seen throughout 2019, the survey said.
In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on India's services economy has not been fully realised yet," Joe Hayes, Economist at IHS Markit, said adding that "the survey data collection (March 12-27) was concluding just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a complete lockdown of the country".
Hayes further said that "clearly the worse is yet to come as nationwide store closures and prohibition to leave the house will weigh heavily on the services economy, as has been seen elsewhere in the world".
According to panel members, business activity was reduced in response to weaker demand and firms responded by reducing their workforces as intakes of new business were insufficient to maintain payroll numbers.
ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE
Latest survey data pointed to the first fall in order book volumes at Indian service providers since September 2019.
"Pressure now fully lies on the government to combat the economic challenges the lockdown will cause," Hayes said.
The survey further noted that there were widespread reports of new business receipts struggling due to the COVID-19 outbreak, deterring discretionary spending. A number of firms also mentioned lower sales as a result of liquidity issues.
Meanwhile, the Composite PMI Output Index that maps both the manufacturing and services sector fell to 50.6 in March, down 7 points from February's 57.6 to signal a sharp slowdown in private sector output growth and bringing an abrupt end to the recent strong upward-moving expansion trend.
The number of deaths around the world linked to the new coronavirus has crossed over 69,000. In India, more than 4,000 coronavirus cases have been reported so far.

COVID-19: Govt issues advisory asking people to wear 'homemade face covers'

As India witnesses a spike in coronavirus cases, the Central government on Saturday issued an advisory asking people to wear "homemade face covers" particularly when they step out of their houses in order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
In the 'Advisory on the use of Homemade Protective Cover for Face and Mouth', the government said the use of such masks will help in protecting the community at large and that certain countries have claimed benefits of homemade face masks for the general public.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the country rose to 2,902 while the death toll increased to 68 on Saturday.
ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: India tally at 3,082; govt urges usage of homemade masks
In the US, President Donald Trump has recommended to all citizens the voluntary use non-medical masks as an additional public health measure to fight the deadly coronavirus while keeping medical-grade masks available for health workers.
The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that Americans wear basic cloth or fabric masks that can be either purchased online or simply made at home.