India | Pixr8 News

27Apr By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

India cancels orders for Chinese COVID-19 test kits

The Indian Council of Medical Research on Monday asked the states to stop using COVID-19 rapid testing kits procured from China due to their poor quality even as the government said not a single rupee will be lost in cancelling the orders as payments were not made to the Chinese suppliers. India procured around five lakh rapid antibody test kits from the two Chinese firms, Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics, and they were distributed to several states reporting rising cases of the coronavirus infection. In a communication to chief secretaries of all states and union territories, the ICMR asked them to stop using the kits saying it found "wide variation" in the effectiveness of the equipment supplied by the two Chinese firms despite the promise of good performance. "T...

25Apr By AnkitaNo Comments

INDIA

4 cr Indian Users may be without Mobile Phones by May End

An estimated 4 crore Indian mobile phone users are expected to be without handsets due to faults and breakdowns by May-end if restrictions on the sale of handsets and spare parts continue, an industry body said on Friday. At present, more than 2.5 crore mobile customers are estimated to be with non-functional devices due to non availability of components in the supply chain and the restriction on sales of new handsets due to the lockdown to contain coronavirus infection, the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) claimed. The government has allowed sales of only essential goods and services during the lockdown which has entered into the fifth week. Operations of telecom, internet, broadcast and IT services are permitted but not for mobile devices that are pivotal for acce...

EV Growth in India up 20 Percent in FY20

20Apr By AnkitaNo Comments

Automobile

EV Growth in India up 20 Percent in FY20

Electric vehicle sales, excluding e-rickshaws, in India grew by 20 percent at 1.56 lakh units in 2019-20 driven by two-wheelers, a report by Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said on Monday. In 2018-19, total EV sales in India stood at 1.3 lakh units, SMEV said in a statement. Out of the total sales in FY20, 1.52 lakh units were two-wheelers, 3,400 cars and 600 buses. The corresponding sale for the 2018-19 was 1.26 two-wheelers, 3,600 cars and around 400 buses, it added. "This figure does not include e-rickshaws which is still largely with the unorganized sector with a reported sale of around 90,000 units. The corresponding figures of the e-ricks sold in the previous year have not been documented," SMEV said. SMEV said the growth of EV sales in India was dri...

16Apr By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

After Providing Hydroxychloroquine to World, India is working on Vaccine for COVID-19

Six Indian companies are working on a vaccine for COVID-19, joining global efforts to find a quick preventive for the deadly infection spreading rapidly across the world, says a top Indian scientist. Nearly 70 vaccine candidates' are being tested and at least three have moved to the human clinical trial stage, but a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is unlikely to be ready for mass use before 2021. As COVID-19 infects more than 1.9 million in the world and claims 1,26,000 lives, Indian scientists are also part of the global fight against the disease. While Zydus Cadila is working on two vaccines, Serum Institute, Biological E, Bharat Biotech, Indian Immunologicals, and Mynvax are developing one vaccine each. But it is a complicated process with many stages of testing and many ...

15Apr By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

Indian Govt App become World’s fastest app to reach 50 mn download

Government's mobile app Aarogya Setu, developed for tracking coronavirus patients, has become the world's fastest app to reach 50 million downloads in just 13 days, Niti Aayog CEO said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation on April 14 appealed to people to download the app. "Telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, radio 38 yrs, television 13 yrs, Internet 4 yrs, Facebook 19 months, Pokemon Go 19 days. AarogyaSetu, India's app to fight COVID-19 has reached 50 mn users in just 13 days-fastest ever globally for an App," Kant said in his tweet. The death toll due to coronavirus rose to 377 while the number of cases in the country climbed to 11,439. Aarogya Setu app alerts people if any known or person in their vicinity has tested positive. Distri...

Donald Trump backed Sanofi will donate 100 million hydroxychloroquine doses

10Apr By PriyankaNo Comments

BUSINESS

Donald Trump backed Sanofi will donate 100 million hydroxychloroquine doses

Paris, April 10, 2020 – French drug firm Sanofi has committed to donating 100 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to 50 countries around the world and has begun to progressively deliver the medicine to authorities that have requested it. In this global health emergency, Sanofi said in a press release that we are ready to assist as many countries as possible, starting with countries where its medicine is registered for currently approved indications as well as countries where there are no hydroxychloroquine suppliers or countries with underserved populations. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Sanofi has received a growing number of requests from local governments around the world. The company is regularly evaluating its increasing supply capacity and re-assessing how best t...

Trump has small financial interest hydroxychloroquine firm: NYT

7Apr By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

USA

Trump has small financial interest hydroxychloroquine firm: NYT

President Donald Trump, who has aggressively promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients in and has asked India to export the anti-malarial drug to the US, has a small personal financial interest in the French pharma giant Sanofi, one of the manufacturers of the drug, according to a media report. Hydroxychloroquine, an old and inexpensive drug used to treat malaria, is seen as a viable therapeutic solution by President Trump to coronavirus that has so far killed more than 10,000 Americans and infected over 3.6 lakh within weeks. On Monday, Trump warned India that the US may retaliate if it did not export hydroxychloroquine despite his personal request, saying he would be surprised if New Delhi did not relent as it has good relations with Washington. If hy...

Facebook Looking to Acquire 10% Stake in India’s leading Telecom Company

25Mar By PriyankaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Facebook Looking to Acquire 10% Stake in India’s leading Telecom Company

Facebook Inc is in talks to acquire stake India's leading telecom company Reliance Jio, according to a report published in Financial Times. The report said the social media giant was in talks for a 10% stake in Jio, controlled by India's wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani, but the talks were halted due to global travel bans amid the coronavirus outbreak. According to previous reports, Reliance Jio's enterprise value was estimated to be around $60-65 billion in October 2019 following the company's future plan to clear all its debt till March 2021. Reliance Jio had a subscriber market share of 32.1 percent and a revenue market share of 35.4 percent in December 2019 as per previous reports. Recently, Reliance had restructured the digital businesses to bring it under a single entity in...

6Mar By AnkitaNo Comments

INDIA

Indian Payment Apps Hit Amid Yes Bank crisis

As Yes Bank went into moratorium, many Indian digital payment platforms bore the brunt on Friday as transactions were disrupted, including Walmart owned PhonePe facing "long outage". PhonePe, which depends exclusively on Yes Bank as its payment services provider (PSP), was down since the order was imposed and also had to suffer the more-than-friendly barbs of rival Paytm Payments Bank on Twitter. Yes Bank was put under moratorium late Thursday evening, with several caps, including allowing depositors to withdraw only Rs 50,000 per account and a slew of others including not taking fresh liabilities. This resulted in the bank being unable to render the services as a PSP, experts said. Even late in the evening, PhonePe was yet to start the Unified Payments Interface services, for...

29Jan By AdityaNo Comments

INDIA

India Finds Solution For Chinese Coronavirus

Indian AYUSH ministry issued a health advisory and recommended that homeopathic and unani medicines could be effective in the prevention of novel coronavirus (nCoV) infections. The advisory was issued following a meeting on Tuesday of the scientific advisory board of the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy (CCRH) under the Ministry of AYUSH to discuss ways and means for the prevention of the nCoV infection through homeopathy, the ministry said in a statement. It has recommended that homeopathic medicine Arsenicum album 30 could be taken empty stomach daily for three days as a prophylactic medicine against the infection. The dose should be repeated after one month by following the same schedule in case the nCoV infection prevails in the community, the advisory said, adding...

Chinese city turns into Ghost Town after Samsung shifts operation to India, Vietnam

12Dec By AdityaNo Comments

CHINA

Chinese city turns into Ghost Town after Samsung shifts operation to India, Vietnam

Huizhou city on the north of China's flourishing Pearl River Delta has turned into a ghost town after Samsung closed its three-decade old factory and shifted operations to India and Vietnam in October, in the first visible fallout of the ongoing trade war between China and the US. The bustling city turned a "ghost town" after Samsung closed its last smartphone factory in China, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday. Samsung relocated production to Vietnam and India in large part as a response to the trade war between the world's two largest economies, it said, adding that the industry insiders consider that it reflected China's changing position in the global supply chain. Last year Samsung inaugurated its world's largest mobile factory in Noida, near...

31Oct By PriyankaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Singapore Qoo10 acquires Indian eCommerce Platform Shopclues

Indian e-commerce firm ShopClues has inked an all stock-deal with Qoo10 to merge operations with the Singapore-based firm. The collaboration presents "new strategic opportunities for both companies as it opens up cross border opportunities for consumers and sellers across Asia", ShopClues said in a statement. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, the development would come as a breather for the Indian e-commerce platform that has been struggling to control costs in the hyper-competitive online shopping segment in India. Qoo10 is an e-commerce platform in South East Asia that serves small and medium enterprises (SMEs) via its localized online marketplaces in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and Hong Kong. Qoo10 also has plans to expand into other Asian countries...