Topic

Coronavirus Indiai

The latest news on the coronavirus situation in the country, including community spread in India, the Punjab “super spreader” who led to the quarantining of tens of thousands of people, the situation in Bangalore, the India lockdown and the donation of U$66 million by Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, after he was slammed for ringing a bell from his balcony in support of healthcare workers.

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  • The project in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai is a microcosm of the large infrastructure overhaul under way in India as PM Narendra Modi seeks to outrun China
  • The Adani Group-helmed US$2.1 billion airport should start operations in March 2025 with capacity for 20 million passengers a year
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To salvage the US$41 billion pharmaceutical industry’s reputation, the India government’s efforts to improve standard of exports should be comprehensive instead of ‘knee jerk’.

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Opposition parties said Modi violated protocol to inaugurate the new complex and grab the spotlight when it should have been done by the president, the highest executive of the country.

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The country’s huge and increasingly prosperous population – it recently superseded China as the world’s most populous country – and a surge in foreign tourists will ensure a race among hospitality providers to meet rapidly expanding demand for accommodation, analysts said.

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The wave is being attributed to a mix of XBB subvariants – a highly transmissible Omicron strain that, so far, isn’t causing widespread severe illness.

A string of Hindi-language films proved to be box-office bombs last year amid a wider change in viewing habits spurred on by India’s pandemic-era cinema closures.

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India has begun randomly testing 2 per cent of international passengers arriving at its airports for Covid-19, as the country steps up surveillance for new coronavirus variants.

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A tech slump hitting firms from Amazon to Twitter has spooked investors whose cash fuelled aggressive hiring in the tech sector during the pandemic years. Tech workers in India have not been spared as global tech giants cut back.

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More Indian women in rural areas are turning to formal micro lenders instead of loan sharks who often charge exorbitant interest rates. Micro lenders have an increasing presence in rural areas where banks have limited reach or are unwilling to lend to the poor, analysts say.

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Ponniyin Selvan 1, based on a 1950s novel series with a cult following, has become the second highest-grossing Tamil film globally of all time, after Rajinikanth’s 2.0.

As India marks the 75th anniversary of the end of British rule, its economy is booming, although there are problems, including inequality, polarisation, child malnutrition and not enough jobs to go around.

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New figures show that dozens of funding applications have been approved in India to bolster the production of crucial drug components – many of which have come almost exclusively from China for years.

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Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Australia and New Zealand are being urged to take precautions as authorities grapple with economic fallout from pandemic while trying to avoid unpopular restrictions.

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Though women in India represent 48 per cent of the population, they contribute only around 17 per cent of GDP compared to 40 per cent in China.

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The World Health Organization’s estimate is around 10 times the country’s official Covid-19 death toll for 2020-21. India’s health ministry said the world health body ‘conveniently chose to ignore the available data’.

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A soon to be released WHO report estimates India’s actual Covid-19 death toll is as high as 4 million, about eight times New Delhi’s official figure.