Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella brushes hands after handshake with Modi

Apr 23: Mukesh Ambani is again Asia's richest person after a deal with Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Inc. sent his conglomerate's stock surging.

Ambani's fortune rose about $4.7 billion to $49.2 billion on Wednesday, after Reliance Industries Ltd. gained 10%. The jump put Ambani about $3.2 billion ahead of China's Jack Ma, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The ranking updates after the close of each trading day in the U.S.

Facebook Inc. will invest $5.7 billion in the U.S. social-networking giant's biggest deal since the 2014 purchase of WhatsApp as it seeks a broader foothold in its biggest global market. The U.S. company will buy about 10% of Jio Platforms, which brings together digital apps and a wireless platform under one umbrella, the Mumbai-based company said in a statement Wednesday.

Before Wednesday, Ambani -- who owns the world's largest oil refinery -- had declined by $14 billion on the index in 2020, the biggest dollar fall of anyone in Asia. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Ma, whose foundation this week donated 100 million masks to the World Health Organization to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, had lost almost $1 billion through Tuesday.

"At the core of our partnership is the commitment that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and I share for the all-around digital transformation of India," Ambani said in a web video posted on Jio's Facebook page, adding that Facebook's brands have become household names in India. "WhatsApp in particular, has entered our people's daily vocabulary in all the 23 official languages of India."

The partnership with Jio would allow Zuckerberg to step up his expansion in a country that is rapidly embracing online payment and e-commerce as more people get smartphones. Jio Infocomm quickly moved into a position of dominance by offering free plans and undercutting wireless market rivals.

With its half-billion internet users, the South Asian country is a key market for the world's largest technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. In India, Facebook has about 250 million users, while WhatsApp has more than 400 million.

That should help Jio bolster its reach, according to James Crabtree, author of 'The Billionaire Raj,' a book on the country's wealthiest people. But the transaction also shows the extent of Ambani's own influence, he said.

"This deal clearly shows that if you want to play big in Indian tech, you need to play nice with Mukesh Ambani."

Ambani's fortune rose about $4.7 billion to $49.2 billion on Wednesday, after Reliance Industries Ltd. gained 10%. The jump put Ambani about $3.2 billion ahead of China's Jack Ma, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The ranking updates after the close of each trading day in the U.S.

Facebook Inc. will invest $5.7 billion in the U.S. social-networking giant's biggest deal since the 2014 purchase of WhatsApp as it seeks a broader foothold in its biggest global market. The U.S. company will buy about 10% of Jio Platforms, which brings together digital apps and a wireless platform under one umbrella, the Mumbai-based company said in a statement Wednesday.

Before Wednesday, Ambani -- who owns the world's largest oil refinery -- had declined by $14 billion on the index in 2020, the biggest dollar fall of anyone in Asia. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Ma, whose foundation this week donated 100 million masks to the World Health Organization to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, had lost almost $1 billion through Tuesday.

"At the core of our partnership is the commitment that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and I share for the all-around digital transformation of India," Ambani said in a web video posted on Jio's Facebook page, adding that Facebook's brands have become household names in India. "WhatsApp in particular, has entered our people's daily vocabulary in all the 23 official languages of India."

The partnership with Jio would allow Zuckerberg to step up his expansion in a country that is rapidly embracing online payment and e-commerce as more people get smartphones. Jio Infocomm quickly moved into a position of dominance by offering free plans and undercutting wireless market rivals.

With its half-billion internet users, the South Asian country is a key market for the world's largest technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. In India, Facebook has about 250 million users, while WhatsApp has more than 400 million.

That should help Jio bolster its reach, according to James Crabtree, author of 'The Billionaire Raj,' a book on the country's wealthiest people. But the transaction also shows the extent of Ambani's own influence, he said.

"This deal clearly shows that if you want to play big in Indian tech, you need to play nice with Mukesh Ambani."

New Delhi, Jun 25: After the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) given its approval to manufacture and market the generic version of COVID-19 drug Remdesivir, COVIFOR, Hyderabad-based drugmaker Hetero Limited has delivered the first set of 20,000 vials in two equal lots of 10,000 each across 5 states.

The first batch, which is being marketed under the brand name of COVIFOR, was delivered to Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad. Hetero has set a target to produce one lakh vials of the drug in two-three weeks.

The other lot would be supplied to Kolkata, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Vijayawada, Cochin, Trivandrum and Goa within a week to meet the emergency requirements.

Managing director of Hetero Healthcare M Srinivasa Reddy said “the launch of Covifor in the country is a milestone in addressing public health emergencies. Through Covifor, we hope to reduce the treatment time of a patient in a hospital thereby reducing the increasing pressure on the medical infrastructure overburdened ue to accelerating COVID-19 infection rates," he said as reported by news agency.

"We are closely working with the government and the medical community to make Covifor quickly accessible to both public and private healthcare settings across the country”, Reddy said.

Covifor is a generic brand of Remdesivir which is used for the treatment of COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalised with strong symptoms of the disease. The Health Ministry had, on June 13, recommended the use of anti-viral drug Remdesivir in moderate stage of COVID-19.

Dr Reddys Laboratories and Hetero are among others which have separately entered into non-exclusive licensing agreements with the original drug-maker Gilead Sciences Inc to register, make and sell the investigational drug Remdesivir in India and other countries.

Remdesivir would be made in the company's formulation facility in Hyderabad, which has been approved by global regulatory authorities such as US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and EU, among others, Hetero had earlier said.

The treatment first showed improvement in trials on coronavirus patients and was approved for emergency use in severely ill patients in the United States and South Korea.

New Delhi, Apr 10: With 896 COVID-19 cases reported in the country in the last 24 hours, India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rose to 6,761 on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of all these cases, 6039 are active cases, 516 have been cured/discharged/ migrated, and 206 deaths have been reported so far.

The country witnessed the highest one day increase with 896 cases.

37 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra with 1364 cases is the worst affected state followed by the Union Territory of Delhi with 898 cases and Tamil Nadu with 834 cases.

The country is under a 21-day lockdown until April 14 which was imposed to curb the spread of the virus.

States like Odisha and Punjab have extended the lockdown till April 30.