Ramanujan symbolises talent of people of India: Netanyahu

Singapore, Jun 2: Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded 11 Indian banks along with as many non-financial companies and infrastructure majors besides four government-related issuers following a downgrade of the Indian government's issuer rating to Baa3 from Baa2 with a negative outlook.

The rapid and widening spread of the coronavirus outbreak, deteriorating global economic outlook, volatile oil prices and asset price declines are creating a severe and extensive credit shock across many sectors, regions and markets, said Moody's.

The Indian banking sector has been affected given the disruptions to India's economic activity from the coronavirus outbreak, which is weakening borrowers' credit profiles, it added.

The 11 lenders include Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Export-Import Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, IndusInd Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and Union Bank of India.

The 11 non-finance companies are Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Oil India, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Petronet LNG, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Reliance Industries, UPL Corporation and Genpact.

The 11 infrastructure companies are NTPC, NHPC, National Highways Authority of India, Power Grid Corporation, Gail India, Adani Green Energy Restricted Group (RG-2), Adani Transmission Restricted Group, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Transmission, Adani Electricity Mumbai and Azure Power Solar Energy.

The four Indian government-related issuers are Indian Railway Finance Corporation, Housing and Urban Development Corporation, Power Finance Corporation and REC Ltd.

"Government-related issuers in India have been affected because of disruptions to India's economy which will weaken borrowers' credit profiles," said Moody's.

New Delhi, Apr 18: With 957 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and 36 deaths, India's total count of coronavirus cases has surged to 14,792, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.

The total cases are inclusive of 2,014 cured and discharged patients, one migrated and 488 deaths. At present, there are 12,289 active COVID-19 cases in the country.

Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that mortality rate due to COVID-19 in our country is around 3.3 per cent.

"An age-wise analysis will tell you that 14.4 per cent of deaths have been reported in the age group of 0-45 years. Between 45-60 years it is 10.3 percent, between 60-75 years it is 33.1 percent and for 75 years, and above it is 42.2 percent," Aggarwal said at a press conference here.

Hyderabad, Jun 30: Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech announced that it has successfully developed Covaxin, India's first vaccine candidate for Covid-19, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).

The Drug Controller General of India - CDSCO, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare granted permission to initiate Phase I & II Human clinical trials after the company submitted results generated from preclinical studies, demonstrating safety and immune response. Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across India in July 2020.

The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech.

The indigenous, inactivated vaccine developed and manufactured in the company's Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) High Containment facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.

Announcing the vaccine development milestone, Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director said: "We are proud to announce COVAXIN, India's first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine."

Dr Ella added, "The proactive support and guidance from CDSCO has enabled approvals to this project. Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform."
Expedited through national regulatory protocols, the company accelerated its objective in completing the comprehensive pre-clinical studies. Results from these studies have been promising and show extensive safety and effective immune responses.

Speaking about Bharat Biotech's prowess, Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director said, "Our ongoing research and expertise in forecasting epidemics has enabled us to successfully manufacture a vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic."
"Continuing our focus on creating the only BSL-3 containment facilities for manufacturing and testing in India, Bharat Biotech is committed to advancing vaccine development as a matter of national importance to demonstrate India's strength in handling future pandemics," she added.

Bharat Biotech's track record in developing vero cell culture platform technologies has been proven in several vaccines for Polio, Rabies, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Chikungunya and Zika.