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Not worried about budget deficit as spending up to support economy: FM

“As regards the coming year, we need to do an assessment,” she said ahead of the next fiscal year’s budget due Feb. 1. “I’m not sure that I can immediately curtail expenditure. It will have to be a careful balance because the momentum that the economy gains should be sustained.”
India last month expanded stimulus measures to 15% of the economy to rescue companies and save jobs in an economy clobbered by a sudden lockdown in March to stem the coronavirus pandemic. That could widen the budget gap to 8% of gross domestic product in the year to March, more the double the budgeted 3.5%.

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Ambani hints at 5G rollout in second half of 2021

5G is the 5th generation mobile network that enables connecting virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.

“We are creating compelling home-grown solutions in education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce,” Mukesh Ambani said. “Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges.”

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ADB’s $300 mn funding to strengthen India’s primary health care in urban areas

The ADB’s Strengthening Comprehensive Primary Health Care in Urban Areas Programme will support the Ayushman Bharat (the Healthy India Initiative) Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWC) and PM-ASBY to ensure equitable access to quality comprehensive primary health care services in urban areas in 13 states.

The programme will benefit an estimated 256 million urban residents, including 51 million from the slum areas of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal.

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Officer unions demand to include bankers as frontline Covid warriors for vaccination

In a letter written to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, unions said the government is expecting at least two vaccines against Covid-19, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Oxford’s Covishield, to be available possibly in January 2021; and there is a plan to inoculate the frontline Covid warriors including those working in healthcare, police, sanitary workers, etc.
Bankers have been providing yeoman service ever since the announcement of lockdown and have continued to provide required banking services, it said, adding bankers have been instrumental in keeping the wheels of the economy moving despite hazards and constraints.

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Covid 19 Pandemic to hit life insurers’ investment income,ULIP and Pension and Annuity business:LIC Chief

TR Alamelu, member, IRDAI explained that that the solution to the issue of under-insurance in the country does not lie in mandating insurance because a stage has been reached where insurance should be a product on “demand” and It cannot be forced upon consumers by the industry or other stakeholders.

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Serum likely to supply COVID-19 vaccine at over $3 a dose to Indian government

The government is pinning its hopes for mass supply on Serum Institute, which lodged the first formal application for emergency-use approval of AstraZeneca’s shot on Monday.

Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla had earlier said the vaccine would be priced at 1,000 rupees ($13.55) per dose in India’s private market, but governments signing large supply deals would likely buy it at lower prices.

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