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Tata Sons will resume control of Air India after bidding $2.4 billion, including equity and debt, the government said on Friday, marking the end of years of struggle to privatise the financially troubled airline. A successful sale of the loss-making national flag carrier will be a major victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as it had cost tax payers an average of nearly $3 million a day for the past decade. It would also bode well for planned stake sales in a slew of state-run firms to bolster government coffers and make India a fully market-driven economy. Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of Tata Sons - the holding company for the autos-to-steel Tata conglomerate which owns luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover - will acquire 100% of Air India, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, said. The deal, which is expected to be finalised by the end of the year, puts Air India back in the hands of the group which founded it as Tata Airlines in 1932 before it was nationalised in 1953. The bid amount includes Tata taking on $2 billion of Air India's $8.2 billion total debt, resulting in an equity value for the government of only about $400 million. Tata currently operates two airlines - Vistara, India's only other full-service carrier, in a venture with Singapore Airlines as well as budget airline AirAsia India, a venture with Malaysia's AirAsia Group. Adding Air India will give Tata a combined share of about 27% of the country's domestic aviation market, second only to IndiGo. Family scion and emeritus chairman of Tata Sons, Ratan Tata said on Twitter that while it will take "considerable effort" to rebuild Air India's reputation, it would provide Tata with a strong opportunity in the aviation industry. "Welcome back, Air India!," he said in a tweet. The acquisition will give Tata an additional 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international slots at Indian airports annually, as well as 900 slots at airports overseas, the most lucrative of which are at London's Heathrow. "Air India provides a unique and attractive international footprint," Tata Sons said in a statement, adding that more than two-thirds of its revenue comes from international markets like North America, Europe and the Middle East. Tata will gain 8,000 full-time employees, which it must retain for at least one year under the terms of the deal, and some 120 planes, mostly older narrowbody Airbus aircraft but also some newer widebody Boeing planes. It will also become the sole owner of Air India's low-cost arm, Air India Express, likely giving the group a competitive advantage, said Suman Chowdhury, chief analytical officer at Mumbai-based Acuité Ratings & Research. "However, the ability to optimise costs, and streamline operations will be a formidable challenge and the key to profitability," he said. It has taken the Modi administration more than four years to find a buyer for Air India. The latest push began in January 2020, just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic brought the global airline industry to its knees. Over the past decade, the government has spent about $15 billion of taxpayer money on Air India, famous for its Maharaja mascot, Pandey said, adding that the deal will plug the outflow of bailout funds.

India will re-open for tourists from October 15 after being closed for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Thursday. "After considering various inputs, the MHA (home ministry) has decided to begin granting fresh Tourist Visas for foreigners coming to India through chartered flights with effect from October 15, 2021," the home ministry said in a statement. "Foreign tourists entering into India by flights other than chartered aircraft would be able to do so only with effect from November 15, 2021 on fresh Tourist Visas," it added. India suspended all visas for foreigners in March 2020 when the pandemic took off as the government imposed a strict lockdown. Restrictions on some categories of foreigners such as diplomats and businesspeople were later lifted but tourists remained barred. Earlier this year India was hit by a severe wave of coronavirus infections with about 400,000 cases and 4,000 deaths every day. But cases in the country of 1.3 billion people have since slowed sharply to around 20,000 new daily infections and 200 to 300 deaths. At the same time restrictions on most activities have been lifted.

India’s top court has ordered state authorities to pay $672 (Rs50,000) as compensation for each death caused by Covid-19, as a way to help families cope with the loss, according to its order reviewed by Reuters yesterday. India has recorded 449,260 deaths overall, a tally experts say is a massive undercount, as millions more may have died in the vast hinterlands. In major cities including the capital New Delhi, experts said a large number of deaths were unreported as hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen supplies. In June, petitioners sought the court’s intervention in paying compensation to the families of Covid-19 victims. They said since Covid-19 was “specially” notified as a disaster under India’s National Disaster Management Act, compensation should be paid to the victims. The 2005 law was enacted for efficient management of disasters, including preparation of mitigation strategies, capacity-building and compensation for lost lives, injuries and damaged properties. Petitioners had appealed to the Supreme Court to provide at least eight times the compensation, or Rs400,000, under the National Disaster Management Authority. The government, in its affidavit, which was approved by the top court, agreed to the minimum payable amount to be disbursed by local authorities under the State Disaster Response Fund. These funds would be over and above those paid by federal and state authorities under various other schemes, it said. “All concerned authorities shall act as a helping hand, so as to wipe off the tears of those who have suffered due to loss of a family member due to Covid-19,” the Supreme Court said in its order. It is not known how many countries have offered such compensation for Covid-19 deaths. In Thailand, a man filed a lawsuit against the government’s Covid-19 task force and the prime minister and two other government officials, demanding a compensation of 4.53mn baht ($134,000) for negligence of duty causing his brother’s death. India’s Supreme Court ordered state administrative bodies to brush past long bureaucratic procedures and settle all claims within 30 days of submission. The country’s healthcare system buckled under a devastating rise in infections in April and May, driven largely by the more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, which killed at least 170,000 people in May alone, official data showed. Deaths have since come down sharply, and daily infections have settled around 34,000 since August. India’s health ministry did not respond to a request for comment on determining the allocation amount.

India yesterday said it would investigate cases linked to the Pandora Papers leak of financial documents, though it added that the “names of only a few Indians have appeared so far in the media”. Millions of leaked documents dubbed the Pandora Papers and a worldwide journalistic partnership on Sunday claimed to have uncovered financial secrets of current and former world leaders, politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, including India. The ICIJ, which involved the BBC and The Guardian newspaper in the UK and The Indian Express in India among 150 media outlets in its investigation, claims it obtained the trove of more than 11.9mn confidential files to find secret financial dealings of many super rich. India’s ministry of finance said in a statement “relevant investigative agencies would undertake investigation in these cases and appropriate action would be taken in such cases as per law.” “With a view to ensure effective investigation in these cases, the government will also proactively engage with foreign jurisdictions for obtaining information in respect of relevant taxpayers/entities.” The probe will be undertaken by a multi-agency group, headed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman J B Mohapatra and having representatives from CBDT, enforcement directorate, Reserve Bank of India and the Financial Intelligence Unit – India (FIU-IND) The board further stated that names of only a few Indians — legal entities as well as individuals — have appeared so far in the media, and the website of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists suggests that information will be released in phases. At least six Indian politicians have been linked with offshore dealings, according to a map presented by the ICIJ “People linked by the secret documents to offshore assets include India’s cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar, pop music diva Shakira, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and an Italian mobster known as ‘Lell the Fat One’,” says the ICIJ in its report. “Tendulkar’s attorney said the cricket player’s investment is legitimate and has been declared to tax authorities,” it noted. According to an Indian Express report, businessman Anil Ambani has 18 asset holding offshore companies despite declaring bankruptcy in a British court. Also, fugitive economic offender Nirav Modi’s sister set up a trust just a month before the tainted diamantaire fled India. The Indian Express also reported that several Indians who owned offshore entities opted for a reorganisation of their assets after the ICJ leak dubbed ‘Panama Papers’ in 2016. The report says Tendulkar liquidated such assets in the wake of the 2016 expose.

India’s army chief has said China is sending troops to their disputed border in “considerable numbers”, prompting a matching deployment by New Delhi in a development he called a “concern”. Tensions have been high between the nuclear-armed neighbours following a deadly border battle in June last year in the strategically important Galwan river valley in India’s Ladakh region, near Tibet. The world’s two most populous nations poured tens of thousands of extra troops into the high-altitude region in the Himalayas after the clash. General Manoj Mukund Naravane told reporters in Ladakh on Saturday that the Chinese troop presence along the 3,500km border had increased in “considerable numbers” and it was a “matter of concern”. Naravane said the Indian military was building up its forces along the border in response. “We have also inducted advanced weaponry. We are strong, quite well-poised to meet any eventuality,” the Times of India newspaper quoted him as saying. The Indian army has deployed its K9-Vajra 155mm howitzer in eastern Ladakh as part of series of measures to further boost its combat capabilities. The army chief visited several forward areas in eastern Ladakh and carried out a comprehensive review of India’s operational preparedness during his visit, according to officials. India and China have been holding high-level military talks since the June clash and Naravane said another meeting was expected next week. Officials said both sides have exchanged notes as part of preparations for the 13th round of military talks to push for disengagement in the remaining friction points. Military sources said disengagement in Hot Springs and some other areas are expected to be discussed at the next round of Corps Commander-level talks. “A clarity on the date and venue for the talks is expected in the next three-four days,” said a source. The talks are expected to take place in the second week of October, officials said. His comments came days after Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying accused Indian soldiers of illegally crossing the border into Chinese territory, a charge that New Delhi said had “no basis in facts”. Local media reported last week, citing unnamed sources, that nearly 100 Chinese troops had crossed the border into Uttarakhand state for several hours in late August. India and China, which fought a full-scale border war in 1962, have long accused each other of trying to take territory along their unofficial border known as the Line of Actual Control. Each side currently has around 50,000 to 60,000 troops along the LAC in the sensitive sector.

Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on Sunday by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) under various sections of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) for possession and consumption of banned substances, officials said. Hours after their arrest, Aryan, 23, and two others nabbed - Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant - were produced before the Esplanade Magistrate Court, amid tight security, late on Sunday and sent to the NCB's custody for one day till Monday, a prosecution lawyer told reporters. The others who remain under the NCB's detention include: Nupur Sarika, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Vikrant Chhoker and Gomit Chopra, and it is not clear what course of action the agency will adopt for them. The legal team of the accused trio, including Aryan Khan's lawyer Satish Maneshinde, plan to move the Bombay High Court on Monday in the matter. Aryan Khan, acknowledged and said that he understood the grounds of his arrest and has informed his family of the same. The action came after the NCB's swoop on Saturday evening aboard the Cordelia Cruises deluxe ship as it was preparing for a scheduled Mumbai-Goa voyage, shocking the people, especially in the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, a few Bollywood celebrities have shown support to Shah Rukh Khan and his son. Actor Suniel Shetty has requested everyone to not assume the worst and asked the media to let Aryan breathe and not jump to any conclusions. “I would like to say that wherever there is a raid, several people are caught. And we assume that this child must have consumed drugs or this child must have done it. But the proceedings are on, give that child a chance to breathe.” “Whenever something happens in Bollywood, the media scrutinises everything and jumps to conclusions. Give the child a chance. Let the truth come out. It is our responsibility to take care of the child,” Shetty added. Singer Suchitra Krishnamoorthi took to Twitter and extended her support to Shah Rukh Khan. “For all those targetting #Bollywood remember all the #NCB raids on filmstars? Yes, nothing was found and nothing was proved. #Bollywood gawking is a tamasha. It's the price of fame"

UK nationals visiting India this month will have to undergo mandatory quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in retaliation for UK curbs on Indian citizens, a senior government source in New Delhi said yesterday. The new rules, which take effect from Monday, follow the UK decision to require Indians vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s Covishield to quarantine. According to the new laws all British arrivals, irrespective of their vaccination status, will have to undertake RT-PRC test within 72 hours before travel, another test on arrival in India and the third one eight days later. They will also have to quarantine at home or at their destination address for 10 days, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to reporters. India mainly relies on the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and manufactured in India by Pune-based Serum Institute, which is not recognised by Britain under new rules, despite being identical to the doses given to millions of Britons. AstraZeneca is one of the key providers to Britain’s vaccination programme, along with US peers Moderna and Pfizer. Others have received Covaxin, a vaccine produced by an Indian company that is not used in Britain. Government sources in New Delhi had last month warned of retaliation after Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he had urged for an early resolution after a meeting with his British counterpart at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The India government was irked that while the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been recognised by Britain, its version produced by Serum Institute of India has been excluded. India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, said earlier this week that it will resume exports and donations of surplus coronavirus vaccines in October after a months-long freeze because of the massive surge in domestic infections. The Serum Institute of India, which produces the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, will resume small exports via the global vaccine-sharing platform Covax this month and raise it substantially by January, its head told The Telegraph newspaper “Our exports to Covax will recommence again in October, initially these supplies will be small but by January 2022, once we have satisfied domestic demands - people forget that India is still a lower-middle income country - we will see large volumes go to Covax,” chief executive Adar Poonawalla said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson administration’s refusal to recognise India-made doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is causing “total chaos”, Poonawalla said.

India's finance ministry said on Friday reports suggesting the government has picked a winning bid for the debt-laden state-run airline Air India were incorrect. Earlier on Friday, Bloomberg reported that a panel of ministers accepted a proposal from officials recommending salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Sons ahead of an offer from Ajay Singh, promoter of India's airline operator Spicejet Ltd. "Media reports indicating approval of financial bids by Government of India in the AI disinvestment case are incorrect," the ministry said in a tweet. "Media will be informed of the Government decision as and when it is taken." Air India and Tata Sons declined to comment. Earlier this month the finance ministry said it had received bids for the airline, but did not name the bidders. A possible sale would come at a time the airline industry is trying to recover from the slump in travel caused by restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic. This would also be seen as a relief to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which has been pushing to sell its entire interest in the loss-making airline. The winning bidder would win control of Air India's 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international landing and parking slots at domestic airports, as well as 900 slots at airports overseas, including London's Heathrow Airport. It would also get 100% of the low-cost arm Air India Express and 50% of AISATS, which provides cargo and ground handling services at major Indian airports. The government loses nearly 200 million rupees every day to run the national carrier, which has accumulated losses of over 700 billion rupees ($9.53 billion), officials have said. An effort to auction a majority stake almost three years ago drew no bids, forcing the government to ease the terms. It had also extended the deadline multiple times during the pandemic.

Some of India’s private hospitals have cancelled orders for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine as they struggle to sell Covid-19 shots amid surging supplies of free doses of other vaccines offered by the government. Industry officials said low demand and the extremely cold storage temperatures required have spurred at least three big hospitals to cancel orders for Sputnik V, sold only on the private market in the world’s biggest vaccine-producing country. “With storage and everything, we have cancelled our order for 2,500 doses,” said Jitendra Oswal, a senior medical official at Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College and Hospital in the western city of Pune. “Demand is also not great. There is a class of people, barely 1%, that wanted to go for Sputnik. For the rest, anything would do.” From May until last week, private hospitals accounted for just about 6% of all vaccines administered in India, although the government had freed them to buy up to a quarter of domestic output, health ministry data show. India is set to become a major production centre of Sputnik V, with planned capacity of about 850mn shots a year, and low domestic uptake could mean higher exports instead, a step backers are already pushing for. Indian companies have already started making Sputnik doses. The health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since a June launch event by Indian distributor Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, only 943,000 doses of Sputnik V have been administered by hospitals, a fraction of the national total of more than 876mn. Dr Reddy’s, which has imported about 3mn doses of the vaccine from Russia and refunded hospitals for cancelled orders, declined to comment. Its partner the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which markets Sputnik V internationally, also declined to comment. The mainstay of India’s inoculation drive is the AstraZeneca vaccine, which can be stored in regular refrigerators, unlike Sputnik V, which needs temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4°F), impossible to guarantee in most of India. The vaccine is also as much as 47% more expensive than AstraZeneca on the private market. Avis Hospitals, which runs eight vaccination centres in the southern city of Hyderabad, has also cancelled an order for 10,000 Sputnik V doses, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter who sought anonymity in discussing business matters.

India's drug regulator on Tuesday allowed vaccine maker Serum Institute to enrol kids aged 7-11 years for its Covid-19 vaccine trial as the country prepares to protect children from the coronavirus. It has already administered more than 870 million doses to adults among its population of nearly 1.4 billion. "After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended for allowing enrolment of subjects of 7 to 11 years of age group as per the protocol," a subject expert panel of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization said. Serum Institute is already conducting a trial of its Covid-19 vaccine, a domestically produced version of AstraZeneca's shot, in the 12-17 age group and has presented safety data for an initial 100 participants. So far, only drugmaker Zydus Cadila's DNA Covid-19 vaccine has received emergency use approval in India to be used in adults and children aged 12 years and above.

A cyclone packing strong winds and rains barrelled into India’s east coast late yesterday, as tens of thousands of people in three states were evacuated to shelters. Cyclones are a regular menace in the northern Indian Ocean but many scientists say they are becoming more frequent and severe as climate change warms sea temperatures. Cyclone Gulab made landfall between the coastal states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh just after 6pm local time (1230GMT), bearing gusts of up to 95km per hour, the state-run India Meteorological Department said. The storm system from the Bay of Bengal would bring “strong winds and very heavy (and) extremely heavy rainfall”, the weather bureau added in an advisory earlier yesterday. It added that there was a risk of flash flooding in some areas. Odisha and Andhra Pradesh officials had ordered tens of thousands of people living along the coast to move to shelters, as hundreds of emergency workers were sent to the region. There were reports of trees being uprooted as the cyclone slammed into a coastal district in Andhra Pradesh. Some 85,000 families were moved from low-lying areas to temporary relief shelters in the state. Authorities in West Bengal - to the north of Odisha - said yesterday that, while Gulab appeared unlikely to hit the state directly, they were still taking precautions. “We have so far evacuated more than 20,000 people to schools (and) government offices, which have been turned to cyclone shelters,” Bankim Hazra, a state minister responsible for the low-lying areas, said. Odisha special relief commissioner P K Jena said seven districts in the state were on high alert and evacuation efforts were under way. Ganjam, a coastal district, was expected to be badly hit by the cyclone, Jena added in a statement. The Indian Navy has kept naval ships and aircraft on standby for rescue and relief operations. Earlier the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam and naval officers in charge of Odisha carried out preparatory activities to combat the effects of the cyclone. The navy is in constant liaison with the state administrations for rendering assistance as required and closely monitoring the movement of the cyclonic storm. In May, more than a million people were evacuated from their homes along India’s east coast before it was battered by Cyclone Yaas, with winds gusting up to 155km an hour — equivalent to a category two hurricane. At least 20 people were killed and tens of thousands were displaced in the storm, which caused widespread damage worth more than $2bn in Odisha and West Bengal states and in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to resume exports at a meeting of leaders from the so-called Quad in Washington as India, Japan, Australia, and the US try to counter growing Chinese influence across the Asia-Pacific region.  Foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters on Saturday that most of the eight million doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine will be sent to Asia-Pacific countries.  "This would be ready by the end of October. This is an immediate delivery, from the Quad into the Indo-Pacific region," Shringla told reporters. India is one of the world's biggest vaccine producers and had pledged earlier this year to export one billion Covid-19 jabs by December 2022.  But New Delhi halted exports in May after a devastating coronavirus wave ravaged the country. India lifted its vaccine export ban this week with new Covid-19 infections and deaths slowing down. The country suffered weeks of vaccine shortages as a coronavirus surge between March and May killed at least 250,000 and infected tens of millions of people. It has now administered nearly 840 million vaccine doses. Nearly half of the adult population has had at least one jab and with 16 percent receiving a second dose. 

Nearly 2,500 rare rhino horns were destroyed yesterday in the first ceremony of its kind in northeastern India as part of an anti-poaching drive to mark World Rhino Day. The endangered one-horned rhinoceros used to be widespread in the region but hunting and habitat loss have slashed its numbers to just a few thousand, with most now found in India’s Assam state. Trade in rhino horn has been banned since 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. But conservationists warn poaching attempts continue amid demand from China and Vietnam, rhino horn is promoted as a wonder ingredient in traditional medicine. “A rhino horn has supreme value only when it is intact to the living rhino. These horns have no value,” Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said during the ceremony in the town of Bokakhat. “With today’s action, Assam wants to send two messages — that we don’t believe that rhino horns have any medicinal value and that we only believe in preserving the living rhinos.” The town is near the Unesco-listed heritage site Kaziranga National Park, home to more than 2,000 one-horned rhinos — the world’s biggest population. At the ceremony, horns were carefully placed in layers in several large furnaces before being set alight, sending plumes of smoke into the air above fierce orange flames. The animal parts — which contain keratin, the same protein as comes in human hair and nails — had been kept in storage by the government since 1969. Some of the horns had been seized from poachers. Others were removed from rhinos that had died of natural causes. All rhino deaths in the state are recorded by local police. Before the ceremony, officials extracted DNA from each horn and gave each animal part a unique ID number to create a gene database for scientific studies and conservation efforts. Assam’s Forest and Environment Minister Parimal Suklabaidya added that 94 horns were also set aside and would be kept for heritage purposes. The International Rhino Foundation said on Monday in its annual report that two of the herbivores were killed by poachers in Assam in 2020. But the global body added that rhino poaching deaths have been declining in recent years amid conservation efforts in India and neighbouring Nepal. The population of the one-horned creatures had grown to more than 3,700 after plunging to just 100 in the early 1900s, it added.

All Indian children aged 12 or older will become eligible for Covid-19 vaccinations from next month, when drug maker Cadila Healthcare launches its ZyCoV-D product, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter disclosed. The world’s first DNA-based Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D won emergency authorisation from Indian regulators last month. From October, the company, better known as Zydus Cadila, will produce 10mn doses a month. The health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sources sought anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to media. The vaccine is the only one approved for children in India, which has given a total of 825.9mn doses to adults among its population of nearly 1.4bn. Meanwhile, the government is likely to allow a smaller gap between AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses for inoculations being carried out privately, in line with a court order, the sources said. Private hospitals and clinics will give their paying patients the option to receive their second dose of the vaccine four weeks after the first, down from between 12 and 16 weeks currently, they said. Earlier this month, the high court in the southern state of Kerala ordered changes in the health ministry’s vaccine-booking platform to give people paying for vaccination this choice, which is already being offered to those flying abroad. “Since the high court has given a judgement, it will have to be done,” said one of the sources. “For the government’s programme, the ideal gap remains 12 weeks.” India doubled the gap between the AstraZeneca vaccine’s two doses in May to make sure more people were inoculated with at least one dose when supplies were scarce at the height of the country’s outbreak this year. AstraZeneca recommends the second dose of its Covid-19 vaccine be taken four weeks after the first shot, but says on its website there is a “trend of increased efficacy with a longer than 4 week dosing interval”. The World Health Organisation recommends an interval of eight to 12 weeks. The sources, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, could not say when the changes will be implemented. India’s total vaccine output has trebled since May to 300mn doses a month. Less than a quarter of the production is sold by private hospitals while the rest is provided by the government free of cost. Meanwhile, vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII) will invest £50mn ($68mn) in Oxford Biomedica to help fund the development of a plant that manufactures Covid-19 shots, the British company said yesterday. Serum — the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume — and Oxford Biomedica both produce AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine. Serum Life Sciences, a unit of India-based SII, will pick up a 3.9% stake in Oxford Biomedica as part of the deal. Oxford Biomedica, spun off from Oxford University in 1995, said it would use the funds to develop the fallow area at its Oxbox plant into a manufacturing space expected to come online in mid-2023.

India’s government will not buy Covid-19 shots from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, three government sources said, mainly because domestic output of more affordable and easier-to-store vaccines has jumped. That essentially means the globally popular vaccines, which their makers have pledged not to sell to private parties during the pandemic, will not be available for now in the world’s two most populous countries - China and India. The Indian government has also declined to meet the US companies’ requests for legal protection over any side-effects from the use of their shots, which are currently made only in the US or Europe, two of the sources said. No company has received such protection in India. “Earlier, there was a shortage, there was a need,” said one of the sources, referring to India’s appeal to the companies in April for vaccines when infections exploded and shots were in short supply. “Their price will be high. Why should we take on their conditions?” A second source said: “The government will not buy Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. They are free to have private tie-ups after necessary regulatory clearances. But sovereign indemnity is clearly something we can’t give”. A Pfizer spokesperson in India said discussions were ongoing and it remained committed to bring the vaccine to the country. The company reiterated that “during the pandemic phase, it would supply the Covid-19 vaccine only to central governments and supra-national organisations”. Moderna and India’s health ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Moderna, through its Indian partner Cipla, already has emergency-use authorisation in India for its vaccine, which, like the Pfizer one, needs ultra-cold storage — facilities that much of India lacks.

India will resume exports of Covid-19 vaccines in the October quarter, prioritising the global vaccine-sharing platform Covax and neighbouring countries first as supplies rise, the health minister said yesterday. India, the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, stopped exports of Covid shots in April to focus on inoculating its own population as infections exploded. The country’s monthly vaccine output has since more than doubled and is set to quadruple to over 300mn doses next month, minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, adding that only excess supplies would be exported. Total production could top 1bn in the last three months of the year as new vaccines from companies such as Biological E are likely to be approved, he said. “We will help other countries and also fulfil our responsibility towards Covax,” he told reporters. Media reported last week that the India government was considering restarting exports of Covid-19 vaccines soon. The South Asian giant, dubbed the “pharmacy of the world”, was a major supplier to the Covax programme aimed at boosting immunisation in poorer nations. It donated or sold 66mn doses to nearly 100 countries before the export halt. The announcement on resumption of exports in the October to December quarter comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington this week where vaccines are likely to be discussed at a summit of the leaders of the Quad countries — the US, India, Japan and Australia. India wants to vaccinate all its 944mn adults by December and has so far given at least one dose to 64% of them and two doses to 22%. The country hit a record 22mn coronavirus jabs in a day on Friday as part of a special vaccination drive for the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s inoculations have jumped since last month, especially as the world’s biggest vaccine maker, the Serum Institute of India, has more than trebled its output of the AstraZeneca shot to 200mn doses a month from April levels. Indian companies have set up the capacity to produce nearly 3bn Covid vaccine doses a year. India on Sunday conducted the lowest number of daily Covid-19 tests since mid-August, but the health ministry urged local governments not to let their guard down during the September to November festival season. States and federally controlled territories carried out 1.18mn tests on Sunday, government data showed yesterday, down from 1.56mn on Saturday and against a capacity of more than 2mn.

Nearly 90% of people in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, are estimated to have Covid-19 antibodies, according to the civic body survey released yesterday. The fifth blood serum survey which tests for antibodies, known as a sero survey conducted between August and early September included 8,674 adults out of which almost 65% of the subjects were vaccinated. The survey also revealed that more females had Covid-19 antibodies compared to their male counterparts at 88.29% compared to 85.07%. Sero-prevalence was significantly higher in individuals who had received either first or both doses of Covid-19 vaccine as compared to their unvaccinated counterparts, the survey by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation  (BMC) noted. “As the sero-prevalance amongst those who are vaccinated is much higher than the unvaccinated counterparts, it is essential to strengthen the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination programme,” the report mentioned. India’s crowded financial hub Mumbai won plaudits this year for tackling the second wave of the pandemic better than any other metropolis in the country. The report finding comes at a time when concerns around emergence of a third wave remains. India reported 34,403 new Covid-19 cases yesterday across the country. Meanwhile, in a record-breaking feat, India administered over 20mn vaccine doses against the coronavirus disease yesterday. The accomplishment came on a day the government initiated moves to boost the inoculation drive on the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday. As many as 2,11,28,784 doses of the vaccine were administered during the day, according to data available on the government-run Co-WIN portal. This pushed the total number of vaccines administered across the country against the virus to 786.8mn. It also helped the country cross the 10mn mark in the daily vaccination figures for the fourth time in a month. Sharing a tweet, the health ministry said India marched ahead with another achievement in its fight against Covid-19 with 20mn doses administered yesterday and counting.

• Thousands of Indian and Chinese soldiers have been locked in confrontation in the western Himalayas since last year India has told China that their bilateral relations will only develop when both countries pull their troops back from a confrontation on their disputed Himalayan border, the Indian foreign minister said. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed the possibility of both sides pulling back when he met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a regional conference in Dushanbe. “Discussed disengagement in our border areas. Underlined that progress in this regard is essential for restoration of peace and tranquillity, which is the basis for development of bilateral ties,” Jaishankar said on Twitter. Thousands of Indian and Chinese soldiers have been locked in confrontation in the western Himalayas since last year when animosity over a decades-old border dispute blew up. In June last year, tension erupted into hand-to-hand fighting resulting in deaths on both sides, the first between them in decades. After several rounds of talks between their commanders, their forces have stepped back on some sections of the border, including the Pangong Tso lake, a contested area near the site of last year’s clashes. But troops backed by artillery remain dug in in close proximity in other sectors. “China has always handled the China-India border issue properly and with a positive attitude,” Wang said. “(Both sides should) work together to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas, and stop border incidents from recurring.” As two major emerging economies, China and India should push bilateral ties back to a healthy and stable track, a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry cited Wang as saying. China and India went to war over their border in 1962 and have never resolved the dispute. Even so, in recent years, trade ties have flourished. Jaishankar said he also discussed recent global events with Wang. He did not give details. While China’s close military ties with Pakistan have been a source of tension, Jaishankar said India-China relations should be seen in bilateral terms. “It is also essential that China does not view its relations with India through the lens of a third country,” he said he told Wang. The two top officials are in Dushanbe for a meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.

In a small tribal village on the eastern tip of India, an enterprising teacher has turned walls into blackboards and roads into classrooms, trying to close the gap in learning brought on by prolonged school shutdowns in the country. Deep Narayan Nayak, 34, a teacher in the tribal village of Joba Attpara in Paschim Bardhaman district of the eastern state of West Bengal, has painted blackboards on the walls of houses and taught children on the streets for the past year. The local school shut down after strict Covid-19 restrictions were imposed across the country in March 2020. On a recent morning, children wrote on one such wall with chalk and peered into a microscope as Nayak watched over them. “The education of our children stopped ever since the lockdown was imposed. The children used to just loiter around. The teacher came and started teaching them,” Kiran Turi, whose child learns with Nayak, said. Nayak teaches everything from popular nursery rhymes to the importance of masks and hand-washing to about 60 students and is popularly known as the “Teacher of the Street” to the grateful villagers. An August survey of nearly 1,400 schoolchildren done by a scholars’ group https://roadscholarz.net found that in rural areas, only 8% were studying online regularly, 37% were not studying at all, and about half were unable to read more than a few words. Most parents wanted schools to reopen as soon as possible, it said. Nayak said he was worried that his students, most of whom are first-generation learners and whose parents are daily wage-earners, would away from the education system if they didn’t continue with school.

As Covid-19 shuttered India’s schools and overwhelmed its hospitals, teachers in Delhi were roped in for emergency duties — from handing out food rations to staffing vaccination centres, often at great risk to themselves. But many baulked when told to download an attendance app on their mobile phones that could track their location — adding to hefty surveillance measures in the capital’s schools that critics say infringe the privacy of students and staff. Warned by city authorities that their wages would be withheld if they failed to comply, the teachers are fighting back. “We weren’t consulted on this app, we weren’t told about its features — we were just sent a link and ordered to download it on our mobile phones,” said Vibha Singh, a senior vice president of the Nagar Nigam Shikshak Sangh (NNSS) teachers’ union. After numerous complaints, the union filed suit at the city’s high court last month, arguing that the app violated their privacy. The next hearing is due on September 27. “These are our personal phones, and the app tracks our location at all times. We don’t know what other information it can access, or who has access to the data — what if it gets hacked? Women teachers are especially at risk,” Singh said. Even before the app was launched, some of Delhi’s public schools had closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras with facial recognition technology, a measure digital rights advocates have condemned as an “overreach”. India’s capital is among the world’s most surveilled cities, with more than 1,800 cameras per square mile — the highest concentration globally, according to estimates by technology website Comparitech. An official at the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which is the defendant in the teachers’ union’s lawsuit, said the app merely logs the attendance of teachers and poses no privacy or safety risks. “It is a misunderstanding that the app can compromise their privacy. We have held several talks with the teachers to explain the app and to allay their fears,” said Muktamay Mandal, deputy director of education at SDMC. “We are moving towards increased digitalisation in every sphere — we are downloading so many apps everyday. If they have nothing to hide, what is there to fear?” he said. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted governments and corporations to launch a wide array of technologies on the grounds of health and safety that can track people, with few privacy safeguards, digital rights experts say. Increasingly, workers are pushing back against what they see as a violation of their rights. Municipal employees in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh protested last year against GPS-enabled tracking smartwatches they were required to wear, with the data that was gathered linked to performance ratings and salaries. Earlier this year, thousands of government-accredited community healthcare workers — who are mostly women — protested against a mobile app they said tracked their location and recorded their performance. With the attendance app, the level of surveillance from tracking and accessing data cannot be justified as a means to log attendance, said Anushka Jain, an associate counsel at digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation in Delhi. “There is no need to track them throughout the day; that is surveillance. It’s very problematic that these apps and technologies are being forced upon people without any data protection guidelines,” she said. “The growing pushback we are seeing is not only about the right to privacy, but also because misuse of these technologies is so rampant and people understand that the worst-case scenario is not just hypothetical, it is highly likely,” she said.