China's Sinovac Biotech has said it is starting Phase III trials of its potential Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil. It will recruit nearly 9,000 healthcare professionals working in Covid-19 specialised facilities for the study, which will start this month. AstraZeneca-Oxford University's experimental coronavirus vaccine and China's Sinopharm are the only other candidates in late-stage Phase III trials.

The Finance Ministry, in its Macroeconomic Report for June, has said that India flattened the COVID-19 curve to a "great extent" with early containment measures, adding the country has one of the lowest death rates. It said that early "green shoots" of economic revival have emerged in May and June with indicators like electricity and fuel consumption seeing an improvement.

More than 200 Infosys employees and their families arrived in Bengaluru from San Francisco on a chartered flight hired by the company amid US visa concerns. While Infosys has brought back employees through government-operated Vande Bharat flights earlier, this was the first time it hired a chartered flight. The Qatar Airways flight reached Bengaluru on Monday.

US-headquartered drugmaker Mylan NV would launch its generic version of Gilead Sciences Inc's COVID-19 treatment remdesivir in India this month at ₹4,800 rupees per 100 mg vial. The Drug Controller General of India approved the remdesivir version for treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed severe COVID-19 incidences, Mylan said on Monday. Its remdesivir version is called 'Desrem'.

A lobby group representing US technology giants has said its members are not yet ready to make the first quarterly payment of India's new 2% digital tax due today. The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) said the tax is "riddled with various ambiguities and interpretational concerns". It urged the Finance Ministry to defer the tax or postpone payment date.

The high-level committee constituted by Andhra Pradesh government for LG Polymers gas leak in Vizag, which led to 12 deaths, has submitted its report. The panel said that poor design of the tank at the plant, inadequate refrigeration and faulty cooling system, poor safety protocols and total breakdown of the emergency response were root causes of the tragedy.

Vasudeva Maiya, the 70-year-old former CEO of Bengaluru-based Sri Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank, was found dead in his car on Monday. Maiya allegedly killed himself by consuming liquor laced with poison in the car parked outside his house, police said. On June 18, the Anti-Corruption Bureau had searched the offices of the bank and its office-bearers over alleged financial irregularities.

The Supreme Court has granted interim bail to Unitech promoter Sanjay Chandra for a period of one month. Chandra has been jailed since August 2017 for allegedly cheating homebuyers who booked flats in two proposed housing projects in Gurugram. A bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud allowed Chandra's plea where he said that his parents are COVID-19 positive and hospitalised.

Shares of edible oil maker Ruchi Soya, acquired by a consortium led by Patanjali, have declined over 30% in nine days after surging 8,980% since relisting in January. The company's market value has fallen by ₹14,200 crore from a peak of around ₹45,400 crore on June 29. Patanjali group currently owns a 99.03% stake in Ruchi Soya after a restructuring.

JSW Group's Chairman and MD Sajjan Jindal on Monday urged traders and the industry not to buy cheaper raw materials from China. "We have to support our armed forces and government and prove that we stand with them in this fight against Chinese," he tweeted. "Let us support our domestic producers in achieving quality and scale," he urged the industry.

Bombay High Court has directed Emami to give Hindustan Unilever seven days' notice before initiating legal action over the 'Glow & Handsome' trademark. Emami said it launched 'Glow and Handsome' digitally one week before HUL announced its name change. HUL first applied for the trademarks, 'Glow & Lovely' and 'Glow & Handsome' in September 2018 and again in June 2020.

The government is reportedly reviewing around 50 investment proposals involving Chinese companies under a new policy. The government in April said that all investments by entities based in countries sharing a land border with India need to be approved by it, whether for new or additional funding. The rules are aimed at preventing "opportunistic takeovers" during the Covid-19 pandemic.

World's sixth-richest person Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway is acquiring the natural gas transmission and storage assets of American power company Dominion Energy for $4 billion. Including the assumption of debt, the deal totals almost $10 billion. It is the first major deal from Berkshire Hathaway since the coronavirus pandemic began, following which the market collapsed in March.

Passengers in private trains, once launched, will have to pay for preferred seats, baggage and onboard services, as per a Railways document. The bidders, based on their financial capacity, will have to offer a share in the gross revenue at the request for proposal (RFP) stage for undertaking the project. They will have the freedom to decide on passenger fare.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a show-cause notice to Kolkata-based Shree Ganesh Jewellery House and its promoters for unauthorised parking of ₹7,220 crore with their entities outside India as export proceeds. The firm is among top 100 wilful defaulters as per the RBI, the agency said. ED said its investigation revealed that the company's promoters are serial offenders.

Bajaj Auto workers have asked for 10-15 day closure of the Waluj plant after 250 workers tested COVID-19 positive, its unions said. Bajaj said last month that 140 workers had tested positive and two died but it wanted to learn to "live with the virus". Bajaj told workers that their salaries would be deducted if they remained absent from work.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor has suspended production at its Bidadi plant for a day after a worker died due to COVID-19. The employee had last attended work at the factory on June 23. All employees who came in contact with the person have been quarantined and the factory is being disinfected as per government guidelines, the company said.

The Haryana government has decided to freeze Dearness Allowance (DA) of its employees and Dearness Relief (DR) for pensioners at current rate of 17% till July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The state's finance department said the government will not pay the additional instalments due from January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021.

The World Bank and Indian government have signed an agreement worth $750 million to boost the flow of finance to 15 lakh MSMEs amid the COVID-19 crisis. The decision will help the government to provide targeted guarantees to incentivise NBFCs and banks. Notably, the World Bank has so far committed $2.75 billion to support India's emergency COVID-19 response.

US' decision to suspend H1-B visas will cost Indian IT firms ₹1,200 crore and have a marginal 0.25%-0.30% impact on profitability, CRISIL said. Latest H1-B visa issuances contribute less than 5% of US onshore workforce of the top 5 listed Indian IT firms. US President Donald Trump has suspended H1-B visas till 2020 end to open jobs for local workers.

The ED has filed a money laundering case against GVK Group and Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) to probe alleged irregularities worth ₹705 crore in running of Mumbai airport operations. This comes a week after the CBI booked the group's Chairman GVK Reddy for allegedly causing a loss to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) by siphoning off funds.

AB InBev's South Asia President Kartikeya Sharma said that the government should consider delinking the beer sector from the hard liquor industry to increase the growth of the sector. "COVID-19 cess adds cost burden on an already-expensive drink," leading to consumers opting for low-quality and low-priced drinks, he said. "The beer industry will take considerable time to recover," Sharma added.

One of Japan's largest employers Fujitsu has decided to reduce its office space in Japan by 50% by the end of the fiscal year 2022. The move is a part of the IT company's "work-life shift" where roughly 80,000 of its employees would work flexible hours. Fujitsu says the move will help workers to improve team performance and increase productivity.

The government has appointed senior bureaucrat Injeti Srinivas as the first chairman of the International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA), to be headquartered in Gujarat's Gandhinagar. His appointment will be for a period of three years. Srinivas is a 1983 batch IAS officer from the Odisha cadre and was superannuated as the Corporate Affairs Secretary in May this year.

Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray said it's wrong that industries have begun cutting jobs and salaries of workers when businesses have started resuming. "Migrant workers, who hadn't returned to their states and were reporting at workplaces, are being sacked. This is not right," he said. He added that the state government is trying to resolve issues being faced by the industry.