Leading food company Parle Products logged record sales of its Parle-G biscuits in April and May during the lockdown, said a senior company official.
The company has gained a market share of around 5% in the highly competitive biscuit segment, helped by Parle-G biscuits, preferred by the people stocking up their pantries during the pandemic.
Parle-G biscuits also gained traction as it was preferred by government agencies and NGOs working to distribute food relief packages to people during the pandemic owing to its economic proposition with value package of ₹2 besides being considered a good source of glucose, Parle Products senior category head Mayank Shah told PTI.
“The growth was phenomenal and as a result Parle was able to increase its market share by 4.5 to 5% during the lockdown,” he added.
“This is one of the highest in the recent (time). At least in last 30 to 40 years, we have not seen this kind of growth,” Mr. Shah said adding in his 20 years of working with the biscuits major, he hadn’t witnessed a performance like this.
Mr. Shah said Parle-G was comfort food for most Indians and that during times of uncertainty, it was consumed a lot. Even during earlier crises like tsunami and earthquakes, sales of Parle-G biscuits had gone up, he added.
“That is the kind of trust people depose in the brand,” he said, adding Parle-G’s long shelf life as another reason for the preference.
The company had announced that it would donate three crore packs of Parle-G biscuits when the coronavirus pandemic intensified in India.
“We saw many other people doing that. There were many other organisations, which were also helping people by distributing Parle-G biscuits,” he said.
Mr. Shah claimed that Parle had “the highest growth rate among all the biscuit companies”during the lockdown.
The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile, the PM is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene,’ says former Congress president
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi questioned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the subject of incursion of the Chinese in Ladakh.
In a tweet quoting news reports that the Chinese side has been driving a hard bargain in the talks between the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army, Mr. Gandhi said, “The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile, the PM is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene,” he said.
According to the Army sources, the two sides discussed de-escalation plan on five conflict points in Ladakh. The Chinese side, the Indian Army claimed, had removed some tents, troops and vehicles.
Mr. Gandhi had been carefully amplifying his attack on the government over the past two days. On Monday, he used Urdu couplets, to hit out at the government, by Tuesday, he abandoned this poetic exchange and asked a pointed question to the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asking him if the Chinese had occupied Indian territory in Ladakh.
The Jama Masjid may have to be closed again in view of the “deteriorating” situation in Delhi due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the mosque’s Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari said on Wednesday.
The development comes after the Shahi Imam’s secretary Amanullah died due to the novel coronavirus at the Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday night.
Delhi recorded 1,366 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, taking the tally to 31,309, while the death toll mounted to 905, authorities said on Wednesday.
The mosque had opened on June 8 after a gap of over two months with the government allowing further relaxations as part of “Unlock-1”, the first phase of a calibrated exit from the novel coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)
“He (Amanullah) had tested positive and was admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital on June 3, where he breathed his last yesterday,” Bukhari said.
The Shahi Imam said the opinion of the people has been sought on closing the historic mosque again in view of the surge in the number of novel coronavirus cases in the national capital. “People are giving their views through social media and other channels on closing the Jama Masjid. We may again shut it down for people and limit ‘namaz’ for a few people, in a day or two,” he said.
The mosque had opened on June 8 after a gap of over two months with the government allowing further relaxations as part of “Unlock-1”, the first phase of a calibrated exit from the novel coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown. “I have also asked other smaller mosques to appeal to people to stay at home and offer ‘namaz’ instead of going to mosques for it. What is the point of visiting mosques at such a time when the spread of the coronavirus is peaking in Delhi, when we did not do so even during Ramzan and Eid due to the lockdown,” Bukhari said.
As religious places along with several other establishments, like shopping malls and offices, opened across the country on June 8, Bukhari asked governments to reconsider their decision in view of the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
This is the fourth daily increase in rates in a row since oil companies on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.
Petrol price on Wednesday was hiked by 40 paise per litre and diesel by 45 paise, the fourth straight daily increase in rates after oil PSUs ended an 82-day hiatus in rate revision.
Petrol price in Delhi was hiked to ₹73.40 per litre from ₹73, while diesel rates were increased to ₹71.62 a litre from ₹71.17, according to a price notification of state oil marketing companies.
The rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.
This is the fourth daily increase in rates in a row since oil companies on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.
In four hikes, petrol price has gone up by ₹2.14 per litre and diesel by ₹2.23.
New Delhi: A record rise in COVID-19 cases in India for the seventh consecutive day has pushed the tally to over 2.6 lakh on Tuesday, with the daily nationwide spike in coronavirus cases inching close to 10,000.
The rise in cases comes at a time when the country has stepped out of a 75-day coronavirus lockdown with malls, religious places and offices opening in several parts of the country under strict conditions.
Since the onset of June, the country has also been witnessing over 200 COVID-19 fatalities each day that has taken the country’s death toll to 7,466.
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
Photo Credit: PTI
Several states like Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Tripura among others have been showing a spurt in cases.
A total 266 new COVID-19 fatalities and 9,987 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8 am, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The country has registered over 9,000 coronavirus infection cases for the sixth day in a row taking the country tally to 2,66,598.
The number of active novel coronavirus cases stands at 1,29,917, while 1,29,214 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, according to the Health Ministry data updated till 8 am.
“Thus, 48.47 per cent patients have recovered so far,” a ministry official said.
According to the ICMR, a total of 49,16,116 samples have been tested as on 9 am, Tuesday, with 1,41,682 samples been tested in the last 24 hours.
Out of the total 7,466 fatalities reported till Tuesday 8 am, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874, Madhya Pradesh with 414, West Bengal with 405, Tamil Nadu with 286, Uttar Pradesh with 283, Rajasthan with 246 and Telangana with 137 deaths.
The death toll reached 75 in Andhra Pradesh, 64 in Karnataka and 53 in Punjab.
Jammu and Kashmir has reported 45 fatalities due to the coronavirus disease, while 39 deaths have been reported from Haryana, 31 from Bihar, 16 from Kerala, 13 from Uttarakhand, nine from Odisha and seven from Jharkhand.
Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each and Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each so far.
Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to ministry data.
More than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, the ministry’s website stated
The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 88,528 followed by Tamil Nadu at 33,229, Delhi at 29,943, Gujarat at 20,545, Uttar Pradesh at 10,947, Rajasthan at 10,763 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,638, according to the Health Ministry’s data updated in the morning.
The number of COVID-19 cases has climbed to 8,613 in West Bengal, 5,760 in Karnataka, 5,202 in Bihar and 4,854 in Haryana.
It has risen to 4,851 in Andhra Pradesh, 4,285 in Jammu and Kashmir, 3,650 in Telangana and 2,994 in Odisha.
Punjab has reported 2,663 novel coronavirus cases so far, while Assam has 2,776 cases. A total of 2,005 people have been infected by the virus in Kerala and 1,411 in Uttarakhand.
Jharkhand has registered 1,256 cases, while 1,160 cases have been reported from Chhattisgarh, 838 from Tripura, 421 from Himachal Pradesh, 330 from Goa and 317 from Chandigarh.
Manipur has 272 cases, Puducherry has 127 and Nagaland has reported 123 cases till now.
Ladakh has 103 COVID-19 cases, Arunachal Pradesh has 51, Mizoram has 42, Meghalaya 36 while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 infections so far.
Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 22 cases, while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.
The ministry’s website said that 8,803 cases are being reassigned to states and “our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR”.
State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Centre and state governments to send all the migrant workers to their native places within 15 days and formulate employment schemes after conducting their skill mapping to rehabilitate them.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M R Shah also directed the Centre to provide additional trains within 24 hours of states making the demand for sending the migrant workers back to their native places.
The top court also directed authorities to consider withdrawing all cases against migrant workers for alleged violation of lockdown norms under the Disaster Management Act.
The bench also directed the authorities to identify and register migrant workers who want to go back to their native places and conclude the exercise, including their transportation within 15 days from Tuesday.
The bench, which posted the matter for further hearing in July, said the schemes for welfare and employment of migrant workers should be publicised adequately.
The top court had on June 5 reserved its order on the suo motu case registered on the plights of migrant workers during the coronavirus-triggered lockdown period.
Aligarh (UP): The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has decided to conduct online open book exams for all final semester papers of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, according to a spokesman of the university.
However, a section of the teaching staff has voiced concern over the idea of online exams, contending that the method is “discriminatory and flawed”.
The AMU’s decision follows the Delhi University’s move to hold open book exams.
An AMU spokesman said, “Final semester examinations for UG and PG classes will be held after July 10 and the schedule will be announced shortly. It has also been decided that those papers of the first semester which had not been held earlier will also be conducted through the same manner between July 5 and 10”.
Following the decision, a section of teachers have written a letter to the Vice Chancellor.
In the letter, teachers’ elected representative to the university’s executive committee, Prof Aftab Alam, said the decision to hold online exams violates the statutes of the institution and any decision to hold online exams has to be preceded by certain mandated procedures.
The letter points out that all students may not have proper access to Internet facilities in the present scenario.
Meanwhile, all university offices, which reopened on Monday, reported full attendance.
Employees, who are senior citizens or those who reside in coronavirus containment areas, have been exempted from attending office.
In Srinagar Petrol prices hiked to ₹ 77.76 and diesel ₹ 69.60 per Litre
Petrol and diesel prices were hiked for a third straight day in metros on Tuesday, as state-owned oil marketing companies reverted to the normal practice of daily price revisions after a gap of 83 days. In Delhi, the price of petrol was increased by 54 paise per litre and diesel by 58 paise per litre with effect from 6 am on June 9. The price of petrol in the national capital was revised to Rs 73 per litre compared to Rs 72.46 per litre the previous day, and that of diesel to Rs 71.17 per litre from Rs 70.59 per litre on Monday, according to notifications by state oil marketing companies.
International oil prices rose a day after plunging more than 3 per cent, following an agreement by top producers to extend supply cuts. Brent crude futures – the global benchmark for crude oil – added $1.13 to $41.25 per barrel.
State-run oil marketing companies revise the prices of petrol and diesel from time to time, besides aviation turbine fuel (ATF) – or jet fuel – and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). However, since March 16, the oil companies had kept petrol and diesel prices on hold, possibly due to the volatility in global oil markets.
Fuel retailing in the country is dominated by state refiners – Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.
The three own about 90 per cent of the retail fuel outlets in the country.
The drill by the People’s Liberation Army involved thousands of paratroopers and armoured vehicles. Though the Chinese media didn’t give the location where they were transported to but said enough to indicate that the drill was a message to India.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has carried out a large-scale drill involving thousands of paratroopers to check its preparedness in transporting soldiers and armoured vehicles from a central Chinese province to border areas to the northwest of the country.
The largescale “maneuver operation” was done in the backdrop of the ongoing border standoff with India, the nationalistic tabloid Global Times and national broadcaster CCTV said in reports.
The news on Chinese state media came out on a day when New Delhi said that India and China will continue military and diplomatic engagements to resolve a weeks-old standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
This was after talks were held between delegations led Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, commander of Leh-based 14 Corps and a delegation led by Major General Liu Lin, commander of the South Xinjiang military region, at Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC on Saturday.
State media aired footage of troops boarding civilian planes to get from Hubei province to the unspecified location thousands of kilometres away. Photo: Weibo | South China Morning Post
The reports didn’t give the location where the soldiers and the armoured vehicles were transported to but said enough to indicate that the drill was a message to India.
Using civilian airlines, logistical transportation channels and railways, several thousand paratroopers under a PLA Air Force airborne brigade recently maneuvered from Hubei, which is in central China, to an undisclosed location in the plateaus of northwestern China thousands of kilometres away, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.
“Several hundred pieces of military equipment including armoured vehicles and huge batches of supplies were also involved in the operation, which ended successfully in just a few hours,” the report said.
The maneuver was completed in a few hours, the report said.
Soldiers also took trains in the “manoeuvre operation”. Photo: Weibo | South China Morning Post
“This maneuver mission saw significant breakthroughs not only in the scale of mobilised troops but also means of transportation. [Using civilian transportation] substantially expanded our means of transporting forces and increased efficiency in maneuvering an entire organisation of troops,” Major Colonel Mao Lei, head of the training department at the airborne brigade, said on CCTV.
“Groups of tanks and armored vehicles attached to the 76th Group Army under the PLA Western Theater Command also conducted a long-distance maneuver on May 14,” according to Chinese military media outlet China Military, quoted by GT.
China said troops could be deployed “within hours” to the border region. Photo: Weibo | South China Morning Post
Last week, another report in the Global Times had said that the PLA’s Tibet Military Command recently “…sent troops to a high-altitude region at an elevation of 4,700 meters at night for infiltration exercises behind enemy lines and tested their combat capability under a harsh environment”.
The Indian economy is expected to contract by 3.2% in this fiscal year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions, the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects (GEP) June 2020 report released on Monday. Growth is forecast at 3.1% next year.
The world economy, as a whole, is set to witness its deepest recession since World War II, with a forecasted contraction of 5.2% this year — some 60 million could be pushed into extreme poverty, World Bank Group President David Malpass had warned last week.
With updated data now available, this number could be 70-100 million, a Bank economist told reporters on a briefing call on Monday.
Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) are expected to contract by 2.5% this year, and economic activity in advanced economies is forecast to shrink by 7%, as domestic supply and demand, finance and trade have been disrupted due to the pandemic.
Countries most reliant on global trade, tourism, external financing and commodity exports are likely to be hit the hardest. “This is a deeply sobering outlook, with the crisis likely to leave long-lasting scars and pose major global challenges,” said World Bank economist Ceyla Pazarbasioglu.
“Our first order of business is to address the global health and economic emergency. Beyond that, the global community must unite to find ways to rebuild as robust a recovery as possible to prevent more people from falling into poverty and unemployment.”
In the baseline scenario, global growth is set to rebound at 4.2% in 2021, with EMDEs growing at 4.6% and advanced economies growing at 3.9%. This, however, is the baseline forecast and assumes that pandemic-induced domestic restrictions will be lifted by mid-year in advanced economies and a bit later in EMDEs. The downside scenario is more severe – the global economy could shrink this year by as much as 8% (5% for EMDEs) , followed by a weak recovery at just above 1% growth next year.
India to grow at 3.2% in FY2020-21
India’s growth is estimated to have slowed to 4.2% in FY 2019-20 (year ending March 31, 2020). Output is expected to contract by 3.2% (so growth is -3.2%) in FY2020-21, as the impact of the pandemic (the restrictions on activity) will largely fall in this year, despite the fiscal and monetary stimulus. The growth forecast for this fiscal year is 9 percentage points lower than the GEP forecasts from January 2020, when the forecast for this fiscal was a (positive) 5.8% – the world was not yet in the grip of the pandemic. Spillover effects from weak global growth and balance sheet stress are also weighing down on economic activity, as per the report. India is forecast to see some recovery next year and grow at 3.1%.
South Asia expected to grow at 2.7%
For the South Asian region as a whole, economic activity is expected to contract by 2.7% in 2020, due to restrictions impacting consumption and services and the uncertainty causing a chill in private investments. These forecasts are highly uncertain, and the risks to the outlook are heavily skewed to the downside (i.e., there is a good chance the forecasts will be even worse). The high share of workers who are employed in the informal sector exacerbates the health and economic challenges caused by the pandemic. Food price increases could also lead to food insecurity for more people and global financial market disruption could add pressure to vulnerable balance sheets. Spillover effects from major trading partners could negatively impact economic activity in the South Asian region and supply chain linkages could depress activity in the medium term. The region as a whole is expected to grow at a (positive) rate of 2.8% next year.
Rest of the World
The U.S. is expected to contract at a forecasted 6.1% this year due to pandemic-caused restrictions and disruptions. The Euro Area is projected to shrink 9.1% due to the heavy outbreaks and their impact on activity. Japan is expected to shrink at 6.1% due to preventative measures that had impacted economic activity. China is expected to slow to 1% in 2020, its lowest rate in more than four decades.
