IIT Kanpur partners with Bharat Dynamics for manufacturing ventilators

The Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur (IIT-K) will work with defence public sector undertaking (PSU) Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) to manufacture ventilators needed in India's medical response to the coronavirus pandemic.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between BDL, IIT Kanpur’s incubator Foundation for Innovation and Research in Science and Technology (FIRST) and Nocca Robotics Private Limited (NRPL), which is an incubated startup of the Institute.
“Our project for developing an affordable ventilator has been going from strength to strength and now with Bharat Dynamics supporting us, we will be able to scale up production and make this device widely available as a ‘Make in India’ product,” IIT Kanpur director Abhay Karandikar said.
He invited more enterprises to join hands with the IIT Kanpur to encourage indigenous design and development.
“Together, we will strive for our best to serve the nation at this critical hour,” BDL chairman and managing director Commodore Siddharth Mishra (Retd) said while lauding the IIT Kanpur engineers for the indigenous technology.
Responding to the call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nocca Robotics designed and developed a high-end yet affordable indigenous ventilator for providing life support to critically ill covid-19 patients under the supervision of IIT Kanpur team led by Prof Amitabha Bandyopadhyay.

Apart from providing support to critical patients, the ventilator’s design has unique features to safeguard frontline healthcare workers from exposure to the virus.

Amid coronavirus lockdown, steel demand pick-up off to a slow start

Demand for domestic steel seems to be reviving in some way, with end users taking the first steps towards restarting operations, but a return to normalcy might still be a long way off.
In the past couple of days, a number of automakers, including Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp, Mercedes Benz India, Eicher Motors, TVS Motor, and Isuzu Motors India, have announced they have got clearance from the government to resume operations. Construction activities, too, have resumed, albeit in a staggered manner. In some pockets there is also demand for yellow goods. No doubt, between Lockdown 1.0 and 3.0, there has been an improvement in demand, but steel companies view this as too little.
Typically, construction accounts for 60-62 per cent of steel end-use and automobile 15-16 per cent. The demand that is coming back is mostly from auto components, fabricators and some government projects, say steel producers. But they point out that it's not just a restart of activity at end-user level that is required; the value chain, which has completely collapsed, needs to be reconstructed for a significant pick-up in demand.
ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS) has restarted many of its production units, including COREX, Conarc, hot strip mill, compact strip mill to ramp up production. Production at blast furnace, too, has been ramped up in line with demand.
But a further increase in production is riddled with challenges. A spokesperson for AM/NS India cited normalising supply chain and production ramp-up at customer end as major challenges.
Officials at Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) said things were starting to move. Customer meets were being held. But most of the demand currently was from government segments. "Availability of labour remains a challenge," said an official.

Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) Managing Director V R Sharma pointed out that steel markets were still closed. "The MSMEs need to be allowed to function without permission."

April jobs data to show a record-shattering loss of jobs in US: Report

The economic catastrophe caused by the viral outbreak likely sent the US unemployment rate in April to its highest level since the Great Depression and caused a record-shattering loss of jobs.
With the economy paralyzed by business closures, the unemployment rate likely jumped to at least 16 per cent from just 4.4 per cent in March and employers cut a stunning 21 million or more jobs in April, economists have forecast, according to data provider FactSet.
If so, it would mean that nearly all the job growth in the 11 years since the Great Recession had vanished in a single month.
Yet even those breathtaking figures won't fully capture the magnitude of the damage the coronavirus has inflicted on the job market.
Many people still employed have had their hours reduced. Others have suffered pay cuts. Some who've lost jobs won't have been able to look for work amid widespread shutdowns and won't even be counted as unemployed. A broader measure the proportion of adults with jobs could plunge to a record low.
What we're talking about here is pretty stunning, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton.
The shock is unique because the cause is unique. It's such a different animal from anything that we've ever seen.

The government will issue the April jobs report on Friday morning. On Thursday, it will release the latest weekly report on applications for unemployment benefits. It will likely show that about 3.5 million people sought jobless aid last week. That would bring the total number of layoffs to nearly 34 million since the shutdowns began seven weeks ago.

Covid-19 outbreak: Mumbai races against time to create health care infra

Doctors in Mumbai are scrambling for new and experimental treatment protocol to ensure faster recovery of patients, with the city emerging as the epicentre of India’s Covid crisis.
This is a race against time to develop health care infrastructure, given the city is fast running out of dedicated Covid-19 isolation wards and intensive care units.
The city administration is pulling out all stops to create Covid-dedicated as well as intensive care beds. On the lines of Wuhan, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has begun work on a make-shift 1,000-bed mega hospital in the commercial hub of Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC).
The hospital will serve as an isolation facility for non-critical Covid-19 patients. Expected to be ready in a fortnight, the new makeshift facility can be scaled up to 5,000 beds, if needed. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will run the hospital that will have, among other things, oxygen facilities and pathological laboratories.

A task force comprising nine top doctors has been created to oversee the treatment of patients. From experimenting on biological drugs for skin ailments to rheumatoid arthritis on patients in government hospitals — they have now decided to try a new treatment protocol.
Speaking to Business Standard, Sanjay Oak, member of the task force, said steroids (acting as anti-inflammatory) and low-molecular-weight heparin or LMWH (used in prevention of blood clots) will be given to patients in stage 2b of the disease (or moderate cases). Stages of the disease are mild, moderate, and severe based on symptoms, respiratory rate, and radiological findings.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan likely to announce changes in MP's labour laws today

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is likely to announce changes in the labour laws of the state on Thursday.
The announcement by Chouhan is expected to include allowing resumption of full-scale production in factories in the state with minimum restrictions during the lockdown phase.
The government may also allow an increase in the working hours of workers in factories and allow overtime of up to 72 hours a week.
If so, Madhya Pradesh will become the first state in the country to allow full-scale production to resume in industries after the nationwide lockdown was imposed to prevent the further spread of Covid-19.
The Chief Minister is scheduled to hold a press conference today regarding the proposed changes in labour laws, through Facebook Live, which is also expected to reveal steps to be taken by the government to help industries.

The Chief Minister had yesterday held video conference meeting with the representatives of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector from the state and had sought suggestions from them regarding the challenges during the ongoing crisis and assured them that the government will help the industries in resuming their activities.

Best of BS Opinion: Covid-19 outbreak, India's MF industry, and more

From the reasons Sebi should revisit the liability side of MFs and why it is absolutely imperative to address the fiscal challenge, both at the Central and the state levels, immediately to how it might be better for governments to bear losses upfront than after the damage is done, here's a selection of Business Standard Opinion pieces for the day.
The debate must now move beyond the binaries of whether we can incur a deficit or not, to how much is necessary without creating macroeconomic instability, writes Neelkanth Mishra, co-head of APAC Strategy and India Strategist for Credit Suisse. Click here to read…
The lack of funds at the state level could weaken their response to the virus, says our top edit. Read on…
India is not in a position to remain in lockdown mode for an extended period, says our second edit. Click here to read…
Nurturing ambition and setting high targets are important attributes of planning and governance. But when planners in the government lose touch with reality, such ambitions become a burden on the whole system, writes A K Bhattacharya. Read on…
Rajendra Chitale, managing partner, M. P. Chitale & Co, & Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO, CMIE, put together the design of "an impactful, fiscally responsible programme" that removes the bottlenecks in credit decision making. Click here to read…

It’s true that fund managers can’t control stock markets but it’s time they stopped succumbing to investors’ greed, writes Joydeep Ghosh.

Maruti introduces new hygiene norms for dealerships amid Covid-19 pandemic

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Wednesday said it has put in place a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SoP) for its dealerships across the country amid Covid-19 pandemic.

The process ensures highest level of hygiene and sanitisation across all its showrooms for the safety of its customers and employees, MSI said in a statement. The Covid-19 SoP designed by the company encapsulates all the facets of customer interactions, MSI said.

From the time a customer walks into the showroom till the final delivery of the vehicle, all processes have been scientifically studied, it added.

After the implementation of these SoPs, and based on approvals from state governments, company dealerships have started to open and deliver the cars to waiting customers, it added.

"All our dealerships have put in place steps to ensure complete safety, hygiene and sanitisation of all touchpoints," MSI Managing Director and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa said.

The auto major said it now offers the door-step delivery of cars. Besides, the dealerships will carry out complete sterilisation of the test-drive vehicles, it added.

MSI currently has around 3,080 dealerships across 1,960 cities and towns in the country.