Top headlines: Amazon battles regulators, e-way bill generation grows

Business Standard brings you the top headlines on Wednesday

Top headlines of the hour: Cipla gets DCGI nod to import Moderna vaccine, E-way bill generation picks up pace in June, Amazon battles regulators in bid to stay dominant in India

Cipla gets DCGI nod to import Moderna vaccine; no commercial deal yet

India on Tuesday approved a fourth Covid-19 vaccine--Moderna’s mRNA-1273. With this, the government has cleared the path for importing Covid vaccines approved by international regulators, without bridging clinical studies.

Cipla is supporting Moderna with the regulatory approval for import the vaccines to be donated to India, a company spokesperson said. The vaccine developed by Cambridge (Massachusetts)-based Moderna Inc has demonstrated 94.1 per cent efficacy. This will be the first mRNA vaccine to get an emergency approval in India. Read more

E-way bill generation picks up pace in June as states unlock

Economic activity showed revival with a sharp uptick in goods and services tax e-way bill generation in the last week of June with several states beginning the unlocking process as Covid-19 cases see a decline.

According to the data by the GST Network (GSTN), the IT backbone of the unified indirect tax regime, 47.4 million e-way bills were generated on its portal as of June 27. This averages 1.75 million per day till June 27 against an average of 1.64 million bills per day up to June 20 and 1.61 million before that. Read more.

Amazon battles regulators in bid to stay dominant in India's e-comm market

Several regulators are being drawn into the battle being fought by Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart and Reliance Retail for a dominant position in the fast growing Indian e-commerce market.

Amazon is not only fighting regulators, but is also tangled in a major corpor­ate battle, this one with India’s largest company by market capitalisation over the ac­quisition of Mumbai-based Future Group’s retail chain, the country’s second largest.Read more

RBI willing to push companies towards the bond market even as bankers remain averse

Corporate fund-raising momentum suggests that companies, at least the better-rated ones, may have permanently moved into the bond market, shaking off their dependence on bank loans.

The corporate bond market is still dominated by financial companies, but non-financial companies have marked their presence in the past one year. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year through its long-term repo operations (LTRO) funds, and targeted LTRO or TLTRO. Read more

Bharti Airtel to invest $500 million to be OneWeb's largest shareholder

Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it would invest $500 million to become the largest shareholder in the satellite communications company OneWeb, which Bharti Group, along with the British government, rescued from bankruptcy last year.

The investment is a result of a “call option” by Bharti. On completing the transaction and with Eutelsat’s $550-million investment, Bharti will hold 38.6 per cent. Read more