Top Headlines: RBI releases MPC minutes, USFDA approves Remdesivir & more

Business Standard brings you the top headlines of the day

It might take years for GDP to regain lost output: RBI MPC member

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday released the minutes of the October 7-9 meeting of its monetary policy committee (MPC), outlining the thinking of the central bank's leaders about the economy. The MPC, as expected, kept the repo rate, its key lending rate, at 4.0 per cent, while the reverse repo rate or the key borrowing rate stayed at 3.35 per cent. The central bank projected sees India’s real GDP contracting by 9.5 per cent in the ongoing fiscal year, and economic growth only turning positive in the final January-March quarter. Read more here

Flipkart to acquire 7.8% stake in Aditya Birla Fashion for Rs 1,500 crore

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail entered into an agreement with Flipkart on Friday for a partnership which will see the latter infusing Rs 1,500 crore for a 7.8 per cent stake in the former. The agreement would involve the sale and distribution of various apparel brands, Aditya Birla Fashion said, along with providing pre-emption rights and right of first refusal to Flipkart for 1-5 years. Read more here

USFDA approves Remdesivir as first Covid therapy amid WHO doubt

Even as the World Health Organisation (WHO) trial showed that remdesivir did not have any significant impact on hospitalised Covid-19 patients, the US drug regulator has now approved this drug from Gilead for treatment of Covid-19 requiring hospitalisation. This becomes the first treatment of Covid-19 that got FDA approval, but is unlikely to have any immediate impact on the prices of the drug. Read more here

Amazon refuses to appear before Parliament panel on Data Protection Bill

E-commerce giant Amazon has refused to appear before the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Data Protection Bill on October 28 and this amounts to breach of privilege, panel chairperson and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said on Friday. Lekhi said that "the panel is unanimous in its opinion that coercive action can be suggested to the government against the e-commerce company".

Meanwhile, Facebook's policy head Ankhi Das appeared before the panel on the issue of data security on Friday. Read more here

China vows retaliation if US proceeds with Taiwan advance weaponry sale

China has vowed to retaliate if the US proceeds with the sale of advanced weaponry to Taiwan worth more than a billion dollars.

The statement from China's defense ministry gave no specifics, but the development marks a further deterioration in ties between Beijing and Washington that have hit their lowest ebb in decades. Read more here