Top headlines: Omicron variant scare; GDP passes pre-Covid level

Vaccine makers in India say they can scale up production to deal with new crises. More on that in our top headlines.

The World Health Organization warned countries not to impose blanket travel bans over the new Omicron coronavirus variant. Vaccine makers in India say they can scale up production to deal with fresh outbreaks. More on those stories in our top headlines. 

Firms give vaccine reassurance for Omicron; WHO advises against travel bans 

The World Health Organization warned countries on Tuesday not to impose blanket travel bans over the new Omicron coronavirus variant as governments and scientists try to determine how much protection current vaccines would offer against the strain. Read more

Companies gear up for Omicron version of coronavirus vaccines 

As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centre stage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible. Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila is making a DNA vaccine using the Omicron sequence, but will not immediately take it to the clinic. Read more

India's GDP passes pre-Covid level, but by a tad; France still 0.4% below 

India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has crept higher than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic. The September quarter GDP numbers show India’s real GDP at Rs 35.73 trillion. This is 8.4 per cent higher than it was in September 2020. The previous year suffered from the pandemic lockdowns and its effects. Read more

RBI probe found liabilities swelling, but capital eroding rapidly at RCap 

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) action on Reliance Capital (RCL) stems from several factors that were long in the making. Defaults apart, the central bank’s inspection found that the firm had liabilities more than three times the permissible limit. Its capital, in terms of a certain benchmark, had reduced to about one-third of the regulatory requirement. Read more

November show worst for Sensex and Nifty indices since March 2020 

The benchmark BSE Sensex and Nifty indices fell nearly 4 per cent in November, marking their worst monthly performance since March 2020, when countries were imposing lockdowns to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Back then, the two benchmark indices had plunged 23 per cent each. Read more