10 Mega Clusters Chosen Across 9 States

India has drawn up a list of ten mega clusters across nine states as the most attractive destinations for companies to set shop based on sectoral requirements and tax incentives to promote the country as an alternative business continuity plan destination amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

While the Noida-Greater Noida cluster is an electronics hub, Hyderabad is the largest export hub for pharma and vaccine, as per the analysis and these “have the potential of developing into the most fertile grounds for manufacturing rapid economic activity in the country.”

Ahmedabad, Vadodara (Bharuch-Ankleshwar Cluster), Mumbai-Aurangabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Tirupati-Nellore are the other most attractive clusters for investors.

This is part of the exercise that Invest India, the country’s national Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency under the commerce and industry ministry, with professional services firm JLL undertook to create a guide for potential investors on how quickly they can invest in the country with low capex models to operate here.

It highlighted India’s three distinct advantages- the recent reduction of corporate taxes for setting up of new industries, being host to Global In-house Centres and Global Centre of Excellence for several manufacturing companies, and the added attraction of a large domestic market. The idea is to market Brand India at a time when the country’s FDI inflows fell 1.44% on year to $10.67 billion in October-December FY20.

These 10 mega clusters cover about a hundred popular industrial parks and house over 600 Indian and foreign multinational companies.

“India currently has an inventory of around 22 million square feet of ready built industrial space in eight top cities ready to be occupied in six to eight weeks,” Invest India and JLL said in their report on great places for manufacturing in India.

Highlighting higher capex savings while operating in India, they said that rented factories for lease tenure of nine years and above can reduce the spend on land and building significantly, bringing down capital investment in the short term.

3rd tranche’s focus is on agri sector: FM

In the third tranche of the COVID-19 economic package, the government announced a slew of measures for agriculture sector, including a Rs.1.63 lakh crore outlay, and amending the stringent Essential Commodities Act to remove cereals, edible oil, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potato from its purview.

Also, a new law will be framed to give farmers the option to choose the market where they want to sell their produce by removing inter-state trade barriers and providing e-trading of agriculture produce.

Announcing the third tranche of an overall package of Rs 20 lakh crore to deal with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said foodstuffs, including cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onion, and potato, will be deregulated after the amendment to the six-and-half-decade old Essential Commodities Act.

The Act empowers the government to regulate price as well as stocks of commodities.

The minister said after the amendment, stock limit will be imposed only under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities and famine when there is a surge in prices.

Further, no such stock limit shall apply to processors or value chain participants, subject to their installed capacity, or to any exporter, depending on the export demand.

Sitharaman said farmers currently are bound to sell agriculture produce only to licensees in APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committees) while no such restriction of sale applies for any industrial produce. These restrictions hinder the free flow of agriculture produce and lead to lower price realisation for farmers.

To deal with the situation, a central law will be formulated to provide "adequate choices to farmer to sell produce at an attractive price, barrier free inter-state trade and framework for e-trading of agriculture produce," she said.

Sitharaman also announced a Rs.1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund that will finance projects at farm-gate and aggregation point for efficient postharvest management of crops. The Rs.1.63 lakh crore agriculture package, aimed at strengthening infrastructure, logistics and capacity building, also has schemes for micro food enterprises, cattle vaccination, dairy sector, herbal plantation, beekeeping and fruits and vegetables. A Rs.10,000 crore fund will also support two lakh Micro Food Enterprises for promoting health and wellness, herbal, organic and nutritional products.

The government will also launch a Rs.20,000 crore Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana for development of marine and inland fisheries to employ over 55 lakh persons and double exports to Rs.1 lakh crore.

Besides, the ongoing National Animal Disease Control Programme for Foot and Mouth Disease and Brucellosis will look at 100 per cent vaccination of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat and pigs against FMD at an outlay of Rs.13,343 crore.

Further, a Rs.15,000 crore Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund has been announced to support private investment in dairy processing, value addition and cattle feed infrastructure.

The government has launched a Rs.4,000 crore fund to promote herbal cultivation in about 10 lakh hectares , and another Rs.500 crore is earmarked for beekeeping initiatives that will help two lakh beekeepers.

Rs 1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund to finance projects

Rs 10,000 crore to fund small firms manufacturing health and wellness, herbal, organic and nutritional products

Rs 20,000 crore for fisheries sector

Rs 13,343 crore for vaccination of cattle

Rs 15,000 crore earmarked for Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development

Rs 4,000 crore to promote herbal cultivation in an area of about 10 lakh hectares

Rs 500 crore to expand Operation Greens from tomatoes, onion and potatoes to all fruits and vegetables

Maharashtra: CM Uddhav, eight others elected unopposed to legislative council

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and eight other candidates belonging to the ruling and opposition parties were elected unopposed to the state legislative council on Thursday.

The biennial elections for the nine seats of the Council, which fell vacant on April 24, were scheduled to be held next Thursday. The election process was initiated on May 4 to fill in vacancies for nine seats, which fell empty after the completion of the term of nine members.

The election process was initially postponed in view of the coronavirus pandemic. However, Governor BS Koshyari had recently written to the Election Commission of India, requesting it to hold the polls to enable Thackeray to complete the constitutional provision of getting elected to the legislature within six months of becoming chief minister.

As many as 14 candidates had filed their nomination for the nine seats. Of them, the nomination of one candidate was rejected during the scrutiny of papers, while BJP’s Ajit Gopchade and Sandeep Lele, NCP’s Kiran Pawaskar and Shivajirao Garje withdrew from the race on May 12.

The nine candidates left in the fray were Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray and Neelam Gorhe, NCP’s Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari, Congress’s Rajesh Rathod, and four candidates of the opposition BJP — Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Ajit Datke and Ramesh Karad.

“They were declared elected unopposed on Thursday after the deadline for withdrawal of papers ended at 3 pm,” an official said.

The state cabinet had initially recommended that Thackeray be nominated by the governor to the Council from his quota. Despite sending two recommendations, the governor did not nominate Thackeray to the Upper House of the legislature and was criticised by the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi constituents.

Thackeray had even spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention in the matter.

Thackeray was sworn in as chief minister on November 28, 2019. As per the rule, the CM has to get elected as legislator within six months.

India protests as Pakistan inks deal with China for PoK dam

With Pakistan signing a contract with a Chinese firm for the construction of the Diamer-Bhasha dam in Gilgit-Baltistan, India reminded Islamabad and Beijing that the entire territory of J&K and Ladakh was an integral and inalienable part of India. According to reports Pakistan signed a 442 billion Pakistani rupee contract with a joint venture of a Chinese state-run firm and a commercial arm of Pakistan’s military.

India: Infections surge past 80k mark

In the biggest surge in Covid-19 infections in Delhi, 472 people tested positive on Thursday, even as India’s total caseload crossed 80,000 with 3,995 fresh cases reported, the second-highest rise in a day.

While this was the fifth consecutive day of over 3,500 cases being added to the country’s Covid count, the growth rate of the infection has gradually decreased in this period. However, the infection continues to spiral in several states like Madhya Pradesh (314 new cases), Rajasthan (206) as well as many eastern states witnessing a return of migrant workers.

Kerala too reported 26 new cases on Thursday, its biggest surge since the end of March. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu overtook Gujarat as the state with the second highest count of Covid cases.

However, the number infections were gradually decreasing in the both states, with Tamil Nadu for the first time in many days reporting less than 500 cases on Thursday (447), and Gujarat registering 324.

The total number of coronavirus in the country stood at 82,085, as per reports from state governments. The death toll, however, fell to double digits after two days, with 99 fatalities reported on Thursday.

In Delhi, the total count reached 8,470. With nine fresh deaths, the death toll in the state has climbed to 115. “The doubling rate of cases in Delhi is 11-12 days. We would be in a more comfortable position if it is 20 or more,” Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said.

Why Maharashtra was not able to check rapid Covid-19 spread

On April 7, exactly four weeks after the first Covid-19 case was detected in Maharashtra on March 9, the count crossed 1000 to 1018. That day, the death toll in the state was 64 (India’s overall toll was 160 that day), and the mortality rate stood at 6.29% (more than double of India’s mortality rate of 3.02 on the same day).

Thirty days later – on May 7 – the state had 17,974 cases and 694 deaths. In the next six days, India’s worst-affected state added nearly 8,000 cases to take the total to 25,922 and 975 deaths on Wednesday. Simultaneously, Maharashtra has recorded 5,547 recoveries. The states with the next highest number of cases and deaths are Tamil Nadu (9227 cases, 64 deaths) and Gujarat (8904 cases, 537 deaths). Delhi is fourth with 7998 cases and 106 deaths.

As of Wednesday, May 13, Maharashtra’s mortality rate stood at 3.76%, a significant improvement from the first few days of April, but still above the national average of 3.23%. If Maharashtra is excluded from the national data, India would have 49,912 cases and 1477 deaths on May 13, bringing the mortality rate further down to 2.96%. The global mortality rate, according to data on worldometers.info, is 6.72% (6 pm, May 13).

On Wednesday, Mumbai’s numbers stood at 15,747 cases and 596 deaths, giving a mortality rate of 3.78%.

What exactly went wrong in Maharashtra’s case? Why does one of India’s most industrialised and prosperous states have both the most number of Covid-19 cases as well as deaths? The answer perhaps lies in what the state did not do in January and February right up to March 9, when the first two Covid-19 cases were detected in Maharashtra. Dr. Avinash Bhondwe, president of Indian Medical Association, Maharashtra, laid the blame on travellers returning from the United Arab Emirates for the initial spurt in cases. “In Maharashtra, more than 40% of the infections were owing to travellers who returned from the UAE,” he said. “Even though Maharashtra’s first case was of a Dubai returnee, the state government waited for 10 days to start screening travellers from the UAE. This was a major loophole in the screening process.”

Indian airports began universal screening only in the third week of March. By then, on average, 42,000 international travellers landed in Mumbai every day. On March 22, India banned all domestic and international passenger flights to and from Indian airports. “By then, it was too late,” said a Maharashtra state health department official, who wished to remain anonymous. “We had thousands of fliers coming into Mumbai every single day and only a handful of them were screened for symptoms. What we cannot know for certain is the number of asymptomatic patients from the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and other south-east Asian countries that may have passed through Mumbai international airport between February and March 22.”

Dr Bharat Purandare, infectious diseases expert, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Pune, said, “In retrospect, we can say that the government should have made universal screening of all passengers mandatory much earlier. Also, we should have stopped international flights in the first week of March.”

A month after the first case was detected, Maharashtra was testing at 290 per million population. Since then, the state has improved its testing rate on May 13 to 1892 per million population. Gujarat tests at 1760 per million and Tamil Nadu is at 3523 per million (all data according to respective state health departments). The trouble with Mumbai, which now accounts for a fifth of all cases in the country, though, is that its detection rate over the last few days has risen to 33%. Which means that, for every 100 persons tested, 33 are detected with Covid-19.

Civic officials said that this was due to the change in testing protocol targeted at containment zones. Additional municipal commissioner, Suresh Kakani said, “Detection rate is increasing because of the increased number of testing samples per day. Often, pending test results were added to a particular day’s count. Hence it did not give us clarity. If we calculated the detection rate against 124,000 samples tested with 14,521 positive cases, then the detection rate remains 11.71%. This figure is higher than the state and national average because of targeted testing conducted by BMC in containment zones.” The national average is 4.3% and Maharashtra’s average is 7%.

Civic officials said Mumbai’s high number is primarily because of aggressive testing of high-risk contacts. Moreover, state and BMC health officials blamed the lack of physical distancing in Mumbai’s most densely populated areas for the cluster spread. “Eight out of Mumbai’s 24 wards account for more than 50% of the city’s cases,” a senior civic official said. “These are among the most densely populated areas. Worli Koliwada, Dharavi, Kurla, Byculla, Saki Naka, and Andheri (West) are areas where the population density is anywhere between twice to 10 times that of Mumbai’s average.” According to United Nations population data for July 2019, Mumbai’s population density is 32,303 per square km. Dharavi, India’s largest slum, has nearly 1000 cases. Its population density is 354,166 people per square km, according to BMC population data.

‘Artificial virus, not natural’, says Nitin Gadkari

The coronavirus, which originated from China’s Wuhan and has claimed over 2.5 million lives worldwide, is not a “natural virus” and it was created from a laboratory, said Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday.

“...We need to understand the art of living with corona. That art of living is very important as it is not a natural virus. It is an artificial virus and many countries across the world are researching for a vaccine,” Gadkari said in an interview to NDTV.

This is the first time that the Indian government has made a comment on the origin of the deadly contagion. This admission by a senior cabinet minister is significant as most countries have blamed a lab in Wuhan for the creation of the virus.

“The second thing is detection methodology. We need some good methodology. Immediately, we can identify (the virus). This is unexpected because this a virus from laboratory, this is not a natural virus,” the union minister added.

Gadkari’s statement comes at a time when countries across the world, including the US, have raised suspicions that the virus which has brought the world to a grinding halt, was created in labs in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province.

US President Donald Trump, on multiple occasions, has blamed China for allowing the virus to spread around the world. He has also referred to it as ‘Chinese virus’. A war of words also emerged between Trump and Chinese diplomats of the world over blaming each other for the origin of the virus.