Top Headlines: India working on monkeypox test kit; IDBI Bank divestment

Pakistan ramped up its imports from India despite Islamabad's ban on trade with its eastern neighbour in the April-May period. Read more on this in our top headlines

India is now developing its indigenous test kit for monkeypox after four laboratory (lab)-confirmed cases of the disease in the country. Meanwhile, Pakistan ramped up its imports from India despite Islamabad’s ban on trade with its eastern neighbour in the April-May period. Read more on these in our top headlines.

India working on indigenous kit to test monkeypox as cases on the rise

India is now developing its indigenous test kit for monkeypox after four laboratory (lab)-confirmed cases of the disease in the country. Makers of the TrueNat real-time polymerase chain reaction, the world’s only point-of-care platform used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to detect tuberculosis, is developing the test kit for monkeypox, indicated government sources. Read more
 

Merchant discount rate on UPI-RuPay credit cards likely to be 2%

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and banks have hammered out the contours of the pricing of credit-card transactions on the RuPay-Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In talks held last week, the consensus veered to a merchant discount rate (MDR) — the charge paid by merchants to the card-issuing bank for card transactions — of 2 per cent. Read more 
 

Divestment push: RBI allows IDBI Bank bidders to own more than 40%

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is learnt to have accepted the Centre’s request for allowing non-financial institutions and non-regulated entities to own more than 40 per cent of IDBI Bank, as the Union government and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) look to sell 51-74 per cent stake in the lender through the strategic divestment process. Read more
 

Despite trade ban, Pakistan imports from India jump 2x in April-May

Coinciding with the change in government in Pakistan in April, the country ramped up its imports from India despite Islamabad’s ban on trade with its eastern neighbour. India’s exports to Pakistan more than doubled to $142 million in the April-May period, from $70 million during the same period a year ago, trade data available on the commerce ministry website showed. Read more 
 

World Bank appoints Indian national Indermit Gill as chief economist

The World Bank has appointed Indermit Gill, an Indian national, chief economist and senior vice-president for development economics at the multilateral development bank. His appointment will be effective September 1, 2022. Read more