Two weeks after he was appointed Air India chief executive officer, Ilker Ayci has declined the offer to join the Tata Group-owned airline. Ayci’s departure, even before taking charge, comes in the backdrop of a controversy around his security clearance prospects.

Ayci, former chairman of Turkish Airlines, had earlier served as advisor to Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His closeness to Erdogan drew criticism on social media given the frosty relations between India and Turkey.

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 435.1 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.94 million and vaccinations to over 10.48 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Monday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 435,174,068 and 5,948,306, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 10,486,610,798.

A fifth flight carrying 249 Indian nationals who were stranded in Ukraine landed in New Delhi on Monday morning. The flight running as part of Operation Ganga had departed from Romania's Bucharest in the early hours today.

Government has helped us a lot. All possible support was provided by the Indian Embassy. The main problem is crossing the border. I hope all Indians are brought back. There are several more Indians still stranded in Ukraine, said a student who arrived in Delhi from Ukraine

The single-day rise in coronavirus infections fell below 10,000 after two months, with 8,013 cases taking India's total tally to 4,29,24,130, while active cases have declined to 1,02,601, according to Union health ministry data updated on Monday.

On December 28 last year, 9,195 people were infected in a day.

The death toll has climbed to 5,13,843 with 119 daily fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The rupee tumbled 40 paise to 75.33 in early trade on Monday, tracking surge in crude prices amid escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

At the interbank forex market, the local currency opened sharply lower against the dollar. It was moving in a tight range of 75.78 and 75.70. In early deals, it was trading at 75.73, registering a fall of 40 paise over its previous close.

Test automation platform Testsigma has secured $4.6 million in seed funding led by Accel and STRIVE, with participation from BoldCap and a host of well known entrepreneurs and operators. These include Shanmugam Krishnasamy, co-founder and CTO of Freshworks; Kiran Darisi, co-founder and VP of engineering at Freshworks; Parsuram Vijayasankar, co-founder and principal engineer at Freshworks; Vetri Vellore, CEO of Ally.io; Nitesh Banta, CEO at B12; Ioann Fainsilber, Co-Founder at Pintek, and others.

Testsigma will use the capital to strengthen the core engineering and product team and to build alongside and for a global community of testers, test automation engineers, and developers.

Bharti Airtel shareholders have approved the issue of preferential shares to Google for its about Rs 7,500 crore investment in the company to buy 1.28 per cent stake.

A special resolution to approve Google's investment was approved by over 99 per cent of the shareholders, according to the voting result of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) filed by Airtel on Sunday.

Mondelez International expects its India revenues to grow by 10-11 per cent per year. This could make the company report $2 billion revenue by 2030.

In 2021, the maker of Cadbury Dairy Milk reported a revenue of $1.2 billion in India.

In the previous calendar year, Mondelez International’s India business grew at 21 per cent due to the pandemic and is higher than its growth rate in the last three years.

Future Retail has shut most of its Big Bazaar stores since February 25 (Friday) and its website is also down as it missed lease payments to Reliance Industries (RIL).

RIL will open most of the 200 Future Retail stores as Reliance stores in the next week and it is in the process of taking stock, re-branding, and transferring 30,000 Future Retail and Future Lifestyle employees on to the rolls of its manpower and staffing firm Reliance SMSL, according to a source. The first tranche of stores are set to be opened as early as in the next two days.

Biocon Biologics, a subsidiary of Biocon, announced on Monday that it will acquire Viatris’ biosimilars business in a $3.3 billion cash and stock deal.

Viatris will receive cash consideration of $2 billion on closing of the transaction and up to $335 million as additional payments expected to be paid in 2024. Additionally, upon closing of the transaction, BBL will issue $1 billion of compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS) to Viatris, equivalent to an equity stake of at least 12.9 per cent in the company, on a fully diluted basis.

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