The Delta Covid variant is the current dominant strain of the infectious virus, with its presence reported in 185 countries, as of September 21, the World Health organisation has said.

The Delta variant now accounted for 90 per cent of the sequences submitted to GISAID with a sample collection date (between 15 June-15 September, 2021), the global health agency said in its weekly epidemiological update on Tuesday. GISAID, which stands for Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, is an open-access database.

ITC's market capitalisation returned to Rs 3 trillion-mark on Wednesday after the stock of the biggest cigarette and second largest fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company hit a 21-month high on the bourses. The stock hit an intra-day high of Rs 244.70, up 1 per cent on the BSE today, and was trading at its highest level since December 2019.

In the past one week, ITC has outperformed the market by surging 13 per cent on expectations of an improvement in the company’s businesses.

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday thanked Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya for announcing resumption of COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the COVAX global pool in October.

COVAX is an initiative for equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines.

India has recorded 26,964 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Wednesday.

The number of active cases in the country now stands at 3,01,989, which is the lowest in 186 days. According to the ministry, active cases currently account for 0.90 per cent of total cases, which is the lowest since March 2020.

All Indian children aged 12 or older will become eligible for Covid-19 vaccinations from next month, when drug maker Cadila Healthcare launches its ZyCoV-D product, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The world's first DNA-based Covid-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D won emergency authorisation from Indian regulators last month. From October, the company, better known as Zydus Cadila, will produce 10 million doses a month.

Learning platform Unacademy holds the top position on the startups list in India, followed by B2B e-commerce platform Udaan, and fintech firm simplifying payments for credit card holders, CRED, according to LinkedIn’s fourth Top Startups List.

With these top three unicorns, and nearly 60 per cent of the 2021 LinkedIn Top Startups India List based out of Bengaluru, the city has reinforced its reputation as the Silicon Valley of India, LinkedIn said in a statement.

Property developer Godrej Properties on Wednesday said it achieved sales of Rs 575 crore in a single day at the launch of the second phase of its project Godrej Woods in Noida.

Godrej Properties said it sold 340 homes with an area of more than half a million square feet on the first day of launch, making it one of the most successful launches in the country in recent times.

The Housing Development Finance Corp­oration (HDFC) has joined the festive season home loan interest rate war between lenders by cutting rates by 45-60 basis points (bps) for borrowers with credit scores above 800 for loans above Rs 75 lakh.

The rebate will be available till the end of October. Last week, two public sector lenders, State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda (BoB), also slashed rates by 25-45 bps in an effort to grow their home loan business.

The Board of Directors of ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) unanimously provided an in-principle approval for the merger between Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) & ZEEL.

SPNI will also infuse growth capital into SPNI as part of the merger such that SPNI has approximately $1.575 billion at closing, for pursuing other growth opportunities.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) will soon start exiting joint venture (JV) airports in Delhi, Mumbai Hyderabad and Bengaluru after the government decided to divest its stake in them, Times of India reported Wednesday.

State-owned AAI has a 26 per cent stake each in Delhi and Mumbai airports and 13 per cent each in Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports.

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