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Today: Unlock 3.0 begins; PM Modi to address Smart India Hackathon grand finale; Monthly sero surveys start in Delhi; Arsenal vs Chelsea, FA Cup final Tomorrow: IPL 2020 schedule to be finalised at Governing Council meeting

• India recorded its single-day highest jump in Covid-19 cases as over 57,000 fresh infections were recorded on Friday, the last day of July, capping the deadliest month of the pandemic in the country that saw 1.11 million cases and 19,122 deaths. Cases in July were nearly 2.8 times the number recorded in the previous month, when around 400,000 cases were reported. Likewise, fatalities in July were 1.6 times higher than the deaths recorded in June (11,988).
• As the pandemic continued to surge, the second half of July saw around 730,000 new infections, nearly twice the number reported in the first half. The death toll in the second half was over 11,600, nearly 60% of the month’s total count.
• On Friday, 57,151 fresh cases were reported in the country, taking the total caseload to 1,694,918, per data collated from state governments. It was the fourth straight day of daily cases above 50,000. The death toll too stayed above 750 for the fourth day running, with 766 fatalities reported on the day.
• Andhra Pradesh reported 10,376 new cases, higher than Maharashtra’s count (10,320) for the second time in the past three days. With this, AP has recorded 10,000-plus cases on three successive days. The state’s overall caseload crossed 140,000 as it overtook Delhi to take the third position among states with the highest cumulative cases, behind Maharashtra (420,000) and Tamil Nadu (nearly 250,000).

• Now, Bihar and Odisha are among the five states with the fastest growth of Covid cases and that’s cause for concern because they also are the states with the poorest health infrastructure in terms of hospital beds and ICU beds per 100,000 population. Among 18 states and UTs that have reported over 10,000 cases so far, AP is growing at the fastest rate, followed by Bihar, Karnataka, Odisha and Kerala in that order.
• But unlike AP, Karnataka and Kerala, which have between 145 and 400 hospital beds per 100,000, Bihar has less than 26 beds per 100,000 and Odisha is only slightly better at just under 56 per 100,000 (see graphic above).

• Finally, India conducted a record 642,588 tests in a single day to detect Covid, taking the total tests to 18.8 million (graphic above) while the country is also reporting less severe cases as compared to a fortnight ago, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan informed the Group of Ministers which met on Friday to review the pandemic situation.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the ministry was in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend the loan repayment moratorium, which ends on August 31 and also to restructure the loans.

• Industry in need: The demand for extending the moratorium arose specifically with regards to the hospitality industry which was the worst affected due to the lockdown, expecting losses of Rs 90,000 crore this year — a fact acknowledged by Sitharaman during her meeting with FICCI. Earlier this week, during a meeting with the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, Bharti Enterprises Vice Chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal also asked for an extension of the moratorium, warning that “there will be more companies joining the NPA list” if an extension wasn’t given.
• Bankers resist: The country’s biggest banker, SBI, which released its Q1 FY21 results on Friday, made it clear that it wasn’t in favour of extending the moratorium. SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said that of the 9.5% account holders who had availed of the moratorium, 5.2% were corporate entities who were “in a position to service the loans from September”, based on a “scrutiny of the accounts done by the bank...we believe they are preserving the cash”. Kumar isn’t alone — at the same meeting where Mittal batted for a moratorium extension, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh had also asked that no more extensions of the moratorium be given as “even people who have the ability to pay — whether it is individuals or corporates (sic) — are taking advantage under this moratorium and deferring payment”.
• Meeting of minds? The one point where the twain may meet is on the issue of a one-time restructuring of the loans, which both the banks and the industry want — this could involve a change in the repayment period, interest rate, number of instalments payable or even additional loans. Interestingly, the RBI is not too keen — the memories of the 2008 restructuring permission granted to banks resulting in huge amounts of NPAs still fresh in memory. Sitharaman, however, said the ministry is working on setting up a Development Finance Institution (DFI) which will be a financial institution backed by the government to provide capital to those borrowers who may not be able to get funds from banks and other commercial lenders.

• The deficit: The country's fiscal deficit during the first quarter of this fiscal widened to Rs 6.62 lakh crore or 83.2% of the budget estimates, mainly on account of poor tax collections due to the coronavirus lockdown. Fiscal deficit during the corresponding period of last year was 61.4% of the budget estimates.
• The estimate: The government had pegged the fiscal deficit for 2020-21 at Rs 7.96 lakh crore or 3.5% of the GDP in the Budget presented in February. These figures, however, may have to be revised significantly in view of the economic disruptions created by the Covid-19 crisis. Fiscal deficit had soared to a seven-year high of 4.6% of GDP in 2019-20 due to poor revenue realisation which dipped further towards the close of March because of the lockdown.
• The outlook: The fiscal deficit is expected to touch 7.6% in 2020-21, more than double the budget estimate, an India Ratings report said last month. The combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and states will come at 12.1%, with the states contributing 4.5%, the report had said.
• Missed targets: “We may not be able to achieve our budget estimates. It may be a lost year for us,” the economic affairs secretary had said last month. India’s tax and non-tax revenues have been hit massively as the economy is likely to contract a record 5% according to most estimates against the growth target set at 6-6.5% for the current fiscal that started on April 1. Read the full story here

Meanwhile, the output of eight core infrastructure industries shrank by 15% in June, the fourth consecutive monthly contraction, due to fall in the production of coal, crude oil, natural gas, steel, cement and electricity.

A day after the CEOs were grilled by a Congressional antitrust subcommittee, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Facebook reported their quarterly earnings on Thursday. The takeaways:

• Stay at home is good: If Jeff Bezos’s unconvincing defence at the hearing did not harden the lawmakers’ stance, the earnings would have: Amazon reported record revenue and profit... despite a pandemic... and despite spending $4 billion to improve worker safety et al. The e-commerce behemoth reported a second-quarter profit of $5.2 billion (earnings per share of $10.3) as customers clicked their way out of the lockdown gloom. Quarterly Revenue: $88.9 billion (up 40%) — North America $55.4 billion (43% up), International $22.7 billion (38% up), and AWS (cloud service) $10.8 billion (29% up).
• Remote working is good: AWS’s growth is in line with the rise in revenue reported by other cloud service providers. Microsoft last week reported a 13% rise in revenue as its Azure business grew 47%. Alphabet’s cloud service, Google Cloud, reported a 43% rise in revenue. Note: AWS has the largest market share, followed by Azure and Google Cloud (excluding China).
• So are cheaper phones: Apple’s revenue rose 11% to $59.69 billion and profits rose 12% to $11.25 billion (earnings per share of $2.58). The pandemic and the fall in customer savings was expected to take a hit on Apple, but its cheaper model, the iPhone SE, cushioned the impact.
• But ads dry up: Despite the growth in cloud, Alphabet saw its first fall in revenue as advertisers tightened the purse strings. Revenue dropped 2% to $38.3 billion and profits fell 30% to $6.4 billion (earnings per share of $10.13). Revenue from ads fell on both Google’s properties (search and YouTube) and on third-party networks. The other ad Godzilla, Facebook, too had a smaller meal with revenue rising by a slower pace (11% as against 25% for the past four quarters). Revenue: $18.7 billion. Profits: $5.18 billion (earnings per share of $1.80)

The good news: The Australian government has unveiled its plan to force tech giants to pay news outlets for their content. Facebook and Google have threatened to stop news content Down Under. A backgrounder here, and a related Google policy change on news here

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