Bloomberg India distributed about $14 each to more than 350 million people to ease their financial stress amid a nationwide lockdown enforced to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, the government said. The assistance totaling more than 370 billion rupees ($4.84 billion) was given under a state program named “PM Garib Kalyan,” KS Dhatwalia, a spokesman for the administration said. That’s …

Bloomberg The Trump administration faces significant hurdles in getting the Federal Reserve to help rescue an oil industry squeezed by plunging crude prices given the central bank’s aversion to helping specific industries and its lack of authority to help businesses that are insolvent. The Fed regards loan programmes aimed at a specific industry as credit allocation — something Chairman Jerome …

Bloomberg India Grid Trust, an infrastructure investment trust backed by private equity fund KKR & Co and Singapore’s GIC Pte, is looking to add as much as $786 million of solar power projects to its portfolio and expects some financially stressed assets to become available in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The move is part of the firm’s plan …

Bloomberg The rebound in oil after a historic crash drove a surge in ETFs that track energy producers amid skeptical calls from analysts. State Street’s $2 billion SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF, or XOP, has jumped about 40% so far in April — on track for its best month on record. Meanwhile, the $8.8 billion Energy …

Bloomberg Gorden Wagener has spent a good amount of his coronavirus quarantine thinking about waffles. Daimler’s head of design, who created such iconic cars as the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and Vision Mercedes concepts, wanted to bake bread during his pandemic free time, but soon found the bread maker he wanted was out of stock. So he ordered a waffle iron …

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. is launching a new group video chat product meant to capitalise on a world now stuck indoors and offer an alternative to services that have exploded in popularity in recent months, like Zoom. Messenger Rooms, a feature that will be available on Facebook’s core social network and its Messenger app, will allow video chats among as many …

Bloomberg Apple Inc. and Google said they are putting stronger privacy protections in their upcoming contact-tracing tool for Covid-19 and that an early version will launch for developers next week. The companies said the system’s tracking keys — a string of characters linked to a user’s device — will be generated in more random ways, and that Bluetooth data will …

Bloomberg Oil refiners are hunting for vessels to store jet-fuel and gasoline that nobody is buying, sending freight rates sharply higher, an indication that the global refining system is fast approaching a breaking point. Until now refiners had mostly been storing unwanted product on site, but the latest indication from the tanker market suggests they are now being forced to …

Bloomberg IndiGo, Asia’s biggest budget airline by market value, reversed a decision to slash employee salaries after the Indian government urged companies to avoid such practices, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The airline, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., had proposed pay cuts of as much as 15% for most staff but will no longer go through …

Bloomberg Richie Merzian is still thinking about oil a lot in his professional capacity, but these days he’s using much less of it. The Australian energy and climate change researcher used to drive daily to his office and his kids’ daycare, while occasionally flying to international conferences. Now he works from his home in suburban Canberra and makes presentations to …