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As the second wave of the pandemic struck India, HCL Technologies has expanded its COVID-19 mitigation efforts to support all employees and their families in the country.

To optimize response efforts, the company has identified and structured their crisis response team into three layers:

Thanks to this multi-layered machinery, HCL has been able to provide country-wide assistance to all staff in the form of:

Read more about HCL and HCL Foundation community support during the pandemic here.

The world can't wait for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic to make the needed global investments and reforms to prevent future pandemics.

That's the finding of a new report from the G20 high level independent panel. The report, "A Global Deal for our Pandemic Age," proposes strategies for "how finance can be organized, systematically and sustainably, to reduce the world’s vulnerability to future pandemics."

The panel calls for increasing international financing of at least $75 billion over the next five years to address gaps in pandemic preparedness. It also calls for the creation of a new Global Health Threats Board that would bring together finance and health ministers to provide financial oversight on efforts to mitigate pandemic threats.

The G20 will draw from this report to propose next steps at the Joint Finance and Health Ministers meeting in October.

The Mahindra group has provided multiple relief packages including the supply of meals, ICU beds, emergency cab services, quarantine centres, face shields, face masks, sanitizers, aerosol boxes, oximeters and IT support for the Indian Government as the country battles the current wave of coronavirus.

ALYTE, a free emergency cab service in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Cochin, Thiruvananthapuram, Bengaluru and Delhi, was launched.

These cabs - or "Oxygen on Wheels" - are now fitted with portable oxygen kits. The company has also offered company resort facilities as temporary care centres. It has helped build patient and attendee waiting parks with restrooms, it has supported hospitals with medical equipment and consumables, set up swab collection centres and worked on capacity building for the allied healthcare professionals.

Tata Steel has said it will compensate the families of its workers in India who die of Covid-19.

The firm said it will pay deceased employees' salaries, housing and medical benefits until what would have been their retirement at the age of 60.

It also pledged to cover the education costs of the children of dead frontline workers until they graduate.

"Tata Steel's best-in-class social security schemes will help ensure an honourable standard of living for their families, whereby the family will get the last drawn salary till 60 years of age of the deceased employee/nominee," the company said.