Blackstone chief Schwarzman commits $5 mn

Mumbai The Wall Street-headquartered alternative investment management giant Blackstone, which has over $20 billion in live-investments in the country, on Wednesday announced a $5-million (close to Rs 40 crore) aid to help India to fight the raging coronavirus pandemic. The announcement by Stephen A Schwarzman, the founder and chairman of the fund, comes on the heels of close to 40 major American companies committing millions of dollars to help the country fight the pandemic which has been topping the infection list globally for a week with daily caseload remaining above 3.25 lakh mark for almost a week now. In a show of solidarity on Tuesday, heads of around 40 top American companies came together to create a global task force to mobilise resources to help fight the battle against the pandemic under the initiative of the US-India Business Council of the US Chambers of Commerce, and the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum and Business Roundtable. A day before this, chief of Google and its parent Alphabet Sundar Pichai announced Rs 135 crore assistance to the country, which was soon followed up by the Satya Nadella-headed Microsoft who did not quantify the funding.