In a strategic climb-down, key members of the Cellular Operators Association of India have come to a consensus that they are willing to go for open auction of spectrum for second-generation services beyond 10 MHz.
Responding to a cabinet proposal to build a new airport in Jewar, Noida, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the joint venture that operates Delhi airport, has told the ministry of civil aviation that the expanded capacity of the modernised airport will take care of the entire traffic requirement in the 150-km catchment area around Delhi for the next 20 years. Jewar is 68 km from Delhi airport.
The fund, which will be launched next month, will have a tenure of ten years and the money will be invested in projects within three years. The fund from the country's largest private equity fund (it manages assets of over $2.5 billion in a diversified portfolio) comes just 18 months after it launched a real estate fund of $500 million. Of this, it has already invested 70 per cent in various projects.
These towers will be offered in the second phase of a scheme, launched in July this year, to provide subsidy to companies who want to build towers in various clusters and run mobile services in rural areas.
Naukri.com, which voluntarily started gathering data about caste from registered job seekers from May 2006, said 19 per cent of them were women, 3.4 per cent OBCs, 0.8 per cent SCs and 0.2 per cent STs. There are over 130,000 OBCs, 38,000 SCs and STs, 760,000 women, and 8,000 physically challenged job seekers registered on the job portal.
Branded Mobi-Retail, this service will be offered to the 35 million subscribers of Reliance Communications, who will be able to use their handsets to buy over 100,000 products ranging from fresh vegetables to groceries, readymade garments, toys etc.
Among the new guidelines under discussion, DoT is looking at raising the net worth criterion of companies applying for a pan-India UASL licence from Rs 1,380 crore to Rs 1,500 crore.
The 40 per cent market share cap suggested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is likely to make mergers between existing telecom operators extremely tough.
Despite the controversy over the entry of foreign retail giants, the government has cleared foreign direct investment worth only $3.1 million in retail between February 2006 and May 2007.