'BJP insiders acknowledge that the party needs to be helmed by someone who can match Arvind Kejriwal's stature.' 'A Sudhanshu Trivedi or Bansuri Swaraj could bring the freshness the party needs in Delhi,' points out Aditi Phadnis.
Addressing a press conference a day after Maliwal alleged that a member of Kejriwal's personal staff "assaulted" her, Singh said AAP supremo Kejriwal will take strict action in the matter.
The criminal case relates to the alleged assault on Prakash during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19, 2018 and besides the chief minister and his deputy, 11 AAP MLAs were also made accused in the case.
India's first auction of telecom spectrum in five years ended on Tuesday with Rs 77,814.80 crore of airwaves being bought, mostly by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio. Over 2,250 MHz of spectrum, that carry telecom signals, in seven bands worth nearly Rs 4 lakh crore at the reserve or start price, was offered for bidding in the auction that began on Monday. Telecom secretary Anshu Prakash said 855.60 MHz of spectrum was bought for Rs 77,814.80 crore in the two-day auction.
Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer K Rajaraman on Friday took charge as the new telecom secretary. His joining comes following the superannuation of Anshu Prakash on September 30. "Shri K Rajaraman, IAS (TN:89) takes charge as Secretary, @DoT_India in presence of senior officials of the department," a PIB tweet said. He was serving as the additional secretary for investments at the Department of Economic Affairs before being promoted to the position of secretary, DoT.
The incident took place on Monday night in the presence of Kejriwal, a senior official alleged.
AAP claimed that Jarwal was arrested based on a "frivolous" complaint.
The major flashpoints of the last three-and-half years:
Air India Chairman Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the new aviation secretary as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Wednesday. K Rajaraman, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of telecommunications, a personnel ministry order said.
Anshu Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19. The police said the chief minister was present when the alleged assault took place.
Successful bidders will have to pay 25 per cent of the amount upfront for sub 1 GHz, and 50 per cent upfront for higher frequency bands.
On February 20, the Chief Secretary had alleged that he was beaten up by two Aam Aadmi Party MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's house, where he had been called for an emergency meeting.
The ongoing row between the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government and the bureaucracy in wake of the Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash alleging assault comes as no surprise as the two have tussled over a range of issues in the past.
Prakash was allegedly assaulted by Aam Aadmi Party MLAs during a meeting at the chief minister's residence in the evening of February 19.
Mamata Banerjee, Karnataka's H D Kumaraswamy, Andhra Pradesh's N Chandrababu Naidu and Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan rallied behind their Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, who is on a sit-in at the Lieutenant Governor's office for six days, and sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention in solving what they termed a "constitutional crisis".
Rajendra Pal Gautam, who is social welfare minister in the outgoing government, retained the Seemapuri seat by a whopping margin of over 56,000 votes against LJP's Sant Lal.
The Department of Telecom on Tuesday approved applications of telecom companies -- Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL -- for conducting 5G trials but none of them will be using technologies of Chinese entities. The list of telecom gear makers approved for trials include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, C-DOT and Reliance Jio's indigenously developed technologies.
'None of the persons present in the room made any effort to save me'
'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
The package includes raising of Rs 15,000 crore sovereign bonds to meet the immediate capital requirement of both the companies, 4G spectrum allocation worth Rs 20,140 crore, Rs 29,937 crore for VRS covering 50 per cent of their employees, and Rs 3,674 crore for goods and services tax that will be levied on allocation of radiowaves.
The company has made payment in compliance with Telecom Department's instructions for self assessment, Mittal said, adding that the Supreme Court had not mentioned specific amounts.
Hours before the meeting, Prakash in a letter to Kejriwal, said he would attend it to discuss important budget matters, assuming that the chief minister ensures 'no physical attack and verbal assault' on officers attending the meet.
'When will Amit Shah be questioned in connection with Judge Loya's death,' Kejriwal asked.
'The government is unwilling or unable to provide the kind of relief that Vodafone India is asking for.'
CS Anshu Prakash was allegedly assaulted during a meeting at Kejriwal's official residence on February 19 night.
India's first auction of spectrum in five years attracted Rs 77,146 crore of bids on the opening day on Monday with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea participating in the bidding process - a response that the government said was better than expected. There were, however, no takers for spectrum in 700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands on the first day, and the auctions will continue and conclude on Tuesday. About 2,308.80 MHz of spectrum, that carry telecom signals, in seven bands worth nearly Rs 4 lakh crore at the reserve or start price, was offered for bidding in the auction that began on Monday. Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Rs 77,146 crore worth of spectrum was bid on the first day but there were no takers for the airwaves in the premium 700 MHz as also 2500 MHz bands.
The government last month had approved a plum Rs 69,000 crore revival package for BSNL and MTNL that includes merging the two loss-making firms, monetising their assets and offering VRS to employees so that the combined entity turns profitable in two years.
Vodafone Idea on Monday paid Rs 2,500 crore to DoT and promised to pay another Rs 1,000 crore before the end of the week.
The appointments committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared Bhalla's appointment as OSD in the ministry with immediate effect.
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and other telecom operators may have to pay the government a whopping Rs 1.42 lakh crore following the Supreme Court order last week that sent shock waves through an industry already grappling with billions of dollars in debt and an intense tariff war to retain customers.
Claiming non-payment of salaries to anganwadi volunteers for three months in his three-page letter in Hindi, Sisodia continued to fire a salvo at Baijal, saying: "You are the Lt Governor of Delhi. You have also been an IAS officer, but I request you to stop seeing things through spectacles of an IAS officer."
Meanwhile, the Delhi HC refused to entertain a plea seeking immediate judicial intervention into the incident.
Supreme Court had on October 24 upheld government contention that non-core revenue in telecoms groups should be included in adjusted gross revenue. According to DoT's calculations, Bharti Airtel faces a liability of around Rs 42,000 crore after including licence fees and spectrum usage charges while Vodafone-Idea may have to pay about Rs 40,000 crore.
Although the industry is disappointed with the government decision not to lower spectrum prices at a time telcos are saddled with over Rs 4-trillion debt and an estimated Rs 1.43-trillion licence fee dues, the DCC has relaxed the payment structure to offer some relief to the financially stressed sector.
The officers said that they would not attend those meetings which they feel would be "unsafe".
The Delhi CM tweeted from the L-G office on Wednesday morning, seeking to know whether it was "possible for IAS officers to return to work without the green signal from Prime Minister's Office?"
This is the last lot of payments that telcos will make towards deferred spectrum liabilities, as the Union Cabinet had late last year approved a two-year moratorium on such spectrum payment dues.
The people of Delhi are the victims, Gandhi alleged.
Telecom companies have been desperately waiting for a bailout package from the government after a Supreme Court order put their statutory liabilities at Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances