The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has initiated discussions with banks to address financial stress in the telecom sector, particularly Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) that urgently requires fund infusion to stay afloat. There was a meeting of DOT officials and senior bankers on Friday on the issue of Vodafone, sources said, adding that banks have been asked to look for a solution within the prudential guidelines. According to sources, senior officials from the country's biggest lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda were also present among others in the meeting. More such meetings are expected to take place in the coming days, they said.
The FIR relates to allocation of Talabira II and III coal blocks in 2005.
CBI has registered 18 FIRs so far in the coal scam.
Other members of the high-level advisory committee are former RBI Deputy Governor Usha Thorat, former Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman C B Bhave, and Nachiket M Mor, Director of the Central Board of Directors of RBI, Governor Raghuram Rajan said.
Former Coal Secretary P C Parakh apparently failed to specify any "public good" on file notings when he reversed his earlier position of rejecting Hindaclo's application for coal block in Odisha.
'The government is unwilling or unable to provide the kind of relief that Vodafone India is asking for.'
Vodafone Idea, which reported a loss of Rs 6,439 crore in the December quarter, said it had received letters from the department of telecommunications (DoT) directing immediate payment of dues amounting to Rs 54,000 crores after the SC judgment. "The company is currently assessing the amount that it will be able to pay to DoT towards the dues calculated based on AGR, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in its order dated October 24, 2019. The company proposes to pay the amount so assessed in the next few days," it stated.
Former top bureaucrats have come out in support of ex-coal secretary P C Parakh, who has been named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the coal blocks allocation scam, warning that harassment of honest officers will erode the government's credibility and stop senior officers from taking decisions.
In the Forbes rich list Mukesh Ambani is ranked 39th.
India has the third highest number of billionaires in the world after the US and China, according to a new list by the prestigious Forbes magazine, which said Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani reclaimed his spot as Asia's richest person, dethroning Chinese business tycoon Jack Ma who was the richest person in the region a year ago.
'While the march of globalisation is perhaps inevitable, what is certain is that the world is no longer flat as, the emerging pattern of trade is more regional. 'This new trend of 'slowbalisation' raises some questions that challenge conventional wisdom on how businesses should distribute their capacities,' Birla said.
A court asked for further investigation into an illegal coalfield allocation case involving Hindalco Industries on Tuesday, rejecting an earlier report from the CBI that said the probe was likely to be closed.
A day after applying for a bank licence, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday said the new bank licence norms announced by the Reserve Bank are not discriminatory towards large corporate houses.
In an apparent U-turn, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had filed a closure report in a coal blocks case involving industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh and others, on Monday told a special court there was enough evidence against the accused to take cognisance of offences.
"India will be home to a fifth of humanity, its economy 16 times bigger than today, and one of the world's largest consumer markets. India will be a world better in many areas"
Cleaning up India's grubby business climate is top of the agenda for both regulators and the government.
On the telecom sector, he demanded auctioning of more spectrum.
Mumbai is witnessing some big-ticket investments in bungalows by the city's billionaires.
The question mark over Vodafone Idea's survival is gone after the government's telecom package, managing director and chief executive officer Ravinder Takkar said in an interaction recently. The extended moratorium for spectrum payments and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues has indeed ensured that Vodafone Idea survives, at least for the time being, but questions remain. Answers to those questions may determine the future of Vodafone Idea and its power to stay in a difficult telecom market in the coming years.
The Coal Ministry has issued show-cause to eight firms including Hindalco Industries and Mahanadi Coalfields, and sought explanation from five firms for delays in commencing production from mines allocated to them.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday a plea seeking its direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to name Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in its First Information Repotfiled against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh in a coal block allocation case.
I-T will now ask the company to produce documents and validate the source of the recovered cash.
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.
Vodafone Idea, the promoter of Aditya Bira Idea Payments Bank, said in a notification to the exchanges late on Friday that the board of the bank approved winding up the business, subject to approval from the Reserve Bank of India.
'Aleris will bring in $3 billion of revenue. Novelis has $12 billion of revenues. If we add Hindalco's $6-billion revenue, then on a consolidated basis, we will become the world's largest aluminium company outside China.'
If Vodafone Idea shuts, a bulk of the high-paying ARPU customers will move to Airtel as Reliance Jio does not have a comprehensive postpaid offering like it, and have aggressively preferred to play in the prepaid market. The bulk of Vodafone Idea customers use 2G phones and only a few of them use data. It will be easier for Airtel to woo these customers as they can shift seamlessly to its 2G network without changing handsets or even SIM cards,
With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India's biggest telecom service provider to the new entity.
The two companies were earlier expecting to complete the merger formalities and regulatory approvals by June 30 and to start operating as one entity from July 1.
Idea Cellular will have to furnish an undertaking that it will entertain all the liabilities whenever a final decision is taken by the courts
Idea may have to shell out Rs 4,500 crore in cash
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.
In Friday's market rally post the corporate tax cut, the country's top business promoters recouped more than two-thirds of the losses that they suffered in the post-Budget sell-off in equity markets.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh were summoned.
As industry voiced concern over the CBI naming industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla in a case, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday said investigating agencies and the judiciary must ensure that India does not become like Russia, where investors are not prepared to go and billionaires are put behind bars.
Asserting that there is nothing wrong in allocation of coal blocks, former Union Coal Secretary Prakash Chandra Parakh on Wednesday said if the Central Bureau of Investigation considers a conspiracy in this case then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh should be held equally responsible being the final decision maker.
A Vodafone Group insider with more than 25 years in the telco across geographies, he's like the eyes and ears of the multinational in India.
'This is part of our efforts to make it easier to do business.'
Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot intoned, "Recent incidents will certainly dampen business confidence and investment sentiment, both domestic and foreign; and perhaps also negatively affect decision making by bureaucrats and policy makers."
The Central Bureau of Investigation was on Tuesday directed by a special court to record statements of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was holding charge as Coal Minister in 2005, and others in a coal blocks allocation scam case allegedly involving top industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla.
The agency filed the report before Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar and said that it contains a detailed report of investigation being carried out in the case.
