Telecom operators have started the process of scrubbing telemarketing messages but will allow their transmission to mobile subscribers till regulator Trai takes a final call, according to industry body COAI. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on March 12 gave three days' time to entities like banks, e-commerce firms and others for complying with telemarketing rules, failing which they were to be barred from sending out commercial communication to customers. The business organisations, however, have sought more time from the telecom regulator to implement the process. In the meantime, Trai has allowed telecom operators to start the process of scrubbing and prepare a database of messages that do not comply with norms.
The four-member committee will be headed by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi S Vempati. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the present guidelines issued by it in 2014 on Television Rating agencies in India were notified after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary Committee, Committee on Television Rating Points (TRP) constituted by the ministry and recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority etc.
The domestic aviation industry is expected to report a net loss of Rs 25,000-26,000 crore this fiscal with elevated jet fuel prices and fare caps continuing to pose a major challenge for the airlines' profitability, domestic rating agency ICRA Ltd said on Thursday. The domestic airlines, however, are likely to post a reduced net loss of Rs 14,000-16,000 crore in the next financial year on the back of a "notable recovery" in air passenger traffic and lower level of debt, ICRA said. The ratings agency also estimates that the industry will require an additional funding in the range of Rs 20,000-22,000 crore during FY22-FY24.
Total wireless subscribers increased from 1.1 billion, in January to 1.2 billion in February, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.72 per cent.
India's residential market is expected to sustain demand momentum despite rise in mortgage and property rates as sales this year across the top 7 cities are likely to breach pre-pandemic level of 2.62 lakh units, industry players said. After braving four back-to-back disruptions in form of demonetisation, RERA, GST and COVID-19 in the last 6 years, industry experts feel the housing market is going through a lot of structural changes and is now at the start of a long-term upcycle. Homebuyers body FPCE gives credit to the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) under the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 for this improved buying sentiment.
The government is looking at a time frame within the first two weeks of July to kick off and complete the upcoming 5G auctions, according to discussions between officials and stakeholders. It is expected that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will give its recommendations on the base price by March, after which the necessary cabinet clearances will be given. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had earlier looked at undertaking the auction in the first quarter of 2022 but decided to push it back. Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had also said that the auctions are likely to take place in April-May.
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has increased the size of its shareholders' fund to Rs 6,600 crore from Rs 100 crore in a bid to accommodate a larger shareholder base ahead of its public listing. The size of the fund has been enhanced by retaining two years' of dividend and issuing fresh capital, said an official. Increasing the size of the shareholders' fund will help boost the number of shares for allotment in the insurer's initial public offering (IPO). The corpus represents the amount of equity in a company that belongs to its shareholders.
Apex telecom industry body COAI has asserted that spectrum pricing should be kept conducive to market conditions as 5G entails upfront capital investments with monetisation spread over a long-haul, and pricing radiowaves high will only push the players up against the wall. The stage is set for Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come out with its recommendations on 5G spectrum pricing and other modalities for upcoming auctions, and the announcement from the sector watchdog is expected anytime now. Norms will also be worked out for new frequencies such as 526-698 MHz and millimetre band, that is 24.25 - 28.5 GHz, in addition to bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz.
India's exports jumped 45.76 per cent to $33.28 billion in August on account of healthy growth in segments like engineering, petroleum products, gems and jewellery and chemicals, even as the trade deficit widened to a four-month high of $13.81 billion.
'Once DCGI will give us the permission to restart the trials in India, we will resume the trials,' Serum Institute of India (SII) said in a statement.
'We are targeting the 5G tender around January-March 2023.'
A division bench of Justices Amjad Sayyed and Anuja Prabhudessai passed the judgment on a bunch of petitions filed by several broadcasters, like the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, a representative body of TV broadcasters, the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, Zee Entertainment Ltd and Sony Pictures Network India.
From January 15, callers will have to dial numbers with prefix '0' for making calls from landline to mobile phone. Announcing the decision, the communications ministry said the move would free up sufficient numbering resources for future use, and nearly 2,539 million numbering series are expected to be generated as a result. There will be no change with respect to dialling numbers for fixed-to fixed, mobile-to-fixed, and mobile-to-mobile calls.
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained over 79 lakh mobile users in March, comfortably surpassing the combined net adds by rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea during the month, according to data released by TRAI on Friday. Bharti Airtel added 40.5 lakh wireless users, and interestingly Vodafone Idea gained 10.8 lakh customers during March (compared to the previous month). Reliance Jio added a staggering 79.18 lakh wireless subscribers in March, taking its customers base to about 42.29 crore.
Pfizer and BioNTech SE on Monday said trial results of COVID-19 vaccine showed that it is safe and produced robust neutralising antibody response in children aged five to 11 years, and they plan to seek regulatory approvals as soon as possible.
Callers will soon be required to add '0' prefix for making calls from landlines to mobile phones in the country, with the telecom department asking telcos to make necessary arrangements by January 1 to implement the new system. The department has accepted sectoral regulator Trai's recommendation for having the '0' prefix for such calls, a move that will create sufficient numbering space for telecom services. The Department of Telecom (DoT) in a circular on `modification of dialling pattern from fixed line numbers to cellular mobile numbers' said in order to ensure adequate numbering resources for fixed line and mobile services, Trai's recommendations dated May 29, 2020 have been accepted by the Department.
'We have filed our draft red herring prospectus for a floating IPO for a net offer size of 86.6 million shares.'
It emerges that Vi has probably offered good data quality despite being short on spectrum and infrastructure due to its stretched finances. Did the two companies that merged face the heat due to price wars? Probably. Did the government's tough stance in demanding its "due" share of telecom revenues hurt the company? Certainly!
Avigan comes in a complete therapy pack of 122 tablets with a two-year shelf life.
Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila, Bharat Biotech's intra-nasal candidate are among the candidates who got approval from the expert panel to conduct clinical trials, Sohini Das reports.
Safety and Efficacy results from the final analysis will be available in June, and the final report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication.
Telecom regulator Trai on Monday recommended about 39 per cent reduction in the reserve or floor price for the sale of spectrum for mobile services, including the latest 5G offering, as it looked to match revenue expectations with the industry's paying capacity. With large swathes of spectrum remaining unsold in the last two auctions, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended to the government for selling airwaves in all existing bands of 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz and new slots of 600 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz and 24.25-28.5 GHz. It has suggested a lower reserve price for all bands, compared to the prices proposed in the previous recommendations in 2018.
Infosys on Friday said a class action lawsuit filed against the company and some of its employees in the US district court has been dismissed. The move comes after whistleblower complaints alleging certain unethical practices by the top management emerged in October last year.
SII would be scaling up its AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine manufacturing capacity to 200 million doses a month from 100 million a month now, reports Sohini Das.
Jio had almost three times higher speed than its nearest rival Bharti Airtel.
Consumers can expect a 5G launch in the country soon. Telecom companies (telcos) say if auctions take place on time - the target is July - they would be able to offer some services in a few cities by the end of this year and a full roll-out from 2023. But the question is: will 5G turn the tables for telcos financially? Will average revenue per user (ARPU) improve? Will mobile consumers upgrade to 5G quickly and pay more? Will the expanded functions that 5G enables drum up sufficient revenues? In simple terms, will telcos make more money?
The subscriber base is made up of 778.09 million broadband internet users and 47.21 million narrowband internet users.
Adar Poonawalla said he was hopeful that Covovax, the Novavax vaccine made by SII, will be launched around October this year for adults and for children by the first quarter of next year, depending on DCGI approvals.
He voiced concern that confusion, complacency and inconsistency in public health measures and their application are driving transmission and costing lives. Cautioning that the disease is not flu, he said young, healthy people have died from the coronavirus.
The purported letter, which is believed to be the final note by the late promoter and widely circulated on social media, contained statements alleging harassment on VG Siddhartha by the Income Tax department.
Infosys on Tuesday said the US Securities and Exchange Commission has concluded the investigation into the whistleblower allegations made last year, and that it does not anticipate any further action by the regulator. In October last year, Infosys had informed stock exchanges of having received anonymous whistleblower complaints alleging certain unethical practices by the top management. It then started a probe into the matter and roped in external investigators.
The telecom ministry will set up an intelligence unit and a consumer protection system as part of continuing efforts to tackle the menace of pesky calls as well as to take strict action against financial frauds perpetrated using telecom resources.
Last month, Trai had initiated a debate on the issue of operators arbitrarily disconnecting services of customers on grounds of 'non-usage of numbers' or 'inactive SIM connections'.
The new "combo vouchers" will enable customers to add value in their mobile phone account as well as avail services at discounted rates.
Zydus Cadila COVID-19 vaccine for children above 12 years is expected to be available by August as its trials are likely to be completed by July-end, said Dr N K Arora, Chairman, National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI).
The auction for the 5G spectrum is likely to take place around April-May next year, Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. While relief measures announced in September this year for telecom operators marked the first set of reforms, the government will bring out a series of further reforms and "telecom regulatory structure should change in coming 2-3 years", Vaishnaw said. Speaking at the 'Times Now Summit 2021', the minister said India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, and added that "so, we will come with a series of reforms in this, such that the global benchmark of regulations is achieved in India".
It said Naisar Kothari, a resident of Bhavnagar in Gujarat, was arrested under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and he has been sent to the ED custody till December 22 by a court.
On the other hand, the Yogi Adityanath government has 'completed nine lakh houses under the scheme and 14 lakh are under construction', Modi said, reeling out comparative figures.
Any speculation suggesting otherwise, or any rumours around sale of our business in India are incorrect and simply that -- rumours, says head of the US-based asset manager.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday launched a channel selector application which will facilitate consumers to view their TV subscription and choose the channels of their interest while removing the unwanted ones.
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