The SC has gone a step further to state that even if one were to not apply the codified GAAR provisions, the judicial GAAR would continue to apply, point out Pranav Sayta and Bhargav Selarka.
'In the last one year, we have added more than Rs 1.7 trillion, and we are on track.'
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Monday said its consolidated net loss narrowed to Rs 5,524 crore in the second quarter ended September compared to the year-ago period, mainly on account of savings in finance cost on debt from banks and an increase in average revenue per user supported by a tariff hike.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a relief package for debt-laden Vodafone Idea, freezing the AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue) dues at Rs 87,695 crore and rescheduling the payment from FY32 to FY41, according to sources.
India's third-largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) has secured a 10-year breather on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) payments from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). This is expected to ease pressure on its balance sheet and enable the company to raise bank debt for capital expenditure.
'Grassroots-level corruption, which disrupts the last-mile work, cannot be ignored in your enthusiasm and drive to get going to complete the project.' 'Like it was in MGNREGA, in some states, it is the case with the Jal Jeevan mission.' 'The last minute levels of corruption can ruin the intent of the project itself.' 'When you see that people can game a particular well-intended and well-crafted project, you need to correct that.'
The telecom department is not contemplating providing any relief to Vodafone Idea with regard to adjusted gross revenue, Minister of State for Communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said on Monday. "We have recently converted a lot of their debt into equity.
App-based communication services providers and Indian telcos are at loggerheads over the SIM-binding directions issued by the department of telecom, which are to be complied with by the end of February 2026.
The missive has, however, polarised stakeholders, with mobile operators under COAI coming out in its support, while digital platforms under the aegis of Broadband India Forum expressing "serious concerns" around overreach and calling for a pause in implementation of timelines.
Telecom firm Bharti Airtel will approach the government on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) it has to pay the exchequer following the Supreme Court's judgment that the government can reassess all AGR dues, according to vice-chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal.
The Supreme Court on Monday deferred to October 13 the hearing on a plea of telecom major Vodafone Idea Ltd seeking quashing of the additional adjusted gross revenue (AGR) demands for the period until 2016-17.
Few people have left the kind of imprint on India's advertising canvas as Piyush Pandey. An observer who seemed to know what made the country tick, a man who could find humour in life's everyday struggles and spin magic from it, one who understood that to reach the masses you needed to communicate with them in their language and context -- he was all of this and more.
With several $500 million-plus deals in the pipeline -- including ICICI Prudential AMC, Lenskart, PhonePe, Groww, PhysicsWallah, Meesho, Pine Labs, and Zepto -- investment bankers look poised for another year of hefty bonuses in 2025.
Indian-American executive Srini Gopalan has been appointed chief executive officer of telecom operator T-Mobile, amid ongoing debates over H-1B visa policies. Gopalan's appointment, effective from November 1, 2025, comes as US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing a staggering $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, triggering widespread panic, concern and fear among Indian professionals on work visa.
Security has been increased across four districts in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly division for Dussehra, with internet services suspended in Bareilly district for 48 hours to prevent the spread of rumors and maintain public order.
IPOs have been the flavour of the season for some time. But the coming together of three mega IPOs, from diverse businesses and historic relevance, could tell a story that's still in the making, points out Nivedita Mookerji.
Vi partners SpaceX-rival AST SpaceMobile for satcom service on smartphones
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the pleas of telecom majors Vodafone, Airtel and Tata Teleservices seeking the waiver of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues. A bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan called the pleas "misconceived".
Bharti Airtel sees opportunity in raising tariff for data services as it feels that rich are paying less and poor are not required to pay anymore, a senior official of the company said. During the company's earnings call for the first quarter of the current fiscal, Bharti Airtel vice-chairman and MD Gopal Vittal said that the company has written to the government for a relief on adjusted gross revenue and has demanded that it should be given benefit at par with other telecom operator, without naming Vodafone Idea.
British telecom player Vodafone on Wednesday said it has sold an 18 per cent stake in Indus Towers for 1.7 billion euro (about Rs 15,300 crore). Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel has increased its stake by acquiring 2.69 crore shares, representing a 1 per cent stake, in Indus Towers. The shares were acquired by Airtel at an average price of Rs 320 apiece, taking the transaction value to Rs 862.38 crore, as per the bulk deal data.
The government's stake in Vodafone Idea will more than double to 48.99 per cent as it is set to acquire shares worth Rs 36,950 crore in lieu of outstanding spectrum auction dues, the company said in a regulatory filing on Sunday.
'My job is to provide people with a bouquet of options they can choose from.'
The company had announced similar pricing for Sri Lanka, where its application was in advanced stages of regulatory clearance.
Airtel has informed the government and regulator Trai that it has approached Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea with a proposal for a joint initiative to unite the industry against rising telecom fraud and scams.
Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the $150 billion Tata group, may be forced to infuse fresh capital into its loss-making telecom arm, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL). This is because TTSL has to pay Rs 19,256 crore adjusted gross revenue (AGR) along with other dues to the central government by March 2026.
Debt-saddled telecom operator Vodafone Idea Ltd's Rs 18,000 crore follow-on offering (FPO) on Monday was subscribed more than 3.3 times, as institutional investors poured in money but the retail segment lagged. On the last day of the offering, as many as 4,212.56 crore shares were sought against the issue size of 1,260 crore at 14.30 hrs, according to information on stock exchanges.
Shares of Reliance Industries as well as Bharti Airtel began the trade on a positive note on Wednesday after the two firms announced their partnerships with Elon Musk's SpaceX for providing high-speed internet services in India. Bharti Airtel stock opened with a gain of 5.49 pc to hit a high of Rs 1,388.25 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Soon, it pared all gains and traded 0.77 per cent lower to Rs 1,650.10 per piece.
Debt-saddled telecom operator Vodafone Idea Ltd's Rs 18,000 crore follow-on offering (FPO) opened to a modest response on Thursday with just 26 per cent of shares on offer being sought by investors. Of the 1,260 crore shares on offer, 331.24 crore was subscribed on Thursday, according to information on the BSE. Qualified institutional buyers picked up 61 per cent of their 360 crore shares reserved for them while non-institutional investors sought 28 per cent out of 270 crore shares earmarked for them.
Bharti Airtel vice-chairman & managing director Gopal Vittal on Wednesday said while a call on exercising the option of converting pending spectrum dues into government equity would be taken by its board, the company had reached out to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to confirm whether it could do so. "On the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) conversion, it was simple.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Thursday reported widening of losses to Rs 7,675 crore in the March quarter amid rise in interest and financing cost. The company had registered a loss of Rs 6,419 crore in the year-ago period. The consolidated revenue of operations remained almost flat about Rs 10,607 crore during the reported quarter.
Just ahead of its mega FPO opening to public investors, Vodafone Idea (VIL) has announced closure of its anchor book allocation, raising about Rs 5,400 crore from marquee global as well as domestic investors, according to a statutory filing by the telco. This could be the third-largest anchor book after One 97 Communications and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). One 97 Communications and LIC had raised Rs 8,235 crore and Rs 5,627 crore in the anchor round, respectively.
Vodafone Idea's (Vi's) subscriber loss reduced to a seven-month low in March, and alongside the company added 1.1 million broadband users after two months of net loss -- two things analysts have noted as key trends that need to be monitored. While Vi has been losing customers for more than two and a half years now, the churn reduced to below a million after five straight months in March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data has shown. "Jio's softer than usual subscriber growth in March, and VIL's slowing subscriber market share loss are key trends to keep an eye on going forward," global investment banking and financial services major UBS said in an analyst note.
Issues related to the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaty between India and the UK are expected to figure during the three-day visit of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to London from April 8-10, official sources said. The minister will attend a host of meetings, including the India-United Kingdom Economic and Financial Dialogue, in London.
Investors would track a host of macroeconomic data announcements scheduled this week, including inflation numbers, and also monitor global market trends, and trading activity of foreign institutional investors, analysts said. The ongoing quarterly earnings announcements and the rupee-dollar trend would also influence the markets.
The last time these two indexes recorded a negative performance on a calendar year basis was in CY19.
Reliance Jio's major subscriber losses continued for the third straight month with 7.96 million users leaving the telecom operator in September, even as the state-owned BSNL stood out as the lone gainer, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Thursday. Market leader Jio's subscriber loss has continued since July when the three private telecom operators - Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) - brought in a broad-based hike in tariffs.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Tuesday approved the allotment of equity shares worth Rs 16,133 crore to the government, which post-allocation has become the largest shareholder with a 33.44 per cent stake in the company. The shares have been allocated to the government in lieu of conversion of interest dues arising from deferment of adjusted gross revenue and spectrum auction payments, the company said in a regulatory filing. "...it is hereby informed that the board of directors of the company has, at its meeting held today approved the allotment of 16,133,198,899 equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each at an issue price of Rs 10 per equity share aggregating to Rs 161,331,848,990 to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, Government of India," the filing said.
Continuing to push back against the stringent quality of service (QoS) norms brought in by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), telcos have informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that collection and submission of monthly and site-to-cell-level data should be eased, officials and industry sources said. In place since October last year, the QoS norms call for data for network availability, call drop, voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, among other parameters, to be collected at the cell level.
Bharti Airtel is expected to see its highest revenue growth, and subscriber addition during the third quarter (October-December) of FY25 among telcos, said analysts. The telco's top line in Q3 may see the fastest sequential growth at 5 per cent compared to 3 per cent for Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi). Airtel's annual mobile revenue growth would rise to 16 per cent, IIFL Capital said in an analyst note.
Losing subscribers for the fourth straight month, Reliance Jio witnessed 3.76 million users leave the telecom operator in October, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Monday. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel reversed three months of decline, and added 1.92 million users, indicating it has overcome the impact of the broad-based tariff hikes imposed by private sector telcos in July.