The Odisha government imposed a curfew-like shutdown in three hotspot districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur from 10 pm Thursday, to conduct active surveillance and contact-tracing.
The move is significant as it would extend the power of CAG -- set up to audit central and state government departments as well as PSUs -- to private sector companies.
As per the initial version of the Unified Licence on August 2, DoT had exempted Internet services revenue from adjusted gross revenue -- part of telecom company's earnings on which annual licence fee is levied.
A consummate deal-maker, the former Aircel boss raked in the moolah in many, but lost a packet in several others.
The government announced a Rs 1000-crore (Rs 10-billion) project to convert wireless operations of defence services on Optical Fibre Cable, a move that is estimated to release 45 MHz of spectrum.
The lobby group of CDMA mobile players like the Reliance Communications and the Tatas has accused that the government was favouring the GSM players while deciding the criteria for spectrum allocation and in its pricing.
This comes on the heels of the department of telecom appointing private auditors to look into the books of telcos after it was detected that some of the operators were diverting revenues in segments which attracted lower licence fee.
Phones from the grey market can now land you in trouble as telecom operators have started informing subscribers that services to cellphones without a valid international mobile equipment identity number will soon be disconnected.
A Central Bureau of Investigation officer, who was part of the probe team investigating the 2G spectrum scam, on Thursday denied in a Delhi court that A Raja's erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia was falsely implicated in the case as he had refused to depose against the former telecom minister.
India's tax officials, long the scourge of foreign investors, are under government pressure to avoid aggressive claims against overseas funds.
Government expects to fetch at least Rs 64,840 crore
In the first secretary-level appointments by the Narendra Modi government, Rakesh Garg was on Sunday named the new telecom secretary while Jugal Kishore Mohapatra is to be secretary in the fertilizers ministry.
Operators continued aggressive bidding in 900 MHz band
During the first six months (up to the second quarter of the current fiscal) of 2009-10, the department of telecommunication has already collected Rs 4,112.30 crore (Rs 41.12 billion), minister of state for telecom and IT Gurudas Kamat said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
There was an under reporting of Rs 1000 crore (Rs 10 billion) to Rs 1500 crore (Rs 15 billion) by the telecom firms, to avoid payment of licence fee, and the government may have lost about Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) because of this, telecom minister A Raja said during Question Hour.
Says extreme secrecy is maintained and utmost care and precaution is taken in matter of interception as it affects privacy of citizens
The move gains importance after two new telecom players -- Swan and Unitech -- sold stakes to foreign companies at high premiums after the allocation of spectrum. The Left parties had also accused Telecom Minister A Raja of underselling spectrum that cost the national exchequer around Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion).
The Central Bureau India (CBI) on Monday alleged before a special court that Essar Group of companies had created a "corporate veil".
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
SC raised questions over the government's decision ordering mandatory seeding of mobile numbers with Aadhaar.
Reliance Infocomm violated the licence conditions by evading levy through illegally routing international calls as local ones, the government on Monday told the telecom tribunal.
The commission sent back the proposal of unrestricted internet telephony, seeking more clarity on how it would function, highly placed source said.
The government has proposed a penalty of over Rs 41 crore (Rs 410 million) on Tatas, Rs 31 crore (Rs 310 million) on Airtel and Rs 19.65 crore (Rs 196.5 million) on RCom and others, totalling Rs 135.60 crore (Rs 1.35 billion), for not rolling out network on time
Auctions for spectrum for 3G or third-generation telecom services could be delayed from an already rescheduled date of January 30 after the Department of Telecommunications sought legal opinion on whether it should send the finance ministry's suggestion on doubling the reserve price back to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for its endorsement.
Exports to China saw sustained double-digit growth for the fourth straight month in August, led by eightfold rise in iron and steel shipments.
"There is no plan to disinvest in BSNL," Telecom Secretary J S Sarma told reporters
The government has held back allocating additional spectrum to Bharti Airtel in Orissa, in view of the telecom tribunal's recent judgment that GSM operators have no vested right to get airwaves beyond 6.2 MHz.
In the midst of the battle between the Tatas and Birlas over stake-holding in their telecom joint venture Idea
The Department of Telecom may bar operators holding 3G airwaves from sharing the high-speed spectrum.
Of late, net neutrality has generated much debate.
The government had constituted a group of ministers early this month to decide on the issue of pricing of 3G spectrum auction. The GoM would also look into the number of players in 3G mobile services in a circle. The GoM is yet to come out with clarifications on pricing of 3G spectrum.
The government on Tuesday has directed telecom service providers, including Reliance Infocomm and Tatas, to submit compliance report on fixed wireless services, ensuring that they confine to the user premises, by March 31.
The Aadhaar-enabled payment system, or AEPS, allows consumers who don't have smartphones or debit cards to perform basic banking transactions like cash deposit, cash withdrawal, intrabank or interbank fund transfer, balance enquiry and obtaining a mini statement through biometric authentication at micro-ATMs.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) has pulled up mobile service providers for offering the National Anthem as a ringback tone.In a notice to all telecom service providers, the department said this was a breach of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, and executive instructions relating to the anthem.
The Natio0nal Investigation Agency has approached the Department of Telcom requesting for installation of Central Monitoring System, a mechanism which provides for interception of telephone calls and monitoring of social networking sites without any involvement of telecom service providers.
Prasad also said India will be a $1 trillion opportunity for digital companies in five years
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