The appointments committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared Bhalla's appointment as OSD in the ministry with immediate effect.
The government should convert Vodafone Idea's (Vi) debt into equity to avoid a duopoly in the telecom sector, Deutsche Bank Research said in its report on Monday. This, the bank suggested, would be the only viable solution in the backdrop of the Supreme Court dismissing the telecom company's application for recomputation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have communicated to the telecom department that they will not pay AGR dues of Rs 88,624 crore, the deadline for which ended on Thursday, and will wait for the outcome of modification petition listed for hearing before the Supreme Court next week, according to official sources. Reliance Jio on Thursday paid Rs 195 crore to the telecom department to clear all adjusted gross revenue dues accounted till January 31, 2020, according to an official source.
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.
Department of Telecommunications has reportedly blocked the popular website.
The operators say that the move to have an India-specific standard will raise the costs not only of telecom networks but of chipsets for mobile devices because they will have to be made for the local market and, as such, will not enjoy global economies of scale.
After BlackBerry, the government has included a whole host of services, including video chats offered by telecom players, Nokia's push email service and Skype, into the ambit of security issues.
Discussing the prospect of more reform earlier this month, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced a delay in the 5G spectrum auction. India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, he said. It's another matter that many countries have either introduced or are about to roll out 5G services that will enable cutting-edge tech in diverse areas. For India, too, it will mean a lot for healthcare, robotics and unleashing a new chapter in Digital India perhaps.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against three private cellular companies and former officials of the telecom department for alleged irregularities in the grant of additional 2G Spectrum and causing a loss of Rs 508 crore during the period 2001-2007.
Instructions of the personal secretary to the minister were taken as instructions of the minister himself.
BSNL will start providing telecom services, both wireless and fixed line, in Mumbai and Delhi on behalf of MTNL from January 1 on a pilot basis for five to six months.
The world organisation said UN humanitarians and partners were working hard to assist the people of Bangladesh and India suffering from the impact of the cyclone, which made landfall on Wednesday, wreaking havoc, causing high tidal surges, flooding and embankments to collapse.
There has been a quantum jump in the number of complaints of corruption received by the Central Vigilance Commission last year as against those in 2011.
The ministry has also issued orders for blocking of two Twitter accounts, two Instagram accounts and one Facebook account involved in spreading 'coordinated anti-India disinformation'.
Spectrum qualifies for the infrastructure criteria, say ministry officials.
The proposal gains significance because the merger plan was given a quiet burial under former telecom minister A Raja.
The department is planning a complete overhaul of the archaic Indian Telegraph Act.
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.
It is learnt that the defence ministry is refusing to let go of its 100 MHz spectrum, which was allotted earlier. In that case, the department of telecommunications (DoT) will be left with only 175 MW of 5G spectrum of the total 300 MHz.
Earlier, during the day, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal met various operators to discuss the national broadband policy.
The proposal may provide relief to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore to service providers.
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
Top DoT sources said the department was unlikely to go for cancellation of licences, as many of the new operators already had made large investments and had a reasonable presence across the country.
According to an order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the department will share 'bulk information', starting from Permanent Account Number (PAN) to the taxpayer's name and all the individual data that it captures like father's name, gender, date of birth, photograph and signature or thumb impression.
Conversion of debt of the stressed telecom player Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) into equity could be an option to emerge out of the crisis, lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) have suggested to Department of Telecommunications (DoT). DoT had called senior bank officials on Friday to discuss the stress in the telecom sector arising out of the Supreme Court order last month on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR)-related dues payable by telecom majors, including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, sources said. The top court has given a time period of 10 years to telecom service providers struggling to pay Rs 93,520 crore of AGR-related dues to clear their outstanding amount to the government.
Modi called for ensuring maintenance of all essential services such as power, telecommunications, health and drinking and their immediate restoration in the event of damages caused to them.
The mobile phone manufacturers are planning to plead with the government that the new rules suggested by the DoT could leave them with no option but to stop introducing new phone models in the country if the stringent rules are eventually approved.
Senior official from the department of telecommunication said the deck has been cleared and the department will handover the spectrum to the operators on Wednesday.
Sources at the department of telecommunications confirmed that Bharti Airtel has submitted application to bid for airwaves frequencies at pan-India level.
Tata Communications on Monday said it had not received any communication from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the issue of demerger of the company's surplus land.
VIL pegs dues at Rs 21,533 cr, less than half of DoT estimate. During a meeting with Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made it clear that the government is against a monopoly in the telecom sector, and wants Vodafone Idea to survive and remain invested in India.
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.
Bharti recorded $5 billion liability for past-due AGR fees, but is still completing its self-assessment to determine the final amount.
CBI made the submission in its reply opposing the bail plea of former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura who was arrested with ex-Telecom Minister A Raja on February 2 for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
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.
DoT, has decided that it will not cancel the GSM licences of dual-technology companies.
According to a top DoT official, there have been random checks at different factories of different handset makers and respective teams have submitted their reports.
The DoT had last week sent a detailed reply to all the issues raised by the CAG.
A department of telecommunication official said the regulator has already put questions relating to uniform licence fee to the stakeholder in its consultation paper 'Overall Spectrum Management and Review of License Terms and Conditions'.
Says inordinate delay on this and other issues raised by firm earlier are impacting investor confidence.
