Govt likely to make security clearance mandatory for telcos irrespective of equity holding before giving licences; DoT members to meet today.
The total number of arrests by the CBI has risen to six -- four PNB officials, a retired employee of the bank, and an authorsied signatory of Nirav Modi's company -- after Monday's development.
According to the data compiled by Apex Advisory Council for Telecom in India, as on January 19, 2007, Reliance Telecom follows TTSL with 84.78 per cent verification and Bharti Airtel in third position with 75.26 per cent.
It is believed that apart from Bharti Airtel and Bharti Infratel, there are four players that have made a bid.
Spectrum auction ends, brings Rs 1.09 tln to govt kitty.
The Department of Telecommunications might favour the holding company structure for the merger of the two telecom PSUs, Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam.
Telecom Minister A Raja is likely to brief Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a day or two on the changes he wants in BSNL's mega tender to add 45.5 million GSM lines, which was approved by his predecessor Dayanidhi Maran.
The ministry of finance has shot off a missive to the Department of Telecommunications stating there could be a revenue loss in 2006-07 to the national exchequer, owing to reduced license fee from international and national long distance services.
Buyers from 19 countries participated and showed interest in sourcing from India.
The Department of Telecommunications has mooted a proposal to set up seven telecom centres of excellence to nurture the sector and reduce the rural-urban digital divide.
The spat between Essar and Hutchison for the acquisition of BPL (Mumbai) circle is far from over with the Indian corporate maintaining that the Department of Telecom approval for acquisition of BPL shares is yet to come.
Across the world, there are around 150 trials on 5G currently going on and India has lagged behind. The government has now formed a committee which will look exclusively at developing a model for conducting 5G field trials, reports Kiran Rathee.
The US lawmakers, describing themselves as "longtime friends of India", wrote in the letter that "more than six months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government unilaterally revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the government continues to block most internet in the region".