Prasad asked private operators to play a role in skill development.
This move is seen as part of efforts to strengthen China's ties with Pakistan and safeguard Chinese investments in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, particularly related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Even as the ITSA has opposed appointment of MTNL's director finance as the corporation's new CMD alleging that serious complaints against him were pending investigation, Communications Minister Arun Shourie has dismissed the charges.
The government has initiated a series of measures, including allowing re-verification at subscribers' doorstep and One Time Password (OTP) based authentication of existing users, to make the entire exercise easier for telecom subscribers.
Telecom major Jio will start the beta trial of 5G services in four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi from October 5 with a select set of customers, the company said on Tuesday. The company will send invites to customers under 'Jio True 5G Welcome Offer' to try its 5G services and the subscribers will get Unlimited 5G data with up to 1 gigabit per second speed. "Post the successful demonstration of its True-5G services at the India Mobile Congress 2022, Jio is announcing the Beta trial of its True-5G services on the auspicious occasion of Dussehra, for Jio users in four cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Varanasi," Jio said in the statement.
Domestic institutional investors pumped Rs 2.3 trillion into equities during H1 CY24. Of this, mutual funds contributed 80%.
The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
The operators believe that the industry is not ready for these services, even though such plans are good for users in Singapore. The service charges in the country are already lowest in the world and will not slide further for sometime. Moreover, this is also against the existing practice of an operator trying to match every scheme launched by competitors.
Tech giant Microsoft regained the top spot in the list of best employers to work for in India in 2024, followed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Amazon, according to a Randstad Employer Brand Research report released on Wednesday. Microsoft had topped the list in 2022, but slipped to fifth in 2023. The 2024 list is based on responses from 3,507 people.
According to the CEO of an Indian group with presence in the telecom segment and two merchant bankers, the Mexico-headquartered telco's bankers have been sounded out for preliminary discussions with leading Indian telecom companies for a strategic tie-up.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
The Internet is too important to let a few private telecom players decide what the rules will be for consumers, says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, independent member of Parliament who was one of the key petitioners seeking the scrapping of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal has expressed hope that the government and regulators will step in to ensure the sector remains a viable place for continued investments and asserted that the industry requires "long overdue" support to maintain its current 3+1 structure. In the latest annual report of Airtel, Mittal said as the sector's role in the economy becomes more pervasive, its challenges loom larger. Issues such as unsustainable pricing and low returns in a highly capital-intensive environment, coupled with legacy legal issues, "have extracted their toll", Mittal observed.
The country has come a long way in the process of financial inclusion, Raghuram Rajan said, but "still has a way to go".
Providing services like broadband connectivity, cable TV, enterprise solutions, and payment wallets is the need of the hour for telcos, and a second wave of consolidation is upon the industry, a rating agency said on Tuesday. India Ratings and Research said the sector, which was battered following the aggressive entry of Reliance Jio, will continue showing signs of recovery amid conducive regulatory environment and maintained a "stable" outlook for the industry in FY22. The second round of consolidation (Consolidation 2.0) is kicking-in in the industry, which will bring a transformation in the business models of telecom companies, leading to the evolution of incumbents from the providers of traditional voice-only services to complete digital solutions for households, it said.
The number of base stations installed by Indian wireless operators is inadequate to provide high-quality services to the growing number of mobile subscribers, said a research.
"There is a limit when it comes to tolerating abusive behaviour or working styles. Many (employees) find ways to quit," says career coach and rediffGURU Pradeep Pramanik.
The government must also look at rationalising the levies on the sector and close long standing legal disputes that are a big drag on performance of operators, he said.
American tech billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday said his proposed visit to India has been postponed due to "very heavy Tesla obligations". The electric carmaker Tesla CEO -- who was expected to be in India on April 21 and 22 and scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- wrote on X that he is looking forward to coming to India later this year.
A web portal which once belonged to the Indian embassy in Bahrain has now turned into a porn site.The teen porn website, located at www.indianembassy-bah.com, was used by the Indian embassy before they moved to www.indianembassybahrain.com last year.A spokesperson of the Indian embassy said they simply stopped using the old website after changing to a new administrator. Officials were shocked to discover that the old address was now being used to peddle porn.
The list of guests included celebrities from across the globe, politicians, the who's who of Hindi and south Indian cinema world and almost all the top cricketers of the country.
In what could be one of the largest launches in the telecom services space, Reliance Jio Infocomm is set to roll out its 4G LTE services in 800 Indian cities between April and June next year.
The government on Wednesday said it has cleared Norwegian telecom firm Telenor's proposal to invest Rs 1,000 crore in a joint venture company in the telecom sector.
Local residents and even security personnel are using Nepalese SIM cards in border areas of Uttarakhand as no state-owned or private telecom company from India is providing services in the area, raising security issues.
The mobile user base is expected to grow to 815 million this year, from 755 million connections in 2013.
Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and Satyam and Bharti Tele-Ventures figure in the elite list.
In a move that will not augur well for companies which have been awarded 2G licences recently, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has rejected proposals by new telecom entrants for a relaxation of rollout obligations.
The Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing are at loggerheads with the Home Ministry for its proposal to allow international roaming for Pakistanis on Indian soil as they believe it will be misused. Vicky Nanjappa reports
CEO pay is not always the function of performance.
The Adani family, led by Chairman Gautam Adani, is the most valued first-generation family business at Rs 15.44 trillion.
'The huge amount of investments being made by telcos in India for telecom gear, there is no way this demand could be met only by Europeans.' 'The Chinese are quick in installation and offer great value for money.'
'The expeditious enactment of labour codes and strategic measures to bridge the skills jobs gap are critical.'
Reliance Industries Ltd, whose offering of rock-bottom tariffs shook up the telecom industry, is looking to repeat the feat in the green energy business, where its billionaire chairman Mukesh Ambani sees promise to outshine all existing growth engines in 5-7 years. Having pledged Rs 6 lakh crore on green energy, Ambani says RIL will scale up investments in this business which will start going live in the next 12 months. "Over the next 12 months our investments across the Green Energy value chain will gradually start going live, scaling up over the next couple of years," Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, said in the company's latest annual report.
Company has plans to launch its latest 4G enabled phone Lumia 830 priced at around Rs 26,000 before taxes by Oct.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has initiated discussions with banks to address financial stress in the telecom sector, particularly Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) that urgently requires fund infusion to stay afloat. There was a meeting of DOT officials and senior bankers on Friday on the issue of Vodafone, sources said, adding that banks have been asked to look for a solution within the prudential guidelines. According to sources, senior officials from the country's biggest lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda were also present among others in the meeting. More such meetings are expected to take place in the coming days, they said.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
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