Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
Modelled loosely around the National Highway System of the US, he in 2001 launched the Golden Quadrilateral and the North-South & East-West Corridor projects to build 4/6 lane highways between four top metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata as well as from Srinagar to Kanyakumari and Porbandar to Silchar.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) expects to finalise the norms for mergers and acquisitions and spectrum sharing by the end of June. It also plans to approve the National Telecom Policy (NTP), 2012, by the end of July.
Communications Minister A Raja met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday and briefed him about the developments in the telecom sector including recent policy decision like introduction of number portability and releasing spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile services. The meeting lasted for about 25 minutes, official sources confirmed but did not give details.
The Finance Ministry, which is under immense pressure to meet the fiscal deficit target during the current financial year, has also written a letter to the department of telecommunication to auction spectrum to earn additional revenues.
Ashok Pradhan on Monday took charge as the Minister of State for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said the parties should appear before the Constitution bench and formulate issues to be taken up for the hearing.
Call drops may end as govt allows telecom spectrum trading
Global credit rating agency Fitch upgraded outlook for the Indian telecom sector from 'negative' to 'stable'.
'I feel more like a chess player, thinking for long hours how to make the next move," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan tells Surajeet Das Gupta.
Tata group chief Ratan Tata has questioned allocation of spectrum based on subscriber and technology without having a defined policy.
The CBI approached Shourie last week asking him to appear before the agency in connection with the Preliminary Enquiry registered by the agency following a direction from the Supreme Court.
India's overall imports from Taiwan during April-February rose by 34 per cent to $7.5 billion.
Performance is considered a major reason why Ravi Shankar Prasad might have had to leave telecom.
Chandrasekhar's comments came within hours of Tata slamming him for the alleged subversive role played by him to change the telecom policies.
Citing security concerns the Home Ministry has opposed hike in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) caps in sectors like aviation and telecom, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
These policies aim to raise revenue of both the sectors to $700 billion over the next eight years.
A higher-than-expected consumer price inflation (CPI) print for March in the US has dashed hopes of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve (US Fed) in June. Analysts now expect the US central bank to start cutting rates in September, provided inflation remains in check and oil prices remain supportive. The markets, analysts believe, partially factored in this possibility.
With reduced uncertainty and clarity on the spectrum-pricing and sharing front, industry set to see positive growth and stability in the new year.
For the smart phone industry, it has been a lacklustre quarter of CY2024, with sales falling by 3-4 per cent over the same period last year, according to Counterpoint Research projections. However, with the launch of many new models in Q1 of CY24, overall shipments grew year-on-year by 10-12 per cent. In CY23 shipments remained flat, ending the year with 152 million units.
'If Parliament had not been obstructed, even the Indian media would not have realised that such a monumental scam had taken place,' says Arun Jaitley.
After engaging in a war of words with industrialist Ratan Tata, Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar has now given a 7-point agenda to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal suggesting that the ministry be made "free of lobbyists and wheeler-dealers" to clean up the sector.
The S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices have managed to stay afloat in a volatile January that saw the frontline indices hit their respective 52-week high levels and then slip. While the S&P BSE Sensex has lost over 2 per cent thus far in January, the S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices have gained nearly 2.5 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively during this period.
The Unite dProgressive Alliance government and the Opposition will debate in Parliament on Thursday the terms of reference of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum scam and pass a resolution.
Both Airtel and Vodafone claim they did everything possible to resume services.
Breaking its silence on reports that Chinese telecom equipment makers are being banned in India on security reasons, Beijing on Monday urged New Delhi to remove restrictions and said such curbs amount to discrimination.
According to software company Mavernir, the new virtualised networks would lead to a saving of 40 per cent in capex and 34 per cent in terms of lower operations cost for operators.
The government said on Wednesday that it will come out with a 'technology-neutral' spectrum policy in tune with global practices while looking forward to introducing the next generation 3G mobile services in the country.
The government may earn about Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) from the new telecom spectrum policy, which seeks to delink licences from spectrum, if it decides to fix the price based on the figure discovered through last year's 3G auction.
.jpg)
TC at its meeting here recommended to an Empowered Group of Ministers that reserve price for pan-India 1800 MHz spectrum be fixed 15 per cent higher than Trai suggested rates.
The MP asked authorities to keep focus of investigation on scam to weed out the lobbyists from the telecom sector.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja had "misled" then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding policy of first-come-first-served which was to be followed for allocation of 2G spectrum, Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday told a special court.
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.
The policy change was originally scheduled to come into effect on February 8, the Facebook-owned company said.
High court orders Swan Telecom's promoter Shahid Balwa, the director of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables, Rajeev Agarwal, and three firms, namely Dynamic Realty, DB Realty, and Nihar Constructions to plant 3,000 trees each in the Delhi's South Ridge forest area.
"Look at the policies of world around, we are far less protectionist than any other country in the world. There is no question of India becoming protectionist," Indian Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said here on Monday.
The Internet service policy unveiled on Saturday is likely to hit the industry hard. It may wipe off small and medium players in the country.
Analyst are cautious about the performance of IT services sector from January to March quarter (Q4) of FY24 and the first half (H1) of FY25. While the Bloomberg consensus on revenue implies the market is expecting 2-3 per cent growth on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis for the IT majors through FY25, the H1FY25 is likely to see even flatter returns, and Q4FY24 is likely to be poor. There is likely to be some recovery in the second half (H2FY25) but even so, there's a chance that the market will be overall disappointed.
