'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.
A bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar issued notice to the government and fixed the matter for further hearing on December 10. The petition filed by an NGO, Telecom Watchdog, contended that the government alloted the spectrum without following any policy and cellular operators were provided excess spectrum without charging them for the scarce resource since 2001.
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.
New Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Nripendra Misra said on Wednesday there were no differences between the regulator and the Department of Telecom.
"I want to reiterate that I went as per the telecom policy of 1999, as per recommendations of Telecom and Regulatory Authority of India and vision contemplated by the government. If there have been any procedural lapses. Let it be investigated. No problem at all," Raja told reporters here two days after he unceremoniously put in his papers.
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.
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.
Call drops may end as govt allows telecom spectrum trading
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.
Global credit rating agency Fitch upgraded outlook for the Indian telecom sector from 'negative' to 'stable'.
Ashok Pradhan on Monday took charge as the Minister of State for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
Tata group chief Ratan Tata has questioned allocation of spectrum based on subscriber and technology without having a defined policy.
India may be 15th among the top 25 Artificial Intelligence nations, but it has the 'the greatest upward potential' according to research by Tufts University's business school, the Fletcher School. At the top is the US, followed by China, fighting for global leadership in AI followed by the UK, Japan, and Germany. In the 15th spot, India is ahead of Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia and Thailand.
Bharti Airtel on Friday said it has rolled out unlimited data offer for 5G users in 4G plans starting from Rs 239 onward. The move from the telecom operator comes to match its rival Jio, which is offering unlimited 5G data access during the beta trials during the network rollout. "This introductory offer is in line with the philosophy of wanting our customers to be able to surf, stream, chat and enjoy multiple benefits at blazing speeds without having to worry about data limits. We hope our customers enjoy the power of world-class Airtel 5G Plus," Bharti Airtel, director consumer business, Shashwat Sharma said in a statement.
Performance is considered a major reason why Ravi Shankar Prasad might have had to leave telecom.
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.
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.
Chandrasekhar's comments came within hours of Tata slamming him for the alleged subversive role played by him to change the telecom policies.
These policies aim to raise revenue of both the sectors to $700 billion over the next eight years.
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.
The policy change was originally scheduled to come into effect on February 8, the Facebook-owned company said.
With reduced uncertainty and clarity on the spectrum-pricing and sharing front, industry set to see positive growth and stability in the new year.
Kotak Mahindra Bank was the biggest loser from the Sensex pack, skidding 1.83 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, NTPC, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, HCL Technologies, IndusInd Bank and Nestle. In contrast, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan, Infosys, HDFC Bank, HDFC and ITC were the gainers.
'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 Delhi Police, in a first information report (FIR) filed under anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) following allegations against news portal NewsClick, has alleged that a large amount of funds came from China in order to disrupt India's sovereignty and cause disaffection against the country.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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 officials said that the recently developed SH-15, a 155 mm truck-mounted howitzer gun, has also been spotted at some places along the Line of Control after it was displayed on Pakistan Day last year.
The MP asked authorities to keep focus of investigation on scam to weed out the lobbyists from the telecom sector.
'At a time when massive strides are being made in bringing 5G technology to India, and with TSPs ramping up their infrastructure, it is unacceptable that a large number of complaints over quality issues continue to come in, even from major urban areas.'
"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.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
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