While the government has not barred procurement of equipment from Chinese companies, the process to amend the general financial rules (GFR) 2017 has started. This will impose restrictions on bidders in public procurement from countries that share a land border with India, reports Megha Manchanda.
A flare up of sibling rivalry between India 's billionaire Ambani brothers over the proposed takeover of mobile operator Reliance Communications by South Africa's MTN is threatening to spill over into the courts.
The launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd last September, particularly the tariff war it has unleashed on its competitors, has deepened the crisis facing India's telecom sector. One offshoot of this is the major drop in earnings reported by industry leaders Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular with each passing quarter. Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com tells the story in numbers.
Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Communications on Friday said its R-World, will be powered by mobile data services and solutions provider, Motricity, which will deliver complete mobile Internet and data services. The mobile data services portal has been developed on Motricitys mCore platform which powers 3G mobile portals of many leading global 3G service providers.
Revenue decline has left the operators with little money to service their mostly 3G and partly 4G infrastructure leading to poor data and voice quality.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
Home minister heads several groups of ministers, including the one to decide the revival package for Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam. His ministry also takes decisive calls on national security in relation to telecom operations as well as equipment and technology used in the industry.
Reliance Communications on Wednesday announced 1,000 free minutes of usage for GSM subscribers for calls to any other Reliance mobile in the Delhi-NCR region.
According to the agreement, Microsoft will offer Windows Mobile solutions to RCom customers, including push e-mail support, chat, photo-sharing, content back-up and other applications, RCom said.
The company, which is the biggest stakeholder in DreamWorks Animation Studios, is in talks with bankers to identify and acquire up-and-coming mobile game studios in North America and Europe to boost sales
After the success of its wireless-in-local loop (mobile) service, Reliance Infocomm on Tuesday launched another innovative communication product -- fixed phones sans any wire connection.
Reliance Telecom, a subsidiary of Reliance Communiations, on Friday announced a unique recharge scheme for its prepaid GSM customers who could avail of free ''double on net minutes and built-in talktime'' on top-up vouchers of Rs 10.
Jio is now present in all of the 29 states.
Following Reliance Communications' move to break the sub-Rs 1,000 price barrier in the black and white CDMA sets, mobile phone manufacturers are working hard to break the sub-Rs 2,000 barrier for GSM colour mobile phones.
The mobile phone user base in the country has crossed the 33 million mark at the end of the last fiscal with Reliance topping the list with over 7.2 million followed by Bharti with 6.5 million users.
In February, Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman and CEO, told Business Standard at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the company was keen to expand to India. China Mobile has over 450 million subscribers. RCom, which offers CDMA mobile telecom services and started GSM services a few months ago, has over 70 million customers. An RCom spokesperson declined to comment and an email query to China Mobile was unanswered.
Swan is one of the firms which got a licence at bargain-basement prices thanks to telecom minister A Raja.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has granted seven authorisations to companies for selling automobile (auto) fuels in the country. These new approvals are under the relaxed guidelines for authorisation to market transportation fuels that were revised in 2019. This is expected to make the competition more intense in India's petroleum retail business. According to a top oil ministry official, a fresh marketing authorisation has been granted to Reliance Industries (RIL) under these norms. This is being done since RIL's existing retail marketing authorisation has been transferred to its subsidiary Reliance BP Mobility
Reliance Infocomm has introduced two interactive mobile applications, 'City Guide' and 'TV Guide', in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.\n\n\n\n
Text messaging services of all telecom operators also remained suspended in Lucknow and some other parts of UP. In Assam, services were restored 10 days after being banned.
RCom and Research In Motion have introduced the 'Reliance E-Lite' plan for BlackBerry smart phone users in India, where users can have unlimited access to email and instant messaging on their phones for Rs 299 a month, RCom said. The service plan would be available on BlackBerry smartphones available from Reliance Mobile, such as BlackBerry 8703e, BlackBerry 8830, BlackBerry Curve 8300, BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Pearl 8110 and BlackBerry Pearl 8130.
RIL has faced protests from local authorities, activists and residents across India campaigning against masts and roadworks.
On Monday, Ambani had said the Reliance group was open to join hands with Bharti Airtel for improving telecom network for 4G services in Punjab.
The service, first of its kind in the country, is expected to be launched shortly, if not within a week.
Downloading music and streaming videos on the Internet and mobile handsets may soon be pass. With the government allocating 3G spectrum, content providers are ready with new services.
At the heart of one of the biggest transformations in India's corporate history lies a plan to offer super-fast broadband services.
Reliance Industries, which holds pan-India 4G telecom spectrum for data services, has applied for a licence to offer mobile telephony.
HDFC Bank has launched mobile banking service on SMS for Reliance IndiaMobile customers, which will enable customers to see their account balance, get mini statements, fixed deposit details and make requests for cheque books.
CanvasM, a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and Motorola, is planning to launch 6,000 new indigenously developed applications for mobile phones.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday said it has sought information from those mobile operators who are offering tariff packages along with a handset.
Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major's use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks. The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities with Jio. The Jio tie-up is expected to bring down its telecom bill by at least 35 per cent from this financial year.
Under the arrangement, a Reliance India Mobile user with an SBI account will be able to pay the bill amount directly from his account without having to pay any service charges.
DRDO's failures over the decades have contributed significantly to India becoming the world's biggest weapons importer, points out Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
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