Leh District Magistrate Santosh Sukhadeve posted this photo on his X account thanking the Indian Army's Fire and Fury Corps for successfully destroying 175 landmines in the villages of Phobrang, Yourgo and Lukung in Leh on Thursday, October 12, 2023.
The government told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited would not be privatised in the near future.\n\n\n\n
The government believes the listing especially of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited would help improve the company's image and promote its growth. BSNL sources said there will not be any fresh equity, but only offloading by the government. The company will not get any proceeds from the IPO.
For national long distance calling, the government had proposed 'One-India' in a bid to create uniform call rate across the country and for this it had invited four telecom players.
Of the total proposed allocation, over Rs 1 lakh crore is meant for BSNL and MTNL-related expenses, including Rs 82,916 crore infusion in BSNL for technology upgradation and restructuring at BSNL.
BSNL was formed on Oct 1, 2000 and it had decided to included all the Central level Government Officers and employees, who were working on DOT basis, in BSNL fold and accordingly, group 'B' and group 'C' employees and group 'D' officers were included in BSNL. But still, the officers of group 'A', currently working as GM and DGM, have not been included in BSNL and they have been working on deputation as central level administrative officers.
An apex committee under DoT Secretary R Chandraskehar has been set up to oversee the required policy decisions and institutional framework for an alliance between the two public sector undertakings which have been incurring losses.
Other members of the search panel are secretary (personnel) Shantanu Consul, telecom secretary P J Thomas, IIT Chennai professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIM Ahmedabad professor Samir Baruha and IISC Bangalore professor N Balakrishnan.
If candidates from the private sector are selected, this will be the first time that these telecom PSUs are headed by chiefs from the private sector.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the two big state-controlled telecom companies, have written to the government asking that it bear the entire cost of the additional spectrum assigned to the two giants.
The prime minister's directive comes in the wake of telecom minister A Raja seeking his intervention for early resolution of BSNL's tender controversy.
A decision on the merger will take some time as there are procedural problems with MTNL being a listed entity and BSNL non-listed.
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.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has rejected a proposal by Communications Minister A Raja for refund of the Rs 29,598 crore paid by state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited for third generation (3G) and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum.
The top three fixed line players Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharti Airtel reported a revenue decline.
Upon discovery of the price for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access spectrum, BSNL and MTNL recently paid Rs 18,500.38 crore (Rs 185 billion) and Rs 11,097.97 crore (Rs 110.97 billion), respectively, to the government.
In April, DoT introduced a graded penalty system under which operators pay Rs 50,000 per subscriber if more than 20 per cent of their user base is without valid identity documents.
The proposed merger between two state-run telecom giants -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited -- might have hit a roadblock, but both the companies plan to synergise their operations across the country.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for IT and Communications Shakeel Ahmad said a consortium of consultants led by ICICI Securities has suggested some options for restructuring of MTNL and BSNL.
Telecom services across the country are expected to be hit following Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees' indefinite strike from Wednesday, demanding immediate placement of equipment orders for expansion of its mobile network.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has got two Mhz of additional spectrum from Department of Telecom to support its growing mobile subscriber base in the country.
A look into some handsets that allow you to surf at 3G speeds.
A poser by CPI-M member Sitaram Yechury on whether Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited are deliberately not setting up towers to favour private companies left Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran seething with anger.
Railway Minister Nitish Kumar has said that negotiations are on with the telecom ministry for equity participation of MTNL and BSNL in RailTel Corp to improve telecom services in the Railways.
The package gives the officers time until October 15 to take a decision on staying back with one of the two public service undertakings.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees and executives across the country will go on a strike on July 11 to press the government to immediately place the purchase order for the 45.5 million GSM contract to the selected vendors.
The spat over the carriage of national long distance traffic between Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited may be heading towards a reconciliatory note.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited on Monday expressed willingness to lower the 'carriage' charge, a move which will lead to lower STD call rates between Delhi and Mumbai to start with.
Millennium Telecom, a joint venture company of two telecom PSUs Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has floated a Rs 1,600-crore (Rs 16-billion) tender to lay a submarine cable between India and South East Asia, the landing station for which would be located in West Bengal. "The cable landing station for this cable would be set up at Digha in West Bengal," the department of telecommunication has informed the state government.
While for some other destinations like France, Russia, the UK and South East Asia, the rates would vary from Rs 3.25 to Rs 4 a minute, depending on the denomination value of CallNow cards, Kuldeep Goyal, CMD of BSNL told reporters. BSNL has launched a calling card -- CallNow - which allows BSNL and MTNL's landline subscribers to make much cheaper ISD calls to the US and Canada.
A bench headed by Justice H S Kapadia, while dismissing Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communication's petitions, has upheld telecom tribunal TDSAT's order of September 2005 that held these services are not fixed lines telephones, but limited mobile. The Supreme Court had earlier reserved its judgement on a petition filed by Tata Teleservices challenging the telecom tribunal's order which classified the company's fixed wireless phone service 'Walky' as limited mobile.
The union is demanding early orders for wage revision and payment of arrears to non-executives, numbering about 2,50,000, who are eligible for wage revision since January 1, 2007.
Says nothing should move until system is in place to enable full tapping of lines.
Now any customer can make audio video calls at will on any landline, mobile or Internet Protocol phone anywhere in the world, provided that both the ends have requisite video phone equipment.
New Delhi'sclaim that Pakistan websites triggered recent violence in Mumbai and provoked the exodus of the northeast community in Bengaluru may indeed be true. But India is left only pointing fingers and struggles to counter these attacks. Vicky Nanjappa finds out why
Following Reliance Communications' announcement last week accusing Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited of delaying implementation of an international tribunal order, VSNL said on Wednesday the announcement contained false imputations against it.
Through messages via the BSNL network, the ministry plans to spread awareness among the public and ask people not to invest in suspicious companies.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday carried out searches at the Vodafone office in Mumbai and Airtel office in Gurgaon after registering a case against ex-Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and the two telecom service providers for alleged irregularities in spectrum allocation during tenure of Pramod Mahajan as Telecom Minister.
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