Sunil Mittal-owned Bharti Group may soon become the first private telecom company to offer services in Jammu and Kashmir if their licence application gets government approval.
In its drive to expand telecom services both in mobile and fixed line segments, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel on Tuesday awarded a $900 million contract to Nokia Siemens to deploy equipments in various circles in which it operates.
Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal's bid for telecom major MTN Group has to contend with some tough negotiations with Lebanon's former prime minister Najib Mikati, one of the wealthiest men in his country, as well as stiff black economic empowerment policies in South Africa that provide for a major share in the management of companies located in the country to blacks.
Bajaj Auto's Rahul Bajaj, Sunil Mittal of Bharti and Oil and Natural Gas Corp's Subir Raha are among the 20 finalists announced by Ernst and Young for the E&Y Entreprenuer of the Year award.
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday said his company is open to joining hands with Bharti Airtel for improving telecom network for 4G services in Punjab.
Apex court said it will decide on it, irrespective of the opinion of government law officers.
Global retail giant Walmart has got fair trade regulator CCI's green signal for purchase of Bharti group's almost 50 per cent stake in their Indian joint venture for wholesale stores business.
The Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) will on Saturday hold dharnas outside the residences of three senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Punjab on the fifth day of the farmers' protest over their various demands, including a legal guarantee for a minimum support price (MSP).
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said it has reported a 20.85 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 2,239.30 crore (Rs 22.39 billion) for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2009.
Airtel rolls out fourth-generation (4G) data service across 296 cities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the much-awaited 5G services in India on October 1, 2022, an official release said on Friday. According to the release, 5G to be launched by the Prime Minister in select cities, will progressively cover the entire country over the next couple of years. The cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is estimated to reach $450 billion by 2035. Capable of supporting ultra-high-speed internet services, the fifth generation or 5G is expected to unleash new economic opportunities and societal benefits, serving as a transformational force for Indian society.
Sunil Mittal also said that the company was in talks with some banks for acquisition of firms in new circles after unified licensing regime comes in place.
Indian firms, including Tata Steel, in the past have formed SPVs to acquire foreign companies to protect local operations and also to avoid legal hindrances. The SPV may be registered in a tax-haven country, like Mauritius or Bahamas, the sources said. The move to float an SPV will help Bharti Airtel to continue being listed on Indian stock exchanges, while MTN's promoters will be given a stake in the SPV.
Bharti Airtel on Thursday said its 5G services have gone live in eight cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi. The customer availing 5G services will have to pay as per their existing 4G plan, it said. "Airtel has been at the forefront of India's telecom revolution for the last 27 years.
The auction last year had seen a muted response on account of high spectrum cost.
Riding on a bull run, equity investors became richer by Rs 128.77 lakh crore in the 2023-24 fiscal, driven by robust fundamentals of the Indian economy, increased investment inflows and promising corporate earnings. After a muted performance in 2022-23, equity markets made a remarkable recovery in FY24, giving handsome returns to investors. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 14,659.83 points or 24.85 per cent in 2023-24.
The telecom to look at opportunities to acquire another firm in India.
Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra will be held in five phases on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13 and May 20. Counting of votes will be held on June 4.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is said to be planning a surprise entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, which will pitch it directly against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, sources said. Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on Friday with at least four applications. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea -- the three private players in the telecom sector -- applied, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum said that Tara Chand, a Delhi-based businessman, was entitled to three domestic trips instead of one as contended by Airtel since he had bought the connections in the names of three directors of his firm.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
Homegrown chat application Hike messenger on Wednesday said it will offer free voice calls to its users over 2G, 3G and wi-fi services across the globe in over 200 countries.
The IPO boom in 2023 added four new promoters to the billionaires' list.
Apple, which is seeing declining sales elsewhere in the world, is betting big on India for growth as sales here saw an impressive 56 per cent growth in the January-March 2016 quarter.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hosted British royal couple Prince William and Kate Middleton for lunch to the accompaniment of classical music.
Traders' body CAIT on Wednesday wrote to Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and 50 other captains of India Inc, including Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Gautam Adani, Ajay Piramal, Anand Mahindra and Sunil Bharti Mittal seeking their support in its campaign to boycott Chinese goods. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also urged Kumar Mangalam Birla, Vikram Kirloskar, Rahul Bajaj, Shiv Nadar, Pallonji Mistry, Uday Kotak, Nusli Wadia, Shashi Ruia, Madhukar Parekh, Harsh Mariwala, Satish Reddy and Pankaj Patel, among other prominent industrialists, to join its 'Bhartiya Samaan-Humaara Abhimaan' campaign.
India is today the second-largest telecom market in the world with over a billion customers and close to 600 million Internet users. New connections are available on the tap, calls are virtually free and it's hard to imagine anyone without a mobile phone today. Globally, there would be few parallels to this success story that truly democratised telephony and empowered a billion-plus people, observes Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal.
Huawei came under a cloud after allegations that the firm's electronic and telecom devices helped China spy on US corporations and agencies.
Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and other telecom operators may have to pay the government a whopping Rs 1.42 lakh crore following the Supreme Court order last week that sent shock waves through an industry already grappling with billions of dollars in debt and an intense tariff war to retain customers.
Several high profile companies are burdened with losses, mounting debt and have a huge load of operational costs.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, that powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time. In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), Fifth Generation or 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
Close on the heels of paper leak in Bihar State Staff Selection Commission test for clerks, a TV sting on Friday exposed a purported shady deal in the ongoing recruitment of fourth grade employees in civil courts across Bihar.
Government think-tank body Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant supported the industry demand and called for setting up of a single window clearance system for expeditious approval of projects. Start-ups and small medium enterprises requested the prime minister to provide support in low-cost capital at the virtual launch of space and satellite industry body Indian Space Association (ISpA).
Hero MotoCorp's promoter Pawan Munjal emerged as the highest paid director.
Bharti Airtel customers can now avail its 4G data plans starting from Rs 450, down 31 per cent from Rs 650 earlier in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune and Chandigarh circles.
With strong GDP growth, expanding base of start-ups and growing trend of new technologies like cloud in the country, the 21st century is Indian century, IBM chief Virginia Rometty said.
Mittal said he discussed a plethora of issues with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and sought the government's support for faster clearances to streamline the group's investment plans.
Former President A P J Abdul Kalam was among a large number of voters in several constituencies in Delhi who on Wednesday faced problems while exercising their franchise because of the malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines.