Nine mobile telephony firms including Bharti, Vodafone, Reliance and Tatas are in the fray for 3-4 slots of 3G spectrum that allows subscribers to download hi-speed data and stream videos on mobile telephones. Radio waves are being auctioned across 22 circles.
The PAC's second draft report again targets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram. However, Chidambaram gets more brickbats while Dr Singh, the report says, was 'misled' by then Telecom Minister A Raja. Our Correspondent reports from New Delhi.
Prime Minister opportunistically engaged flawed leaders and regressed into NAM rhetoric during his UN visit, says K C Singh.
The government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
So far, most of those horrified by the dramatic evidence that surfaced last week of Telecom Minister A Raja's largesse on 2G spectrum costing the nation $10bn (that on 3G will probably cost another $5bn) have comforted themselves with one thought: maybe the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, which is hearing the case, will conclude the policy changes were illegal and smacked of favouritism.
Loop is one of the operators which have been named along with others in the entire case as it was awarded licence in 2008 by former Telecom Minister A Raja.
Rajya Sabha was briefly adjourned on Tuesday following an uproar by AIADMK over Telecom Minister A Raja's role in Second Generation or 2G spectrum allocation that allegedly led to heavy loss of revenue to the government.
The Central Bureau of Investigation was on Wednesday allowed two days transit remand of Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa by a Mumbai court to take him to Delhi and confront him with former Telecom Minister A Raja, who is also in the agency's custody in connection with the 2G spectrum case.
The move gains importance after two new telecom players -- Swan and Unitech -- sold stakes to foreign companies at high premiums after the allocation of spectrum. The Left parties had also accused Telecom Minister A Raja of underselling spectrum that cost the national exchequer around Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion).
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday rejected Home Minister P Chidambaram's 'self-certified' non-involvement in the 2G spectrum case and maintained that he should resign from the Union cabinet.
Eleven members of Parliament, including one each from Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, on Thursday demanded rejection of the draft Public Accounts Committee report on the 2G scam, which has indicted former Telecom minister A Raja and made critical observations about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance minister P Chidambaram.
In the backdrop of former Telecom Minister A Raja telling the JPC that he took major decisions after consulting the prime minister, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday asked Manmohan Singh to appear before the panel, saying his silence will "confirm" his involvement in the 2G scam.
A common carrier policy, as in the petroleum sector, is worth looking at.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday hit out at Opposition parties for stalling the proceedings of Parliament, after their demand for a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee into the spectrum scandal was not accepted by the government.Reacting to a question on whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would make a statement on the resignation of Telecom Minister A Raja over the 2G spectrum scam, Pranab lost his cool.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has removed Union Fertiliser Minister M K Alagiri and Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran from two key sub-committees of the Union Cabinet. Both Alagiri and Maran are leaders of the Congress's ally DMK. In the wake of the multi-crore 2G spectrum scam, involving DMK leader and then telecom minister A Raja, the PM has been careful about allocating sensitive positions to the party's leaders.
Coming to the defence of Home Minister P Chidambaram, the government on Friday insisted that the former finance minister had "no role anywhere" in the 2G spectrum allocation controversy and demands for his resignation were a "conspiracy" against him.
Currently, USO fund administrator invites bid from interested telcos for setting up infrastructure in rural areas and the process is time consuming.
The government on Wednesday said it will not allocate any spectrum to existing operators, license holders and new applicants till a scientific evaluation was done by the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC)."There is scarcity of spectrum and number of applicants are much more than actually can be accommodated... Applications must be synchronised by a legal process... We have referred the matter to Law Ministry to get Solicitor General's views on the matter," Telecom Minister A Ra
Union Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran, who has been implicated by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the 2G scam probe, resigned from his post on Thursday, just hours after attending a meeting of the Union Cabinet.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday circumvented all controversial domestic political issues, including those that surround Telecom Minister A Raja, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan's alleged role in the Adarsh Society scam, and the Commonwealth Games fiasco, but assured that he would look into the matter once he returns to India and then make any meaningful comment on it.
'At least three top bureaucrats have been declared guilty in recent years in connection with scams where they had no pecuniary benefit.' 'But in the telecom case, a money trail is declared irrelevant because no scam has been proved in the first place.' 'Fair enough; so we must punish illegality without criminality, but ignore possible criminality as suggestive of illegality,' points out T N Ninan.
There was an under reporting of Rs 1000 crore (Rs 10 billion) to Rs 1500 crore (Rs 15 billion) by the telecom firms, to avoid payment of licence fee, and the government may have lost about Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) because of this, telecom minister A Raja said during Question Hour.
After a Delhi court framed harges against 17 persons in the 2G case, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation to ascertain the role of then finance minister P Chidambaram in the scam and insisted that he should either step down or be sacked to facilitate a fair investigation.
Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Thursday pleaded before a Delhi court that it should bring on record purported new facts that former finance minister P Chidambaram and former telecom minister A Raja had a role in deciding 2G spectrum prices and entry fee. In a fresh application in the court of Special Central Bureau of Investigation judge O P Saini, Swami said he wanted to bring "new facts" on court records through his deposition.
Former telecom minister Arun Shourie responds to the Shivraj Patil committee's findings on the 2G spectrum scam, in this interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN programme 'Devil's Advocate'. Excerpts:
Janata Party Chief Subramanian Swamy on Monday told a Central Bureau of Investigation court dealing with the 2G spectrum case involving former telecom minister A Raja that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi should be made an accused in the case.
The Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the 2G spectrum scam has been tabled in Parliament. The report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Finance (EB&I) Namo Narayan Meena. The report was placed in the Loks Sabha by Minister of State for Finance (Revenue) SS Palanimanickam.
In a huge relief to Home Minister P Chidambaram and to the United Progressive Alliance government, a Delhi court on Saturday threw out a plea to make him an accused in the 2G case.
The Congress core group is meeting later in the evening where the implementation of Kirit Parikh Committee report on fuel pricing reforms may be discussed.
Party insiders concede statements of the Raja kind have the potential to hurt the DMK's electoral chances in closely-fought seats in 2024, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The government has accepted Telecom Engineering Centre's report that has suggested tough norms for spectrum allocation to GSM operators, a move that may make it difficult for players like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea to get additional frequency.
The only way of making the government and the Congress pay a price for their established misdeeds is by making this an electoral issue, says B Raman
The Supreme Court will on Thursday pronounce its judgements on the petitions seeking a direction for a probe into the alleged role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in 2G spectrum scam and for cancellation of 122 radiowave licences granted during the tenure of A Raja as telecom minister.
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's son Tamilarasu and daughter Selvi met their half-sister Kanimozhi, who has been arrested in the 2G spectrum case, at a trial court in New Delhi.
The issue of corruption will be tested when the results of Tamil Nadu assembly elections would be declared on May 13.
The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on the plea for a probe into the alleged role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G scam after a spirited defence of him from government and the Central Bureau of Investigation, both of which maintained that no case has been made out against him.
Alagiri's grouse is that the party has not taken strong action against three persons -- A Raja, Kanimozhi and Poongothai Aladi Aruna.
The telecom ministry has referred the matter of number of 3G spectrum slots in each circle to the Finance Ministry.
Trial in the 2G spectrum case, involving former Telecom Minister A Raja and 16 others, on Monday resumed in a Delhi court after nearly a month with the special judge asking everyone not to discuss the matter outside the courtroom.
The general council of the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam will meet in Chennai on February 3 to discuss and decide the seat arrangements for the upcoming assembly elections with its allies.Karunanidhi announced this decision after rejecting a resignation letter from his son and Fertiliser Minister M K Alagiri from the post of the DMK's organising secretary.Alagiri has sought action against DMK leader A Raja, who had to resign as the telecom minister over the massive 2G scam.
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