Modi on Friday met industry leaders in New Delhi at a closed-door meeting.
Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal will hold additional charge of the telecom ministry, official sources said on Monday.Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam leader A Raja was forced to put in his papers as the telecom minister on Sunday night due to his alleged involvement in the massive 2G spectrum scam.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Sibal as the telecom minister, in spite of DMK chief Karunanidhi claiming that the key ministry will remain with the party.
Communication minister Arun Shourie on Monday apprised Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of latest developments in the telecom sector including tariff revision, the issue which rocked the Parliament last week.
In DMK circles, Raja is seen as the top-most mobiliser of funds for elections. 'The leadership sees him as having done more for the party from Delhi than even Murasoli Maran.'
Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office, which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely for the United Progressive Alliance regime, questions are now being raised about pending decisions across ministries and whether at least some ministers have turned redundant.
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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.
Hailing the Supreme Court verdict in 2G case, L K Advani on Wednesday wondered if former telecom minister A Raja could be the sole "villain" and said no one can beat the United Progressive Alliance government, which is "actually run" by Sonia Gandhi, in its "stinking record" in scams.
"I do not want to boast (about) anything. The court's judgment has to be respected. I am glad that the court has pronounced unambiguously. All the massive propaganda which was being done against the UPA was without any foundation. The judgment speaks for itself," the former PM said.
In his letter dated October 11, written before the last EGoM meeting, Ambani has said the government would incur a loss of at least Rs 35,000 crore if the EGoM had decided to charge for excess spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz only prospectively from 2012, and not from 2008.
A two-time Congress Member of Parliament from South Mumbai, the 34-year old Deora said there was scope for improvement in the ministry, while emphasising on maximising telecom penetration in the country.
In a major setback to over 2,200 technocrats from the telecom cadre services, government on Thursday closed all negotiations on the issue of their absorption into telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, saying that the deadline has expired.
According to the survey report, the government's move to earmark Rs 76,000 crore outlay for semiconductors and display manufacturing segment will aid their production in the country. The survey said that government intervention to boost semiconductors and display manufacturing ecosystem in the country has come at a time when the global economy is facing acute shortage of semiconductors due to severe disruptions in supply chains.
The telecom industry is divided over the policies of former Communications Minister Dayanadhi Maran, who resigned on Sunday.
Former Telecom Minister Sukhram, convicted for taking Rs 3 lakhs as bribe to give a lucrative contract to a private firm in 1996, today pleaded for leniency in a Delhi court on grounds of his old age while the Central Bureau of Investigation called him a "habitual offender" and sought maximum punishment for him.
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal tried to put up a brave front over the allegations levelled against him of causing loss to the government by favouring an Anil Ambani-led company.
The government auditor CAG had estimated a presumptive loss of up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 1.76 trillion) because of sale of spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices.
This will be the first time BJP's prime ministerial candidate holds a discussion with IT, telecom czars.
An Income Tax department team will fly down from Chennai on Wednesday to question former telecom minister A Raja in Tihar jail, for his alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Former Telecom Minister Arun Shourie on Friday appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the 2G case and said the real issue involved kickbacks and not the policy pursued for spectrum allocation.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a case against former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and BSNL officials for allegedly allotting 300 high-speed telephone lines to Maran's residence in Chennai which were extended to his brother's channel.
With the government moving a resolution in the Lok Sabha to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum issue, the battle lines between the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party have become more tightly drawn with the Congress preparing its ammunition to target the BJP during its National Democratic Alliance government, in a bid to expose the actions of their telecom ministers.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday questioned former telecom minister A Raja's close aide Sadiq Batcha in connection with its probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
In a move that could hold a flicker of hope for telecom operators, who have been opposing the high base price for the auction of 2G spectrum, the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) has quietly modified the key objective of the auction. The text of the objective has been tweaked from "revenue maximisation" to "maximising revenue but within set parameters" determined by the government.
The government expects the rollout of 5G services to start from early October in the country, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday. "As soon as the spectrum auction ends, within a few days itself, we will allocate the spectrum. "We expect that the 5G roll-out will happen from the beginning of October and within a year or so, we should have a good rollout in the country," the Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters in New Delhi.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday night arrested three people, including V Gowthaman, the then additional private secretary of Dayanidhi Maran, in connection with alleged allotment of more than 300 high-speed telephone lines to the then telecom minister's residence in Chennai which were extended to his brother's TV channel.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi hit out at Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal for questioning the Comptroller and Auditor General report on the 2G Spectrum scam. He said that Sibal's comments showed both the PAC and the CAG in poor light and said that the telecom minister's conduct was unbecoming.
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan appealed to people to boycott products from China and also directed officials of his ministry not to procure any Chinese products for day-to-day office use while his ministerial colleague Ramdas Athawale said all restaurants and hotels that sell Chinese food in India should be closed down.
The government on Thursday announced fresh concessions for telecom players while singling out cellular operators for additional benefits in view of the heavy licence fee paid by them.
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.
Now BSNL customers will be able to make calls using the company's mobile app 'Wings' to any phone number in the country.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
The government is considering allowing intra-circle merger and acquisitions in the telecom sector, subject to the presence of minimum three service operators in a particular circle.
The CBI has completed its probe against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and others in 2G scam and will approach the Centre for taking sanction for prosecution, the agency told the Supreme Court.
A high-powered group of ministers on Thursday decided to go for a unified licence regime for telecom services, a move seen to resolve the ongoing battle between basic and cellular operators on limited mobile services.
The government is not in a "crazy rush" to sell everything and it will continue to have a presence in four strategic sectors, including telecom, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. In strategic sectors, a bare minimum presence of the existing public sector commercial enterprises at the holding company level will be retained under government control. The remaining enterprises in a strategic sector will be considered for privatisation or merger with another PSE or for closure.
The government on Wednesday said it has set up dedicated Central Bureau of Investigation cells in four metros for detecting and checking telecom related frauds.
"I have repeatedly said I have done no wrong. A case related to this had come up before the Supreme Court last year and was heard by a bench headed by CJI T S Thakur, who had remarked that this case was made out because of political reasons," Maran, who was telecom minister between 2004 and 2007, said.
The government on Thursday sought to erase the impression that the hike in tariffs for telecom services has been made to favour cellular and private WLL operators patronised by business and upper segments of society.
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