Just a few weeks ago, Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw did some tough talking with the senior managers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the ailing state-owned telecom service provider. The message was clear: They had to perform, quit by taking the voluntary retirement package or be compulsorily retired from service. The terse message from an otherwise polite and soft-spoken minister came just days after he announced a second and bigger package of Rs 1.64 trillion as part of a four-year turnaround plan for BSNL.
The controversy over a minister of Dr Manmohan Singh's Cabinet directly influencing a judge of the Madras High Court reached its peak when the Prime Minister's Office, Chief Justice of India and principal opposition party Bharatiya Janata Party took the matter to its logical conclusion.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja, who is prime accused in the 2G scam, on Sunday lashed out at certain political parties and the media for "blowing out of proportion the false charges" against him on the spectrum issue.
The office of Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati has said he had offered advice as solicitor general to the then External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and Telecom minister A Raja in 2007 on 2G spectrum issues but it was not written and there is no copy of it.
It was after a long gap that an aggressive and united Congress took the Bharatiya Janata Party head on in both the Houses of Parliament over the WikiLeaks exposure on the cash-for-vote scam as the party fielded its brightest and the best.
After the furore over his statement on content monitoring on Internet, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Friday said the government has no intention of 'interfering' with the social media, nor does its plan to evolve guidelines amounting to restriction or regulation.
He said the industry should develop a set of guidelines for screening of objectionable content after it is uploaded.
We had asked our readers for their opinion about the government's attempts to censor online content. An overwhelming number of readers condemned such a move and suggested that Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal and his colleagues should focus on more important issues instead:
Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said there are 154,688 post offices in the country, the largest postal network in the world.
At present, GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular earn 10-12 per cent of their revenues from the national roaming services, which amount to Rs 10,000-Rs 13,500 crore.
Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin is in New Delhi on Wednesday and is expected to visit colleague and former Telecom Minister A Raja in the Tihar jail.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi is likely to visit former telecom minister A Raja inside the Tihar jail early next week.
A plea by former Telecom Minister A Raja that he would not cross-examine prosecution witnesses unless the Central Bureau of Investigation probe is over in 2G spectrum case, was dismissed on Friday by a Delhi court which began formal trial in the matter.
The tablet will be produced domestically, and in this regard the government is talking to various manufacturers from across the world.
Hyperactive Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal -- busy trying to 'rescue' the UPA government in the 2G scam ever since he took over after Andimuthu Raja resigned in November -- finds himself caught up in another spectrum scam of the Indian Space Research Organisation's gift of 70Mhz at throwaway prices to its former officer in 2005 that is now turning out to be a Rs 2-lakh crore (Rs 2 trillion) scandal.
The asset monetisation exercise in the first phase will help BSNL shave off its Rs 14,000-crore debt. The government has said that these firms are strategically important and will not be closed down or divested.
The government on Wednesday said radio wave auctions for third generation mobile phone services, or 3G, will be completed by end of March.
The 2G spectrum case on Saturday reached an important milestone with a Delhi court framing charges against all the 17 accused, including former Telecom Minister A Raja and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi and corporate honchos.
Get acquainted yourself with the bells and whistles that India's cheapest tablet comes with at just Rs 1,730.
"Accused Raja had filed an application seeking permission to visit Tamil Nadu from today evening to Monday (August 20) night. Senior PP (of the CBI) has no objection to the prayer. Since the matter has already been listed on August 21, prayer is allowed," the judge said.
Four new players will be given spectrum along with one existing operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam or Mahanagar Telephone Nigam - in their respective circles.
Telecom operator Vodafone has been the top gainer of customers through mobile number portability facility while Reliance Communications is the biggest loser.
Having traversed through the DMK bastion of Thiruvarur and the AIADMK stronghold of Srirangam, Saisuresh Sivaswamy concludes his poll journey in Peramabalur -- the hometown of jailed former telecom minister A Raja -- which slowly seems like slipping out of the DMK's hands.
A government panel on Tuesday proposed raising foreign investment limits in sectors like defence, multi-brand retail and telecommunications, to spur investment in the country and tide over the Current Account Deficit woes.
Former Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly says former telecom minister A Raja acted unilaterally in the 2G spectrum mess and that his Cabinet colleagues are not to be blamed. Speaking to Karan Thapar on CNN IBN's Devil's Advocate, Ganguly said it is not correct to apply the principle of collective Cabinet responsibility in the case related to the distribution of 2G licences on a first-come-first-served basis.
Rajat Mukherjee, chief corporate officer - Idea Cellular, says that they were not part of the group of companies which started out in 2008. In fact, they had applied for licneses three years earlier. "It is unfortunate that we were clubbed with the others."
Kalia Perumal, brother of former telecom minister A Raja, was on Wednesday questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the 2G spectrum case.
Yielding to relentless pressure, controversial A Raja on Sunday, resigned as Telecom Minister after being ordered to do so by his party, DMK, in the wake of allegations that he caused a loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer while allocating 2G Spectrum two years ago.
Speaking at a national workshop organised by National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology, Sibal said that major thrust to achieve such a growth rate has to come from the secondary and tertiary sectors.
Reports of alleged influence by some corporate lobbies on allocation of 2G spectrum, was on Wednesday vociferously raised in both House of Parliament, leading to adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice.
Reacting to questions on advancing the cutoff date of receiving applications for 2 G spectrum, former telecom minister A Raja's lawyer, Sushil Kumar, said, "My (Raja's) secretary told me that there were 575 applications in total for 2 G spectrums and it was not possible to process all of them."
Former Telecom Minister A Raja on Monday defended himself against corruption charges in the 2G scam, saying he had not done anything wrong and was merely following the policies pursued by his predecessors and the National Democratic Alliance government.
'Raja had conquered Tihar jail', read the slogans, apparently referring to his incarceration and release from the Delhi prison where he was lodged for 15 months after he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation
"Too many scams are left unpunished. In the last 10 years, there have been some highly sophisticated economic crimes. There is an unfortunate belief that smooth talking the media and using complicated words can get them to bury the truth. I had to examine over 1,600 documents with complicated words just to come up with a simple 41-slides presentation. That is how things have become," Chandrasekhar told rediff.com after a presentation he made in the capital on Friday.
Former Telecom Minister and key accused in the 2G scam case, A Raja, was on Wednesday allowed by a Delhi court to visit his home state Tamil Nadu between June 8 and June 30.
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