Before leaving on a 10-day foreign visit starting Monday, Sharma said he would address concerns of foreign retail sector investors and ensure help in setting up stores.
Ravi Shankar Prasad in a review meeting of MTNL earlier this month had pulled up officials for poor network quality and slow pace of network roll-out.
Apple has been lobbying hard for exemption from the mandatory 30 per cent local sourcing.
The one-member Shivraj Patil committee report, which was made public in its entirety on Thursday, has put in the dock communications ministers and key bureaucrats in the department of telecom since 2001.
The government's plan to list state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will be delayed due to the company's mounting losses and high payout for 3G spectrum.
In an effort to make 3G telecom service available while being able to monitor it closely, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said its members were working with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to formulate rules to allow the intercepting and monitoring needed for national security.
The telecommunications regulator had recommended last month that the reserve price for spectrum in the 900 megahertz band in some key cities be cut by about 60 percent, and also suggested a 37 percent cut in the reserve price for spectrum in the 1800 megahertz band.
Airtel acquired African telecom operator Zain in 2010 for $10.7 billion.
Amid the demand from the Union civil aviation ministry for induction of Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) as fresh equity into Air India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the government is actively considering helping the national carrier.
Government on Friday turned down in the Supreme Court the plea of Tata Group Chief Ratan Tata's for steps to stop the publication in the media of the leaked transcripts of tapped conversations between him, his corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others.
GSM service provider Idea Cellular might get spectrum to start operations in the Mumbai circle by the end of the year, with the ministry of telecom close to clearing its application.
Telecom firms earning foreign exchange on incoming overseas calls, Internet services and rentals from cable networks are not entitled to duty sops under an export promotion scheme, says the government.
Arbitrary decisions may have helped Bharti airtel and Idea Cellular get spectrum.
Delhi High Court quashes reassessment proceedings by Income Tax department.
The 5G road map pursued by India should not only move the country forward but also result in progress of weaker sections of society.
Pending final approvals, Huawei would become the first big-name Chinese phone maker to manufacture hardware in India's growing market.
Widening its ambit of probe in the multi-crore 2G spectrum scam, the Enforcement Directorate has begun the process of issuing Letters Rogatory to at least 10 countries including Russia and the UAE to know the source of funding to telecom companies who were alloted the radiowaves.
With BlackBerry makers passing on the buck to telecom operators for monitoring its services, the government has called a meeting of service providers this week to discuss the issue.
Across 10 prominent services, revenue to the government reduced by 20 per cent in the first year of GST compared to the last year of the service tax regime. This happened despite tax liability against these services growing by 50 per cent in one year.
Analysts say the Sun Network's fundamentals may be sound but the troubles faced by Maran have caused a lot of volatility.
The government on Tuesday tabled in Parliament the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on 2G spectrum allocation, whose reported extracts have created a political storm and led to the resignation of Telecom Minister A Raja.
'The no-rate cut policy and preference to wait for the Budget and clarity on the fiscal front demonstrate RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is maturing in his new role,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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.
The government is also trying to curb child abuse and pornography and such platforms act as catalysts in these cases.
FinMin had, recently, notified changes in FDI rules that made prior approval of the government mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share a land border with India. Hong Kong was ranked 14th on the list of countries with FDI flows to India, contributing $4.2 billion between April 2000 and December 2019, the data from DPIIT shows. India received FDI worth $2.34 billion from China in the same period.
India despatches high level team to Afghanistan on kidnapping
Analysts cautious on outlook, expect earnings to remain under pressure over medium term.
Year 2013 saw business leaders facing the ire of hostile investigative agencies.
Two years after having allotted third-generation (3G) spectrum without any contest to its own telecom companies, on the promise that they'd match the prices later paid by private sector winners of the auction for it, the communications ministry now wants them to get it for free.
About 3,000 internet connections, including those of the Ministry of Defence, security agencies, the Central Bureau of Intelligence and banks in Delhi, have been found to be compromised, probably for snooping from foreign locations, according to a report submitted by cyber security experts to government.
The decision had been communicated to the department of telecommunications, a senior official of the department told Business Standard.
Top industrialists including Sunil Mittal, chairman, Bharti Airtel on Thursday called on Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Has the Modi government been more at odds with institutions than other governments? There is no doubt that there have been more run-ins. While the RBI and CBI cases have drawn attention, there have been others, less publicised, Subhomoy Bhattacharjee points out.
With already around 500 television channels on air, the ministry is now concerned about streamlining the process of allowing the opening of new channels.
Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal MTN group president and CEO Phuthuma Nhlek had met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday. The two telecom majors extended the deadline for exclusive talks for their proposed $23-billion deal to the end of next month recently.
'The economy has to become the government's No. 1 priority, which it is not at the moment,' says T N Ninan.
Following are the names of some high-profile people who have been put behind the bars
