Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday approved the setting up of a National Innovation Council to prepare a road map for the 'Decade of Innovation 2011-2020'.
A committee headed by Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister, has suggested that state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd should retire or transfer about 100,000 of its employees through measures such as a voluntary retirement scheme. This is a third of BSNL's total employee strength, of 300,000 across the country.To improve organisational performance and employee productivity substantially, BSNL should induct young talent in all spaces.
The country needed to focus on applications for education, e-governance, health, food and developing local applications in future, he said in his keynote address through tele-conferencing at the CII organised `Comtel 2008' on the theme `Breaking Barriers, Bridging the Divide' in Bangalore on Wednesday.
The connectivity will not only improve delivery of government schemes but will also empower people, he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in New Delhi.
The recommendations include divestment of 30 per cent government equity in BSNL, reducing the company's workforce by a third, and cancelling the telecom equipment order for 93 million GSM lines, replacing it with network outsourcing deals.
An attempt is to be made over the next month to get over the opposition of staff unions to the Pitroda Committee recommendations on the revamp of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the state telecom network outside Mumbai and Delhi.
National Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda made a strong pitch on Thursday for India getting into telecom manufacturing in a big way to address the demand.
Sam Pitroda, chairman of India's National Knowledge Commission, believes the United States' model of a liberal arts education is applicable in the revamping of higher education in India and that such a model is very much in the works.He noted during a conference on Higher Education Policies in India, China and the United States, "Too much focus on engineering and medical education has created a situation where liberal arts really did not get due recognition," he said.
The commission also suggested that financiers need to be more proactive in assessing the business opportunities generated by entrepreneurs in the country. According to the study, there is a strong perception among entrepreneurs that start-up funding is very difficult in the country. Along with the problem of getting funds, the entrepreneurs also face skill-shortages and find it difficult to get the right candidate for the jobs, the commission found.
A committee headed by Sam Pitroda, advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, suggested that state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd scrap its controversial 93-million GSM lines tender.The committee said BSNL should change its method of growth from outright purchase of equipment to lease arrangement. The vendor who would supply the equipment should be responsible for installation, maintenance and operations, besides future expansion.
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
Fifteen employees' unions of state-run telecom behemoth BSNL on Wednesday threatened to go on agitation against the Sam Pitroda panel's recommendations for the company's listing, massive voluntary retirement scheme and scrapping of its Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion) expansion plans.
The Congress wants to reinforce the tax more powerfully now after its four generations reaped benefit of the wealth passed on to them, he said.
Applications of information and communication technology in the field of education, health, environment and agriculture will bring in a generational change among the Indian masses acording to Sam Pitroda.
In New Delhi to attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Pitroda wears a disgruntled look whenever you talk about India's growth and the much-discussed 'progress' it has made.
Sam Pitroda-backed Vavasi Telegence's request for unused radio frequency to be allotted to launch mobile services across the country is unlikely to be met by the department of telecommunication because it said international technology specifications for this wireless technology do not exist. Instead, DoT is considering the option of allotting the company spectrum in the 400 to 430 MHz band, radio frequencies that are currently not used for mobile services in India.
The big surprise is that Narendra Modi, the greatest conjurer in our national politics, has not yet presented a theme to this election, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Gandhi said the govt "tried everything to stop" his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', but nothing was working against the "effect" of the foot march.
Indian democracy is under threat, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said during a lecture at Cambridge University, claiming that several politicians, including himself, are under surveillance.
Sam Pitroda, chairman and CEO of the US-based World Tel, and the man behind India's telecom revolution said on Tuesday that information technology.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
For the last 15 years, Pitroda and Desai's team is working on the technology to pay through mobile phones. Pitroda already has 11 patents with him and some 20 patents related to this technology are pending for registration.
In the first such initiative, the Bharatiya Janata Party has invited the ruling and Opposition parties from around the world to witness the Lok Sabha elections in India first-hand.
'Sweden removed the inheritance tax because many of the rich were fleeing. For example, the owner of IKEA had migrated out of Sweden'
'A democracy cannot mean the rule of just two people,' said one audience member, who recalled that he too had chanted 'Modi, Modi' when the PM had visited the USA. Many of those gathered admitted to having been Modi supporters. What had changed them was the growing concentration of power. Jyoti Punwani reports from New York.
The complainant, who claims to be a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, had alleged that Gandhi's "commander-in-thief" remark in the context of the Rafale fighter jet deal amounted to defamation.
Should he begin the yatra from Gujarat's Porbandar, the birthplace of the Mahatma, on October 2, and skip campaigning for the five assembly polls?
Union Minister Anurag Thakur hit out at Gandhi over his claims of being under surveillance by intelligence agencies and accused him of maligning India on foreign soil.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi's meeting with British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in London triggered a row back home with the Bharatiya Janata Party asking him whether he endorsed the UK opposition leader's "anti-India" views.
Launching a fresh offensive against the Congress, Shah said the opposition party is known for its "vote bank" and "appeasement" politics during elections, but Gandhi should answer whether it is above national interest and if such politics can be done over the grief of families of soldiers killed.
'On the other side, we have an ideology of hatred and violence, a disrespectful ideology that attacks people because of their ideas. And you must have noticed one thing that this is in the nature of BJP and the RSS'
While Congress leader Sam Pitroda says it was Priyanka's own decision, party spokesperson Rajiv Shukla says it was Rahul's call.
The case was registered recently to probe alleged financial irregularities in the party-promoted Young Indian that owns the National Herald newspaper.
Gandhi, 75, was earlier asked to depose on June 8 but she sought a fresh date from the federal probe agency after she contracted the coronavirus infection.
The case pertains to the ED probe into the alleged financial irregularities in the party-promoted Young Indian that owns the National Herald newspaper.
Gandhi, 47, begins his nearly two-week trip to the US with an address at the University of California, Berkeley, tomorrow on contemporary India and the path forward for the world's largest democracy.
'It is really troublesome that someone in a position of power is misleading people and presumably, citizens of the country to give up data.' 'That is not a part of informed consent.'
Ambani says nation on the cusp of a digital revolution
He sought a seeking a direction to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia Gandhi and other accused to either admit or deny if certain documents filed by him were original.
Best brains are focused on solving the problems of the rich, says Sam Pitroda.
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