International Monetary Fund (IMF) Deputy Managing Director (MD) Gita Gopinath has condemned the "terrible and disturbing" incident of rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata. "Personally, it is terrible to have any event of this kind. It is disturbing," she told Business Standard in New Delhi.
The government has notified mandatory standards for 15 electronic products, including mobile phones, power banks, LED lamps, to curb flow of low quality items in the country.
Singapore based telecom firm SingTel, which holds over 30 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel, on Wednesday said it has full faith in the company's corporate governance standards under the leadership of company's chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal.
The government may relax the Telecom Engineering Centre's recently finalised spectrum allocation criterion, the minimum subscriber limits that entitle mobile service operators to additional spectrum, radio frequencies that enable mobile communications.
The network sharing agreement is the start of a new era of partnership between the brothers. More deals on sharing towers and intra-city fibre network are likely.
DoT, has decided that it will not cancel the GSM licences of dual-technology companies.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
'A possible post-election growth momentum may be lost.'
Given the high priority accorded to the manufacturing sector, several policy initiatives around the theme of Atmanirbhar Bharat have been set in motion to address its competitiveness and growth. Some notable examples include the PLI scheme and the employment-linked incentive scheme announced in the recent Union Budget. The Budget also announced the setting up of 12 industrial parks under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme (NICDP).
'There will be 200 ITIs developed as hubs, while 800 will be developed as spoke, connected with five National Skill Training Institutes.'
Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson on Saturday announced setting up a 6G research and development centre in Chennai. Ericsson is also looking to partner with other premier engineering institutes in India for 6G-related research. "This R&D centre in India is a small unit which will become bigger. We only have three in the world.
Both Airtel and Vodafone claim they did everything possible to resume services.
The company received a fresh equity infusion in 2012-13.
Manoj Sinha will retain his current role in the railways.
Taiwan is keen to collaborate with India and help it become a leader in the semiconductor space, Jason Ho, chairman of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in India, said, asserting that the Taiwanese companies have the supply chain for things that the Indian market needs. Manufacturing semiconductors - used in electric and hybrid cars, drones, and communication devices - is fairly complicated, entails huge investment, and can be a cumbersome process.
The government believes firms which are subject to China's laws could be forced to hand over information to Beijing's security services.
From connectivity woes to infrastructure advancements and the startup boom, there is a gulf between claims and reality in India's economic landscape, points out Devangshu Datta.
For over a year Sanjay Chandra, managing director of the Unitech group, has been under a cloud for various reasons.
Reliance Jio has sent a second legal opinion to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the subject of the potential allocation of satellite spectrum. The letter is written by retired Supreme Court Justice L Nageshwara Rao and argues in favour of auctions, stating that any other method for allocating spectrum apart from auctions could be constitutionally unsound. Business Standard has reviewed the letter.
While the market for satellite broadband currently is small, the potential is large as an estimated 30 per cent of the country does not have reliable terrestrial broadband services.
According to software company Mavernir, the new virtualised networks would lead to a saving of 40 per cent in capex and 34 per cent in terms of lower operations cost for operators.
Large enterprises fuelled by the boom in IT and outsourcing services will drive the demand for telecom services in India, but the country must improve the quality of its corporate data services, IT research firm Gartner said.
Companies such as Tata Sons and Bharti Telecom, which are unlisted but have listed subsidiaries, may soon have to file periodic financial statements with the registrar of companies under the new provision of the Companies Act. The provision requires greater financial disclosures by a certain category of unlisted companies.
According to an industry analyst, the telecom infrastructure sector needs over $20 billion, while the passive infrastructure segment needs an investment of over $12 billion.
Banking and telecom will see the highest impact of this transition.
In August 2021, Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone Plc at the time, did not mince his words while speaking about the India business in an earnings call. Replying to an analyst's question on Vodafone Idea, a venture with the Aditya Birla Group that had piled on huge debts and worrisome losses, Read described it as a highly stressed situation that "they (Vodafone Idea) are trying to navigate... "We, as a group, try to provide them as much practical support as we can, but I want to make it very clear, we are not putting any additional equity into India.''
The next spectrum auction will be held in late February 2024 and the reserve price for most bands will remain the same as the 2022 auction, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials have said. The government expects operators to go for low bands beginning in 600 megahertz (MHz), licences for many of which are lapsing soon. Back in September 2021, the government had decided that spectrum auctions should be held annually.
Collectively, these companies spent Rs 628 crore (Rs 6.28 billion) on political contributions in the past five years, according to their annual reports.
'I am shocked that the BJP makes so many commitments. What did they deliver as the NDA?'
Reliance Communications could become a much more formidable opponent.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 9 per cent rise in its December quarter net profit as a planned maintenance-induced weakness in oil business earnings was offset by stability in retail and telecom verticals. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,265 crore, or Rs 25.52 per share, in October-December - the third quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 9.3 per cent higher than Rs 15,792 crore, or Rs 23.19 a share, earning a year back, according to a company statement. Quarter-on-quarter, the profit was lower when compared to Rs 17,394 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended September 30.
The long-awaited high-speed 5G services are expected to be rolled out in about a month, Minister of State for Telecom Devusinh Chauhan said on Monday. Addressing the inaugural event of the International Telecommunication Union's Regional Standardisation Forum (RSF) for Asia and Oceania region, Chauhan said India is likely to deploy indigenously developed and manufactured 5G telecom gears by end of this year for 5G services. "In about a month, 5G mobile services will roll out in the country, which will have multiplier effects on the development of all sectors.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
Commercial 5G services will be rolled out in 13 cities in India, including the metropolises, in 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in a statement on Monday. These cities are Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and Jamnagar. "These metros and big cities would be the first places for the launch of 5G services in the country next year," the DoT said.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) stating that a recent complaint against it by Bharti Airtel is a deliberate, malicious attempt at defaming RJIL's consumer-friendly tariff. RJIL has also asked the regulator to warn Airtel against 'making such frivolous complaints in the future'. The move is in response to Airtel recently requesting Trai to bring content aired through broadband under the regulatory fold and keep a check against discriminatory bundling tactics.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
