This high stakes game continues to fill the coffers of corrupt private players
And now it is the turn of Raja, who had come in as Maran’s replacement, to live up to this dubious legacy. His claim to fame has been awarding licenses to new firms such as Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom, STel, Datacom and Loop Telecom. Pan Indian licences were handed out for just Rs 1,651 crore (rates that were set in a 2001 auction). Another criticism of these new players was that most of them had scant idea of the services desired of them. Eyebrows were also raised when licenses were awarded to these greenhorns on a first-come-first-serve basis. This cost the government dear, and the losses were estimated at a whopping Rs 2,000 crore. Then, in September 2008, still more fuel was added to the smouldering fire when Swan Telecom roped in UAE-based Etisalat to acquire 45 per cent in this venture for about Rs 9,200 crore. And Unitech Wireless and STel followed suit by disinvesting some portion of their firms to international players at astronomical prices.
Says a telecom analyst requesting anonymity: “The reason controversies have ruled the telecom sector is because it kicked off quite late, so that people became aware of the opportunities it could offer in a fairly short time. This made it a now-or-never opportunity for private players. The fast growth in the sector also meant quick bucks for certain people, which is precisely what we have been seeing.”
Indeed it is a fact that the Indian telecom sector has been growing at an exponential rate – being one of the fastest growing sectors in recent times with over 494.07 million subscribers according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Wireless telephony is definitely the in thing. Even despite the slowdown 11 to 13 million new subscribers are added every month. And this explosive growth of the sector is matched only by the cutthroat competition among the players. As an industry insider revealed, “This is a high stakes game – one in which no one is willing to become the sucker, and it explains the rampant corruption in it. If any one party loses, it perversely seeks to drag its rivals into the quagmire also.” It is more or less the same story in sectors like defense and mining, which too have high stakes and high returns.
But one thing that is special to the telecom sector is that it is not just growing in size but in its scope as well. Earlier we had just GSM-based services; now there is CDMA too. And to these will shortly be added 3G and WiMax, followed by Long Term Evolution (LTE). None of these can enter till the government gives its nod, and without State involvement and intervention at practically every stage. And the political class is well aware of this. What also helps these venal folk is the considerable opaqueness that exists in this sector. “Considering that even the telecom bills that end customers get are not transparent one can imagine how murky things must be at the top,” says Praveen Kumar, Managing Director, Vie Capital.
In such a system the regulator, the TRAI, is bound to prove toothless. For what possible power can it exercise so long as the Department of Telecom (DoT) insists on having a chokehold on the sector? Even so, there is general agreement that the TRAI was among the best things to have happened to the telecom sector, because it is thanks mainly to it that there is so much competition to corner telecom space. Besides, telecom subscribers now have a far broader range to pick from: they can choose to pay 1paise per second, or have all calls at 50 paise per minute – or be charged per call rather than on the basis of the minutes spent.
Says a telecom analyst requesting anonymity: “The reason controversies have ruled the telecom sector is because it kicked off quite late, so that people became aware of the opportunities it could offer in a fairly short time. This made it a now-or-never opportunity for private players. The fast growth in the sector also meant quick bucks for certain people, which is precisely what we have been seeing.”
Indeed it is a fact that the Indian telecom sector has been growing at an exponential rate – being one of the fastest growing sectors in recent times with over 494.07 million subscribers according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Wireless telephony is definitely the in thing. Even despite the slowdown 11 to 13 million new subscribers are added every month. And this explosive growth of the sector is matched only by the cutthroat competition among the players. As an industry insider revealed, “This is a high stakes game – one in which no one is willing to become the sucker, and it explains the rampant corruption in it. If any one party loses, it perversely seeks to drag its rivals into the quagmire also.” It is more or less the same story in sectors like defense and mining, which too have high stakes and high returns.
But one thing that is special to the telecom sector is that it is not just growing in size but in its scope as well. Earlier we had just GSM-based services; now there is CDMA too. And to these will shortly be added 3G and WiMax, followed by Long Term Evolution (LTE). None of these can enter till the government gives its nod, and without State involvement and intervention at practically every stage. And the political class is well aware of this. What also helps these venal folk is the considerable opaqueness that exists in this sector. “Considering that even the telecom bills that end customers get are not transparent one can imagine how murky things must be at the top,” says Praveen Kumar, Managing Director, Vie Capital.
In such a system the regulator, the TRAI, is bound to prove toothless. For what possible power can it exercise so long as the Department of Telecom (DoT) insists on having a chokehold on the sector? Even so, there is general agreement that the TRAI was among the best things to have happened to the telecom sector, because it is thanks mainly to it that there is so much competition to corner telecom space. Besides, telecom subscribers now have a far broader range to pick from: they can choose to pay 1paise per second, or have all calls at 50 paise per minute – or be charged per call rather than on the basis of the minutes spent.
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Rashmi Bansal Publisher Of JAMMAG Magazine Caught Red-Handed, for details click on the following links:-posted by Pankaj at
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'Water' would feature prominently in the list. But then the same word when used in movie (not as movie title!) never raises any eyebrows. The way water is wasted for shooting purposes in tinsel town is really uneconomical. The usage of water in any movie's shooting can’t be brought down to nil, but then sheer and blatant wastage of water should also not be ignored.
smelt an opportunity to capture Delhi, gathered a bunch of warriors and started marching. But he died on the way. For about six centuries, nobody from Gujarat eyed Delhi. However, since 1946, three people appeared on the scene. The first was Sardar Patel, a serious contender of Jawaharlal Nehru for the prime ministry. Nowadays, Narendra Modi’s name is doing the rounds. However, his chance of leading the nation is minimal, given the political health of BJP and bitter inter-party rivalry. The only Gujarati to go all the way was Morarji Desai. He tried in the 1960s to emerge as Nehru ‘s heir and later became Indira Gandhi’s strongest rival. He even succeeded in becoming the Prime Minister once, relegating the ‘iron lady’ to the political margins, albeit for a very short time. The tussle started in 1964 and was to last till Indira’s assassination in 1984.
Those involved in the plot or those who stood to benefit from this act will invariably say that the murder of Sheikh Mujib helped Bangladesh get rid of being subservient to Delhi and Moscow. It is true that Mujib and his party Awami League had and still has a pro-India image. India extended her hand of cooperation to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence. India gave shelter to 10 million refugees, trained the Bangladeshi liberation fighters, provided all sorts of supplies to them and finally, the Indian Army fought against the occupying Pakistani forces. So the good relations between Bangladesh and India during Mujib’s time was an obvious and logical conclusion of the nine months of bloody war.
long time been a favoured driveway. With companies like Hyundai, Toyota and even Ford choosing this country as their manufacturing hub, the sector is enjoying one of its best growth phases ever. However, one cannot deny that this is a labour intensive industry and it has hence been buffeted by recurring incidents of labour unrest in the country. Industry watchers claim that India (which is currently the second largest two-wheeler market in the world after China) is well on course to becoming the seventh largest passenger car market worldwide (currently the eleventh largest) by 2016. However, the current labour problems that are looming large over companies like Rico, Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India Limited (HMSI) and Sunbeam in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt have once again ignited the debate on whether India can indeed grow into a major hub for automotives in such a scenario. The billion-dollar quation to be asked is: will such incidents slow down the growth of the Indian automotive industry in the long run?
temporarily. Some doctors, who were rendering free services to HIV positive victims, have stopped work because they allege that they are getting no help from the government. Dr I. S. Gilada, secretary of the AIDS Society of India, blames the state government for the sudden spread of HIV/AIDS in the state.
place in Iran in the past two decades, suicide bombers targeted a delegation of Revolutionary Guard leaders. At the time of the attack the Guards were on a tour of Pishin district — bordering Pakistan — to facilitate a meeting with tribal leaders in the region.
CPI(M)’s K.K. Ragesh by a huge margin. The other aspect which makes the battle for Kannur interesting is that M.V. Jayarajan is pitted against former comrade-in-arms A.P. Abdullakkutty, who has twice represented the constituency in Parliament for CPI(M). Abdullakkutty, who joined the Congress after his controversial ejection from CPI(M), also takes this as a critical contest as nothing less than a victory could baptise him as a Congressman. However, Abdullakkutty won’t have it easy. Within the Congress itself, there is a group of disgruntled leaders who fear that a victorious Abdullakkutty can put paid to their future political careers. Both the CPI(M) and the Congress are accusing one another of preparing to rig the election. While the Congress alleges that the CPI(M) leadership, with the help of the district administration, has added bogus voters’ names to the voters’ list, CPI(M) accuses the Congress of trying to spread unrest in the constituency. A case has been registered against Sudhakaran charging him with unbailable offences including that of disrupting the duty of a tehsildar. Sudhakaran, of course, refutes the charge and alleges that the district collector has become a tool in the hands of the CPI(M). Thus, Kannur has emerged as the hottest battleground among all the three constituencies.
understand where the inspiration for today's US TV serials came from. Hollywood has copied so much from French cinema. True Lies, a Hollywood blockbuster, was lifted from a French film. We are making Unnaipol Oruvan. But we have acknowledged the source: A Wednesday. But America is different. They’ve been aggressors; they conquered the land by force and now treat it as their own. The same attitude prevails in Hollywood.
With the help of The National Security Archive based in Washington DC, this magazine had published overwhelming evidence against Posada that included, among others, the bomb circuit diagram used to blow up the flight, the notes about how to assemble it and the fake passport used by Posada. However, those evidence in no way had pointed out that dreaded Posada was in any way used by the CIA for any sort of open or clandestine operations. It appeared then – to the untrained eyes – that CIA was only guilty of shielding him and nothing more. That at least provided CIA the much needed cushioning. This week, that cushion was pulled away and CIA stands naked. As friends and relatives of those killed aboard Cubana flight 455 mourn 33rd year of the disaster, the Washington based National Security Archive has released other chilling documents concerning Luis Posada and his aides and masters. These documents confirm that “the Company”–as CIA is sometimes called – had excellent ties with the terrorist and it took immense pain to keep these ties strong.
not as strong as the market is proposing at the moment. Going by fundamentals, India’s growth GDP is still expected at just 7 to 7.5%. Other economic indicators too have not recovered completely from the global meltdown. Even global cues are still on the lower side. All these mean that the fundamentals are yet to recover and the market movement that we see at the moment is more of hype than anything else. Under these circumstances (especially with the media bombardment of news that talks of huge returns made by various investors), no doubt it’s easy for anyone, who does not have a deep knowledge, to get carried away. But the truth is, that’s exactly what the retail investors must refrain themselves from at the moment.
is one true world champion that India has. After he became world champ in 2000, many Indians were attracted to the game. Now any Indian chess player receives a tremendous response at international events. Whenever a young player goes abroad to participate in an event, Vishy calls him or her up with his best wishes. Now Anand lives in Spain and when he won the world championships, even the Spaniards celebrated. 
and songs from across the subcontinent are liberally punctuated with references to the month of Shravan. These ditties extolling the magic and mystique of the rains (varsha, baarish, barsaat) spring forth from the fecund imagination of creative souls.
money spent on getting a premium listing on one of the matrimonial websites that have catapulted the traditional ritual of finding a life partner straight into the Cyber age. Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com have replaced the neighbourhood uncle and aunt who earlier performed the delicate dance of facilitating legalised mating. Of course, for the more popular newspapers, matrimonial ads are still a huge source of revenue. In fact, the matrimonial ads reveal more about India and Indians than all the other news pages put together. If you come across words like ‘innocent divorcee’ and 'early, decent’ marriage; rest assured that monetary transactions of substantive nature are lurking round the corner. Money is what the parents of the bride often cough up for the “happiness of the daughter.” People simply it dowry; scholars from JNU see no dialectical contradiction in raining fire and brimstone on ‘greedy capitalists’ and receiving a hefty dowry once they win a lottery called the Union Civil Services.
doesn’t matter if one has to walk, take a train or a bus and then walk again. They’ve simply got to be there, even if that means spending the night out in the cold under the open sky. It’s their faith that takes them everywhere. I’m thankful to Him for giving me the opportunity to marvel at something as grand as that. Even a man who earns as little as Rs 100 per day goes there and thanks Him. Just stand there and watch the crowds move towards the Sangam and you can’t believe your eyes. They don’t want to look at anything else, they don’t relate to anything else. The holy dip at Sangam is everything. This blind faith is how India survives in spite of the chaos all around us. One can just stand there and take pictures endlessly. 
he is the man who brought India’s first and last ODI World Cup. Standing on the Lord's balcony with the Prudential Cup, he showed to the world what India was capable of. ‘Paaji’ of Indian cricket gave an entirely new dimension to the sport. It is only because of him we see a brigade of fast bowlers emerging from every nook and corner of this country. Of course, how our IPL stars can forget this gentleman? He came up with ICL. To counter that move, BCCI came up with IPL. Thanks ‘paaji!'
by Rishi Vyas at the beginning of kalyug, approximately 5000 years back. A recent Oxford University study asserts that the ancestors of the British people were cannibals, as if calling them apes was not enough insult! Respect for creation and everything within it and beyond it, is characteristic of Indian culture. Our Vedic ancestors were descendents of Herculean beings who not only gave the world the knowledge of the material world but also the etheric world. Any serious practitioner of the subject of spiritual sciences would clearly see the devolution of mankind, which was anticipated by the Vedic Rishis hence they gave to the world tools as per the anticipated capacity of the beings who would inhabit this planet at different points of time – poetry, art, romance, economics, medicine, physics, chemistry, dance, music..........peace; you name it and they gave it.
energy and power for them. They naturally glorified the cow. What appears unique to India is the duality of attitudes towards, and treatment of, the cow. At an ideational level, the cow is highly venerated. The Aryans were a pastoral society. Cow, being a milch animal, was naturally valued. The celestial cow, the Kamdhenu, became the symbol of plenty and prosperity. The Aryans valued the cow for the milk. They also relished the cow as an item of ceremonial food. Early Vedic literature adduces evidence that the cow was also used as a sacrificial animal. Not only this. Different parts of the cow were differently valued and relished. Since the emergence of reactionary tendencies among a section of the Hindus, there is a conscious effort to suppress these references. The cow divided the society into two groups. One comprises those from the higher castes who swear by vegetarianism and venerate the cow. The other consists of the lower castes which eat the cow and is non-vegetarian. This section constitutes the majority among Hindus. One reason they are looked down upon is that they eat beef. Christians, Muslims and tribals are similarly considered lowly.
been by and large motivating investors to partly shift to gold as an investment class.” And why not? After all this is one such asset class, which has shown immense resistance to loss over the past two years, when there was carnage in the share markets the world over. For that matter even in India, while the BSE Sensex has offered only 19.82% return over the last 12 months, gold has returned nearly double (35.76%). The gold exchange traded funds too have returned a handsome of around 35%. And thus gold is the one, which is still glittering in the eyes of the investors despite the fact that the stock market is on an upswing at the moment. But it’s all for the investors and not for the traditional Indian buyers.
title to trouncing nine-time and defending champion Mike Russell to become the new World Professional Billiards Champion, Pankaj Advani has obviously picked the right cues. The undisputed king of the green baize in an exclusive interview with Satish Chapparike….
long way – from confinement of their home to the limelight of business and power. The dark period of women era, without any apprehensions, is currently witnessing a transition phase. Although this transition is quite slow and to some extent quite delayed too. The camouflage has been removed, if not by all then by the likes of Sonia Gandhi, Chanda Kochhar and a few others. Writing their own success story, these women have overcome many societal hurdles and made themselves a prominent figure in national as well as international circle. In a patriarchal Indian society, few women have not only achieved new milestones but also booked their slots in the world’s most esteemed magazine. Few weeks ago, a few Indian women, namely Sonia Gandhi, Chanda Kochhar and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw made it to the Forbes’ ‘The 100 Most Powerful Women’. Being featured in this globally recognised list is not only their personal achievement but is also a matter of pride for the whole country!
