Snehal khanna Blog

India's taxpayer has won in a war on corruption, but may well be losing an equivalent money again as a consumer, or likely, as a taxpayer LATEST NEWS : We wish India's telecom saga would be a Bollywood movie, with a happy ending. But what we have witnessed since the May of 1994, when India began slowly easing the state grip on telecoms to usher in everything from private players to mobile phones to the Internet, is a long-winding soap opera.  In line with the spirit of the saas-bahu nation, we can announce that Reliance Jio is the much loved and hated new bahu (daughter-in-law)  in this opera, impressing everyone and upsetting the older order. If you are looking not for entertaining conflicts but deep wisdom, it is this: India's taxpayer has won in a war on corruption, but may well be losing an equivalent money again as a consumer, or likely, as a taxpayer. Does it matter if someone picks your right pocket instead of left to take out the same amount of mo...

Charges to be zero in two years; incumbents set to move court LATEST NEWS : In a fresh blow to incumbent mobile operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has cut the interconnect usage charges (IUC, also known as terminating charges) by 57 per cent to 6 paise per minute effective October 1, from 14 paise currently. In two years, the charges would come down to zero, meaning there won’t be any payment for calls landing on other telcos’ networks. The new charges are being seen as a relief for the latest entrant, Reliance Jio . It is estimated to save about Rs 3,800 crore annually from this move. However, the reduction is likely to hit the profitability and revenues of the incumbents further. Analysts at HSBC said in a recent note that a significantly lower IUC would be a boost for Jio and there may be some more pricing disruption after downward revision of IUC rates. Jio has, since its launch last year, paid about Rs ...