How Congress, BJP underestimated Pinarayi Vijayan

Keralites overwhelmingly voted to retain the government of Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, breaking from a nearly half-a-century-old tradition of swapping the party in power every five years. Several factors have helped ensure a second term for Vijayan, but perhaps the most crucial has been the decisive and efficacious leadership shown by the politician during the […]

Why Kerala’s anti-fake news law is urgently needed

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has withdrawn the controversial Sec 118A of the Kerala Police Act, also known as the anti Fake News law, pending fine-tuning and further consultations. “Whoever makes, expresses, publishes or disseminates through any kind of mode of communication, any matter or subject for threatening, abusing, humiliating or defaming a person or […]

Airtel overtakes Jio in 4G subscriber & traffic growth

The numbers released by India’s three telecom operators on their July-September performance show a remarkable trend reversal: For the first time ever, Reliance Jio was no longer the fastest growing data operator in India, losing the crown to Bharti Airtel. While Jio’s mobile data traffic went up by 220 million GBs in July-September compared to […]

GTPL not overly worried about Airtel’s LCO broadband scheme

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top cable TV and cable internet providers, indicated it was not overly worried about telecom players like Bharti Airtel luring away its local cable operator partners under their new LCO partnership strategy. Bharti Airtel had announced some weeks ago that it plans to authorize local cable operators (LCOs) to resell […]

Jio need not pay RCom’s AGR dues under sharing rules:DoT

India’s communication ministry today said that there was no possibility of an operator being asked to pay the dues of another operator simply because it has entered into a spectrum sharing agreement with the other. This was clarified by Minister of State Sanjay Dhotre in reply to a question by MP K Subbarayan on whether […]

Does VODAFONE IDEA have a FUTURE?

As Vodafone Idea unveils a new brand identity, the financial troubles facing the company has as thrown into question the very future of the Indian telecom operator. There has been speculation that American telco Verizon or online retail giant Amazon may infuse money into the operator, but such rumors have been quashed by the Indian […]

COVID-19 lockdown proves a blessing for DTH providers

The Direct to Home (DTH) satellite broadcasting service has emerged as perhaps the only segment that has seen a clear benefit from the COVID-19 lock-down, with all three listed players seeing an increase in their customer revenue during the lock-down. The biggest jump in revenue was reported by Airtel Digital, which saw its revenue jump […]

Move over Kerala! Gujarat is the new star in COVID-19 fight

Even as the rest of the country is seeing an accelerated increase in the number of new Coronavirus cases reported every day, the western Indian state of Gujarat has is reporting a surprising decline in the number of active cases every day. It has also shown a remarkable stability in the number of new COVID-19 […]

CORONAVIRUS: Gujarat overtakes Delhi for No.2 spot, leads in death rate

With an addition of 127 cases so far today, the western Indian state of Gujarat has dislodged the national capital Delhi as the state with the second highest number of Coronavirus 2019 cases in India. The state, which also crossed the 2,000 patient milestone today, also has the highest death rate — along with Madhya […]

Colors, Star Plus & Zee TV see sharp fall in ratings after COVID-19 lockdown

Premium Hindi general entertainment channels, including Star Plus, Zee TV and Colors, have seen a sharp decline in their viewership during the COVID-19 lockdown, even as viewership of Doordarshan, movie channels and news channels have seen sharp increases, reveals ratings from BARC, India’s largest TV ratings agency. Even as general TV viewership increased, no category […]

COVID-19: Stock Markets will ‘wait and watch’ for 1 week

Stock markets extended their losses on today, with the Nifty 50 falling by around 2.5% to 8,967. Among the biggest drags were ICICI Bank, which fell nearly 9%, indicating that large, foreign portfolio investors are exiting their long positions in the market. With this, the Nifty 50 index is now down 27.5% from its all-time […]

Stock markets likely to find near-term bottom on Tuesday

Stock market indices, including India’s Sensex and Nifty 50, are likely to find their short-term bottom today, after a savage correction on Monday in both the Indian markets as well as US markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered another massive setback on Monday, dropping by a massive 13% to 20,188. With this, 30-stock US […]

AGR DUES: Why Vodafone Idea shutdown is unlikely

Vodafone Idea, one of the top telecom operators in India, is likely to deposit Rs 2,500 cr towards the demands raised by the Department of Telecom related to revenue share under India’s telecom license rules, according to industry sources. The company has been served with a total demand of over Rs 53,000 cr. Meanwhile, Bharti […]

ANALYSIS: Can Reliance Jio avoid increasing 4G data prices?

On Tuesday night, Reliance Jio — the telecom operator that has made wireless data accessible to crores of Indians for the first time — said it would adopt ‘appropriate increases’ in tariffs over the next few weeks to help generate enough money to fund investments. The comment came in the wake of similar statements by […]

Bharti Airtel 4G base crosses 10 cr, overtakes Jio in per-capita usage

Bharti Airtel, the former No.1 telecom operator in India, has started bouncing off the bottom as far as its operational numbers are concerned. The numbers for the second quarter (July to September 2019) showed that the company has definitely turned the corner, at least far as broader operating numbers and revenue are concerned. However, the […]

Chidambaram’s Arrest: A Breakdown in Lutyen’s Consensus?

The arrest of former finance minister P Chidambaram has thrown many critics of the current administration into a quandary. On the one hand, they know that there may be some truth to the allegations of corruption made by the investigating agencies. They would, therefore, like nothing better than for corrupt politicians to be probed just […]

Masood Azhar’s terror tag more a diplomatic victory than a strategic win

In what is considered a major diplomatic victory for India and an extra push for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the middle of the general elections, the United Nations (UN) on Wednesday declared Masood Azhar, chief of Pakistan based terror group Jaish-e –Mohammad, a designated terrorist. The way was cleared for declaring the terror […]