Top "telecom cartels" Airtel, Vodafone, Idea blamed for "monopolistic" practice amid continued rush for Reliance Jio

People queue up to get Jio sim

By Our Representative
Amidst escalating corporate war over mobile operation, the powerful Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has blamed India's three topmost telecom companies, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, for undermining healthy competition and promoting monopolistic practices by “denying” people the right to choose between existing cellular services.
Claiming that Reliance Jio, a new entrant in the market, has “shaken up the complacency” which existed among these telecom "cartels", a top RIL functionary known to be close to the Ambani family, has said, the reach for Jio is just an indicator “as to the extent of customer dissatisfaction” with the existing cellular "cartels".
Indeed, huge rush continues in top Indian cities for Jio's 4G enables cellular sim card, offered for free for the initial period till December 31. Long queues, especially of youths, can be seen at all Reliance Digital stores, for instance, in Ahmedabad.
“If you want it without a queue, which begins early at 7.00 am and lasts till late evening, either you buy a 4G mobile at the store, or it is offered for Rs 500 in black”, Ketan Mehta, a senior citizen, wanting to have a Jio sim, told Counterview, finding it impossible to stand in a queue.
In an article titled “Where Jio dares competitors, Telcos cartel connives to block Jio” Parimal Nathwani, Group President of Corporate Affairs, RIL, and member, Rajya Sabha, has quoted American evangelical author on the Christian worldview Nancy Pearcy to say how “monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.”
“It is a sad commentary that instead of gearing up for competition, they are busy using unfair means to block it”, Nathwani says, adding, “Ever since the launch of Reliance Jio, it has been a series of battles to be allowed call connect with other non-Jio networks or for mobile number portability.”
To launch its 4G debut, Reliance Jio acquired pan India BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) spectrum in 2010, but launched it on September 5 this year.
Admits Nathwani, “Ever since the Jio services began, it has witnessed 75-80 per cent call failures over the last few weeks.” He adds, “In over a period of 10 days alone, 52 crore calls failed cumulatively on the networks of the three incumbent operators Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.”
Calling “blocking of calls” a breach of licence conditions with severely impacting customer interests, Nathwani says it is “unfair to allow them to monopolize the space and deny customers truly world class Internet services that Jio aspires to do”.
He adds, “In blatant disregard to licence terms and their obligations under the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009” the incumbent dominant operators have “rejected all the requests made for porting between September 9 and September 12.”
Saying that “instead of upping their game and being willing to face competitive pricing head on”, the established telecom “cartels” are “choosing every ways and means to block” Jio, Nathwani warns, “We will keep reminding our competitors” to let the customer “decide the service he chooses.”
Amidst the continued corporate war around Jio, the Telecom Regulatory Authoriy of India (TRAI), has “decided” to issue show cause notice to the three operators, even as issuing "directions" to them to "ensure compliance of licensing condition in connection with the Points of Interconnect issue”.
TRAI, significantly, moved only after a complaint from Reliance Jio.

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Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Ships recycling Bill 'allows' India to be turned into a landfill for foreign hazardous waste

Counterview Desk
In a letter to M Venkaiah Naidu, chairman, Rajya Sabha, senior activist Gopal Krishna of the Toxics Watch Alliance has said that the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 should be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change to "safeguard country’s maritime environment from harmful and hazardous wastes and materials".

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

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