The Indian Panorama

Tag: BSNL

  • BSNL PLANS FREE VOICE, CHEAPER PACKAGE THAN RELIANCE JIO

    BSNL PLANS FREE VOICE, CHEAPER PACKAGE THAN RELIANCE JIO

    NEW DELHI (TIP): State-run BSNL will be the first to cut tariffs to better Reliance Jio ‘s offer, a top official said on Wednesday, setting the stage for a price war in the country’s crowded mobile telecom market.

    The public sector player is planning to follow Jio in offering free voice calling on its network, and at plans that will be cheaper than the new entrant’s. And unlike Jio’s offer that is available for only 4G subscribers, the BSNL plan will be open to 2G and 3G users, which constitute the majority of mobile customers.

    “We are closely observing the market as well as Jio’s performance. We will also come up with lifetime free-voice plans from the new year as part of fresh offerings,” BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava told TOI. “We plan to be even lower than the Jio plan, and this could be by Rs 2-4.”

    BSNL, that has a strong market penetration and significant share in many key markets such as Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab and UP, will announce the zero-voice-tariff plans from January and these would be lower than the Rs 149 entry price of Jio. The loss-making PSU is, however, absent in key markets such as Mumbai and Delhi (serviced by MTNL).

    Shrivastava said that the plan will be offered to BSNL’s mobile customers who also have a broadband connection at home. “The idea is to use the home broadband to route outgoing mobile calls through the landline network. We estimate that a large amount of time is spent at home, and so here we can ride on our wire-line operations,” he said.

    However, the free-voice facility will also be available when a subscriber would use it outside the residence.

    BSNL’s offer may put further pressure on operators such as Airtel , Vodafone and Idea to slash tariffs, said experts. Prashant Singhal, partner at Ernst & Young, said the BSNL offer will impact other telecom companies. “Others will also have to follow suit. But this can be a risk for BSNL and its ARPU can be hit.”

  • MAHADAYI AGITATION TURNS VIOLENT IN KARNATAKA

    MAHADAYI AGITATION TURNS VIOLENT IN KARNATAKA

    BENGALURU (TIP): Normal life was thrown out of gear in several districts across north Karnataka as the ongoing agitation for Mahadayi waters took a violent turn on Thursday.

    While angry mobs attacked government offices and set two police jeeps on fire, two students attempted suicide by consuming poison to protest the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal’s interim order against release of 7.56 tmc ft of water to Karnataka for the Kalasa-Banduri canal project.

    Worst affected were Gadag, Hubbali, Dharwad, Haveri, Belagavi along with parts of Vijaypura and Bagalkot districts as all commercial activity and logistics came to a standstill. Police had to resort to lathicharge as several places to quell angry mobs that were going on a rampage; more than a dozen persons are said to have been injured in the police action and over 50 protestors have been taken in custody. Rasta-roko demonstrations were also staged in the southern parts of the state such as Bengaluru, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara districts by farmer groups and Kannada activists.

    With the agitators blocked National Highway-4 at Hubbali and Dharwad in the morning the Goan government announced a temporary suspension of its bus operations to the state. In Nargund town, two students — Nandish Mathad and Channabasava Charntimath — attempted suicide during a public demonstration. Violence erupted in Navalgund with the agitators settting ransacking a BSNL office and setting three vehicles including two police jeeps on fire.

    While the agitation against the tribunal’s interim order grew stronger in north Karnataka with the activists demanding resignations of Karnataka MPs, a mud-slinging match broke out among the three political parties — Congress, BJP and the JDS.

    Taking off from Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s statement (made before he left Brussels to see his ailing son) that the tribunal should have released 7.56 tmc ft of Mahadayi water to meet the drinking water needs of twin cities of Hubbali-Dharwad and Gadag, rural development and panchayat raj minister HK Patil said: “We have been seeking water that would flow into the sea, but this was not considered by the tribunal. People will get angry when attention is not paid to ground reality and truth. We have not got justice from the tribunal.” Stating that the tribunal’s order was not final and was questionable, Patil said: “We will explore all legal options including going to the Supreme Court against the tribunal’s order.”

    Source: TOI

  • AMARNATH YATRA ENDS

    AMARNATH YATRA ENDS

    SRINAGAR (TIP): The annual pilgrimage to the holy cave shrine of Amarnath concluded amid chanting of religious hymns and performing of pooja on the occasion of Shravan Purnima. Governor NN Vohra, who is also the chairman of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), was scheduled to visit at the cave shrine, but he could not reach there due to rain and poor visibility beyond Sonamarg, an official statement said. Expressing satisfaction over the smooth conduct of this year’s yatra, the Governor thanked the state government, the Army, the CRPF, the BSF, the ITBP, the police, the BSNL, five banks involved in the registration of pilgrims and all other organisations concerned, particularly the Indian Meteorological Department, and the people of the state, for their contribution to the organisation of the yatra.

    Shravan Purnima, which coincides with Raksha Bandhan, witnessed religious fervour with the arrival of the Holy Mace of Lord Shiva at the holy cave, situated at a height of 3,880 m, after a night halt at Panjtarni. Mahant Deependra Giri, accompanied by a large number of sadhus, carried the Holy Mace, popularly known as “Charri Mubarak”, and performed pooja at the shrine in the morning. For several months before the commencement of the yatra on June 28 and during the course of the pilgrimage, the Governor had made several visits to the yatra area, including aerial reconnaissance of the yatra routes besides visiting all camps. He had been monitoring the yatra on daily basis. The Governor has asked CEO of the shrine board Navin K Choudhary to coordinate with the Pahalgam Municipal Committee and the CEOs of the Sonamarg and Pahalgam development authorities to launch a post-yatra sanitation drive to ensure that the entire yatra area was cleaned up over the next few days.

  • Social Media And Our Responsibility: Individual And Collective

    Social Media And Our Responsibility: Individual And Collective

    While the Social media has undoubtedly revolutionized our communication and brought the world together, there are also multiple fallouts.
    Social media, especially the Facebook, Twitter and their multiple avatars, undoubtedly is a great revolution today. Perhaps, one of the greatest that humankind has witnessed. While we are yet to comprehend the impact of this media, the strides it has taken so far have been enormous – both on positive and negative aspects.

    Social media is not like any other media – print and electronic. It is unique and has revolutionized the interpersonal relationship and communication. Cutting across all boundaries – natural and manmade, the Social media today is in a different league, not affected by any of the limitations of print and electronic media. In fact, the evolution of technology in the recent decades, and the easy use of it by everyone is absolutely mind boggling.

    Consider the last three decades – perhaps from the early 1990s till this day. The introduction of mobile phones in the early 1990s and its subsequent wide use reduced the gap between us. Gone are those days when we patiently waited in STD/ISD shops, or the Post Office to make a phone call and speak to the other – either officially or personally. The growth of mobile phone and its reach is so much, that the telegrams today have become totally irrelevant and outdated.

    After being in use since the 1850s, the BSNL in India has officially decided to close down its telegram operations; those who would like to get nostalgic about sending and receiving telegrams, please try one last telegram before 14 July. Remember those days – sending telegrams on the arrival of new ones in our families, or the departure of older ones; marriage wishes; a happy note getting new job or promotion; intimation to our bosses of late returning to the work from our native village after being on leave and related multiple stories? Of course, we can’t blame the BSNL for closing it down.

    According to an estimate, today there are only 5000 telegrams sent all over the country every day, when compared to six million in 1985! Obviously, we have other means to reach out – to convey our personal and professional messages. From birth to death, from “I love you” to “Sorry, this will not work”, from “punctured tire; will be coming late to office,” to “seriously unwell. Give me leave”, the SMS has transformed our communication – both personal and official.

    Next came the internet, again in the 1990s, yet another communication revolution. It has thoroughly broken all the barriers of communication. Do we remember reading a newspaper from neighboring country or the region, on real time before the 1990s? Remember our personal letters and official communication before the 1990s? Remember our first leave letter, or the love letter? Remember our inland letter or the postcard to our father, asking for five hundred or thousand rupees extra for the month? Remember the long letters from our grandparents? Remember waiting for the postman? Today, the keyboards have taken over our handwriting skills; and never worry about your vocabulary or spelling; all you have to do is a right click! Today, we do not even have to remember our residential address. Emails and SMS will do the necessary communication.

    It has drastically revolutionized the way we communicate – in real time. A daughter can Skype (communicate on Skype) from any part of the world to her parents, with less or no cost. And parents witness the marriage of their children in Canada or Australia online! Then came the Social media during the last decade. Unlike the print media or the electronic media, where there is a gap between the speaker and the audience – physical and emotional, the social media puts the two directly in touch, that too in real time.We don’t have to wait to write to newspapers to get our response published; we send our responses immediately.

    All we need is a computer or a lap top, connected with the internet. However, the biggest revolution of the above three – is the complete merger of them, in terms one using the other. The mobile phones are connected to the internet; today we are talking about the super speed 3G connections and the use of Facebook and Twitter on our mobile. What this means is, we don’t have to wait to reach our computer or laptop, and ensure there is internet and electricity, before starting communication.

    If the internet has made us to access the rest of the world, the Facebook and Twitter are getting the world into our mobile network.We don’t have to read the newspapers in print, or even access their websites; they are delivered to us. Social media, does one thing even better; it enable us directly to contact someone who is sitting in a remote corner in Africa or Antarctica! All you need to do is to send a friend request. The Social media has completely broken any barrier that man has taken since the Treaty of Westphalia to distance each other.We can sit in the washrooms and keep communicating to our beloved ones.

    We can sit in front our parents in the dining table or in a classroom in front our teacher, yet messaging to our friends without anyone noticing. (And, where do children learn to message, keeping the phone below the table, but looking at you?). While the Social media has undoubtedly revolutionized our communication and brought the world together, there are also multiple fallouts. One great problem is the parenting; the children are hooked onto the Social media. In fact, this should be considered as one of the greatest dope that man has ever invented.

    We are addicted to the Social media; if anyone has a doubt, please notice, what the rest of us are doing while you travel next time in a public transport – either in train or bus. Second, there is a greater tendency to trivialize ourselves today. More than the event or experience, we would like to get that feeling across into our Facebook or Twitter. This has become common today: Oh, I should change my profile picture with this; wow, this picture will get more likes on my Facebook; I should have this in my twitter… It appears, instead of the Social media helping us to reach out to the other, is dangerously taking us in a path of reorienting our self.

    From “having a haircut” to “overcooked my chicken”, we seem to be in the path of becoming narcissistic, with ease and élan. Third and the most important aspect is the mayhem that it could create in distancing the people. As we could see in some of the recent conflict situations in Myanmar and Northeast, the Social media wreaked havoc in venting our anger and offending the other. Since Social media gives us the luxury to remain anonymous, and post any kind of messages, without realizing the impact. What is its greatest strength – the real time connectivity and mobility, is also the greatest liability in spreading hatred and venom.

    I can sit calmly in my washroom, yet create mayhem thousand miles away, without revealing my identity. I can tweet a harsh note, tweak a picture and pass it as real, and yet remain anonymous. Undoubtedly, Social media is a great revolution today; it has bulldozed all barriers between us in terms of distance and time. However, we also have a responsibility, to ensure that this revolution brings us closer, than divide us.

    The State cannot and should not attempt to regulate this; it should be left to our individual and collective conscience.We have a huge responsibility.