Decision goes beyond court’s purpose, punishes wrong people, hurts international image, and will raise prices for Indian consumers
Op/Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Feb. 6 – One day they’ll make a film about this case – corrupt bidding, jailed ministers, a vindictive judge and a cast of 80 million telecom subscribers. India’s Supreme Court on Thursday axed all 122 2G telecom licenses and forced a new bidding process on a government-approved tender that saw both domestic and international telecom investors spend billions on rolling out 2G telecom networks on a national scale serving some 60 million users. Those networks are now to be dismantled within four months.
As anyone familiar with conducting business in emerging markets knows, often it’s a case of two steps forward and one step back. It’s a frustrating process, but one gets there in the end. Yet in this case, the Supreme Court has taken upon itself to not just challenge the government, but to also mete out punishments in the form of fines to operators who thought they were acting in good faith; placing itself in the position of authority as determining market prices and effectively ending India’s benefit of having the lowest mobile phone user costs in the world. Continue reading
Jan. 13 – India has launched the initial pilot run of the Aakash tablet PC, with some 100,000 units having been delivered this week. The PC, similar in look and functionality to an iPad, has been designed to specifically cater for Indian students and the Indian Ministry of Human Resource and Development is set to purchase 10 million of them to distribute to schoolchildren in attempts to improve literacy and educational standards across the country.
Jan. 12 – Microsoft has filed lawsuits against Chinese electronic retailer giants Gome and Buynow for allegedly selling PCs with unlicensed versions of Windows and Office software, Microsoft said in a statement on Monday.
Jan. 5 – China Telecom, the country’s largest fixed-line phone company in terms of customer numbers, is set to start its first overseas mobile phone service in the United Kingdom, Bloomberg reported.
Dec. 30 – The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, published the 2012 Foreign Investment Industrial Guidance Catalog on Thursday outlining industries in which foreign investments will be encouraged, restricted or completely prohibited.
Dec. 29 – 54 officials, including the former railway minister Liu Zhijun and the ministry’s deputy chief engineer Zhang Shuguang, will be punished for the deadly train crash in July, according to the report released by the State Council Wednesday.
Dec. 27 – Following identical moves adopted by other major cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Shenzhen, Shanghai is going to require users of Weibo, a twitter-like microblogging service, to register under their real names starting Monday, state media reported.