Irony dies a thousand deaths as Jio slams Trai's IUC review as ‘anti-poor’

Agencies
October 20, 2019

Mumbai, Oct 20: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has alleged that review of call connect charges by Trai "sabotages" the Prime Minister's vision for Digital India, and will hit not only the regulator's credibility but also investor confidence as the move protects vested interests of some old operators.

Continuing its relentless attack on the regulator and old operators over the contentious IUC (interconnect usage charge) issue that has polarised the industry, Jio alleged that Trai's move is arbitrary, bad in law, unwarranted, and anti-poor.

Any change in the implementation of the original timeline of January 1, 2020, will end the free voice regime and is likely to increase tariffs which are against consumer interest, Jio claimed.

Typically, a telecom operator pays for completing calls made by its subscribers to a rival network. This is done by paying the rival network an to interconnect usage charge, which currently is 6 paise per minute.

Trai's move to reopen the deadline for ending charges for terminating calls on rival networks beyond January 2020 had forced Jio to levy a 6 paisa per minute charge on its users recently, effectively ending its free call regime.

Submitting its official response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the IUC matter, Jio alleged that "certain incumbent telcos" want their large body of 2G customers to forever remain digitally disempowered and deprived of the fruits of the digital revolution. Trai's consultation paper "protects and perpetuates the vested interests" of such players, it added.

Jio accused certain old operators of exploiting their 2G customers by charging "extortionist rates" for voice calls, which are offered free to all Jio's 4G-only customers.

"The Consultation Paper...undermines and sabotages Prime Minister's Digital India vision and mission," Jio said in its comment to Trai's consultation paper.

It is unfortunate that instead of profiting the poor and marginalised sections of Indian society, the consultation paper has chosen to help profiteers in the telecom business, Jio alleged.

The discussion paper wants India to remain technologically stagnant and backward, the company said.

The move contradicts the authority's past decisions where it was represented that the zero termination charge regime would come into effect for all types of calls from January 1, 2020, Jio said.

It added that the ongoing review, which violates the principles of regulatory predictability, has been initiated with pre-determined mind.

"...the present Consultation Paper has not been issued to address traffic asymmetry, but to address the claimed financial stress of one or two operators at the cost of the interests of the subscribers and the telecom sector, and also the credibility of the authority," it said.

The latest entrant, known for its disruptive tariffs, argued the present trend indicates that traffic asymmetry (one of the key reasons for Trai's rethink on IUC) is expected to be reversed in a few months and the present receivers will become payers, and so deferring stated timelines is not going to steer any operator away from the purported financial stress. Moving to zero termination charge regime will reduce overall tariffs for customers, Jio said.

Jio said that had Trai "recalculated termination charges, it would be less than 1 paise per minute at this stage", and added that the small residual value by itself fully justifies the need for moving to zero termination charge regime.

Jio cautioned that Trai's move will have a "chilling effect" on any new investments and future new entrants who will be deterred by this entry barrier, and even as the advanced world will move towards 5G, India will continue promoting 2G and keep millions of users out of Digital India.

"There exists no rationale for changing the date of implementation of BAK (bill and keep) regime from January 1, 2020," Jio added.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

New Delhi, Jul 28: India on Wednesday reported 47,704 more COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country's count of coronavirus cases to 14,83,157, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total cases, there are 4,96,988 active cases in the country while the number of patients cured/discharged and migrated stands at 9,52,744.

With 654 deaths due to COVID-19 in the country reported in the last 24 hours, the death toll rises to 33,425.

The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has increased to 64.23 per cent. The recoveries to deaths ratio is 96.6 per cent:3.4 per cent, informed the Centre.

As per the data provided by the Ministry, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-affected state from the infection with 1,48,905 active cases and 13,656 deaths due to COVID-19. Tamil Nadu has a total of 53,703 active cases and 3,494 deaths.

Delhi has a total of 11,904 active cases and 3,827 deaths.

The Health Ministry further informed that more than 5 lakh COVID-19 tests were conducted in a single day over two consecutive days. On 26th July, India tested a total of 5,15,000 samples and on 27th July, a total of 5,28,000 samples were tested.

The total number of COVID-19 samples tested up to July 27 is 1,73,34,885 including 5,28,082 samples tested yesterday, said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

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News Network
June 20,2020

New Delhi, Jun 20: With the highest single-day increase of 14,516 COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, India's coronavirus count stood at 3,95,048 on Saturday.

The death toll has gone up to 12,948 in the country with 375 persons succumbing to the infection.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of cases includes 1,68,269 active cases, 2,13,831 cured/discharged/migrated and 12,948 deaths.

Maharashtra with 1,24,331 cases continues to be the worst-affected state in the country with 55,665 active cases while 62,773 patients have been cured and discharged in the state so far. The death toll due to COVID-19 stands at 5,893 in the state.

The number of confirmed cases in Tamil Nadu also crossed the 50 thousand mark on Saturday and reached 54,449.

The national capital is the third-worst affected by the infection in the country with the count reaching 53,116 today.

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

They were hanged at 5.30 am, Director General of Prison Sandeep Goel said.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night. Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her. She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.

The death warrants were deferred by a court thrice on the grounds that the convicts had not exhausted all their legal remedies and that the mercy petition of one or the other was before the president.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30 am as the final date for the execution.

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