Moily: We’ll work out strategy to stabilise grid

Jaipur, Jul 14: In a show of strength, Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot-led Rajasthan Congress camp on Monday released a video showing at least 16 MLAs sitting together.

This comes hours after the Congress held a legislature party meeting. Party leaders said 106 of 122 MLAs attended, a claim contested by the Pilot camp.

The 10-second video was shared late at night on Pilot's official WhatsApp group.

In the video, at least 16 MLAs are seen sitting together in a close circle. Pilot is not seen in the video.

Six other people can be seen in the video but they could not be identified.

Some of the MLAs seen in the video are Indraraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Harish Meena.

Tourism Minister Vishvendra Singh tweeted the video with the caption "Family".

Ladnun MLA Mukesh Bhakar tweeted, "...Loyalty in Congress means Ashok Gehlot's slavery. That is not acceptable to us."

Pilot has been upset since he was denied the Rajasthan chief minister's post after the December 2018 assembly elections.

On Sunday, he claimed to have the backing of 30 Congress MLAs and "some independents".

Those close to him disputed Gehlot's claim that his government had a majority, and said this is proven in the assembly and not at the CM's house.

Sources close to him have also ruled out the possibility of Pilot joining the BJP.

In the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, the Congress has 107 MLAs and the BJP 72. In the past, the ruling party has claimed the support of 13 independents, two MLAs each from the CPM and the Bharatiya Tribal Party, and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

New Delhi, Jan 31: Substantial competition and low tariff rates by telecom operators since 2016 have led to a financial stress in the sector, the Economic Survey said on Friday.

The data price in the country came down by over 99 per cent during 2016-2019, making it among the lowest tariff in the world, according to the survey.

"Since 2016, the sector has witnessed substantial competition and price cutting by the telecom service providers (TSPs), creating financial stress in the sector. As a result, the sector is experiencing consolidation. While some operators have filed for bankruptcy, others have merged, in their quest to improve viability," the survey report said.

In April-June 2019, the price of data was Rs 7.7 per gigabyte (GB) as compared to Rs 200 per GB in June 2016, it added.

"The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM based mobile services has also gone down substantially from Rs 126 in June 2016 to Rs 74.30 in June 2019," the survey said.

The tariff war started in the market with entry of new telecom operator Reliance Jio in September 2016.

"BSNL and MTNL are also affected by the tariff war that has impacted their cash flow resulting in mounting losses," the survey said.

The financial health of the public sector telecom firms plummeted to a level where they have been finding hard to pay employees salaries in time.

The government has drawn up a plan to revive these PSUs which is still in works.

The revival plan consists of several measures, including reduction of staff cost through voluntary retirement scheme, allotment of spectrum for 4G services, monetisation of land and building, tower and fibre assets of BSNL and MTNL, debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds and ''in-principle'' approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL.

The survey said that the wireless telephony now constitutes 98.27 per cent of all subscriptions whereas share of landline telephones now stands at only 1.73 per cent where market share is dominated by private sector players.

"The overall tele-density in India stands at 90.45 per cent, the rural tele-density being 57.35 per cent and urban teledensity being 160.71 per cent at the end of September 2019. The private sector dominates with a share of 88.81 per cent (106.06 crore connections) at the end of September, 2019 while the share of public sector was 11.19 per cent (13.36 crore connections)," the survey said.

The lower price of data has also lead in surge of broadband connections and average consumption of the internet.

Total broadband connections increased by about ten times, from 6.1 crore in 2014 to 59.46 crore in June 2019, the survey said.

The number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 66.53 crore at the end of June 2019 as compared to 25.16 crore in 2014.

The number of mobile internet subscribers was 64.36 lakh at the end of June 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 2.17 crore.

"India is now the global leader in monthly data consumption, with average consumption per subscriber per month increasing 157 times from 62 MB in 2014 to 9.8 GB in June 2019. The cost of data has also reduced substantially, enabling affordable internet access for millions of citizens," the survey said.

New Delhi, Mar 26: The total number of people who have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 in India has risen to 649 in India, including 593 active cases and 42 people who have been cured or discharged from hospitals, according to the recent update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Thursday morning.
The death toll due to the novel coronavirus in the country has reached 13, the official data reported. There have been 3 more deaths due to COVID-19 reported in the country since last evening.
An 85-year-old woman in Gujarat died yesterday while with the passing away of a 65-year-old woman, Madhya Pradesh reported its first COVID-19 death. Tamil Nadu also reported its first death in the state yesterday due to the deadly infection.
According to report from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) India had tested 24,254 people as of 8 p.m. on March 25.
The country is now in its second day of a 21-day lockdown that was announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.
The central government had on Wednesday announced that it will provide 7 kg ration to 80 crore people in India. The Centre also said that it has earmarked Rs 1.80 lakh crores for providing wheat at Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg
"Union Cabinet has decided to provide wheat at Rs 2 per kg which is worth Rs 27 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg which is worth Rs 37 per kg. A total amount of Rs 1 lakh 80 thousand crores is being spent for the cause. The amount will be given in advance to the states for the coming 3 months," Union Minister Sadananda Gowda said yesterday.
Those shops which are catering to essential services will continue doing so during the 21-day nationwide lockdown.