Bharat Rakshak

RAJA'S Stock investment soar 170%... playing Dalit card just loot

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rajas ... 70/714519/

Fidel Guevara wrote:
The net impact is that the Indian customers have been billed a few Rs less than what they would otherwise have been billed. If the capital is usually recouped over 5 years, then 158,400 crores less needs to be recouped over 5 years, i.e. 31,680 crores/year. Say 20 crore cellphone bill-payers are impacted by 2G, that works out to Rs 1584/year, or Rs 132 per month less in phone-bills. Of course, not all the effect of the lower spectrum valuation will be passed on to consumers by the telcos. They will try to keep as much as they can. But assume half was passed on to the public - that is Rs 66/month less in everybody's bill.

On what basis you arrived at this conclusion FG-ji?

Do you really think a private enterprise would pass the bottom-line savings to the customer? And sell a product for cheaper than the bottom line? Product/Service pricing is a science and corporations price the product/service based on demand traunches or customer segmentation.

That is marketing 101.

No it's economics 101
ever heard of monopolistic competetion and oligopoly?They the merchants will never pass on the fair share to customers

Go back and understand marginal revenue cost revenue curves

Forgot all those terms ShivaS garu! I remembered that we did that in Marketing course.

RamaY wrote:

Fidel Guevara wrote:
The net impact is that the Indian customers have been billed a few Rs less than what they would otherwise have been billed. If the capital is usually recouped over 5 years, then 158,400 crores less needs to be recouped over 5 years, i.e. 31,680 crores/year. Say 20 crore cellphone bill-payers are impacted by 2G, that works out to Rs 1584/year, or Rs 132 per month less in phone-bills. Of course, not all the effect of the lower spectrum valuation will be passed on to consumers by the telcos. They will try to keep as much as they can. But assume half was passed on to the public - that is Rs 66/month less in everybody's bill.

On what basis you arrived at this conclusion FG-ji?

Do you really think a private enterprise would pass the bottom-line savings to the customer? And sell a product for cheaper than the bottom line? Product/Service pricing is a science and corporations price the product/service based on demand traunches or customer segmentation.

That is marketing 101.

For a commodity with intense competition, price wars are inevitable. When the differentiator to gain market share is price and price-perception alone, prices will fall to the lowest level that can be borne by the incumbents. Price wars and price cutting are the norm.

When I have saved maybe 20% of my total start-up costs by cheap spectrum, I can either choose to sit on my excess profits, or I can afford to cut price to gain more market share. You (as my competitor) have also saved a big chunk of your capital through this scam, so you will defend your market share with further price cuts.

This is typical competitive behavior with a commodity (where the item being sold by one supplier is no different from that sold by another)...marketing 101 does not fully come into the picture here. If you are comparing the marketing of a Sony camera vs a Canon camera, all these concepts are critical, but not so much in comparing the price of one commodity supplier vs another.

Hence with an artificially-inflated profit margin right from Day 1, the telcos have cut prices and cut again, multiple times, until Indians are now paying some of the world's cheapest rates.

Is the stage being set for apolitical leader to take over?

ShivaS wrote:No it's economics 101
ever heard of monopolistic competetion and oligopoly?They the merchants will never pass on the fair share to customers

Go back and understand marginal revenue cost revenue curves

I'm sorry but I fail to understand how this can be monopolistic competition and oligopoly? By the very nature of the two, it's either one player or a two or three players who manipulate the market. With India's mobile telephony market having a plethora of players, it is neither.

Fidel is right, low start up cost - which this scam certainly aided in - has allowed the telcos to charge some of the lowest prices in the world.

Added later: Dunno if folks here remember, perhaps Lal Mullah would be able to clarify, but several years ago, the British made an obnoxious amount of money selling off 3G spectrum. The net result was several of the telcos who bought the spectrum struggled in the initial years because of the huge debt burden they were saddled with. In India's case the initial 2G spectrum (that is the main one not the residue spectrum which is the centre of this scam) was given out pretty cheap during the start of the telco revolution here. That and this spectrum allocation resulted in low start up costs and that certainly contributed to low call rates.

It would be interesting to see how the 3G services are priced in the market, once they are up and running.

JwalaMukhi wrote:http://www.hindustantimes.com/Spectrum- ... 28447.aspx

Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje on Friday expressed shock over the magnitude of the 2G spectrum scam, saying the size of the 1.76 lakh crore swindle was equivalent to the state's budget for three and a half years. "The 2G spectrum scam is so big that the amount involved in it could have been our state's budget for three and a half years," Raje said addressing students at a function in Rajasthan University campus in Jaipur.

The 1.76 lakh crore is a sexy number but the crooks didn't make that much! But I guess that's one number that will be present in India's political lexicon for decades, very much like the Rs 64 crore figure that was attached to the Bofors scandal.

Fidel Guevara wrote:When I have saved maybe 20% of my total start-up costs by cheap spectrum, I can either choose to sit on my excess profits, or I can afford to cut price to gain more market share.

There are no savings and there is certainly no "profit". All the wheeling dealings are outside the books of these companies. The third rate party's spokesperson was so shameless as to call this gigantic scam as only a "notional" loss to the country. It's always "the Family" first, party second, and country last for these crooks. That is why canceling licences and tracking the money trail is all important.

3G services priced low

The government raised over Rs1 lakh crore from 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum auction earlier this year, exceeding the budgeted target by a very wide margin. Top telecom industry representatives had earlier argued that 3G services would cost much more than 2G, like in other parts of the world.

However, as telcos start to roll out 3G in India, rules of the game seem to be changing in terms of pricing. Arpita Pal Agarwal, partner and executive director, KPMG, said competitive pricing for 3G services must be expected because there are four operators across most geographies.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL introduced the third generation service more than a year ago. Tata Teleservices announced a surprisingly low tariff of 0.66 paise per second or 40 paise per minute. And, it would be a per-second pulse rate. So far, Tata Teleservices, along with its Japanese partner DoCoMo, is the only private operator to roll out 3G services in India.

It's about competition, not spectrum, as even prior to this scam Indian telecom services have been very cheap.

^^^^^

But wasn't Tata Teleservices a beneficiary of this scam?

Airavat wrote:It's about competition, not spectrum, as even prior to this scam Indian telecom services have been very cheap.

The initial 2G spectrum was also given out cheap as that was the start of the mobile phone services in India and nobody was willing to bid for the bandwidth.

Boss you gotta to understand that in a competitive spectrum pricing scenario, when companies spend obnoxious amounts of money to bid for spectrum, that adds to their debt burden and that is invariably passed on to the customers. That's the general rule.

Of course that is not to say that this present scam was justifiable. Far from it.

However, till now (discounting this scam) one of the reasons that mobile phone services here are so cheap (cheaper than China, for example) is because the Companies didn't need to pay too much for spectrum. I want to see how much the costing is for 3G once it's up and running and all the initial discounts are factored in.

Fidel Guevara wrote: For a commodity with intense competition, price wars are inevitable. When the differentiator to gain market share is price and price-perception alone, prices will fall to the lowest level that can be borne by the incumbents. Price wars and price cutting are the norm.

When I have saved maybe 20% of my total start-up costs by cheap spectrum, I can either choose to sit on my excess profits, or I can afford to cut price to gain more market share. You (as my competitor) have also saved a big chunk of your capital through this scam, so you will defend your market share with further price cuts.

This is typical competitive behavior with a commodity (where the item being sold by one supplier is no different from that sold by another)...marketing 101 does not fully come into the picture here. If you are comparing the marketing of a Sony camera vs a Canon camera, all these concepts are critical, but not so much in comparing the price of one commodity supplier vs another.

Hence with an artificially-inflated profit margin right from Day 1, the telcos have cut prices and cut again, multiple times, until Indians are now paying some of the world's cheapest rates.

FG garu,

I am sure the truth is somewhere in between. But do you think it is worthwhile to justify the 2G scam on the basis that it offered better mobile tariff to the customers? Can you kindly post the revenues of the 2G license holders for the past 6+ years and show how it helped Indian consumers? How do you or any other poster know what would/should have been the tariff in the absence of this scam?

Some posters here argue that say 50% of scam value is passed to the consumers and GOI's potential profit reduced from 170000 crores to whatever it truly is.

Will I be wrong if I say, the actual economic value of the 2G spectrum is 340,000 crores and 2G service providers got additional benefit of 170,000 crores? I have the same proofs as the my opponents (my special-nonsense Vs their general-nonsense).

RamaY wrote:

Fidel Guevara wrote: For a commodity with intense competition, price wars are inevitable. When the differentiator to gain market share is price and price-perception alone, prices will fall to the lowest level that can be borne by the incumbents. Price wars and price cutting are the norm.

When I have saved maybe 20% of my total start-up costs by cheap spectrum, I can either choose to sit on my excess profits, or I can afford to cut price to gain more market share. You (as my competitor) have also saved a big chunk of your capital through this scam, so you will defend your market share with further price cuts.

This is typical competitive behavior with a commodity (where the item being sold by one supplier is no different from that sold by another)...marketing 101 does not fully come into the picture here. If you are comparing the marketing of a Sony camera vs a Canon camera, all these concepts are critical, but not so much in comparing the price of one commodity supplier vs another.

Hence with an artificially-inflated profit margin right from Day 1, the telcos have cut prices and cut again, multiple times, until Indians are now paying some of the world's cheapest rates.

FG garu,

I am sure the truth is somewhere in between. But do you think it is worthwhile to justify the 2G scam on the basis that it offered better mobile tariff to the customers? Can you kindly post the revenues of the 2G license holders for the past 6+ years and show how it helped Indian consumers? How do you or any other poster know what would/should have been the tariff in the absence of this scam?

Some posters here argue that say 50% of scam value is passed to the consumers and GOI's potential profit reduced from 170000 crores to whatever it truly is.

Will I be wrong if I say, the actual economic value of the 2G spectrum is 340,000 crores and 2G service providers got additional benefit of 170,000 crores? I have the same proofs as the my opponents (my special-nonsense Vs their general-nonsense).

RamaY-ji, I am not saying that the scam was worthwhile, far from it. The licenses should be re-priced and the govt should recoup the true valuation of spectrum. However, the effect of doing this will be :

1) YOUR bill will go up (let me know what you are paying 6 months later), as the enormous unexpected cost gets added to the telco P&L and they scramble to pass it on to the consumers (as much as they can in a competitive market)
2) For the average hand-to-mouth guy, paying Rs 100 extra per month will cut into other consumption items...inflation for discretionary food items and other discretionary basics may come down a little bit.
3) Telcos will see a hit on their profit-before-tax (PBT) and this will translate into lower tax collection by the govt. This assumes that they are not able to pass on the entire additional cost due to competition. See Amit's point about the UK 3G pricing, and the impact on telco profitability.
4) Telco PAT will go down similarly, and if the stock market P/E valuations remain constant, this will translate into a lower share price for all telcos involved. Since telecom is a big part of the market, the Sensex will take a (temporary) tumble. This negative sentiment will transmit across the market and we may see a broad-based (temporary) bear market.

I, for one, will wait for the government to announce a re-auction, and wait for the panic stock-selling, and then buy whatever shares I can afford, confident that this will be a temporary market low.

Many moons ago, when Arun Jetley sold Modern Food for throwaway prices. Later, Arun Shourie sold GoI-owned hotel in Juhu at throw away prices and sold away VSNL at throw away prices to Tata. Pramod Mahajan needs no elaboration. Another BJP Minister takes bribes and shouts "rishwat khuda to nahi lekin khuda ki kasam khuda se kam bhi nahi". Then Yashwant Sinha takes bribes and continues tax breaks on Mauritius companies. List of scams is endless. When all these scams came, patriots rose and praised "kaam to ho rahaaa hai , so please ignore bribery of Arun Jetley, Mahajan, Arun Shourie, Sinha, ABV , LKA et al and pls only shower priases on them". All of a sudden, same patriots have now become anti-corruption jehadies. When Raja took bribes, patriots quickly point out that Raja is too small a fish to control a scene, and lion's share went to Sonia. But when Pramod took bribe, patriots threw mud on me for saying that "Pramod is pawn -- the real bribe collector is ABV". ABV was known to tell every industrialist "Pramod se baat jar lena" i.e. "please do talk to Pramod", which means please pay bribe to Pramod. Despite this, patriots threw mud on me for calling ABV a bribe-seeker.

Arun Shourie as usual is starting a litany on 2G scam. I wonder why he never complaints when BJP Ministers (including ABV, NaMo, Yedi et al) took and take bribe after bribe after bribe after bribe. A simple explanation is that BJP Ministers give him a % of bribe they collect in cash or in kind. Paid news and paid silence. Paid silence is as dishonest as paid news. And some people want payment in cash, some want payment in kind. Payment in kind can be --- pay newspaper-owner to carry my column, pay newspaper-owner to create good image of mine etc. Shourie perhaps wants payment in kind and less in cash, and so he keeps mum when BJP Ministers took/take bribes.

Seculars are opposite of patriots - they support corruption of Congress, CPM leaders and oppose corruption of BJP leaders. The common point of seculars and patriots is that both support corruption in judges by seldom opposing it.

What should we commons do? I think its time we commons shun both - the patriots and seculars, and throw bile on EVERY leader who indulges in corruption, throw mud on every leader/person who practices selective silence and selective hell-raising. Any person who refuses to insult any corrupt Nbjp should insulted. Its time to spare none.

Fidel Guevara wrote:The licenses should be re-priced and the govt should recoup the true valuation of spectrum.

I am no biz-wiz but I am skeptical about this.

If I sell you a teddy bear for Rs 10 and then grab it back from you and then try and sell it to someone else that Rs 30 why on earth would anyone be interested in paying more?

One possible reason is that the second buyer would be confident of making a huge profit despite paying Rs 30.

But India is a price sensitive market with lo margins and any "second buyer" for the licence would do his sums very carefully. Cellphone usage costs in India are dead cheap right now.

Rahul Mehta. You are anti national. Anti Indian. India is a poor country. How can anyone make money without scams?

Oh well the congress shills have descended again.

how clever of them to try to shift the focus from the massive loot of indian people's money by congress party to hey other parties are corrupt too, let us not blame the congress here.

Have some shame congress party shills, your pathetic defence of congress corruption is unaccpetable

Go back to your congress bhavan and hide there eating all the loot

shiv wrote:

Fidel Guevara wrote:The licenses should be re-priced and the govt should recoup the true valuation of spectrum.

I am no biz-wiz but I am skeptical about this.

If I sell you a teddy bear for Rs 10 and then grab it back from you and then try and sell it to someone else that Rs 30 why on earth would anyone be interested in paying more?

One possible reason is that the second buyer would be confident of making a huge profit despite paying Rs 30.

But India is a price sensitive market with lo margins and any "second buyer" for the licence would do his sums very carefully. Cellphone usage costs in India are dead cheap right now.

Shiv, perhaps not a re-auction, but charge an additional fee from incumbents equal to what they should have paid. In your example, I go to your shop and your assistant sells me the teddy bear for Rs 10 (instead of the actual price of Rs 30). Then you come in and tell me that your assistant is a chor and it should be Rs 30...I can either choose to walk away from the teddy bear (and lose the Rs 10) or I can pay Rs 30, or (most likely) I will negotiate, and we will settle on Rs 20.

I suspect something like that will happen in this case...but we will still see a huge hit on telco costs.

Rahul Mehta wrote: ...Totals are crossing almost 1 lakh crore a year to 2 lakh crores a year. Let me put my answers to the two obvious questions :

1. who is getting this bribe money's lions share?
2. Where are they stashing this money?

The Nbjpr including PM, super-PM, SCjs etc now 100% slaves. There is now way all these slaves can keep so much rupees.

My take is : American Elitemen are collecting all these bribes in cash or kind, and then they are re-investing in India to take control over real estate, mineral mines, media and also Christianize India. The re-investment keeps Indian economy growing. But the control over economy/polity ensures that India's Military and manufacturing remains weak. So whenever American Elitemen want to take over India, US Military can it with ease. The high growth rate ensures that gullible activists keep believing that everything is hunky dory, and no system change is needed. And when US Military knocks door, there will be no time left to improve Military.
If India lets this bribery go on peacefully, India will become like SoKo - no Military, reasonably good economy, Christianity all over and US-puppies in polity. And if India resists, US will Iraq India.

So situation is much worse than what most BRites and non-BRites think. The beneficiaries of bribery are American Elitemen, not local Nbjprie.

Jarita wrote:Hate to say but RM may not be that far fetched. I don't think the process of funds transfer can be laid out exactly as above and neither can we determine if it is American Elites or European Elites.
However, there is a high likelihood that the top leadership have been installed by foreign governments to perpetuate their interests. For that they are rewarded with huge kickbacks and monies e.g., A junk deal with the US for $10BN. These guys can get upto 40% of that junk deal as kickbacks. Of the $6bn that goes to foreign folks the real value of what they deliver to India may be in millions thus creating huge value add for their economy & elite. Add to that the fact that India's own defence and other capabilities remain crippled thus perpetuating the cycle.

AWMTA . Thats why despite rampant bribery of of lakhs of crores a year, economy grows at 10% and despite economy growing growing at 10%, Military and real manufacturing is in shambles. Small town like Aurangabad sells 100 BMWs in first opening month, but soldiers get peanuts as salaries. The foreign masters are getting X% (X can be 60, but I think it is 90) of all bribes collected by Ministers, Dept secretaries, SCjs, HC-Cjs etc. The foreign masters re-invest the money in software companies, media, mining companies, hospitals etc to ensure that Indian economy grows but economy/polity moves in a direction that would ensure that India's Military and manufacturing capabilities remain weak. Foreign masters also give some money to Church, Naxals etc. S. Swamy says that Rs 20,000 cr were deposited in Sonia's accounts in Macau. I bet these accounts are not Sonia's accounts -- they belong to Vatican or Rockefeller or Rothschild or all of them. The situation is terribly rotten as Foreign Masters have bought people not just in Congress/CPM, but most BJP leaders too appear to be sold out. I dont think we commons have much options left.

BTW, tomorrow if you hear that most of the bribe money is controlled by Foreign Masters, please mention that you first read it on BR in this thread.

===

Raghavendra,

There are people like myself who oppose corruption of all (all includes ABV, MMS, Sonia, Shourie, NaMo, Yedi, Yechuri, Karat, Buddhadev, Maya, Laloo, MY, Nitish etc). So please dont confuse me with Congress-supporter. But I do want to ensure that in this thread does not become "bring NaMo, Shourie et al on board to reduce corruption" thread.

amit wrote:The initial 2G spectrum was also given out cheap as that was the start of the mobile phone services in India and nobody was willing to bid for the bandwidth.

Spectrum auctions in India: lessons from experience

Starting in December 1991 the government followed a policy of issuing a limited number of Cellular Mobile and Basic Fixed Service licenses through a process of competitive bidding. The use of auctions appears to have been motivated by the desire to raise revenues as well as ensure transparency in allotment of licenses. However, once the licenses had been granted the winning bidders, other than those for Metros, complained that they had bid extremely high amounts and that their businesses were not viable. The government then relieved them of the obligation to pay further installments of their committed license fees and allowed them to move to a revenue sharing regime.

Around this time the government had also received bids for basic services licenses, one in each circle. When the bids were opened in August 1995, one company, Himachal Futuristics Communications Limited (HFCL) had the highest bid in 9 circles. In many cases its bid was more than double the second highest bid. At this point the government announced a cap of three circles for a single bidder in Category A and B circles. The cap did not apply to Category C circles. This cap was also extended to cellular bids. The bidders selected for each circle were asked to match the license fee quoted by the highest bidder. As a result of this process 34 licenses were issued in 18 circles. Many observers considered the winning bids extremely high and unsustainable.

The TRAI fixed a rental of Rs.600 (earlier Rs.156) and air time charge of Rs.6 (earlier Rs.16.80) per minute as price caps. The proposed price cap tariffs constituted a “standard package” always available to subscribers. The operators were free to offer alternative packages with rentals and airtime charges higher than those in the standard package. Following the migration of the operators to a revenue sharing regime tariffs were further reduced to Rs.400 per month and Rs.4 per minute.

Following the initial issue of licenses there has been significant consolidation in the cellular mobile industry through transfer of ownership of licenses. A number of these transactions represent attempts to aggregate licenses so as to obtain economies of scale and scope. Such aggregation was not possible given the sealed bid auction process adopted for assigning licenses. Currently, there are three major strands in the consolidation process - the Tata, Birla and AT & T joint venture; the extension of the Hutchison group across the metros; and the emergence of the Bharati group as a major player.

For example, 'in order to release spectrum in the 1700-2000 MHz band, the IAF, the major user of the band, would need to digitise its existing analog systems in Gujrat & Maharashtra sector at the cost of Rs.140 crores. The cost of this digitisation in Central, Eastern and North-eastern sector comes to approximately Rs.205 crores.'

amit wrote:However, till now (discounting this scam) one of the reasons that mobile phone services here are so cheap (cheaper than China, for example) is because the Companies didn't need to pay too much for spectrum.

Telecom services cheap across Asia

India’s fixed telecom services market is projected to touch $14 billion in 2006, with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 per cent from 2001 to 2006, according to international research firm Gartner. In contrast, China’s telecom market will hit $27 billion in 2006, with a CAGR of 7.9 per cent from 2001 through 2006.

“Asia is facing the same problems western countries faced several years ago when prices plunged as a result of liberalisation. If it had not been for local call services, telephony revenue would have taken a severe beating,” said principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest’s Asia-Pacific telecom and Internet research group, To Chee Eng.

The lowdown on telecom prices (fixed line)

Worldover, the trend is towards a reduction in call rates: Domestic, medium distance, long distance or even international. Only in monopoly or near monopoly markets is the trend in the opposite direction. Hong Kong allows free local calls. Ditto with the US. Not only that, the telephone companies also throw in dollops of services; they are willing to bend backward to offer you a connection. The competitive nature and service element which is ingrained into these companies ensures that.

The cable operator is also charging only Rs 150-odd a month for a bouquet of 35-plus channels, which take up a lot of bandwidth compared to one measly telephone line of telephone operators like MTNL and DoT.

Customer Emerges Winner In Telecom Battles

The proposed unified licensing regime, once in place, will initially help keep telecom tariffs in check as it will allow more competition in the wireless telephony space. However, in the long term, when the number of operators are expected to be reduced to three or four with nationwide networks, the prices of value added services could go up.

Similarly, the group of ministers (GoM), while clearing the migration of WLL operators to join the cellular club, mandated WLL operators to continue offering limited mobility so that basic services continue to be available cheap. “If somebody wants a sada paan only, it should be available,” says Union finance minister Jaswant Singh. Mr Singh was chairman of the GoM on telecom.

Telecom price war in India

Much of the telecom growth in last ten years is a result of reforms imposed by the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). As a regulator it had imposed many rules which set the tune of growth and suggested price which was affordable to end customer. Economy of scale made sure service provider gets sufficient returns at the TRAI recommended price.

Landmark rules imposed by the TRAI which led to low prices :–
Forcing all Incoming call free at receiving end.
Subsequent reduction of NLD charges (generally charged by BSNL to other operators for long distance call for sharing its network) by setting roof prices.
Forcing interoperability between CSMA, GSM and PSTN operators.
Converting CDMA/WLL license into USAL (Unified service access license).
Quality guidelines time to time.

Rahul Mehta wrote:Raghavendra,

There are people like myself who oppose corruption of all (all includes ABV, MMS, Sonia, Shourie, NaMo, Yedi, Yechuri, Karat, Buddhadev, Maya, Laloo, MY, Nitish etc). So please dont confuse me with Congress-supporter. But I do want to ensure that in this thread does not become "bring NaMo, Shourie et al on board to reduce corruption" thread.

FYI Shourie, NaMo, Yedi, Yechuri, Karat, Buddhadev, Maya, Laloo, MY, Nitish are 100 times less corrupt than any congress party member, so your congress chamchagiri stands exposed

This is how Congress party shills work, If any congress party scam is exposed they blame other parties for being corrupt

Thanks for proving my point on congress shills AGAIN rahul mehta by your behaviour

Congress allies also want JPC

The Manmohan Singh government on Monday came under a greater pressure on the Opposition demand for setting up a JPC to probe the string of scams that have triggered a furore of late, with even the Trinamool Congress, a key ally of the Congress, joining the chorus.

The government, even otherwise, is facing a rough weather, with a series of developments making things more complicated for it. The CAG report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam and the apex court’s decision to question the PMO’s silence on the petition seeking its sanction to prosecute the sacked telecom minister, A Raja, CVC P J Thomas’ appointment coming under the Supreme Court’s scanner and the likely return of the NDA government to power in Bihar in two days’ time — all these factors are likely to make the going tough for the government, and force it to succumb to the all-round pressure.

Rahul Mehta wrote: Its time to spare none.

It only helps deviate from the current issue. It is best to focus on 'every one else' in a different thread.

Airavat,
Boss not sure what all those links are supposed to indicate (including the one on fixed lines). My point was/is simple. When mobile telephony services started in India, there was no huge competitive bidding for spectrum allocation (meaning talking in terms of $XX billions) because nobody really had any inkling in 2001 (that's the date of Sidharth's extract which you quoted) and earlier in the mid 1990s as to how the market would grow.

The point is simple. Spectrum license cost was not huge and so it was not a big factor in the P&L of the companies. Competitive pricing is never done at the cost of profitability.

The "Protect the Prime Minister's Image" Project has begun in the media.

Law Ministry misguided PM on 2G issue: Swamy

Last night some channel was discussing this too, that how the Prime Minister was needlessly (!) dragged into the controversy. Apparently he's the Prime Minister of a Utopian India we don't know of.

Vasu wrote:The "Protect the Prime Minister's Image" Project has begun in the media.

Law Ministry misguided PM on 2G issue: Swamy

Last night some channel was discussing this too, that how the Prime Minister was needlessly (!) dragged into the controversy. Apparently he's the Prime Minister of a Utopian India we don't know of.

So do we conclude Subramanium Swamy is a Congress supporter/agent?

This report quotes him as saying:

Swamy also said that there was no need for Manmohan Singh to resign on the issue of 2G spectrum scam. "Henceforth no Prime Minister or any sanctioning authority should be in doubt, because what comes out of the affidavit of the Prime Minister is that the bureaucracy sabotaged it. I will also like to say on the basis of the affidavit I can say there is no malafide on the part of the Prime Minister. So any demand for his resignation is not justified at the moment," he said.

Yes the Congress Shills are working over time, three standard tactics

1) Every one is corrupt (dilute the scale, "take ser bhaja, take ser khaja")

2) Is the loss real? Perhaps its notional? Who can really quantify it.

3) Perhaps there is a silver lining, money pumped into economy (-- yes thats where the inflation comes from), perhaps cheaper call to the consumer (:rotfl:)

But such scams ARE good in one way, you can clearly see where whose first loyalties are.

2G chargesheet in 3 months: CBI

Venugopal said the agency would take two months to finish the investigation as it was examining transcripts relating to 5,000 calls (out of which 3,800 have been analysed), 6,000 files and 80,000 pages of documents.

While admitting that the case in which the FIR was registered against the unknown persons in October 2009 is of “enormous magnitude”, the CBI said the investigation was “not merely confined to India alone, but also has ramification in various foreign countries.”

Giving the list of companies whose premises were raided and searched, the affidavit also named big corporates like Unitech Wireless Pvt, STel, Shyam Telelinks, Swan Telecom, Datacom Solution Pvt, Loop Telecom Pvt, Tata Teleservices, Allianz Infratech Pvt, Spice Communication and Idea Cellular.

He pointed out that the FIR was lodged by the CBI in October 2009 almost a year after the petition by Subramanium Swamy was sent to the Prime Minister for sanction to prosecute Raja. Even one Arun Agrawal had filed a petition alleging the allotment of spectrum to Swan Telecom a front company of Reliance Telecom, he said.

Even the CBI probe on the conversation by lobbyist Nira Radia and others was deliberately derailed by the authorities by transferring the nodal officers in both CBI and Enforcement Directorate.

Amit, you should post some data to back your claim of low spectrum charges leading to lower cellular charges. All that I've read so far points to multiple operators, competitive pricing, improved technology, and TRAI regulations as the main reasons for low charges.

amit wrote:
So do we conclude Subramanium Swamy is a Congress supporter/agent?

As per the quote he is only saying Manmohan Singh's resignation should not be sought based on the contents of the affidavit. Nothing about Congress or BJP or CPM.

viv wrote:

amit wrote:
So do we conclude Subramanium Swamy is a Congress supporter/agent?

As per the quote he is only saying Manmohan Singh's resignation should not be sought based on the contents of the affidavit. Nothing about Congress or BJP or CPM.

I have no issues with that. In fact I agree with you.

However, Vasu's first sentence in his post was:

The "Protect the Prime Minister's Image" Project has begun in the media.

In that context, then Swamy is also in this game to "protect the PM's image", na?

per Swamy's tweet - the person responsible for the leaks is Anil Ambani.

Muppalla wrote:per Swamy's tweet - the person responsible for the leaks is Anil Ambani.

Gawd bless him.

Airavat wrote:Amit, you should post some data to back your claim of low spectrum charges leading to lower cellular charges. All that I've read so far points to multiple operators, competitive pricing, improved technology, and TRAI regulations as the main reasons for low charges.

Airavat,

This is a vast and complex subject with different interpretation and practices. The US and UK have used competitive bidding, while Japan and S Korea (two random examples have used another type of competitive bidding). A lot of academic work has been done spectrum allocation bidding has been done by a gentleman called Ronald Coase.

However, for this specific case since you want data proof, here's an interesting pdf which has a lot of research data.

For our purposes:

The greatest concern with auctions is that a successful bid could have a negative effect on competition and/or the licensee’s business.

More elaboration:

However, Noam (1998, p. 774) argues that “firms may price temporarily without regard
to fixed cost, but they could not survive doing so in the long run. Hence an auction payment will be reflected in prices.”

The pdf adds further:

Regarding licensee’s business, if the payment for spectrum increases the licensee’s credit is lowered and the financing cost increases, ceteris paribus. Then if the expected profit of the spectrum-using business is fixed, capital investment decreases (particularly if it is restricted to some large cities).

Regarding the specific case of when mobile services started in India and why there were no high bids (meaning in terms of $xx billions) for the spectrum allocation, this is what the pdf has to say:

A bid also depends on the state of mind about the expected profit of the spectrum-using business. Consequently, when uncertainty about supply and demand is high, the formation of expectations becomes difficult and the “winner’s curse” is likely to result.

Note: here winner's curse refers to the chance of the spectrum winner ending up by paying too much.

When the mobile telephony started out in India, nobody had any inkling of how fast the market would grow and hence there was no great amounts spent on grabbing spectrum.

That ties in with the point above made by Noam. The fact that phone calls have always been cheap in India ever since the start of mobile telephony is partly due to low cost paid by the incumbents for the spectrum. That's the base point. Everything else, TRAI's policies, competitive environment, rapid growth of the market which sustains growth despite low ARPU (average revenue per user) etc, all sit on the base and that is every incumbent spent relatively little (in relation to their business growth) for the spectrum, which is their mother lode.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Cheers!

Sanku wrote:Yes the Congress Shills are working over time, three standard tactics

1) Every one is corrupt (dilute the scale, "take ser bhaja, take ser khaja")

2) Is the loss real? Perhaps its notional? Who can really quantify it.

3) Perhaps there is a silver lining, money pumped into economy (-- yes thats where the inflation comes from), perhaps cheaper call to the consumer (:rotfl:)

But such scams ARE good in one way, you can clearly see where whose first loyalties are.

Shame on you and your's for being the 2-G's Party pooper. The benefits of such scams are manifold:

1. It is Chankian hence beyond question. (Which means you haven't read Bhartrihari's Neeti Shatak)
2. It is notional loss which if realised by the GoI would have been pushed into MG-NREGA thereby providing more money in the hands of the rural economy which would have pushed up prices causing inflation. Better to provide free TVs. See point 5.
3. Lower tariff helps consumers. In 1996, rates were Rs 16 per minute. In 2006 January, two years before January 2008, they dropped to One Rupee per minute with incoming free. The future anticipation of cheap 2G spectrum is responsible for this as per particular chapter of Chankian e-Conomics. All the operators ( ) had anticipated this and hence factored in the cost saved from buying spectrum and came out with lower tariffs.
4. Black money comes back to RE and the stock markets. How can you possibly earn on your stocks and see appreciation on your RE until and unless scam money comes back to the market?
5. Didn't you get your free toddy, teddy, TV, Tata car,two wheeler, toilet, ? Why so constipated , hain?
6. It adds to the GDP
7.See 1

Meanwhile, R Vaidya as usual sums it up brilliantly.

Scam-tainted money may be moving the markets

Interestingly, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) stumbled upon damning evidence of money transfers in the spectrum case while probing the arrest of Maharashtra and Goa chief postmaster general MS Bali. He had allegedly accepted a bribe of Rs2 crore from a builder for issuing a no-objection certificate to build on postal land in Mumbai. Along with him one Arun Dalmia was also arrested. During interrogation, Dalmia allegedly told the sleuths about two Swiss accounts, some property details and high-volume cash transactions flowing into bank accounts in Delhi, Chennai, Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia and other tax havens abroad. But this angle was never probed. Similar is the case with the CWG scam, wherein substantial sums of money have gone to tax havens.

This Postmaster Babu Bali is too bad for the economy.

Muppalla wrote:per Swamy's tweet - the person responsible for the leaks is Anil Ambani.

‘Leaked tapes’ speak of corporate gang-up against Anil Ambani

The release of more than a 100 telephone conversations, allegedly of a prominent corporate lobbyist, by the Outlook magazine has given a glimpse into the close links between big business houses and political parties.

The conversations, which allegedly took place in mid-2009, seem to feature the who’s who of the Indian corporate world, going by the names and voice tones.

The tapes — if authentic — indicate that at least some in the media and legal circles felt that a prominent industrialist was trying to secure a favourable verdict in the Supreme Court, in one of the most closely-watched corporate legal battles. The tapes — posted on the magazine’s website — also allegedly show how the lobbyist tried to — and succeeded — in bringing together warring corporate houses to fight against the low-on-luck Anil Ambani.

Remember the Helicopter incident?
YSR accidented, Anil couldn't be accidented perhaps.

S Swamy says that 60% money went to Sonia's two sisters, 10% went to corrupt Raja, 30% went to corrupt MK. One link I could pull out is in Hindi from Bhaskar, a reputed Hindi newspaper - whatever reputation is left of media.

http://www.bhaskar.com/article/NAT-soni ... 71096.html

What was share of MMS? Zero ? !! Why did MMS sell out for free? I find it hard to believe that MMS will sell India out for free. And how can Sonia's sisters be so powerful? Were they threatening Sonia that they would expose the real birthyear of Sonia? That would validate Sudarshan's claims. Or was that money going to go to Vatican, and Vatican asked Sonia to use Sonia's sisters as intermediaries so that Vatican directly doesn't come into picture? Things are messier than they look.

Sanku wrote:Yes the Congress Shills are working over time, three standard tactics

1) Every one is corrupt (dilute the scale, "take ser bhaja, take ser khaja")

2) Is the loss real? Perhaps its notional? Who can really quantify it.

3) Perhaps there is a silver lining, money pumped into economy (-- yes thats where the inflation comes from), perhaps cheaper call to the consumer (:rotfl:)

But such scams ARE good in one way, you can clearly see where whose first loyalties are.

Sanku,

First, I only said that BJP leaders (incl NaMo, Shourie), Congress leaders (incl MMS, Sonia, Anthony, PC), CPM leaders, Maya, MY, LY are corrupt. I did not say "everyone is corrupt". And or sure, I have never ever accused 99% of Indians as corrupt. I have always maintained that corruption is due to top 1% Indians only.
And I never said that there is silver lining. In fact I said that rot is worse than what it looks. And I have said that loss is real. And money is pumped into economy, after all money does go somewhere, but to hurt the defense sector of India. And lastly, I never ever said that "scams are good". I have always said that "all scams are bad". So I hope, by your own criteria too, I am not a Congress shill as Raghavendra alleges. I just want readers to know that ALL Ministers (including BJP, Congress CPM Ministers) are corrupt and so none should be spared. And none are solution - they are all problems.

===

Raghavendra,

No need to shout. We are all hearing you. Your allegation that I am Congress shill only shows that you want to silence everyone who exposes corruption of ALL. Looks like you want people talk about corruption of Sonia, MMS but insist that we must stay mum on corruption of ABV, NaMo, Pramod, Jetley, Shourie etc. That would make you a BJP shill.

===

Viv,

We must not spare ANY corrupt crook, except poor constables who collect measly few thousand rupees a month. My benchmark is - Rs 200,000 a year. Anyone who has taken bribe over Rs 200,000 a year in cash of kind (and evaded taxes over Rs 100,000 a year) must be cursed. And anyone who refuses to curse a big bribe seeker must be cursed too.Lets spare no one from bile spewing and insult-throwing-spree. If you insist on separate thread, that may be OK.

===

Dear all,

There are 10s of posts in this thread not directly linked with 2G, but speak about corruption in general. Some posts are by ex-admin Shiv himself. So please dont blame me alone for discussing corruption issue in general in this thread.

.

indiasreport.com:

Radia Tapes… Top Journalists and the Ambani Brothers



The affidavit filed by the PMO, hosted by Outlook magazine:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/43448614/PMo2 ... t-20101120

"Please discuss" is action taken indeed.

These are tough times, Amit. Nobody knows who to trust!

Reminds me of a dialogue from Sarfarosh - "aaj kal time bahut kharab chal raha hai, log 5 hazaar ke liye supari uthane to taiyaar hain."

Mehta ji must feel vindicated after such a grand illustration of Corporate-Babu-neta nexus. I am sure the judiciary might join the equation soon. Anyways, the oil ministry was always in Mukesh Ambani's pocket.

Just picked up a copy of Outlook's newest issue. Their front story is the 2G leaked tapes. Shouldn't be that interesting a read because i'm sure we are ahead of that curve.

AjayKK wrote: "Please discuss" is action taken indeed.

Vasu, we can trust those who have been raising these issues for a long time only to be brushed aside as "Chadiwalla", "anti-American", "all politicians are equally corrupt"