3G Postpaid and Prepaid Data Service

3.1 Activation of Data Plans : SIM and Activation charges as applicable to 3G Postpaid & Prepaid voice plan will also be applicable for 3G data services.

(i) In place of existing FRC 120 for activation of 3G data plan, the following two new FRCs for activation of data plan are introduced.

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New Delhi, 2nd May ’2011: With a vision that brings leadership of a seasoned telecom technocrat, Shri R K Upadhyay, CMD, TCIL took over the charge as Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL, the largest telecom operator in the country on 30th April, 2011.

Shri Rakesh Kumar Upadhyay is an officer of 1975 Batch of Indian Telecom Services. He obtained B.Tech (Electronics) Degree from I.T. Banaras Hindu University in 1974 and MBA (Marketing Management) degree from Indira Gandhi Open University. He is also a graduate of
Defence Staff Services College (DSSC) Wellington and was awarded M.Sc (D.S.) Degree by Madras University. He has successfully worked in Department of Telecommunications from August 1975 to July 1996 in the areas of Planning, Installation and Commissioning, Commercial administration and operations. While on deputation to TCIL during October 1996 to August 1999, he successfully worked in the foreign projects as Project Director, Sana’a and General Manager, Yemen.

After a stint from Jan.’2000 to Jun.’2003 in BSNL as General Manager Jammu & Kashmir Telecom Circle he joined TCIL again on deputation in June 2003. After joining TCIL, he successfully worked as a Chief Project Director, Algeria, Group General Manager (New Technology) and Executive Director (Project Monitoring) and other important assignments. He has got rich experience in the fields of Planning, Projects, Operation and Business Development. He took the charge of Director (Projects) w.e.f. 1st Nov.’2005 and subsequently took the charge of Chairman and Managing Director on 1st March 2007

Commenting on his joining, Shri R K Upadhyay , CMD, BSNL, said “After a good old journey of more than three decades in the telecom industry, I am privileged and humbled to take the responsibilities of BSNL. A great challenge lies ahead of us and I am sure we will meet every challenge with determination”.

Mobile handset company Spice Mobility today said it will invest Rs 1,000 crore this fiscal to further expand its business through opening new centres and going in for acquisitions.
The company in the long run will also look to merge Spice Mobility with Spice i2i in order to streamline its various businesses.”The company will be investing Rs 1,000 crore during FY’11-12 to position itself as a mobile internet company and will also work to streamline its various operations under one fold,” Spice Mobility Chairman B K Modi told reporters here.The company will be using the funds for building new offices, regional centres, hiring new employees, he said adding the resources would generated internally.
In order to expand in the Indian mobile retail market, the company has created a seven cluster distribution model for which it plans to hire about 300 more people for further strengthening customer relationship, Modi said.
To kick start its new positioning campaign, Spice Mobility today showcased its new logo and unveiled the dual SIM phone on the Android platform, which the company will be launching next week in the market.
“Earlier, we were known as a mobile phone company. Now we have merged our various divisions like devices, retail and value-added services into one and focus on mobile internet. Our market capitalisation stood at Rs 2,400 crore,” Modi added.
The company, continuing its acquisition spree, is close to buying Indonesia-based Nexian for which the company has already raised $200 million and the Bangladesh-based Sprint, for which it has to seek regulatory clearances.
The Spice group is present in areas like mobility, finance, infotainment and innovative technologies through its various companies like Spice Mobility, Spice Hotspot, Spice Digital Spice Labs, SpiceI2I, S-Unno, Spice CSL, Spice BPO, Spice Online Retail Spice Money (WSFL) and Spice World and Spice Cinemas

New Delhi:  As Air India pilots’ strike enters its sixth day today, the Delhi High Court will hear a contempt case against three pilots including Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) President A S Bhinder and General Secretary Rishabh Kapur.
The Delhi High Court had directed the pilots on strike to go back to work by 5 pm last Friday but over 800 pilots defied court orders. The three pilots facing contempt charges have not yet responded to the notice served by the court last week. If found guilty, they could be asked to spend six months in jail.
Meanwhile, just like the past three days, 90 per cent of the airline’s domestic fleet will be grounded today. With no solution in sight to the crisis caused by the pilots’ stir, the airline has further curtailed its operations with limited flights till May 6.
The national carrier has also decided to put into use bigger, wide-bodied aircraft including jumbo jets for the already few domestic flights that it is currently operating.

The CMD of Air India, Arvind Jadhav, in an SMS to the employees of the national carrier appealed to “persuade” striking pilots to return to the negotiating table and work to “save our airline.” (Read: Air India chief appeals in SMS)
The Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, slammed the Prime Minister’s Office for the mess.
Dubbing the strike as a cover-up to shut down the airline, BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, “The present dispensation of Air India has nothing to do with the Civil Aviation Ministry, it is completely being controlled by the secretariat of the PMO…The CMD of Air India directly reports to the PMO, so all my charges are towards the PMO”.
The pilots had on Saturday said they were willing to return to work if authorities gave them an assurance that their demands regarding their pay hike would be looked into. They also said they had not yet received any formal invitation for talks from the management of Air India management.
At the heart of the battle is the issue of how much pilots are paid. In 2007, the government merged Air India with Indian Airlines, assuming it would lead to a more cost-efficient national carrier. The desired results are nowhere on the horizon, despite 2000 crore rupees being infused into operations.
The pilots on strike were all originally hired by Indian Airlines; they say that four years after the merger, they are still paid significantly less than the pilots who joined them from Air India. Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi is not moved by their plight. He said 1600 pilots make 800 crore rupees. “Many of them are plus two, not even graduates, and they are getting Rs. 3.8 lakh a month… I hope sense will prevail upon these people. Are they starving?” he added.

source: ndtv

The helicopter carrying Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu could not be traced on Sunday, the second day after it went missing. Bad weather forced the Indian Air Force to suspend search later in the day.

However, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, V Narayanasamy, who is camping in Arunachal Pradesh, said in a late night communiquA© that a radio signal was detected and it was being ascertained whether the signal was from the missing chopper carrying Dorjee.

The state government statement on the incident said that Bhutanese authorities have given permission for carrying out air sorties for search and rescue operations in its territory. The statement added that a team of the National Disaster Response Force comprising 38 personnel had proceeded to Bomdila to assist local police in the search operations. The team has the latest search and rescue equipment. Earlier in the day, Indian and Bhutanese soldiers fanned out in the hilly terrain to trace the chopper that went missing on Saturday morning. A crisis management team is supervising the operations and the Prime Minister’s Office is monitoring the overall scene.

However, confusion remained on whether Dorjee’s helicopter landed in Bhutan on Saturday, as claimed by Governor JJ Singh. Intelligence agencies were looking into a satellite phone call that was received by an unnamed Congress MLA close to Khandu, based on which the Governor made the claim. The MLA told the chief secretary and the principal secretary to the chief minister that ‘he believed’ it was Khandu who called him. The caller apparently said ‘he was taking off’ presumably from somewhere in Bhutan.

Around 2,400 personnel from Tawang and Tenga Army camps were engaged in ground search operations, besides six teams of 25 personnel each of Indo-Tibetan Border Police . All senior ministers of the state government, along with Union ministers Mukul Wasnik Minister and V Narayanasamy reviewed the situation. Both Central ministers who reached Itanagar on Sunday were engaged in marathon meetings. The Indian Space Research Organisation could not carry out a planned satellite mapping due to thickness of the cloud. ISRO will make another attempt on Monday. According to a source in the Arunachal government , talks on selecting the probable caretaker chief minister has begun. State Home Minister Toko Dabi , however, told ET: “At present, our whole focus is on rescue operations and we believe that the chief minister will come back safely.”

The Pawan Hans helicopter with five people on board that took off at 9.56 am on Saturday from Tawang helipad went missing around 10.30 am. The chopper was scheduled to land at Itanagar at 11.30 am. Just 20 minutes after taking off from Tawang, all communication was lost.

source :TOI

In Leh at least 114 people were killed and over 200 injured when flash floods triggered by torrential rains struck the Himalayan town in northeast of Jammu and Kashmir. Over 100 people are missing due to the calamity.

State Police Chief Kuldeep Khoda told PTI over phone from Srinagar that 103 bodies have been recovered so far and the number of missing cannot be ascertained as yet. He said the toll may go up. 40 Army personnel are also missing.

The Police Chief said that Jammu and Kashmir Police has set up two camps and were providing food and shelter to nearly 2,000 people. He said that the camps would remain operational till alternate arrangements were being made. 50 CRPF jawans were rescued from the flooded areas.

Leh airport runway was affected but was made operational by afternoon to facilitate landing of aircraft carrying relief material and rescue teams. The communication equipment of BSNL was also washed away in the flash floods and rains that hit the town and adjoining villages in middle of night at around 2 AM. Various buildings and mud-houses in old Leh town were wiped out in the incessant rains. The All India Radio Transmeter tower also damaged.

Local journalist Ghulam Nabi Zia reports that State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah reached Leh to have an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. He visited the flood-hit areas and spoke to the affected families. Zia adds that weather is deterioting further and people of Leh town have been evacuated to safer places.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will fly to Leh tomorrow with relief supplies and a team of 140 personnel of the National Disaster Relief Force alongwith eight doctors and paramedical staff in an IL76 IAF aircraft.

Massive rescue operations were underway involving the state police, paramilitary forces and the army in Leh town. Security personnel were also rushed from Kargil to assist the civil administration in rescue and relief operations.

The Armed Forces and the ITBP have launched massive rescue and relief operations for the victims of the devastating cloudburst in Leh. Thirty three columns of army personnel have already been deployed for the rescue operations. The Tri-Services Disaster Management met in New Delhi this evening to take stock of the situation.

An AN-32 plane with a team from National Disaster Management, Medical Specialists and equipment including generators, tents and other supplies including medicines will be leaving for Leh early tomorrow morning. A plane from Chandigarh will also leave tomorrow for Leh with 4000 packets of ready to eat meals. The Leh airfield has now become operational.

According to ITBP, more than 100 victims have been rescued from the debris. The ITBP is also providing medical aid to the injured in the unit hospitals opened in the sector. More than 260 homeless victims have also been accommodated in ITBP barracks and free food and medicines are being provided.

Earlier today the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh directed the Ministry of Defence to provide all out rescue and relief assistance. Expressing shock and grief at the loss of life in the tragedy, Dr. Manmohan Singh sanctioned an ex-gratia of one lakh rupees each to the next of kin of those killed and fifty thousand rupees each to the seriously injured from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

The President Mrs Pratibha Devisingh Patil, Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari and the UPA Chairpersons Mrs. Sonia Gandhi have also expressed deep sorrow and grief over the loss of life and wished speedy recovery for the injured.

New Delhi, Feb 2 (IANS) Human failure, lack of observance of safety guidelines, defunct devices and faulty safety audits seemed to be some of the reasons for the fire at the Indian Oil Corp terminal in Jaipur in October last year, an independent inquiry committee has found out.
“The basic or root cause is an absence of site specific, written operating procedures, absence of leak stopping devices from a remote location, and insufficient understanding of hazards, risks and consequences,” M.B. Lal, who chaired the independent inquiry committee, told reporters here Tuesday

The seven-member committee submitted its report to Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora Monday.

The blaze that started Oct 29 raged on for 11 days killed 11 people. The total losses suffered by Indian Oil amounted to nearly Rs.280 crore (Rs. 2.8 billion). The total loss of petroleum products was about 60,000 kilolitres.

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Davos, Feb 1 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Gates Foundation headed by Bill and Melinda Gates announced on Friday, that they are going to pledge a sum of $10 billion over the next decade, to vaccinate the children of the developing world. They are doing this to prevent the deaths of over 8 million children, due to lack of vaccination. A decade ago, the Gates Foundation had used the Economic Forum in Davos to launch their sincere commitment to vaccines.

“We are redoubling our commitment. We spent USD 4.5 billion …and today we are announcing a commitment over the next decade, which we think of as the decade of vaccines. We will spend over USD 10 billion on vaccines,” said Bill Gates to reporters in Davos. “This is an amazing announcement. GAVI has saved some 5 million children and immunized 250 million in the world’s 72 poorest countries,” said Julian Lob-Levyt, the CEO of GAVI, a public-private mixed structure organization.

The vaccine group GAVI would receive a portion of the $10 billion. They would not get the full amount, as it is going to be divided between research and groups that deliver the end product. “We really believe vaccines are great miracle of our lifetime,” said Melinda, hoping that the new donation of $10 billion would help in saving the lives of eight million children in the developing world. Both Bill and Melinda hoped that the vaccine for malaria, would be developed in their lifetime.