Department of Telecommunications approves Bharti Airtel-Telenor merger

Department of Telecommunications approves Bharti Airtel-Telenor merger

by | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Markets, News

Department of Telecommunications approves Bharti Airtel-Telenor mergerNew Delhi : The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday approved the merger of Bharti Airtel with the Indian unit of Norwegian telecom major Telenor India, a notice said here.

The notification said DoT has transferred all licences and liabilities of Telenor India to Bharti Airtel.

The notification said: “The present merger is taken on record without prejudice to the rights, contentions, remedies and steps which may be taken by the Department, in pursuance of any subsequent orders of any orders, judgements and decisions of Hon’ble Courts/Tribunals in related matters” pending in the Bombay High Court, TDSAT and Supreme Court.”

The DoT’s notification came after the Supreme Court last week quashed DoT’s effort to make Bharti Airtel furnish a bank guarantee of Rs 1,499 crore as a pre-condition to approving the Telenor India acquisition.

Bharti Airtel had received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE, National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and Competition Commission of India for the proposed merger with Telenor (India) in June last year.

Airtel had announced on February 23, 2017 that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Telenor South Asia Investments. As part of the scheme, Airtel will acquire Telenor India’s running operations in seven circles – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and Assam.

“These circles represent a high population concentration and therefore offer a high potential for growth. The proposed acquisition will include transfer of all of Telenor India’s assets and customers, further augmenting Airtel’s overall customer base and network,” the telecom major said in a statement earlier.

“It will also enable Airtel to further bolster its strong spectrum footprint in these seven circles, with the addition of 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band,” it added.

During the acquisition announcement the deal was estimated to be in the range of Rs 1,800 crore-Rs 2,000 crore by industry sources.

—IANS

‘Mobile panic button needs to be backed by emergency helpline’

‘Mobile panic button needs to be backed by emergency helpline’

by | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology

panicbuttonNew Delhi, (IANS) To ensure safety of women in threatening situations, panic buttons installed on mobile phones should be integrated with a 24×7 emergency helpline, supported by quick response teams either by the local authorities or a service provider, domestic on-demand safety service provider One Touch Response said on Monday.

“The panic button in mobile handsets, supported with a helpline and a strong on-ground response team can revolutionise the safety mindset of all, and particularly of women in our country,” said Arvind Khanna, founder, One Touch Response (OTR), in a statement.

Last month, the department of telecommunications (DoT) issued a circular notifying all mobile phone handset manufacturers to install a panic button and global positioning system (GPS) in all handsets by January 2017 and January 2018, respectively.

In terms of modalities, the DoT has notified that all feature phones should have the facility of panic button configured to the numeric key 5 or 9 and all smartphones will have the panic button configured to three times short pressing of the on-off button.

“The DoT notification gives us an impetus to collaborate with mobile phone companies by integrating our services and technologies towards addressing this pressing and urgent requirement,” Khanna said.

According to the company, with OTR’s open Application Program Interface (API), mobile phone companies can integrate the service directly in the phones, bringing an assured quick response to customers who are in situations that are threatening their personal safety and security.

While smartphones can integrate the OTR app, feature phones can also take advantage of the OTR solution by integrating its SOS service with the SMS system, the company added.

One Touch Response provides ‘First Response’ and ‘Immediate Assistance’ services to its customers whenever they are faced with any real life situation involving personal safety or situations where they require assistance.