The Hindu Business Line : Different voices

The on-going telecom muddle over spectrum allocation came out in public earlier this week, when the officialdom spoke in two different voices on the same day. Early on Monday morning, the telecom regulator, Nripen Mishra, held forth at a FICCI event that 3G spectrum should be auctioned but the process restricted to the existing players. This led to a furore at the meeting with protests coming from those excluded by the regulator. But by afternoon, it became known that the Telecom Minister, A. Raja, was to address the press and at that conference he not only announced the auction, but opened the field to new and foreign players as well.

It was an embarrassing moment for Mishra since he was asked to be seated next to the Minister when the announcement overruling the regulator’s stand was announced. There was more to come when scribes pointed to the divergent views of the Ministry and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Raja made it clear that he had the right to take the decision since he was the Minister in charge.

Competition hotting up

With competition hotting up in the auto sector, Indian corporates seem to be willing to go to extreme lengths to protect their markets. Bajaj Auto recently put out a press release saying that dealers of competition have been caught “red-handed” distributing leaflets carrying misleading information about Bajaj products. Those caught confessed that they were spreading wrong information that Bajaj Platina 100cc motorcycles were being phased out, the release sai d. Going by Bajaj’s version, the anti-company activity is fairly widespread with one person being caught in Puri, Orissa, and another in Raipur, Madhya Pradesh. Bajaj claims to have information that a similar campaign is being carried out in Surat, Gujarat and that wrong information was being spread that Bajaj XCD 125 vehicles were being recalled. Competitors have chosen to remain silent.

Query in the air

The latest news on the Ambani brothers is that younger sibling Anil is “under pressure”. Once news broke out that Mukesh Ambani had gifted his wife a private jet on her birthday, the Anil Ambani group received some queries from newspersons about Anil’s plan of action. The media official in the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) group passed on the query to the boss, only to get a tongue-in-cheek response from Anil wanting to know whether the e-mail had been mar ked to his wife Tina too!

Not the right sign

There were some red faces in the Petroleum Ministry late last week. A delegation from the African country, Chad, was in town for bilateral discussions but only when the two sides sat down for the formal meeting did the Ministry realise that it had not arranged for an interpreter. A man-hunt was immediately launched for an official with knowledge of French; even some journalists hanging around in the Ministry were asked if they could help. By the time a senior official fr om the Press Information Bureau who was familiar with the language could reach the conference venue, the meeting was over. Possibly, the bilateral discussions were held in sign language, said an official.

OUR BUREAU