Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The monsoon and MTNL
Telephone users in Mumbai, already angry at the extortionate hike in telephone charges sanctioned by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, have reason to be even more furious. The onset of the monsoon has, as usual, triggered off the death of countless phone lines. MTNL cannot seem to maintain even those exchanges where its own head office is located. One doctor says that even eight separate lines were of no use, all of them died on him at the same time. Will he get a refund? Forget it, he is grateful that one line was restored after six days. Subscribers complain that along with the phones, the computerised fault booking service also goes on the blink; trying to find an alternate manual number to log a complaint leads to an expensive wild goose chase misguided by callous operators still living in the era of telephone shortages. No, you cannot look up a directory for the supervisor8217;s number because no directories have been issued for several years. The independent telecomregulator, TRAI has already dented the confidence of phone subscribers with its amazing hike in phone charges for the ordinary user, if it wants to be taken seriously, it needs to fix the service problem.
E-commerce and MTNL
What comes first 8212; improved and affordable telephone services or e-commerce? A seminar on the subject had senior bureaucrats holding forth on the benefits of e-commerce. But even those like the stock exchanges who are linked to satellites, cannot do business without being connected to the MTNL/DOT phone lines. Even today, since a big chunk of business is conducted on the phone, the frequent breakdowns force people to maintain multiple phone lines. The new tariffs will not only make multiple lines an unaffordable luxury, particularly when all of them play dead together. Optic fibres cannot replace service and maintenance as the back-bone of e-commerce, so looking on it as a future business opportunity would be foolish until the basics are set right. The 24th stock exchangeShhh.Don8217;t mention merging small bourses into the bigger national ones, it is a politically sensitive issue8217;. That is why, when the international trend is for stock exchanges to merge, when even depositories are merging instead of fighting, and when there is talk about global settlements across continents, India has gone ahead and cleared the 24th bourse. The Capital Stock Exchange of Kerala Ltd. or what will soon to be the called the Trivandrum stock exchange. It was granted permission because it met SEBI8217;s entry criteria and because its promoters could afford some of the best legal brains to help it fight an eight-year battle for recognition. A few years ago, the NSE was set up and it now operates out of 1000 centres, a year later the BSE was allowed to expand nationwide. If these were not adequate for a country with a investor population of under 20 million, SEBI cleared the Integrated Stock Exchanges of India which links regional members exchanges into a sort of nation-wide trading system. Now we are back tothe tiny regional exchange at Kerala. Did someone say something about the second phase of reforms? Heck, let8217;s complete the first phase of making a complete switchover from the primitive to the modern.
The cost of five MPs
Cash-packed suitcases are no longer the stock in trade for buying licenses and clearances. The currency is live MPs who can be induced to vote a certain way in the frequent votes of confidence. Telecom circles are abuzz with rumors that a certain southern industrialist made a deal to procure the support of five MPs swung a certain deal his way. On the other hand, those who were left in the cold may have got their pound of flesh too. A minister has been relieved of his portfolio. Is there a lesson in this about doing business in India?
8212;Authors8217; e-mail: suchetadalalyahoo.com
