In this issue

This is a story of a flawed business strategy being pursued by one of the most powerful, and allegedly a not-so-clean, CMD of a mega public sector entity. He has incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), reportedly got rid of his Secretary, allegedly caused a huge loss to the exchequer, and possibly crafted tenders to favour select foreign suppliers. Yet his juggernaut moves on. Despite several charges, Anupam Shrivastava continues, and thrives, as the head of the state-owned telecom major, BSNL. The reason: the blessings of a brother of his former boss, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the former telecom minister, and a powerful lobby within the PMO. In the recent past, Shrivastava allegedly caused a `1,000-crore loss to the exchequer as he released unauthorised payment to a subsidiary of a Chinese firm. He issued advance purchase orders to Finnish Nokia and Chinese ZTE to supply network equipment for the firm’s `6,000 crore national mobile network expansion. Critics charge that the tenders were drafted to favour the two firms. Recently, JS Deepak, the former Secretary (Communications) was shunted out because of the delays in the laying of optic fibre cables in the North East. However, the fault lay with Shrivastava, who had cancelled the tender. This article focuses on the CMD’s myopic vision to expand in 2G, even as the Indian private players, and other majors worldwide, aggressively move towards 3G and 4G.

BSNL Buying Outdated 2G Technology

This is a story of a flawed business strategy being pursued by one of the most powerful, and allegedly a not-so-clean, CMD of a mega public sector entity. He has incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), reportedly got rid of his Secretary, allegedly caused a huge loss to the exchequer, and possibly crafted tenders to favour select foreign suppliers. Yet his juggernaut moves on. Despite several charges, Anupam Shrivastava continues, and thrives, as the head of the state-owned telecom major, BSNL. The reason: the blessings of a brother of his former boss, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the former telecom minister, and a powerful lobby within the PMO. In the recent past, Shrivastava allegedly caused a ₹1,000-crore loss to the exchequer as he released unauthorised payment to a subsidiary of a Chinese firm. He issued advance purchase orders to Finnish Nokia and Chinese ZTE to supply network equipment for the firm’s ₹6,000 crore national mobile network expansion. Critics charge that the tenders were drafted to favour the two firms. Recently, JS Deepak, the former Secretary (Communications) was shunted out because of the delays in the laying of optic fibre cables in the North East. However, the fault lay with Shrivastava, who had cancelled the tender. This article focuses on the CMD’s myopic vision to expand in 2G, even as the Indian private players, and other majors worldwide, aggressively move towards 3G and 4G.

5 mins

Need For Power Projection Beyond Doklam

China’s pull out from Doklam is a confirmation and acceptance of India’s assertive power in the region. But, India needs to speed up not only the modernisation of its military power but also integration of military in its geo-political and foreign policy discourse and implementation

6 mins

Raising The Bar

Economic development in the 21st century depends on implementation of policies, programmes and projects. That, in turn, depends on how effectively we follow-up. In South Asia, India was first to implement a government performance monitoring and evaluation system in 2009 but it seems to be lagging behind Bhutan and Bangladesh now.

3 mins

Blessed Are The Poor

BJP’s deliberate efforts at establishing poverty as the chief element in the bio-data of its aspirants for high office

3 mins

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