Reliance Communications net plummets 86% on higher interest costs

Reliance Communications, the country's second-largest telecoms company by subscribers, missed street forecasts to post a bigger than expected 86% decline in quarterly profits, its seventh straight fall, despite call tariffs in the country stabilising over the last 12 months. The company, owned by billionaire Anil Ambani , attributed its steep decline in quarterly profits to a sharp spike in interest costs to service rising debts, higher costs of operations and fall in average revenue per user. "During the period, company reported mark-to-market net loss of over Rs 1,100 crore due to currency fluctuations," President and CEO ( Wireless Business ) Syed Safawi said.

RCOM's results are a pointer that 3G launch costs and interest payouts for thousands of crores in loans will continue to squeeze its profits and margins, and also that of the industry for the considerable future. The company's debt stood at Rs 32,048 crore for the year ended March 2011.

The telco's net profit fell to Rs 169 crore for the three-months ended March 2011, compared to Rs 1,220 crore for the corresponding period last year.

But sales were up 55% at Rs 7,876 crore during this period against Rs 5,092.8 crore for the three months ended March 10. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization ( EBIDTA )) jumped significantly to Rs 4,122 crore in fiscal 2011 from Rs 1,602 crore in the previous year.
Reliance's primary competitor, Bharti Airtel , had posted a 31% drop in fourth-quarter profits, weighed down by its loss-making African operations. Bharti's income for the three months to end-March fell to Rs 1,401 core compared with Rs 2,044 crore in the year-ago period. Excluding its Africa business, Bharti's profits from India and South Asia fell 15%.

RCOM's average revenue per user fell 23% over the last 12 months to 107. In comparison, Airtel's ARPU, which declined 12% during the same period was at 194 as of March 2011-end. For the full year, RCOM's net profit fell 71% to Rs 1,346 crore from Rs 4,655 crore.


For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Domestic violence has been a silent relationship killer since time immemorial.
IIPM announces Anna Hazare Fellowship
EBay and PayPal take a legal action against Google for stealing trade secrets
IIPM Mumbai Farewell Party for PGP 2009 – 2011 SS
Indian and Chinese Universities are not at par with the world's best
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp

Govt bid to give figure to black money
IIPM Marches Ahead in B-School Rankings...
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
Watching porn video is not a crime
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism

Indo-Pak Defence secretary-level Talks Begins at New Delhi

IIPM Professor Arindam Chaudhuri on 'OBAMA and OSAMA'

After a gap of four years the 12th round of talks between Defence Secretaries of India and Pakistan is underway in new Delhi to find a solution to the contentious issue of the Siachen glacier region.

But a breakthrough is unlikely with both countries showing no sign of changing their known positions.

Pakistani defence secretary General Syed Athar Ali meets his Indian counterpart Pradeep Kumar for talks after a gap of three years.

For the talks - the main agenda is Siachen and obviously to reduce the trust deficit between the two countries but the question arises will they succeed as the fresh revelations in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley has told the prosecutors in a Chicago court ISI was involved in 26/11 mumbai attacks

Pakistan is hopeful of moving forward through dialogue with India as responsible nations believe in resolving their outstanding issues through talks,Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday

Gilani reiterated Islamabad's stand that it would not allow its soil to be used to plot terror strikes against any country.


Indian and Pakistani defence secretaries resume talks on the Siachen Glacier after a gap of three years.

"I personally have very good relations with the Indian leadership. Responsible nations believe in talks and dialogue and I hope we will move forward through the talks," he said.

Siachen, the world's highest militarised zone, has been a long pending issue between India and Pakistan over differences on the location of the 110-km long Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) which passes through the Soltoro Ridge and Siachen glacier.

Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Arindam Chaudhuri on his third National Award and his unique business formula for films
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp

Dr Malay Chaudhuri, Founder Director IIPM, tells TSI why the IIPM Awards are in a league of their own
Bollywood's No.1 Mum Kajol: Step ahead MOM!
Katrina Kaif: A British Indian Actress Born on July 16, 1984

Watching porn video is not a crime

Publication, Transmission Or Public Display Of Sleazy Material Is Crime

Consumption of pornography is no offence. All that the law forbids is its publication or transmission. If the railway police in Mumbai could still terrorise an IIT student, just by claiming that his mobile phone stored pornographic video, they were riding roughshod over his human rights.

For, even if his phone had contained porn clips, the police would have had no leverage to extort money from the student. Consumption of pornography on a personal device is frowned upon by neither the Victorianvintage Indian Penal Code (IPC) nor the 21st Century legislation on Information Technology (IT).

Both laws, separated by over 130 years, are unsparing towards the producer or supplier of obscene material. But when it comes to the consumer, neither law offers any scope to the police to make out even the lesser charge of abetting the alleged crime of obscenity.

It is just as well that the laws are not prudish about consumption per se because mobiles have of late emerged as a major medium for pornography around the world, thanks to advances made by smart phone and 3G technologies. Mobiles can now match the capability of laptops in showing long videos of pornography, with the added advantage of offering greater privacy.

The IT Act does, however, make the end user liable if it can be shown that he had more than just consumed pornography. The consumer would fall foul of the IT Act if he had shared the video with others. The three provisions relating to pornography forbid not just publishing but also transmitting.

Section 67 of the IT Act imposes a penalty of imprisonment up to three years for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form. Section 67A prescribes imprisonment up to five years for the same offence if the material in question contains “sexually explicit act or conduct”. The penalty under Section 67B too goes up to five years as this provision deals with the aggravated offence of child pornography.

The consumer would be vulnerable to one or the other of these pornography-related provisions even if he had shared the video only within his circle of friends. The very act of transmitting constitutes the offence. Thus, the consumer is safe so long as he is content receiving or downloading pornographic material.

Besides shunning the temptation of sharing salacious videos, the consumer should be wary of misusing his mobile to invade somebody’s privacy. Section 66E, one of the amendments made to the IT Act in 2008, introduced punishment up to three years for whoever “intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person”.

The rules notified under the IT Act last month make it clear that pornography can be safely consumed from one’s home or from one’s personal devices. But cyber cafes are required to block pornographic sites, evidently because of the danger of children gaining access to them.

LEGALLY SPEAKING

Pornographic material, movies or pictures, in personal device is not illegal. It is a crime only when displayed in public

Porn may be downloaded by an adult on his mobile, laptop or computer from adult site from home. It can’t be downloaded from a cyber café

Transmitting pornographic material electronically is, however, a crime, even to friends

Police can check your mobile or personal device only on the basis of a complaint. Action can be taken only with court’s consent

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board

Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things
INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES
Arindam Chaudhuri on his third National Award and his unique business formula for films

People are optimistic despite spectres of corruption and inflation looming large over India

IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism

The weekly nationwide surveys conducted by CVoter are unique for their large scale and comprehensibility. We are tracking polls, covering a national representative sample every week and keeping a tab on the important issues of our times.

This is the only institutionalised survey practice on such a huge scale. The big question in the current cumulative round of tracking poll is if the Central government is losing its popularity?

The “State of the nation” survey, conducted by CVoter, clearly brings out people’s growing dissatisfaction with the Central government. The grudge seems to have grown over time. Yet, people have not shown pessimism with the future prospects of the nation.

The rating of the Central government has nearly nosedived from its position at the start of its second term. Even though the rating of the government hovered around six from October to December, seemingly the reports of scams have brought it down to 5.5 in January. But the personal rating of the PM, Dr Manmohan Singh, remains higher by nearly one point. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s approval rating seems to move along with that of the PM. Interestingly, the rating of the leadership has remained better than that of the government.

But the fall in the ratings of the government and the PM has not given an edge to the main Opposition— the BJP— in any major way. The ratings of both NDA chief LK Advani and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, have remained nearly the same in the last six months. The BJP couldn’t take advantage of the much-hyped issue of the appointment of P. J. Thomas as the CVC. Initially seen as the pet issue of Sushma Swaraj, it was later ‘hijacked’ by the party elders. Does it show an internal strife in the BJP?

The issues that seem to be disturbing the Indians most are corruption and inflation. The increasing concern over corruption since October has made it the most irritating issue in the public domain. It bounced to number one position in the fourth week of January. This becomes very important trend when you know that it is for the first time after 1989 that corruption has taken the centre stage in national polity. Unemployment remained the third biggest concern from mid December to end of January.

Naxalism didn’t feature as a major issue. The whole situation has resulted in a marked rise in anger against the Central government. More people feel the need for change at the Centre (14%) than at the state level (about 7%). However, the overall need for change in the state and at the Centre is felt nearly equally at 21.3% and 22.3% respectively. But anti-incumbency is stronger against the Central establishment. It is reflected in the indications coming out of the four poll-bound states – Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam. Opinion polls are more against the Congress than the non-UPA ruling parties in the states.

In TN, where UPA ally DMK is leading the government, the possibility of Jayalalitha’s AIADMK coming to power is high. In Kerala, where the Congress-led UDF is almost certain to come to power, the margin of victory is likely to go down as compared to 2009 Lok Sabha trends. In Assam, the mandate may be fractured thanks to the non-alliance of the BJP and the AGP. But the trends are hugely anti-Congress here. In Bengal, the TMC-Congress alliance is nearly certain to come to power. But it is more because of Mamata Banerjee, not the Congress.

So, here I come back with the bottom line of my analysis. The Congress is a failure, but the BJP has proved to be a bigger failure! People don’t seem to be strongly favouring the BJP as an alternative despite the sliding confidence in the ruling Congress. Whereas towards the end of June last year nearly 24% felt that the Congress was capable of handling the issues of corruption, only 19.3% thought so towards January end. The net increase in the percentage of people favouring the BJP was only two per cent.

The worsening perception of governance, nevertheless, has not resulted in a pessimistic outlook of the economy. More than 65% people believe that India is moving forward. Most feel that they are also experiencing growth. Only around 25% believe that the country is in a poor state. More than 50% respondents felt that their standard of living has gone up in the last six months. However, it came down from the level of nearly 55% in the second week of January. More than 23% felt that their standard of living has gone down. Nearly 50% of respondents believed that their standard of living would go up in the next one year. Only around 14% believed that their living standard would go down.

Finally, I can sense that India’s optimism index has become independent of the political index. Is it something to cheer about? I haven’t made up my mind on that.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

IIPM in sync with the best of the business world.....
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri's Snaps
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things

The 'callous' tuition fee hike in Britain indicates how Liberal Democrats have started to compromise with their guiding principles

IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism

“Higher education is everybody's rite,” someone anonymously quipped in early 20th century Britain. At that time, this brilliant play of word was summarily dismissed as “far-fetched” and “obnoxious”. Roughly, a century later, the Britons have found dark humour in these words.

For the last couple of months, the world has been too engrossed in uprisings in West Asia and North Africa and has possibly ignored another uprising of sorts in a First World Nation: Britain. This uprising has been started and spearheaded by students who aspire to go for higher studies. And this uprising has to do with the astronomical hike in the tuition fees charged by several colleges.

There were protest marches several thousand strong in university towns and cities across Britain including, most famously, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. In Cambridge, thousands of prospective students brought down the barrier blocking Senate House – the historical structure that has been hosting convocation ceremonies since ages – and then gathered into the courtyards of the seven centuries old King’s College yelling and waving posters. A few arrests were made on the ground.

The government went into PR frenzy encouraging articles and programmes that would help students “see reason”. However, protests and demonstrations continue as universities and colleges open for the new session.

Meanwhile, the British government would be bound to spend almost £1bn more than the earlier estimate in the coming eight academic sessions to fill up the gap in the funds as a large number of universities have either announced or are on the verge of announcing the maximum tuition fees to be £9,000 a year. Universities seeking the £9,000 maximum are Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Exeter, Essex, Aston, Manchester, Warwick and Durham. St Mary's University College, Twickenham has said it plans to charge £8,000.

This essentially means that from autumn session in 2012, universities will be free to roughly treble the tuition fee they now charge. They have been empowered to do so by the Parliament ostensibly as part of the reform to regularise the funding of higher studies. According to the format, initially the tuition fee is borne by the government, which deposits the fee for students pursuing higher studies in the form of a loan. However, it retrieves the amount in full as soon as the student graduates and lands a job that pays more than £21,000 per annum.

Ministers and other officials have conceded that the middle class people with modest incomes will be the most affected by this hike in tuition fee. Graduates who pass out and land a job bringing in more than £45,000 per annum will have to dole out five times as much a year for the recovery of tuition fee than those who are not as successful. This estimation has been made by none other than the government statistical department.

Even though the tuition fees across Britain are minor in contrast to those at most of the US and other European colleges, British universities have essentially been public institutions. People protesting against the proposed tuition fee hike have indicated that Prime Minister David Cameron and other ministers of his government have gone to elite universities and colleges such as Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and Northampton in an era when higher studies were completely free.

Opponents of this law suspect that the government will try to offset the planned outlay from other higher education schemes. This might mean that the government will either cut down on number of available seats or will simply bring down the support from research activities and channelise the funds towards the fee payment.

On the other hand, David Willetts, the universities minister, had hoped that as the market would evolve, different institutions will start charging different amount of fees and not necessarily the maximum limit. However, his optimism appears crashed as by the time this report goes to the press, the majority of universities have announced that they would go for the top fee of £9,000. Of the 16 universities that have so far declared the fee for autumn 2012, as many as 13 have stated that they will go for the maximum.

Gareth Thomas, the shadow universities minister, has meanwhile threatened that either the institutions will have to scale down their fees or face the partial withdrawal of funds or the government would have to announce a rollback. He said: “The government repeatedly promised that fees over £6,000 would be the exception, but it is increasingly clear that they are powerless to stop most universities charging closer to £9,000. This will push up the average fees beyond the £7,500 estimate on which the government's spending plans are based, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in the higher education budget.”

On the other hand, supporter of this step see it as a step to improve the ailing education system. Talking to TSI, Omer, an economist based at the University of Warwick, says, “Increasing the upper limit on tuition fees actually provided institutions much more resources at their disposal. See it this way. Under the current law, the institutions have been actually empowered. Now even if the government decides to withdraw the aid, these institutions will have their corpus to continue providing world class education to their students.”

Omer goes on to explain this phenomenon in terms of open market system. He says, “Why don't people protest when Hugo Boss charges more for their cologne than their cheaper cousins? On the face of it, both are colognes. The only reason Hugo Boss charges more and get away with it is because we consider its cologne more valuable than others. In that case, why should not good universities charge more fee than the run-of-the-mill ones?” Interesting argument.

But opponents dismiss this comparison as callous. They claim that it is difficult for the members of Brown Review Committee or the coalition cabinet, who have jointly carried this legislation, to understand the pain as they comprise 18 millionaires and only one non-white member. They insist that even after the increased maintenance grant of £3,250, poor students will still be paying fees that are almost double of what they pay now.

It has political undercurrents as well. For the Liberal Democrats the entire idea of subsidised higher studies has been a matter of ideological belief over the decades. In that case, it is surprising, and heart breaking too, that within a couple of months after joining government at UK level for the first time since the World War II, they joined ranks with the Tories to introduce such a harsh legislation. The way their MPs are going about is equally nauseating. They have become completely insulated.

I can not help but remember a famous anecdote by great theologian Richard Pratt. A university professor set an examination question in which he asked what is the difference between ignorance and apathy. The professor had to give an A+ to a student who answered: I don't know and I don't care.

One wonders whether that student was David Cameron.

Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....

Dr Malay Chaudhuri, Founder Director IIPM, tells TSI why the IIPM Awards are in a league of their own
Bollywood's No.1 Mum Kajol: Step ahead MOM!
Katrina Kaif: A British Indian Actress Born on July 16, 1984
IIPM Professor Arindam Chaudhuri on 'OBAMA and OSAMA'

The killing of Osama bin Laden has put the ISI in a bad fix.

Was it incompetence or complicity or both? Ranjit Bhushan looks at the world’s most dreaded spy agency

In 2002, reputed French philosopher and writer Bernard- Henry Levy, purveyor of hot spots around the world, in his classic and real-life detective account ‘Who killed Daniel Pearl’ draws an alarming, well-informed and positively sinister picture of what was happening inside Pakistan’s secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani

This most acclaimed of European writers – at great personal risk – retraced his steps back to the route which took American journalist Daniel Pearl to his hideous death in Pakistan, now as it turns out, at the hands of ISI operatives who had strong links with the al-Qaeda.

That trip to Pakistan took him to macabre, heavily-armed seminaries, to evening parties organised by the ISI top brass and a level of access in Pakistan which only a westerner enjoys. In Levy’s stark view, “Pakistan is the biggest rogue of all the rogue states of today. I assert that what is taking form there, between Islamabad and Karachi, is a black hole compared to which Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad was an obsolete weapons dump.’’

The killing of Osama bin Laden has put the ISI in a bad fix. Was it incompetence or complicity or both? Ranjit Bhushan looks at the world’s most dreaded spy agency Run with the hare, hunt with the hound The slaying of the world’s most hunted terrorist in the quintessential cantonment town of Abbottabad has shifted the spotlight back on the ways of what is now the planet’s most dreaded spy agency, the ISI.

Most analysts believe that the presence of Laden in a garrison town could not have escaped the attention of the ISI. “It is not possible to get accommodation in any cantonment area without the prior permission of military authorities. So to say that the ISI did not know of his whereabouts is ridiculous,’’ says former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy.

While Pakistani ISI and army officials have declined to offer a public comment on the US covert operation, the constant US accusation that Pakistan was playing a duplicitous game is bound to find resonance across the world.

Yousaf Raza Gilani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha

Why then did the ISI ditch Osama by not tipping him off about the movement of US special forces before the attack was launched? “Who says ISI ditched Osama? The US jammed all radars in the area and the Pakistani spies were caught napping. Left to themselves, the ISI would have whisked away Osama to safety,’’ Parthasarathy asserts.

For the first time in many years, Pakistan’s spy agency is in trouble and under global scrutiny. If its radars were jammed by the US Special Forces, then it reflects incompetence; if they were not, then the ISI stands charged of complicity and playing a dangerously dual game.

HYDRA HEADED Joint Intelligence X (JIX) It serves as the secretariat which coordinates and provides administrative support to the other ISI wings and field organisations. It also prepares intelligence estimates and threat assessments. Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) One of the largest and most powerful divisions of the ISI, which monitors political intelligence. The JIB consists of three subsections, with one sub-section devoted to operations involving India, anti-terrorism and VIP security. Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau (JCIB) Responsible for overseeing intelligence operations in central Asia, south Asia, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Israel and Russia. It also conducts field surveillance of Pakistani diplomats stationed abroad, and if need be, monitors foreign diplomats as well. Joint Intelligence/North (JIN) Conduct ISI operations for Jammu and Kashmir, including monitoring Indian forces deployed within the Kashmir Valley. Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) Responsible for covert offensive intelligence operations and war time espionage operations. Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau (JSIB) It includes Deputy Directors for wireless, monitoring and photos, operates a chain of signal intelligence collection stations, and provides communication support to its operatives. It also collects intelligence through monitoring of communications channels of neighbouring countries. It has a chain of stations that track and collect intelligence signals along the Indo-Pakistani border and in Kashmir. A sizeable number of staff is from the Army Signal Corps. It is believed that it has its units deployed in Islamabad, Quetta, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Joint Intelligence Technical Division (JIT) Not much is known about this particular section of the ISI. However, it is widely believed that JTI/JIT include a separate explosives section and a chemical warfare section.

But there is a good chance that the ISI was caught completely unawares. A day after the killing of Osama bin Laden and under tremendous pressure from all around, the agency actually issued a statement expressing its “great embarrassment’’ in not being able to detect the presence of the world’s biggest terrorist so close to its precincts.

Pakistan ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, told reporters that “intelligence failures are not unique to the ISI. We will inquire into the causes of what happened but it’s really important not to turn it into any allegation of complicity.’’

The ISI website declares itself to be “one of the best and very well organised intelligence agencies in the world.” Founded in 1948 after the partition of India when two nation-states of India and Pakistan came into being, it started off as a police agency, whose job was to collect and analyse intelligence.

But the gradual increase in the intervention of the military, which has ruled Pakistan for the better part of its 64-year history, in the country’s internal affairs and the 1965 war with India, morphed it into a military institution which has many faces.

Its primary objectives are not only to safeguard Pakistani interests, but also reinforce Pakistan’s power base in the region. The agency, with its coordinated attacks on India during the last two decades, has done just that. That the ISI has virtually no oversight in terms of civilian control in Pakistan was best brought out when the new civilian government in 2008 tried to bring the agency under its thumb but had to embarrassingly backtrack within hours of announcing the decision. The critical question is this: will the ISI be reined in under such global pressure?

Says security expert Ajai Sahni, “There is no doubt at all that there is tremendous pressure on the ISI at the moment and this pressure has actually been accumulating since the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.”

He adds: “Osama bin Laden was living in a safe house provided by the ISI. But the Americans are aware that to take their war on terror to its natural conclusion, they would need Pakistan, which at this stage is the only supply route to get to Afghanistan. So, unless alternative routes are found to get to Kabul, ISI will continue to get US patronage.’’ In the post-Osama scenario, it would be interesting to see which way the worm turns.

| Arindam Chaudhuri | GIDF | Planman Consulting | Business & Economy | 4Ps Business & Marketing | The Sunday Indian | The Human Factor | The Daily Indian | Kkoooljobs.com | Amaze, New Delhi | IIPM Old Brochure | IIPM 4Ps Quiz | Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Alternative Budget | For IIPM Students |