Both Airtel and Airel, the two mobile service providers bringing the iPhone4S to India, have revealed the price that Indian consumers will have to pay to acquire the latest object of desire from Apple.
Airtel and Airtel on their respective iPhone 4S pre-order pages have listed the iPhone 4S 16GB at Rs 44,500 and the 32GB model for Rs 50,900. This pricing is substantially higher than the older models of the iPhone sold by the two carriers. Airtel had priced the iPhone 4 16GB at Rs 35,500 and an 8GB iPhone 3GS was available for Rs 20,900.
In the US the new iPhone 4S was launched at the same price as the iPhone 4.
The 64GB iPhone 4S model is not currently listed on the Airtel pre-order page and some reports say it was priced at Rs 57500 but Airtel later removed it. The Aircel pre-order site displays the 64GB model as sold out and doesn’t mention any price.
Airtel and Aircel are the first two Indian mobile operators to announce the iPhone 4S on their networks. The pre-orders from both the service providers were scheduled to begin on Friday. While Airtel was up with its pre-order page, Aircel was apparently facing a technical glitchm but has now started acceptiong pre-orders.
After flip flops ,’there is no evidence linking Maran to Aircel,there is case against Maran’-finally The CBI seems to have made up its mind(?) to file charge sheet against Maran.
This is the first step before arrest.
We know what happened to Raja.
Let’s see what happens next.
If some one were to Link this to Karnanidhi’s decision to go it alone in the Local elections in Tamil Nadu, they are not way off the mark.
Karunanidhi is upset that Kanimozhi is not being released and the DMK cadres are boiling over the decimation of the Party in order to protect Karunanidhi Family.
Congress is in a bind, for to leave DMK would embolden Raja and Kanimozhi spill the beans,staying with the DMK will wipe out Congress in Tamil Nadu, where Congress has no standing in Tamil Nadu excepting when piggybacking on either DMK or AIADMK.
CBI today told the Supreme Court that it has got evidence against DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran in 2G spectrum scam and will file an FIR against him within a couple of days for various offences including showing “undue favour” shown to Aircel.
The agency also said investigation against Essar Group was still on and it will take another two weeks to complete it.
CBI, which filed a fresh status report in a sealed cover about the progress of the investigation, said the preliminary inquiry on the alleged involvement of Maran in 2G scam has been completed and letters rogatory (LR) have been dispatched to Mauritius.
“The preliminary inquiry with regard to Maran has been concluded and FIR has to be registered against everyone. A few more days needed for the FIR and can be lodged by month-end,” senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for CBI, told a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly.
Now that CBI has done a volte face in Maran‘s case in regard to forcing Aircel to be sold and indicated that he might be charged with the frivolous charge that he sat on the files far too long, which can be dismissed ( as indicated by my earlier blog), the decks are cleared for Kanimozhi‘s release by ED contemplating to levy a fine of 1.5 crores fine for Balwa’s transaction of 200 crores with Kalaignar TV.
Knomozhi and Raja.
CBI is likely to quote ED and declare that there is not much of an evidence to charge Kanimozhi and she is likely to be discharged by 30th September.
The whole scenario unfolded with CBI taking a U turn on Maran and Kalaignar TV with Kanimozhi letting people know that she is not averse to disclose all the details including the top brass of Congress, you know who.
The Congress is to have buckled , let it be known that it can not be done before 15 September and the DMK has shifted its extravaganza ‘Mupperum Vizha’ to 30 September , instead of 15 September in anticipation of Kanimozhis release.
Add to this the argument the ‘loss to the Exchequer’ is arbitrary, not Real and is varied from different Estimates by Raja in the Supreme Court.
Pressure seems to be working.!
Breaking down the total additional revenue loss of Rs.30,984.55 crores among various new applicants which received licenses licenses and the Dual Technology users, the Tata, whose telecom company received 3 CDMA licenses and 19 GSM licenses, and caused a ‘loss’ of Rs.4,930 crores, has neither been chargesheeted nor arrested. Datacom and Loop also received 21 GSM licenses each and individually deprived the exchequer by more than Rs.4,000 crores – almost the same additional revenue deprived by Unitech Wireless. And yet, there is no chargesheet against them. Similarly, Reliance (14 GSM licenses), Shyam (21 CDMA licenses and 1 GSM license) and Idea (9 GSM licenses) deprived the exchequer by additional revenue to the tune of Rs.3,380 crores, Rs.2,650 crores and Rs.1,815 crores and none of these companies have been booked by the CBI. Same is the case of other companies like S-Tel (6 GSM licenses), Spice (4 GSM licenses), Allianz (2 GSM licenses) and HFCL (1 GSM license). Similarly, during 2003-2007, 51 licenses were issued by the DOT but no status report is being given by the investigation agencies to the Supreme Court. Many old operators are hoarding spectrum beyond their contractual entitlement, as highlighted by the CAG in its report and caused loss to the exchequer, but investigation is not making much progress against those companies.
Therefore, the impression is hard to avoid that the government and its agencies have not been impartial in their approach to the various telecom players allegedly involved in the 2-G spectrum allocation ‘scam’. What could possibly explain this partisan treatment on the part of the government agencies even by the logic of their own estimates of the ‘Loss to the Exchequer’? The only plausible explanation is that in their desperate attempt to give a clean chit to the government and its functionaries, the investigating agencies are looking to find easy scapegoats.
To begin with there were multiple figures in circulation with regard to the 2-G spectrum ‘scam’. That in itself damages the credibility of the whole investigation. On top of that, the government and its agencies seem to have blatantly flouted all norms of justice in targeting only two out of the nearly dozen telecom players which, according to its own faulty, misguided and motivated estimates, have benefited from the spectrum allocation. If the ‘loss to the exchequer’ has been caused by so many companies, is there any justification in law or ethics to zero in on two of them and seek to hold them responsible?
Of course, the matter is sub-judice now, and the courts will decide the cases strictly in the light of evidence. And yet, such a shoddy, selective, and unjust sequence of events should never have been allowed to set in motion, for it reflects badly not only upon the government of the day but also upon India as a modern nation with professedly mature and impartial institutions.
Couple of days ago The CBI had declared in the Supreme Court that there seems to be no substance in Sivasankara’s assertion that Maran forced him to sell Aircel– 2 G scam.
This is precisely the major complaint against Maran.
By dismissing the basis, CBI has nullified its own case.
It is funny that CBI took its own time to deny the earlier story that the CBI had no case against Maran,that too in the Supreme Court.
Now it says it has not cleared Maran.
Is this Report correct?
CBI is now saying that Maran has delayed the decision in granting License to Aircel,sat on the file unduly long.
When compared to the arm twisting of Sivasankaran to sell Aircel,the present charge against Maran is frivolous from which he can escape citing Governmental Procedures.
Probable that a deal struck by the Political Bosses has come unstuck.
We may expect the samevolte face in Kalaignar TV case where ED has planned a fine of 1.5 crores in Kanimozhi case.
Though it is known to people who have been following the 2 G scam that the Congress is involved, they have been waiting for information from the co-conspirators.
Raja is now implicating the PM stating that he as in the know of grant of licences to Unitech and Swann and had the PM wanted he could have referred it to GoM.
May be Raja is not the right person to say so but it is a fact.
But even if the PM had wanted to do so, he could not have done so as the policy making of telecom lecences have been taken away from GoM by Dayanidhi Maran(Read my blog on this)
In fact the present accusation is aimed at Maran more.
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