JS Deepak takes charge as Telecom Secretary

JS Deepak today took charge as the Telecom Secretary, following last week's top-level bureaucratic reshuffle.
Deepak, a 1982 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, assumes charge at a time when the Department of Telecom is preparing for the next round of spectrum auction.
Trai has already given the recommendations for the base price of spectrum in seven banks. The auction is likely to take place later this year.
The former Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg was moved to Minority Affairs Ministry on January 29.
Garg had taken over on July 17, 2014 and is to retire in November.
Aruna Sharma has been appointed as Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, in place of Deepak.

Apart from the auction, Deepak will be saddled with responsibility of monitoring the progress of the Digital India programme and check the problem of call drops.

Tuli said Datawind is already providing free internet
service in partnership with Reliance Communications and Telenor on purchase of its devices.
"With VNO, we will able to provide services at our own rates. We will look at providing internet at Rs 100 per year. Our target are those 100 crore people in India who are not using internet in India. With such plan we will be able to connect them," Tuli said.
Datawind pipped Samsung and Micromax to rank numero uno in the tally with 20.7 per cent share of the Indian tablet market at the end of December 2015, as per market research firm IDC.

"Based on our sales trend, we will be able to sell 20 lakh tablets next year but is a drop in ocean where 100 crore are not using internet. As VNO we will be able to reach them with affordable data plans," Tuli said.
Bluetown's Gupta said the Danish company has developed an end-to-end IP based converged communication platform including a wifi only mobile phone for USD 40 a unit.
"Our system has been specially designed for the data and internet based calls for rural area which we can leverage as VNO. As VNO we will be able to market our services and engage directly with customers," Gupta said.

The Department of Telecom is expected to put new permits as UL-VNO in this month. The permit will come at half rate of Unified Licence which has been issued to telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio. A pan-India UL, which costs Rs 15 crore to full fledged telecom operators is proposed to cost Rs 7.5 crore for VNO.