BS READS: How deep Huawei's roots run and why it's tough to keep it out

Keeping Huawei out is hard as its offerings are cheaper than European rivals, and it has ongoing maintenance contracts with telcos here. Two-thirds of 560,000 towers in India run on Huawei equipment

This isn’t the first time China’s Huawei, the global network equipment major, is under the scanner. Back in 2001, India’s intelligence agencies had placed it under watch after it emerged that Huawei was doing business with the Taliban, the terror outfit in Afghanistan. Later, however, the matter was dropped and what began was a period of Huawei's stupendous rise in India. Between 2002 and 2018, the Chinese firm rode the wave as the Indian telecom sector leapt from dial-ups to high-speed 4G, supplying networking gear to every large network in the land (at its peak, India had at least eight