Let’s begin. Reliance Jio announced its Jio True 5G powered WiFi services on October 22. The company has now marked the beginning of its 5G powered WiFi service in the temple town of Nathdwara, Rajasthan. India’s telco announced the introduction of its 5G powered WiFi services in high density areas such as educational institutions, religious institutions, railway stations, bus stops, commercial hubs, and others. This news comes after the launch of 5G services in India and the recently launched Jio 5G welcome offer in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi. Ambani-led telco claims that the company is working to make Jio 5G accessible to more cities.
Meanwhile, telecom secretary K. Rajaraman today said that the government is working with all sectors to ensure efficient use of spectrum for convergence of emerging technologies. At the India Space Congress 2022, Rajaraman said, “As technologies evolve continuously, therefore, the use of spectrum also needs to evolve…to give ways to effective and more productive ways of deployment of spectrum.” Spectrum refers to the radio frequencies, which is allocated to the telecom service providers and other sectors to facilitate communication over the airwaves for providing internet, voice services, among other communication services. Comments from the telecom secretary assume significance in light of different views from the satellite operators and telecom industry for the satellite spectrum. While the telecom companies want the spectrum for satellite communication services to be auctioned, the satellite services providers want the government to allot spectrum administratively.
Moving on. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is seeking a report from Meta India about the 2-hour long WhatsApp global outage that affected users worldwide on October 25. WhatsApp outage affected users worldwide with its long disruption and as a result, users were unable to send messages, share photos and videos on Meta’s instant messaging platform. Meta-owned WhatsApp’s services were disrupted for 2 hours around 12 noon on October 25. WhatsApp calling and WhatsApp Web weren’t working either, Meta acknowledged in a statement. India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is reported to have asked Meta India to issue a report which includes all the details about the long disruption of its instant messaging platform – as it affected users worldwide. Moreover, the IT Ministry is also keeping an eye on the platform if there’s any cyber-attack involved in the long disruption.
In IPO-related news. The initial share-sale of Global Health Limited, which operates and manages hospitals under the Medanta brand, will open for public subscription on November 3. The initial public offering will conclude on November 7, according to the red herring prospectus. According to merchant banking sources, the IPO size could be about Rs 2,200 crore. The IPO consists of a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating to Rs 500 crore, and an Offer-For-Sale of up to 5.08 crore equity shares. As a part of the OFS, Anant Investments, an affiliate of private equity major Carlyle Group and Sunil Sachdeva (jointly with Suman Sachdeva) will offload equity shares. At present, Anant Investments holds 25.64 per cent stake in Global Health and Sachdeva owns 13.41 per cent stake in the company. Proceeds from the fresh issue will be used to pay debt and general corporate purposes.
In other news, Software company Zoho on Wednesday announced the integration of its e-commerce platform Zoho Commerce with the government’s e-commerce project Open Network for Digital Commerce as a technology service provider to help sellers including small businesses leverage the open network and widen their customer base. Zoho Commerce offers businesses tools to build their own online store, accept orders, track inventory, process payments, manage shipping, market their brand, and analyze data. Zoho Commerce users in India will be able to get onto ONDC with a single click and showcase their products on multiple platforms with equitable visibility, the company said in a statement. It will offer support to retailers for onboarding to the network and seamlessly integrate their inventory to the ONDC-enabled buyer-side applications.
On to the last segment, Britain’s new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could delay the announcement of a plan to repair the country’s public finances, foreign minister James Cleverly said on Wednesday, suggesting a little more time might be needed to spell out the details, according to a Reuters report. Sunak, who replaced Liz Truss after her brief stint as prime minister was engulfed in chaos, gathered his cabinet for the first time on Wednesday, a day after taking power with a promise to fix his predecessor’s mistakes and stabilise the economy. At the top of Sunak’s agenda will be preparation for a fiscal statement, keenly anticipated by financial markets, but which The Times newspaper reported could be pushed back by a few days.
