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Articles by Paranjoy Guha ThakurtaSubscribe to Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

TRAI Recommendations

Vol. 47, Issue No. 22, 02 Jun, 2012
Aditi Roy Ghatak, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Commotion and confusion prevails over the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendations on spectrum pricing and refarming. The industry is split over the suggestions relating to valuation and allocation of electro-magnetic spectrum which follow the 2 February order of the Supreme Court cancelling the 122 licences that were issued in an illegal manner from 2007-08 onwards. The government is under pressure from lobbies to dilute TRAI's recommendations and the regulatory body too has complicated matters. In the end, will the consumer end up as the biggest loser?

Corporatisation of the Media

Vol. 47, Issue No. 07, 18 Feb, 2012
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Subi Chaturvedi

The entry of Reliance Industries, India's largest corporate entity in the private sector, into the country's media industry in a major way with strategic associations with the Network18 group and the Eenadu group, has been perceived as an instance of consolidation in a sector in which big players have been steeped in debt and strapped for cash over the past few years. What the formation of the new media conglomerate (arguably one of the largest, if not the largest, in India) in the shake-out also signifies is growing concentration of ownership in an oligopolistic market that could lead to loss of media heterogeneity and plurality.

Manufacturing 'News'

Vol. 46, Issue No. 14, 02 Apr, 2011
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

The phenomenon of "paid news" wherein newspapers, magazines and TV channels are paid for eulogies of particular candidates and political parties, which then masquerade as independent news, became widespread on the eve of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections of 2009. The Election Commission brought out a circular in 2010 asking the chief electoral officers of all states and union territories to be extra vigilant about this electoral malpractice. Will this be strictly implemented in the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal? What kind of media regulatory mechanism should be in place to curb this unethical and illegal practice?

Underbelly of the Great Indian Telecom Revolution

Vol. 45, Issue No. 49, 04 Dec, 2010
Akshat Kaushal, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

While the phenomenal growth of telecommunications in India is often attributed to deregulation, the other side of the coin is the equally massive spread of crony capitalism based on scams and corrupt practices. These scandals are a consequence of poor regulatory oversight and deliberate manipulation of policies and norms to favour select privately-owned corporate entities. The most brazen of these scandals pertains to the questionable manner in which mobile spectrum was priced and allocated under the former communications minister Andimuthu Raja. This article traces the history of telecom scams in India and explains the nature of the present 2G corruption.

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