Business News India

TRAI directive

New Delhi: India’s telecom regulator on Thursday asked direct-to-home (DTH) service providers to carry out repairs of equipment during the warranty period free of cost and leave packages unchanged in the first six months of enrolment of a subscriber. “Visiting charges and maintenance charges of DTH equipment will be carried out free-of-cost during the warranty period. The operator will not change the composition of subscription packages during the first six months of enrolment to the subscription package or during the validity of a prepaid subscription, whichever is longer,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement. The notification also calls for proportionate reduction of subscription charges if any channel is removed from the package in the first six months of enrolment or getting replaced with another channel. (IANS)

Vodafone to offer restriction-free music service

LONDON: Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile phone group by revenue, is to sell music without any anti-piracy protection in a deal that will allow users to listen to songs on any digital device. The mobile group said it had signed deals with the world’s largest record companies including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music to offer their tracks without anti-piracy software called digital rights management. Music companies are desperate to sign new digital deals as online piracy eats into traditional revenues, while mobile groups are also looking to diversify and increase customer loyalty through new services. New research by the music business resource TheView said digital recorded music in South East Asia was compensating for declining physical sales for the first time, with the mobile phone the device of choice by consumers. (Agencies).

H-1B visa

Washington: Though India has stressed on gains from a liberal H-1B visa regime, New Delhi has said that granting of such visas was the sovereign right of the US. “This (H-1B) is not an issue that India and the US negotiate or discuss. This is not part of a bilateral agenda and it can’t be by definition,” Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told reporters at the end of his visit here for a first dialogue with the new US officials under President Barack Obama’s administration. “H-1B visas were mentioned; yes in the conversations. We discussed the situation. We were told what the present policy is and we spoke about it. The rest is for the US to decide about what to do about it. Issue of US visas is America’s sovereign function,” he said. (PTI)