Former Communications Minister A.Raja, former Secretary, DOT  Sidhartha Behura and former PA to Minister,  R.K. Chandolia have been remanded to CBI custody further. CBI demanded further custody to which the court agreed

A bigger scam than the 2G is reported in the media. The newspaper reports indicate that the Government has lost about Rupees 2 lakh crore in the spectrum deal of ISRO(Indian Space Research Organisation) with a private company, Devas Multimedia. It is owned by a former ISRO official MG Chandrasekhar.

The opposition parties has already demanded a statement from the Prime Minister, since the ISRO comes under the Prime Minister himself.

At the same time Kapil Sibal Minister Communications has stated that there is no loss to the Government. It is the same reply he has given to the 2 G scam also.

The Delhi high Court has set aside the order of the Air India Management derecognising the Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU)for going on strike last year. The High Court said : ” The impugned order dated 26th May 2010 derecognising ACEU is bad in law as it was passed without any show cause notice to the petitioner, ACEU and without affording the petitioner an opportunity of being heard.”

However the court said the derecognition notice issued be treated as a show cause notice and directed ACEU to respond within four weeks.

I congratulate the ACEU for their voctory in getting back the recognition.

BSNL bosses are in big trouble! Communications Minister Kapil Sibal has pointed out that BSNL has given costly BWA Spectrum almost free to the franchisees on revenue sharing basis causing huge loss to the BSNL.

BWA Spectrum is used for Wimax services. BSNL had already paid about Rs. 8000 crore as entry fee to the government for BWA Spectrum. This valuable spectrum has been given by BSNL  to four franchisees (companies) for running wimax services  on condition of revenue sharing without any entry fee or other charges.This according to reports will allow these companies access to about 50,000 towers 20,000 office premises of BSNL!

It is reported that Kapil Sibal has written to Secretary DOT as follows: ” It has been pointed out that ‘cheap access’ has been provided to these franchisees by BSNL, including costly Broadband Wireless Access (BWA, the technical name for Wimax) spectrum in metropolitan cities for which BSNL has already made massive upfront payment”. Kapil Sibal added ” These shell companies (franchisees) are reportedly more interested in selling their stake to potential buyers rather than broadband network roll-outs. As a result, the commercial/financial interests of BSNL has been sacrificed during the selection of Wimax franchisees last year.”

BSNL Management is in real trouble. Let us see what the Management has to say. It has however become clear that the BSNL interests are being sabotaged.( Based on report in Hindustan Times dated 08-02-2011

The National Steering Committee of the United Forum of BSNL Unions met today, 7th February, and reviewed the V Membership Verification held on 1st February 2011. The meeting decided to quickly start the process of negotiations, holding of the National Council Meeting, formation of National/Circle and District Councils as also formation of Steering Committees at all levels.

Settlement of the pending issues are the immediate agenda.

After the V Membership Verification in BSNL was over, the NFTE and FNTO have been giving wide propaganda that  the result will not be announced  citing the interim order of Ernakulam High Court that ‘ the result of the referendum being held …will be subject to the outcome of the writ petition.’ As per the court order there is no stay either on the conduct of the verification, announcing the result or granting recognition. The result was announced on 4th February as scheduled and BSNLEU was declared as elected..

Now these unions have started propagating that the recognition will not be granted to BSNLEU. That propaganda also is being blown up. The CMD has agreed to grant recognition to the elected BSNLEU and orders are expected to be issued on 8th February.

Spreading rumours has become the usual method of some unions to create confusion among the workers.

One of the biggest census in the world, India Census 2011, has already started. Population Enumeration, the second phase of Census will start on 9th February. About 24 crore households will be visited by about 25 lakh enumerators within the next three weeks for collecting the informations on 29 items including literacy, housing and household amenities, urbanisation, migration, language, religion, SC ST castes, cultural activities etc. etc.

Dr. C.Chandrmouli, Registrar General and Census Commissioner stated that the data collected will be disseminated within one or one and half years instead of the earlier four to five years.

Let us co-operate and make the census a great success.

The counting in the membership verification conducted on 1st February 2011 was done today. At this time when except Chennai Telephones result is yet to come, BSNLEU leads by more than 26,500 votes. BSNLEU has got more than 1,03,000 votes and the votes in Chennai Telephones are yet to add.

BSNLEU has won with a good margin. Congratulations to all the comrades who have worked very hard for the success of BSNLEU and United Forum.

United Forum calls upon all units to organise Victory Day on 4th January 2011 by distributing sweets etc.to all.

Every year the workers observe 1st May as May Day, the International solidarity Day of the Working Class by organising demonstrations, rallies, conferences and so on. The struggle for an eight-hour working day, the  sacrifices of Martyrs of Haymarket in Chicago in 1886 etc. are also known to all . But the sustained struggles the workers of Chicago and of America organised in the 19th Century and the sacrifices and hardships they had to make etc. are not known much.

In the book titled “Hay Market Revisited”, William Adelman has given a detailed study about the entire situation which prevailed, the Hay Market incident and the trial  of the  martyrs and what happened afterwards. The entire book brings to  us of the heroic struggle the working class has fought and the brutal and inhuman attack on the workers by the American Government.

The book has been published by CITU with a foreword by Com.M.K.Pandhe and titled ” Glorious saga of May Day Martyrs”.   I feel that each and every worker should read it so that the entire story of the Hay Market Martyrs and their sacrifices can be well understood.

The Supreme Court while not accepting the request  to cancel the licences of those companies which did not roll out services after getting the 2G licences, made it clear that the regularisation of these licences will be subject to the final orders of the court.

The CAG has recommended the cancellation of 69 ineligible licences, but the government is trying to regularise them by imposing small penalties. The Supreme court stated the above in a petition seeking cancellation of these licences.

The correct action will be to cancel these irregular licences and take action against these companies who obtained licences irregularly.