It sounds too good to be true. Some “vigilant” NGO filed a case against Vodafone for it’s spurious campign to promote more usage of talktime. There were enough suckers to join the fun. The consumer court ruled that this is akin to using lottery/ gamble.

Now we all know that Indians make such a hue and cry about morals that its embarassing. Nevertheless, the court ruled in favour of the NGO which had filed a case and fined Vodafone India to the tune of 50 lakhs.

I am sure that lawyers are cheaper than paying up the fine. I would be surprised indeed if Vodafone pays up meekly. Although, it is nothing as compared to their projected earnings.

The new version 4.1 has been released recently. I find this an excellent browser for mobile phones; although being stuck with Vodafone as my service provider means that I cannot use it on my Internet enabled Nokia.

Here is a list of the new features. You can download this application from here:

http://www.operamini.com/download/

Bharti first denied and then offered $20 billion dollars for this company in South Africa. They have these laws which mandate than 20% of the marked up capital of a company (or shareholding pattern) should remain with Blacks. if Bharti manages to win this bid (and fatten the purses of the majority of the shareholders), it would be sixth largest combine in the whole world.

This would give it significant leverage for Network equipment and of course, access to global capital and lobby circuits. This should be good news, although I remain circumspect of its real intentions. I shouldn’t be surprised to know (or for that matter anyone) that we don’t know the exact state of Bharti’s profitability. They don’t declare their assets publicly (as far as I know) although, I have read news about their claims to profits. As they grow in size, they tend to acquire more monopolistic and bureaucratic attitudes and can easily ignore the growing customer user base.

Such a monolithic cannot be taken to task unless the Government steps in to protect the customer’s interests.

For the same reason, I have been opposing the mergers and acquistions; more players in the market doesn’t mean more choices for the customers. They would be scaling up infrastructure from ground up and cashing out to the existing companies; although the ones which have been granted licences recently, would be happy to comply rather than compete with stiff entry barriers. The existing players benefit from the incumbents spectrum. Although, there have been laws designated to avoid this; law is an ass and lawmakers are assholes hand in glove with them.

Hence, Bhart courting MTN is nothing new given the scale of money that it could find from it’s parent (Singtel); I have a strong reason to feel that Bharti is merely acting as a front for more sinister evil gameplans.