Indian president voices concern over unsolicited calls on mobile

Sharing the concerns of millions of cellular phone users, who grudgingly put up with unsolicited calls, Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday asked the telecom industry to effectively check this.

Inaugurating the 'India Telecom 2006' conference here, Kalam said, "Although some restrictions are in place for unsolicited telephone calls, there is a need for more effective control mechanism." 'India Telecom 2006' is organized by the Department of Telecom, and Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association.

He said advanced telecom technologies are capable of locating the position of the cell phone, its utilization pattern and the particulars of the contactees, leaving the individual open to avoidable exposure and exploitation by motivated agencies.

"Ethics for utilization of telecom tools and technologies also need to be evolved so that individual privacy is not intruded upon," the president said.

He also asked the telecom operators to make unlimited bandwidth available on demand for a billion people of India in order to connect the unconnected and said that 'we should aim that 70 percent of the telecom hardware and software should soon be manufactured in India'.

Meanwhile, addressing the conference, Indian Communications and Information Technology (IT) Minister Dayanidhi Maran said, "As it aims at making India a global hub for telecom manufacturing, fresh investment commitments of about two billion dollar (about Rs 9,000 crore) is expected in the next one year.

"Entry of Nokia into manufacturing followed by Flextronics, Motorola and a whole lot of others has laid the platform for positioning India as a global hub for telecom manufacturing," he said.

Since the UPA government took office in May 2004, India has witnessed investment commitments of over 17 billion dollar in IT and telecom.

According to the minister, growth targets set for 2010 would result in an investment of about 20 billion dollar with more jobs, contribution to GDP and revenue to government.

Over 200 companies are participating is the international exhibition and conference. In the exhibition the Indian telecom industry will be represented by companies like Bharti Airtel Limited, BSNL, C-DOT, Hutchison Essar Mobile Services Ltd, COAI, Qualcomm India Pvt Ltd. Reliance Communication Ltd. Etc.

Among the international participants there will be companies from Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Italy while Taiwan, Korea and US companies will be seen in independent pavilions.

A highlight of India Telecom 2006 will be the CEO's Roundtable with Dayanidhi Maran, minister for Communications and Information Technology Government of India. It will be an interactive session of all the telecom CEO's with the minister.