New Delhi, Oct 10 - The draft of the National Telecom Policy 2011 Monday unveiled by Communications Minister Kapil Sibal seeks to boost domestic manufacturing of telecom equipment, aiming to meet 80 percent of the sector's demand by 2020.

"The aim is to promote domestic production of telecommunication equipment to meet 80 percent of Indian telecom sector demand through domestic manufacturing with a value addition of 65 percent by the year
2020," said Sibal while releasing the policy's draft here.

New Delhi, Oct 10 - The new telecom policy will bring cheer to consumers with the government Monday proposing to remove roaming charges for subscribers within the country, exponentially increasing broadband availability and speed and allowing for mobile numbers to be ported to any part of the country.

According to the draft of the New Telecom Policy unveiled by Communications Minister Kapil, roaming charges will be done away with and users will be allowed to port their mobile numbers, keeping the same number, even while switching service areas.

New Delhi, Oct 9 - Amid rising concerns and lawsuits over allocation of telecom spectrum, a precious national resource, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal will Monday unveil a draft of the new telecom policy that will focus on transparency and quick decision-making.

The last telecom policy was unveiled over a decade ago in 1999 when India's phone subscribers base was barely a couple of million. It has since grown to nearly 900 million as of July.

On Tuesday, various telecom operators had a meeting with the union Communications Minister Kapil Sibal. Mr. Sibal had met different telecom operators and had a discussion over various issues related to 2G spectrum.

After the meeting, the telecom minister has also addressed the media and told that several issues were discussed. Around 15 points were discussed about the second generation spectrum today.

In a major attempt to square away the 2G spectrum licensing disarray, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal explained the wide-ranging outlines of the New Telecom Policy (NTP), 2011.

According to this, individual operators would be allotted spectrum of up to 6.2 MHz as permitted in the license specifications and a new additional payment mechanism would be applicable further, which is in contrast to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendations made in May 2011.

India's third permanent station in Antarctica, "Bharati", would soon be developed and fully functionally running accommodating 70 scientists and claimed that the back satellite pictures on ocean conditions back home in real time.

A shipment carrying heavy apparatus in the Antarctica will be constructed at a cost of Rs 200 crore, "Bharati" and at the same time with an accompanying earth station to acquire satellite images and transmitting them back to India in actual time. It is further claimed that the Larsemann Hills on the eastern coast of Antarctica.

The 2G probe is hitting the headlines since it came into picture, with new developments coming into the light every passing day.

Just days after Kapil Sibal, the telecom minister rubbished the CAG's estimate loss figure the Supreme Court has intervened and has by itself taken on the decision for examining the 2008 spectrum allotment "irregularities" when A Raja was serving as the Telecom minister.

Following an NGO's petition seeking the cancellation of the 2G licenses, the SC will issue notices to the Union government and 11 companies.

Kapil Sibal recently lashed out the CAG report that claimed that the government exchequer had incurred losses of 1.76 lakh crore. He believed that the figures were inflated to a great extent.

The BJP and the Left however, have not taken Sibal's statement too seriously about CAG's computation of revenue losses in allocation of 2G spectrum.

The government however has decided to stick to its defence and is raising its voice against the fact that the reports of the auditors were being examined by the Public accounts committee.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had commented that 2G losses calculation reports had huge lot of errors. But the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) head Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi is not at all happy by the statement given by Mr. Sibal. He has commented that Sibal had not even read this report.

Joshi had said that apparently Sibal had not read the report as nowhere in the CAG report it was mentioned that there was only one figure of loss of Rs. 1.74 lakh crore and that it had made use of three models.

After a storm in the telecom sector due to the 2G scam, questions have been raised on the flaws of the telecom policy. Kapil Sibal took over from the alleged former minister A. Raja as the communications and IT minister.

He has had the tough days in office since then, pondering over ways to improve the policy. He recently promised the nation to get rid of the ten year old policy and make way for some reforms.

Today, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has declared that they have changed the policy.

Once they have sorted out the problem of faculty, the premier Management Institutes, like IIMs and IITs can open campus in India and Abroad. Earlier, there was a case when IIM Bangalore wanted to open a centre at Singapore and the ministry had denied the permission on the grounds that the IIM, Bangalore’s Memorandum of Association did not authorize the institute to open centre abroad.

Union Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal met the country''s envoys, who are posted abroad, on the concluding day of the Conference of the Heads of Missions (HoMs) here on Sunday.

About 119 HoMs from Indian Embassies and High Commissions participated in the three-day conference, conceived to brainstorm on the course of the national foreign policy and chart its future course.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A K Antony and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, addressed and interacted with the delegates during the course of the three-day conference.

Kapil Sibal, The Union Human Resource Development Minister is urging for huge investments in the education sector and desires that the banks to provide it at priority lending rates.

The Minister aims to extract huge sums to persuade the reform movement in the education sector and strongly feels that commercial rates of interest should not be applicable for the educational institutes.

Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal has asked the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) to continue with the current fees.

The prestigious business study institutions of India have been asked not to hike any fees further. Sibal has said that the fee for the IIMs' Post-Graduate Management Program is going to hurt the students coming from middle class families.

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said that revamping country's education system is his top agenda and it should not be misconceived as political agenda of any political party.

Government's education policies would be designed based on the needs of the land for making the system more efficient and pragmatic.

Union Home Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal announced that efforts were underway to carry out single national level entrance test by 2013 for pupils looking for admission into engineering and medical courses.

While speaking on the sidelines of ''Review Meeting on Core-curriculum for Science and Mathematics for +2 Stage'', Mr. Sibal said that if pupils want to succeed with equal chance, they should be admitted into the engineering and medical institutions via single test.

All school boards across India are likely to have a common science and mathematics syllabus from the coming academic session, which will help students compete on an equal footing in the

national level entrance tests.

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said," We have reached 90 percent consensus (on the issue) and by evening we hope to agree upon a common syllabus in maths and science

New Delhi, Jan 11 : Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday announced that there would be a vast change in education policy making of the government in 2010.

"You will see a paradigm shift in education policies. It will be an epochal year," he said.

Describing the year 2010 as very important for his ministry, Sibal said that researchers and faculty would be given a stake in the system to boost higher education and research which are vital for a nation's development.

New Delhi, Jan 11 : The universities must make engineering colleges autonomous to boost research in the field, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said Monday.

"The number of students doing research is far below than the national requirement. The universities must free engineering colleges from the affiliation process," Sibal said after releasing a book 'Engineering Education in India' at the Observer Research Foundation here.

Sibal said less than one percent of our engineering students were doing research in the field.

The Union Cabinet, in its recently held meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has approved the proposal of soft-drink maker PepsiCo in which the firm had sought injection of an additional $200 million in PepsiCo India holdings, the Indian subsidiary of group, in coming three years.

The company's global Chief Executive Officer, Ms Indira Nooyi had announced $500-million investment plan in September 2008.