IndiaWatch: Alcatel Lucent To Sack 1000 Jobs In India

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) are today's top newsmakers:

French telecom vendor Alcatel-Lucent will cut around 1,000 jobs in India, about 9 percent of its headcount in the country, as part of a restructuring process to reduce its operating costs, reports The Times of India. (See US Report May Create Trouble For Chinese Vendors in India, Vendors Should Merge TDM And IP: Vodafone and IndiaWatch: BSNL Picks Network Vendors.)

Bharti Airtel may combine its Indian and African operations in a major restructuring process. It is expected that the joint-MD of Bharti Airtel, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of its African operations, may head the new entity, reports The Economic Times. (See Airtel To Roll Out 4G-LTE Services In Pune, Huawei To Deploy 100G For Airtel: Sources and IndiaWatch: Bharti Airtel-RCom Spat Gets Worse.)

The two telecom PSUs of the country -- BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) -- have asked the government to bear the one-time spectrum fee of INR 110 billion (US$2 billion) for their additional spectrum. The companies say they do not have sufficient funds to pay for the extra spectrum, reports Moneycontrol. (See MTNL To Continue With Inactive Subscribers and NTP Will Hamper Our Revenue: MTNL.)

? Rimit Singh, Correspondent, Light Reading India

The blogs and comments are the opinions only of the writers and do not reflect the views of Light Reading India. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.

Source: http://www.lightreading.in/document.asp?doc_id=225926&f_src=lrindia_section_1202

barney frank barney frank rob gronkowski kim richards robert hegyes mary louise parker mary louise parker