IMC to host international meet on 'Communications Convergence'

Mumbai, Mar 9: Bigwigs from the Telecom Sector will converge here for a two-day conference on Top delegates from across the globe are expected to arrive at the meet which is being conducted by the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC).

The conference will be addressed by Maharashtra Finance Minister Jayantrao Patil and Chairman of Dishnet Wireless, Dr. Vijay Bhatkar, a press release from the IMC said.

Among the international speakers would be: Ms. Lara Srivastava, Telecom Policy Analyst, Strategy and Policy Unit, ITU, Geneva, Amarendra Narayan, Executive Director, Asia Pacific Telecommunity, Bangkok, Andreas Kiefer, Regional Sales Director, Asia Pacific, SR Telecom Inc., Bangkok, Jiang Xue Feng, Director-Technical (Marketing), ZTE Corporation, China, Bo Ribbing, General Manager - Technical, Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd. and Arun Dagar, Country Director, SingTel India, Singapore.

Not to be left behind, top Indian experts will also participate at the event. Notable among them are Avinash Bector ,Regional Manager, Motorola India Pvt. Ltd., Shantanu Consul , USF Administrator, Government of India Dr. Uday Desai, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT, Mumbai Pavan Duggal , Advocate, Supreme Court S.

Ramani Iyer, Telecom Consultant Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala , Professor, IIT, Chennai , F C Kohli, Former Dy. Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services.

Jitendra Sanghvi, IMC's Senior Secretary said that the Chamber expected more than 300 Indian and foreign telecom experts to participate in this Conference. It would include equipment manufacturers, companies' senior executives, regulators, investment analysts / consultants, telecom service providers, IT companies,etc.

Piyush Goyal, Chairman of IMC's Electronics and Telecommunications Committee, said that the basic objective of this global conference was to provide a platform for government policymakers, leaders of industry and other stakeholders in the communications industry to discuss various options to ensure a meaningful connectivity to 'the not yet connected' in a reasonable time frame with a view to facilitate speedy modernisation of India.

The Chamber has held three such International Conferences on Communications Convergence in the past -'The Multi-billion Indian Opportunity' in December, 2002, 'Bridging the Digital Divide' in January, 2004 and 'The Change Agent' in February, 2005.

K V Seshasayee, Co-Chairman of the IMC's Electronics and Telecommunications Committee, said that the global conferences held in the past had proved the management guru C K Prahalad's thesis that there was money at the bottom of the pyramid.

Seshasayee said though penetration of telephony was 50 per cent to 60 per cent in metros like Mumbai and Delhi, the penetration was less than 0.01 per cent of the population in states like Bihar. He said this was becuae the big telephone companies go where the money was.

He however, added, "They have now discovered that there is big money in rural areas too,'' he said.

Nanik Rupani, past President of the IMC said that the IMC has played an important role in persuading the Union Government to adopt a policy to facilitate introduction of modern telecommunicatino systems in the country.

UNI