The Maverick Chronicles

The Maoist goons held the Delhi-Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani hostage for 5 hours before government forces could secure the train and bring relief to the nearly 1200 passengers trapped in the train. Now what is really surprising is that with the ease the Maoists are openly launching such logistically difficult operations. This is really not possible without the help of some elements which have a good understanding of the administrative apparatus. There are claims that the Maoists which earlier used to be supporters of the ruling party in Bengal, are now apparently being supported by the Trinamool congress. The Bengalis have over the period of time managed to with their attitude and liking for Communist rule managed to make the state an unlikely place for carrying out business. In fact, the entire eastern side of India as compared to North,West & South has seen fairly less development and will continue to do so with this sudden surge in Naxal challenge. The Bengal incident is clearly an off...

Today at 19:48pm IST, Bharti Airtel called off the much hyped $23 billion deal for the merger with South Africa's MTN after a nearly exhausting 4 month long discussion process in which even the key cabinet ministers and the Indian PM and the neighbouring dog were pushing for the deal. This was the second time in the year Bharti has had to taste dirt in its quest for becoming a dominant player in the world telecom market (geography and customer number wise). It was going to be a very complex deal with which the South African government was not very comfortable with. As per the proposed structure, Bharti would have acquired 49% stake in the deal while MTN would have acquired 36% stake in Bharti Airtel. Both the share holders were not happy with deal primarily the Bharti share holders. And this was apparent enough. What with the much delayed 3G auction coming up in India as well as the MNP to go live by the year end, the capex pressure on India's largest telecom player was huge n...