Sunil Mittal

In an interview to CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan, Sunil Bharti Mittal spoke about the latest happenings in his company and the sector.

With this acquisition, Airtel will be second company, after Reliance Jio, in the country to have pan-India presence in 2300 Mhz band - which has second largest ecosystem of 4G devices.

Sunil Mittal expects that Airtel's plan to completely drop roaming charges, will result in increase of usage.

From April 1, Airtel will offer free incoming calls and SMSes while roaming across India, and there will be no extra charges on on outgoing calls and data while outstation.

In what will create India's largest telecom company with revenues of over Rs 80,000 crore, Vodafone on Monday said that it is in exploratory discussions with the Aditya Birla group's telecom arm Idea Cellular for a merger.

The company has committed an initial investment of Rs 3,000 crores to develop a pan India banking network and digital payments ecosystem.

Theresa May coming to India with trade delegates indicates that the country is a place that UK wants to strengthen its bilateral and economic ties, believes Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises.

Cyrus Mistry who is the Co-Chairman of the UK-India CEO forum is likely to be replaced, reports CNBC-TV18. The top contender for the replacement is Sunil Bharti Mittal. However, the final call has not been taken and it will be taken by the PMO.

"Three or four solid networks around the 700Mhz would have taken care of a lot of rural broadband networks. This is a missed opportunity. I hope the government will look into this and correct that particular part," Sunil Mittal said here at the India Economic Summit organised by the WEF and CII.

He talked about challenge that India has faced with respect to the slow monsoons and effect of the forecasted above average monsoon season on the economy.

Mittal says: "India more or less has across sectors, across segments, I would say come out very well. There is a general consensus that the oil price going down, commodities going down, gives enough fiscal space to the government to do a lot of things that they want to do. So, I think India is in a sweet spot."

The scheme aimed at helping undertrials will receive Rs 10 crore contribution from Bharti Airtel every year. Chairman Sunil Mittal is expected to take Rs 5 crore annual salary cut for the same.

The regulatory authority had conducted independent audits on call drops in Mumbai and Delhi in the months of June and July and called it unsatisfactory

Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry says there needs to be a time limit for reforms to be rolled out by the Indian government. While praising the government, he says there is a move to address disputes in a time-bound manner

India Inc stressed on the need for greater monetary easing atleast to the extent of 75 basis points and that the rupee must be allowed to depreciate to preserve domestic price competitiveness in global trade

Japan's SoftBank Corp announced investment of USD 20 billion in setting up solar power projects in India in partnership with telecom giant Bharti Enterprises and Taiwan's Foxconn.

Indian Business Icons (IBI) 2015 is a special initiative by CNBC-TV18 for celebrating 15 years of leadership. The endeavour is to form a distinct league of the most powerful business icons. The names are now thrown open to public voting. The icon in focus is Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Making his oft-repeated argument, Bharti Enterprises chief Sunil Mittal said the telecom industry continues to face too much competition and unless M&A rules are streamlined, consolidation may be slow to set in.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman at Bharti Airtel says feels that the Prime Minister‘s pitch for stable tax regime and ease of doing business in India will resonate and go down extremely well with the global audience.

However, the SC has granted the 2G court the liberty to summon Sunil Mittal and Ravi Ruia again.