Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, top US experts on India have said.

While one of the expert noted that the electoral results of the just concluded Assembly polls in five states show that the 2014 Lok Sabha election results were not an aberration, another noted that Modi would continue to lead India after 2019.

MUMBAI: Idea Cellular subscribers are set to get lower bills after the company, India’s No. 3 telecom operator, said it won’t be charging for incoming calls on domestic roaming from April 1, a bid to retain customers amid a price war launched by Reliance Jio Infocomm.

“Effective April 1, 2017, Idea’s 200 million customers will enjoy free incoming calls while roaming on company’s 2G, 3G and 4G network across 400,000 towns and villages in the country. Idea customers will be able to make outgoing calls, SMS freely at affordable rates while roaming anywhere in India,” the company said in a statement on Sunday.

While telecom companies are renewing the battle lines in the war against call harassment by ensuring safety for female customers for retail recharge transactions, Idea is ready with an all India roll out of its ‘private recharge’ service. Private recharge allows telco customers to recharge their prepaid connection at retailer without sharing their number. In an age of continually evolving technology privacy is highly important, and especially with so many new offers after Reliance Jio came to the bangwagon, it is crucial that security is also an area which must be looked after.

In the tariff war between Reliance Jio Prime, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, users have found themselves in a fix among the confusing plans on offer. Ever since Reliance Jio announced its plans in India, there has been an interesting tariff war among telecom companies, where many of the rivals like Airtel and Vodafone have accused it of disrupting the market. While Jio offered its calling and data services for free earlier, both the ‘Welcome Offer’ and ‘Happy New Year’ have now ended. This means, now consumers of Jio network will have to pay for the data services in order to avail the offers. However, the calling will remain free forever, according to Reliance Jio.

KOLKATA: Airtel, Vodafone and Idea are likely to bear the brunt of a potential 16-17 per cent fall in telecom industry revenues in FY18 if newcomer Reliance Jio’s Rs. 303 per month ‘Prime’ offer finds maximum traction from next month, analysts and sector experts said.

The price-value equation of Jio Prime offer of 28 GB data at 4G speeds with unlimited voice calls to any network is the best in the market, and incumbent carriers would do well to closely match it, they said. Brokerage Kotak Institutional Equities even warned that it would be "foolhardy for incumbents to assume they can command material pricing premium in the marketplace versus Jio".

Idea Cellular has dipped 7% to Rs 107 on the BSE after more than 3% of total equity of telecom services provider changed hands with block deal.

At 09:15 am, around 123.8 million shares representing 3.4% of total equity of Idea Cellular changed hands on the BSE, the exchange data showed.

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular will likely sell 15-20% equity stake to private equity firms in the combined entity after the proposed merger of the two companies, in order to deleverage the balance sheet and raise much-needed cash for running operations in a hypercompetitive environment, CNBC TV18 reported citing unidentified sources.

Both the companies may end up owning 51% stake in the merged company, just enough to retain majority control, CNBC TV18 said. The combined entity will have an overall debt of over Rs 1 lakh crore.

Shares of telecom service providers were in focus with all frontline stocks like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications (RCom), MTNL and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) up between 2% and 8% on the BSE.

At 10:40 am; the S&P BSE Telecom index, the largest gainer among sectoral indices, was up 1.85% as compared to 0.15% rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.

Telecom giant Vodafone has brought in Martin Pieters — former managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of its Indian arm — to work on the proposed merger of Vodafone India with Idea Cellular.

Group Chief Vittorio Colao is likely to brief all business heads of the Indian arm over a conference call next week about the merger. “Pieters has reached India to oversee the proposed merger of Vodafone India with Idea Cellular. Vittorio will brief all business heads of Vodafone India over a conference call on the merger on February 24,” said a source. Vodafone declined to comment.

Idea Cellular shares tumbled today after posting its first ever quarterly loss as rival Reliance Jio’s entry forced it to cut tariffs, eroding margins.

Idea Cellular was trading down 3.5% at Rs 106.5, after opening at the day’s low of Rs 102, against the advance in the benchmark indices. BSE Sensex was trading firm at 28,450.42 points, up 0.41%.

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