Indian Telecom’s Spectacular Rise and the Nature of Monopoly Capital in India

Aspects of India’s Economy no. 80

Indian Telecom’s Spectacular Rise and the Nature of Monopoly Capital in India

AUTHOR: Rahul Varman

Votaries of the prevailing policies extol India’s private corporate sector for spreading mobile telephony widely, at low prices. This article looks behind this low price. It finds a history of State subsidies and gifts to the private corporate sector. After a phase of chaotic and wasteful development by private firms engaging in resource capture and speculation, began a phase of concentration into just two or three giant firms, through the massive use of finance. Despite these vast resources, these firms have failed to build a domestic technological base, and remain heavily import-dependent. The author uses this example to provide insights into what he calls ‘Indian monopoly capital’.
Introduction

Aspects of India’s Economy no. 80

Introduction

AUTHOR: R.U.P.E

India’s private corporate sector is more prominent today than at any time in the past. Its chieftains are listed among the richest persons in the world. The Indian government’s growth plans now explicitly centre on the country’s largest firms, with the aim of creating a few ‘national champions’ capable of competing globally. A research report […]
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Aspects of India’s Economy {Editor: Rajani X. Desai}

Research Unit for Political Economy

The Research Unit for Political Economy (R.U.P.E), located in Mumbai (Bombay), India, is constituted under the People’s Research Trust. R.U.P.E runs on voluntary labour and limited finances raised from personal contributions. It is not affiliated to any other body.

R.U.P.E is concerned with analysing, at the theoretical and empirical levels, various aspects of the economic life of the country and its institutions. It aims to compile, analyse and present information so as to enable people to understand the actual mechanics of their everyday economic life. And in this it aims to take the assistance and insights of people engaged in every sphere of productive work and society.

It feels that much of the research currently carried out with heavy funding is conditioned directly and indirectly by the implicit frame set by the funders.

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The R.U.P.E publishes Aspects of India’s Economy, a journal which aims to explain aspects of people’s everyday economic life in terms that can easily be understood, and to link them with the nature of the country’s political economy. It also publishes a blog at rupeindia.wordpress.com.

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