Using their cell phones, Bharti Airtel users will be able to make virtual payments at several restaurants and retail outlets.

Airtel, the country’s largest mobile service provides has recently received a go ahead from the Reserve Bank of India that would allow it to collect a maximum of Rs 5000 from its customers. This can be converted into virtual money and saved on the handset and used by the user at outlets that have a tie up with Airtel.

Over the next couple of months several other leading telecom operators are also slated to receive semi closed wallet license.

With over 650 million mobile phone users present in the country, all telecom operates are vying to offer various financial services that can be used to make payments across various sectors. Such services are already prevalent in countries like South Korea, Japan, certain markets of Europe and parts of China.

RBI in its annual monetary policy had announced earlier this year that it was looking to use mobile phones as a great medium for making banking facilities accessible even in remote areas of the country, provided the cellular operators and the telecom companies co operate to make this initiative a success.

In a statement Bharti Airtel said “Semi-closed wallets are prepaid payment instruments that are redeemable at a group of clearly-identified merchant locations/ establishments which contract specifically with the issuer to accept the payment instrument. These instruments do not permit cash withdrawal or redemption by the holder.”

M-money or mobile money payment has already been introduced by Bhutan Telecom which is a one stop shop for making payments.

No timeframe ahs been indicated by the company for launch of these services.

“Currently we are evaluating various options that this license provides to find out how best we can create a value proposition for Airtel customers. It is imperative to design a safe & convenient deployment before we can take to the market,” its statement added.

As the demand for automobiles reach a new height in India owing to several conducive factors like low interest rates, higher disposable income and a reviving economy, several auto manufacturers have decided to make the country their export hub. This has mainly contributed to the country topping the list and moving to the seventh position in the list of top most vehicle manufacturing countries.

At an FICCI function, B S Meena, the Secretary for Ministry of Heavy Industries has commented that the government had projected that the country would reach the seventh position by 2016 while drafting the Automotive Mission plan.

However, this goal has now been achieved six years before the estimated time frame. B S Meena has also added that the country is expected to reach the top five positions within 2020.

As of now, China maintains its stance as the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer and it is followed by the United States of America in the second place. As per the Automotive Mission Plan 2016, the main aim is to clock a turnover of USD 145 billion in 2016 by the automotive sector. The other aim is to provide employment within the next 10 years to at least 25 million people.

In 2005 – 2006 the turnover f the automotive sector was at just USD 34 billion and close to 13.1 million people were being employed either directly or indirectly by the automotive sector.

The telecom minister on Tuesday has stated that India hoped that the ongoing security issue concerning BlackBerry services would be resolved and the government would receive access to the electronic messages.

Meanwhile RIM, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry services is facing flak in other countries, especially in the Middle East too. The governments here fear that consumers might take undue advantage of the secure services provided by blackberry to aid terrorism or peddle pornography.

RIM’s encrypted messaging and mail service has been threatened to be shut down in India, unless the government gained access to it.

Earlier this month, India began accessing some of the traffic carried on this Smartphone device as part of the campaign that unmonitored messaging and mails could put the country’s security at risk.

Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja told reporters “I do hope it will be resolved.”

On august 30th 2010, RIM had offered several ways in which the authorities could monitor the Blackberry communications, said the Interior Ministry in India. Over the next 60 days, the feasibility of these methods would be checked by the government.

Raja however refused to reveal the solutions offered by RIM and said “We are periodically reviewing.”

However, the encrypted corporate email being at the heart of RIM’s business, RIM has insisted that they would not be able to decode this service.

The company is yet to confirm if India’s security agencies have started accessing Blackberry traffic.

While notices have also been sent to Skype and Google, India is also urging RIM to set up a local server in the country, which would allow the security agencies to monitor the entire web data easily.

The Telecom Commission, Raja has confirmed would also offer bail out options to the new telecom operations who are struggling to stay afloat in the overcrowded 15 player telecom market in India. These companies are facing a lot of issues due to the low tariffs and the high operational costs.

As per the current regulations in India, the telecom operators cannot sell out their operations within three years of their existence. The last batch of telecom operators who received their license in 2008 would have to wait another year to sell out.

Raja also said “In the last operators’ meeting, it was highlighted bailout provisions may be done. It will be discussed in the Telecom Commission”.

A strategic tie up between Olive Telecom and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has been accounted. Olive Telecom is a leading Convergence Solutions Device Developer in the market and it has tied up with BSNL who to offer the 3G embedded Zipbook V-X108. This Zipbook would be bundled with the 3G connectivity from BSNL across India.

Powered by Intel Pentium N450 processor, the Olive Zipbook would operate on windows 7 OS and offer Windows Works, Security essentials and Windows Live.  The Zipbooks aims to offer the customer a powerful computing machine and an ideal mobile broadband experience.

An attractive package of free 6GB download per month for three months is what is available to the customers as a package.

The Chairman of Olive Telecom has commented on the new service stating “Our endeavor has always been to provide the consumer with on the move connectivity solutions. We have partnered with leading distributors and resellers to penetrate deeper into the Indian market. We believe that the market has immense potential and thus we are firming up our presence and have aggressive plans to reach out to customers across several touch points in the region. I am sure this association will go a long way and will further strengthen our position in the Indian market.”

This Zipbook is now available only for Rs 20,999/- and comes with a 1.3 mega pixel camera. This Zipbook would be available across the Karnataka region in all leading stores.

Several other futuristic, cutting edge products too have been showcased by the company like cell phones starting at Rs 999 which include touch screen phones, dual power hybrid phones, triple sim phones, clamshell phones, slider phones, candy bar phones and others.  WCDMA, GSM and CDMA and mobile broadband access phones, Smartphone, advanced data modems, mobile computing devices are just some of the products that are part of the new Olive Convergence portfolio.

The General Manager (S & M-CM), Karnataka circle for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mr. N. Chandrashekara added “We are pleased to partner with Olive telecommunication in providing 3G solutions through their innovatively designed 3G Zipbook.”