Saturday, April 17, 2010

Centre bans SMS in J&K, then backtracks

Within hours of banning the SMS service for post-paid subscribers and restricting the facility for pre-paid users in Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre on Friday withdrew its order following a strong protest by the state which charged the telecom and the home ministries with `goofing-up' on the entire issue due to poor understanding of the matter.

Earlier in the day, citing security reasons, the telecom ministry had asked service providers in J&K to ban SMS for post-paid subscribers and restrict the facility to 10 messages per day per pre-paid subscriber with effect from Friday midnight.

State chief minister Omar Abdullah, however, immediately lodged a protest with the Union home ministry, which, in turn, asked the telecom ministry to withdraw its order.

It is now learnt that the telecom ministry will come out with a fresh directive on the SMS service in due course. This will be done only after a thorough discussion of the issue among officials of the state government and the telecom and home ministries. 

Source  : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Centre-bans-SMS-in-JK-then-backtracks/articleshow/5822540.cms

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