NEW DELHI: After Airtel and Jio announced partnerships with Starlink in the last couple of days, opposition Congress and CPM on Thursday raised national security concerns and the former alleged that the deals were “orchestrated” by PM Narendra Modi “to buy goodwill” with US President Donald Trump through Starlink owner Elon Musk.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Airtel and Jio had announced partnerships with Starlink within 12 hours of each other, seemingly overcoming their objections to its entry into India.
“It is abundantly clear that these partnerships have been orchestrated by none other than the PM himself to buy goodwill with President Trump through Starlink owner Elon Musk,” he alleged.
“But many questions remain. Perhaps the most important one relates to national security. Who will have the power to switch connectivity on or off when national security demands it? Will it be Starlink or its Indian partners? Will other satellite-based connectivity providers also be permitted and on what basis?” Ramesh asked on X.
He added that the much larger question of Tesla manufacturing in India remained unanswered. “Is there some commitment to it now that Starlink’s entry into India has been facilitated,” he asked.
Pointing out that “Supreme Court had held in the 2G case that spectrum is a scarce resource and can be allocated to private players only through open, transparent auction”, the CPM politburo said, “Any private deal for allocating spectrum would be a violation of the law of the land.
Jio, Airtel and Starlink coming together to form a cartel to dominate satellite spectrum use will be at the cost of millions of telecom subscribers in India.” CPM added that satellite spectrum should be allocated exclusively for strategic uses, such as defence and Isro operations.
The party said telecom services were critical for a country’s defence. “It is now known that US threats to stop Starlink services to Ukraine military forced Zelensky to concede US demands on handing over its natural resources and negotiating with Russia under US aegis,” it added.
