On telecom security,India firm with China,gave in to US

This essentially created a level-playing field which finally let Chinese equipment enter Indian markets after adequately satisfying security concerns,a big roadblock for Chinese telecom companies.

But the US and many European companies firmly resisted this move and the issue came to a head during US President Barack Obama’s visit. It was said then that a committee of experts would look into these concerns. But no further progress has taken place. In the meantime,both approval processes seem to be under way,a fact confirmed by the USTR report.

“The guidelines apply to the purchase of imported products and do not apply to products manufactured in India by Indian-owned or Indian-controlled manufacturers… the new regulations sought to impose an inflexible and unworkable security approval process,which mandated the forced ‘transfer of technology’ to Indian companies,the escrowing of source code and other high-level and detailed designs,and assurances against malware and spyware during the entire use of the equipment,” stated USTR Ron Kirk in his compliance report.

Clearly,the government faced US pressure on this with Kirk recording that Washington “emphasised” to the Indian government that these measures “effectively halted billions of dollars worth of trade in telecommunications equipment and were unlikely to advance India’s security objectives. Recognising these concerns,the GoI suspended implementation of several of these conditions while it works to revise the policies in consultation with relevant stakeholders”.

Besides this,the report records US concerns on Indian efforts at imposing “stringent requirements” on encryption technologies. “Given that India’s national security concerns may be shared by many other countries,the United States has encouraged India to actively seek to address those concerns through policies that do not deviate from commonly accepted or best practices.”

Similarly,the US has put down its concerns over India authorising government intermediaries to purchase satellite capacity. “Foreign operators are required to first sell the DTH (direct-to-home) capacity to India’s domestic satellite operator,the Indian Space Research Organisation,which resells the capacity to DTH customers and maintains ownership of the customer.”

For the US,these constitute “barriers to supplying satellite services” and it would continue to push for changes in the current framework,the USTR confirmed.