In the opening session, Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare said India stood "at the forefront of global space transformation", citing policy reforms and the creation of IN-SPACe, a government body set up to promote private sector participation in the country's space sector, an official statement said.
During a high-level review, Singh assessed plans to establish space laboratories in universities and colleges across India, with seven such labs set to be launched in the first phase.
The company is also awaiting the crucial security clearance, which can only be granted if the government and security agencies are confident that they can control the situation, such as during a potential misuse of Starlink's internet services by rogue actors, said the people cited above.
Existing rules approved in the 1990s limit power usage by Starlink and other systems, and the FCC said the proposed revisions could boost capacity for space-based broadband services to as much as seven times current levels, enabling higher speeds, lower costs and greater reliability.
In a consultation paper on the framework for satellite communication network authorisation floated on Wednesday, Trai sought views of interested parties as to whether Direct-to-Device (D2D) service should be provided using spectrum meant for mobile satellite services or frequencies available for normal mobile services like 4G and 5G.
The government is yet to grant security clearance, though the company had demonstrated the security compliances a few months ago. The proposal is under review.
NavIC constellation is designed to provide position, navigation and timing (PNT) services over India and a region extending up to 1,500km from the Indian landmass for various applications such as civilian navigation, maritime operations and disaster management.
While the Dutch SC order has an immediate impact on Indian interests in the Netherlands - as it opens the door for Devas to target India's sovereign assets in the Dutch territory for recovery of the award - it is also likely to affect the ongoing litigation over the deal, including in the US.
Officials told ET DoT has studied Trai's clarifications on the issue and decided to stick to its option to levy 5% AGR as usage fee with a 1% discount for serving hard-to-connect areas as it is better suited and easy to implement. While Trai can give recommendations, the final call has to be taken by the government and it is not binding on the government to accept all the recommendations.
BSNL chairman A Robert Jerard Ravi, separately, said the organisation has stringent guidelines in place, and any violation would attract necessary punitive action.
During the meeting, Pemmasani and Palmer also discussed views on partnerships with Indian startups and entrepreneurs, opportunities to strengthen Make in India in the space and communications sector, and expanding safe, secure connectivity to remote and underserved areas across the country, according to the social media update.
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