India - DoT cautions BSNL against Chinese vendors for GSM contract.

India's Department of Telecom (DoT) has cautioned state-owned operator BSNL against selecting Chinese providers ZTE and Huawei for its INR 50 billion contract for 15 million GSM lines, citing home ministry and Intelligence Bureau concerns, reported The Economic Times. In its earlier tenders, BSNL had decided that Chinese vendors would only be selected for areas that were not sensitive and did not share international boundaries with China and Pakistan. The Intelligence Bureau has now said that this criterion of restricting Chinese vendors to select geographies would no longer work as gear makers were …