The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
Stop Starlink Deal
The recent reports of Jio and Airtel’s tie-up with Elon Musk’s Starlink to offer high-speed satellite-based internet services in the country raises serious questions regarding spectrum allocation and national security concerns. The 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. 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.
Further, satellite spectrum should be allocated exclusively for strategic uses, such as defence and ISRO operations. This is not only a question of spectrum allocation but also the number of orbital slots a country has. Allowing such satellites to capture vital orbital slots but also use them for mapping our natural resources, gathering commercially valuable data, e.g., weather, the status of crops, and, of course, strategic military/defence data, would be against our national and security interests. Particularly as ISRO and other Indian agencies have the ability to do so.
Such telecom services are also critical for a country’s defence. It is now known that the US threats to stop Starlink services to the Ukraine military forced Zelensky to concede US demands on handing over its natural resources and negotiating with Russia under US aegis. Allowing a US company to acquire highly strategic satellite spectrum and orbital slots and create a space monopoly compromises our national sovereignty and security.