Bharti

Sunil Bharti Mittal awarded the “Dataquest IT Man of the Year 2002”

New Delhi, December 20, 2002 : Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Group Managing Director of India’s leading integrated telecom Group Bharti Enterprises, was today unanimously declared the “Dataquest IT Man of the Year Award for 2002”. This honour comes close on the heels of Mr. Mittal being selected as the Business India “Businessman of the Year – 2002”.

The Dataquest Award will be presented to Mr. Mittal by the Honourable Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Communications & Information Technology, Mr. Pramod Mahajan on December 20, 2002 at a function that will bring together the top 300 CEOs of the Indian Infotech and communications industries.

Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal was unanimously selected for the Award by a panel of highly distinguished judges comprising eminent achievers in their respective fields like IBM India President Abraham Thomas, NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik and Microsoft India President Rajiv Nair. The panel was chaired by the Honourable Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Communications & Information Technology, Mr. Pramod Mahajan.

“I am pleased that my efforts at enabling faster and more affordable communications for the Indian consumers is playing a significant part in developing this vital telecom infrastructure industry in India,” said Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Mr. Mittal’s dynamism and foresight in leading Bharti into a leadership position in the industry and building a basket of powerful brands in the mobile, fixed-line, internet and long distance communications has been recognized by a number of prestigious Indian and international awards.

In selecting Mr. Mittal as the IT Man of the Year, the panel of judges had surveyed a field of nearly one hundred top entrepreneurs and CEOs from the Information Technology and Telecommunications sector in the country. These leaders were then assessed against rigorous parameters like the impact they and their company had on the spread and penetration of information and information technology in India. After due deliberation, the panel of judges came to the unanimous conclusion that Mr. Sunil Mittal stood the tallest.

The Dataquest IT Man of the Year award last year was presented to Mr. Pramod Mahajan and in the past has been presented to legends like Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Azim Premji of Wipro and the late Dewang Mehta who founded NASSCOM and nurtured it into a beacon for the Indian software service industry.

Instituted in 1993 by the Cyber Media India, the Dataquest IT Man of the Year Award recognizes only those leaders whose foresight and vision have resulted in creating new opportunities for themselves and the country in a core sector of the national economy like information technology and telecommunications.

A few days back Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal was presented with the Business India ‘Businessman of the Year’ award at a glittering ceremony by Dy. Prime Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani.

About Bharti Tele-Ventures :Bharti Tele-Ventures is India's leading private sector provider of telecommunications services based on an aggregate of approximately 3,069,000 customers as of November 30, 2002, consisting of approximately 2,654,500 mobile, 296,000 fixed-line and 118,500 dial up Internet customers. The Company through its subsidiaries also provides fixed-line, VSAT, Internet services and network solutions. The Company has also commenced offering national and international long distance services.

Bharti Tele-Ventures is India's leading private sector provider of telecommunications services based on an aggregate of approximately 3,069,000 customers as of November 30, 2002, consisting of approximately 2,654,500 mobile, 296,000 fixed-line and 118,500 dial up Internet customers. The Company through its subsidiaries also provides fixed-line, VSAT, Internet services and network solutions. The Company has also commenced offering national and international long distance services.

The Company today offers mobile services in Fifteen out of 22 circles in India. As of November 30, 2002, approximately 93% of India’s total number of mobile subscribers resided in Bharti’s existing and proposed mobile circles, according to COAI reports. Bharti Tele-Ventures was the first private sector operator to provide fixed-line services in India when it commenced providing services in the Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh circle in June 1998. BTVL recently launched its fixed-line services in the license areas of Haryana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and thus became the first private sector service provider to provide fixed-line services in all its licensed areas.

Bharti Tele-Ventures has always believed in creating strong partnerships with its joint venture partners. Today, SingTel and Warburg Pincus are its leading partners. The other partners include leading international financial investors such as International Finance Corporation, Asian Infrastructure Fund Group and New York Life Insurance.