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Sridhar Vembu hits out at Elon Musk over sarcastic post amid Starlink in India row
Sridhar Vembu reacted to a sarcastic tweet from Elon Musk amid the ongoing controversy over Starlink in India.
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Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has reacted to a tweet by SpaceX CEO and the world's richest man, Elon Musk, over X. After Musk’s recent tweet about the ongoing controversy over satellite internet service Starlink trying to enter the Indian market, Vembu shared a post claiming India has “the lowest data prices in the world”.
In a long series of his rant-filled posts about Starlink’s absence in the Indian market, the tech leader took a sarcastic dig at Ambanis. Vembu reacted to the post defending the low data prices in India.
Retweeting Musk’s post, he said, “India has the among the lowest data prices in the world. It is so good that I don't even bother to connect to local Wifi when I travel in India and just tether my phone to work on my computer. Indians routinely have dual SIM phones with large data plans because they are so affordable.”
As a part of his post, the entrepreneur added, “India has among the lowest drug prices in the world (and going lower still). People who visit India buy medicines to take home quite regularly now. India has among the lowest cost payment systems in the world in UPI.”
Communications minister rejects Musk’s claims:
In an earlier post on X, Musk claimed his satellite internet service, Starlink, was being blocked by “certain oligarchs” in India. Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia reacted to it, rejecting the billionaire's claims.
“Now let me be very clear, India does not allow monopoly in any sector… even as satcom is concerned, there is not a single licensee that has been chosen. Licences have been given to everyone who wants to provide these licences,” he said.
The minister added that a total of three companies have acquired licenses to offer satcom services in India. They are Elon Musk’s Starlink, Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s satellite venture Jio Satcom.
Musk claims Starlink saves lives:
In one of his tweets on India, the xAI CEO claimed, “Also, Starlink has proven to be essential for saving lives during natural disasters throughout the world, when all other communications systems have failed, so you would also be helping save men, women and children throughout India.”
