The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: A former bureaucrat has written a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) expressing his concerns over the DOT rushing into allowing Elon Musk’s Starlink to enter India’s satellite spectrum space.
In his letter dated February 23 to DOT secretary Neeraj Mittal, E.A.S. Sarma, former secretary to the Government of India, has cited a report that suggests that US is arm twisting Ukraine into signing a mineral deal and threatening to shut off Starlink if the country refuses.
“(The report) refers to how the US has literally threatened Ukraine “to shut off Starlink if Ukraine won’t sign minerals deal”, which should sound a serious warning to DOT and the government about the way DOT indiscriminately rushed into allowing Elon Musk’s Starlink to enter India’s satellite spectrum space, bypassing the competitive bidding route, going to the extra-ordinary extent of even flouting the apex court’s direction that satellite spectrum should be allotted to private players exclusively through a transparent auction procedure,” says the letter written by Sarma.
“In other words, the US government is trying to use Starlink as a cleaver to secure several other nationally strategic advantages from Ukraine,” the letter adds.
‘Countries like India should be extra-careful in dealing with Starlink’
Sarma has also cited letters previously written by him in October and November last year, cautioning the government not to violate the apex court’s direction on auctioning satellite spectrum and to tread cautiously in allowing Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate in India.
Sarma had said that Musk’s other companies are actively collaborating with the US government in defence and other strategic sectors and therefore not to allow foreign agencies in the strategically sensitive domain of satellite spectrum use. He had also suggested that the Indian government should preferably reserve satellite spectrum in India for own strategic uses such as defence and ISRO’s operations.
“Now that there are reports of the US government openly leveraging Starlink’s presence in war-stricken Ukraine to extract a lion’s share in that country’s mineral resources, countries like India should be extra-careful in dealing with StarLink,” Sarma has said in the letter.
“It is unfortunate that your department had chosen to go out of the way to welcome Starlink with open arms to appropriate precious satellite spectrum against all legal norms, ignoring all statrategic implications,” Sarma added.
Sarma said that he is not sure whether Starlink, already permitted to enter India, has agreed to each and every security requirement prescribed for other domestic telecom players.
There have been reports that Starlink had demanded exemption from some security clauses that go with licenses and that DOT under duress had agreed to grant such exemptions, he added.
‘It is important that Starlink is not allowed to gain undue dominance in satellite spectrum’
“In view of the latest report on how the US seems to be arm-twisting Ukraine, I suggest that DOT reviews the license clauses and tightens restrictions on Starlink and also incorporate adequate safeguards in the license against a Ukraine kind of an eventuality,” said Sarma in the letter.
“It is important that Starlink is not allowed to gain undue dominance in satellite spectrum use vis-a-vis other players and that it is not allowed to have the ability of disrupting communications.
“At the same time, I would once again strongly urge upon DOT not to allow private players to use satellite spectrum in the first instance and, instead, reserve it exclusively for defence, ISRO’s space operations and other activities important from India’s national interest point of view,” he added in the letter.