iWorld
Bharti Airtel set to acquire Loop for Rs 700 crore
MUMBAI: India’s largest cellular carrier, Bharti Airtel, is set to acquire small mobile operator Loop Mobile for about Rs 300 crore, according to reports. This would be the first merger in six years in an industry long seen as ripe for consolidation.
Loop, which operates only in Mumbai with about three million subscribers, was up for grabs as a potential acquisition as its spectrum licence lapses on 28 November.
If Bharti completes the acquisition it will overtake Vodafone India and become the market leader in terms of customer numbers, although not by revenue in Mumbai – which is one of the biggest cellphone markets in India.
The deal – if it happens – would also see Bharti take on Loop’s debt of nearly Rs 400 crore.
Industry consolidation has been slow to take place in the world’s second-largest cellular market due to challenging merger rules, including a new requirement that the buyer pay separately for the target company’s airwaves based on prices determined at an auction.
Loop Telecom, an associate company of Loop Mobile, lost its permits in 21 of India’s 22 teleco service areas after the Supreme Court order on the 2008 wireless permits. Loop has denied any wrongdoing.
Loop’s main investor is Dubai-based Khaitan Holdings, whose founders are related to the founding family of Indian conglomerate Essar Group. Essar owns over a per cent in Loop.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
