Many renound telecoms firms including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Etisalat will be on the race for third-generation (3G) Indian mobile spectrum in an April auction. The auction will start on April 9.  Bharti Airtel & Vodafone already applied for the auction for all of India's 22 telecoms zones. Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat , which has a telecoms joint venture in India didn’t applied for the auction yet but expected to apply before the end of deadline on Friday. Reliance Communications & Tatas also placed their bid for third-generation (3G) Indian mobile spectrum. India's fifth-ranked mobile firm and 26 percent owned by NTT DoCoMo , submitted its interest to bid on Thursday.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today held talks with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese counterpart at the Great Hall in Beijing in a bid to boost bilateral cooperation as she underlined the need to deepen the "comprehensive partnership" with Beijing. Today they signed three accords (Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, Framework Agreement on Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory, and the Agreement on the 7th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge) with China, aimed at strengthening cooperation in the fields of economy, technology and infrastructure. They have also signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and energy cooperation.