The government, in consultation with the Intelligence Bureau, has prepared a list of 26 Chinese and Israeli telecom equipment manufacturing companies that are being temporarily banned from supplying equipment to Indian telecom operators until new network security norms are put in place. The list includes companies like Lenovo, Huawei Technologies, ZTE, UTStarcom and Israeli telecom manufacturer Comverse. The Indian government has taken this step as it lacks the infrastructure to oversee the entire telecom equipment supply chain or to conduct a security audit of mobile networks. At present, it is not in a position to assess the security implications of importing equipment from these companies.
