MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA, Spain, February 13 /PRNewswire/ --
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder, Chairman and Group CEO of India's Bharti
Enterprises was last night presented with the GSMA Chairman's Award, the
Association's most prestigious honour. This Award, established in 1995,
recognises outstanding contribution to the growth and development of mobile
communications around the world.

    Presenting the Award at the GSMA's Global Mobile Awards evening - one
of the highlights of the Mobile World Congress - in Barcelona's National
Palace, GSMA Chairman Craig Ehrlich said:

    "Sunil has built an incredibly successful business from scratch, one
which has had a truly transformational impact on our industry, on the
customers he serves and on India's economy. His brave and ambitious
strategies will continue to resonate across the country, our industry and
the business community globally, becoming a benchmark for emerging markets
worldwide. We congratulate Sunil, on what has been an immense personal
contribution to the vitality of the mobile world."

    Bharti Airtel is now India's leading private integrated telecom
company. With an innovative outsourcing model, dedicating major resource to
customer service and outsourcing the IT and the networks, Sunil was able to
reduce tariffs from more than 20 cents a minute to less than two cents,
catalysing a real shift in the economic model for emerging markets.

    On the receiving the award Sunil Bharti Mittal said, "This is a
tremendous honour and I would like to thank the GSM Association for
considering me worthy of this award. This award is a tribute to India's
telecom growth story, Bharti's vision and the emergence of Indian telcos on
the global stage. It has been a privilege for me personally and Bharti
Airtel to have been a part of this telecom revolution that has delivered
affordable telecom services for all and has transformed the lives of
millions across India."

    Sunil started his career after graduating from Punjab University,
founding Bharti in 1976, with a loan of just US$1500. Today, at 50 he heads
a diverse enterprise, among the top five in India, with a market
capitalization of over US$ 35 billion employing over 30,000 people.
Committed to his vision of connecting people via communication across the
broad spectrum of Indian society, Sunil has led a business revolution to
achieve his aim of sustainably serving and connecting the lowest income
strata of Indian society.

    Sunil's other passion is education. In a country, where 300 million
people do not have access to education, he has initiated a programme aimed
at delivering high quality primary education to poorest of children by
setting up hundreds of schools in the most remote villages of India.

    "He is now extending his Midas touch to Indian retail and Indian
agriculture. I just know he will do for these two sectors what he has done
for mobile - and Indian consumers will be the big winners," added Craig
Ehrlich.

    About the GSMA:

    The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association representing
more than 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and
territories of the world. In addition, more than 200 manufacturers and
suppliers support the Association's initiatives as key partners.

    The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless
services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to
individual customers and national economies, while creating new business
opportunities for operators and their suppliers. The Association's members
serve more than 2.5 billion customers - 85% of the world's mobile phone
users.

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