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Gurugram/Bengaluru: The September 3 decision of the Supreme Court in the so-called Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) case has left wide open the question of whether the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the Union Ministry of Communications must be paid past dues by telecommunications companies (telcos) that have undergone or are undergoing insolvency proceedings. At stake is Rs 38,959 crore that the DoT is owed by three companies – Aircel, Reliance Communications (RCom), and Videocon...

On October 16, the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, issued a clarification to the note it had issued on September 18, 2019 “liberalising” the foreign direct investment (FDI) regime for digital news media entities by specifying that those “engaged in uploading/streaming of news and current affairs…have been permitted FDI up to 26% through the Government approval route.” The following categories of entities, registered or located in India...

Bengaluru/Gurugram: In April 2017, one of the authors of this article met the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, in Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. The purpose of the meeting was to ask him a question for a book that was published by Penguin Random House later that year titled, Thin Dividing Line: India, Mauritius and Global Illicit Financial Flows, authored by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta with Shinzani Jain. At the meeting over tea and snacks in ornate cutlery, the discussion moved to a...

On October 8, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan died at the age of 74. This was less than a week after he went through a heart surgery. Tributes started pouring in from all ends of the political spectrum. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “I am saddened beyond words. There is a void in our nation that will perhaps never be filled. Shri Ram Vilas Paswan Ji’s demise is a personal loss. I have lost a friend, valued colleague and someone who was...

India’s mediascape has changed dramatically in less than a decade. The pace of these changes has accelerated since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic recession. Across the world and in this country as well, daily newspapers and periodicals on paper are closing down faster than ever before; advertising flows from private corporate entities have reduced drastically; journalists are being thrown out of their jobs or being asked to accept deep salary cuts, and...

Gurugram: The assets of two bankrupt companies in the Mumbai-headquartered, Nagpur-based Uttam group of companies, promoted by members of the Miglani family, are being sought to be purchased by firms owned by non-resident Indians under the statutory Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The processes are, however, being questioned, past complaints to tribunals as well as a recent affidavit filed on September 26 in the Supreme Court, reveal. The two companies are Uttam Value Steels Limited (UVSL)...

Gurugram: The decade of the 1980s saw one of the most talked-about clashes in corporate India between late Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of the Reliance group of companies, and Nusli Wadia, the head of Bombay Dyeing, a rival manufacturer of synthetic textiles. In his biography of Ambani, titled The Polyester Prince, published in January 1997, Hamish McDonald detailed the high-profile battle. His book was not available in India due to legal disputes till many years later, in a different version...

There are conspiracy theories galore as to why WhatsApp, the messaging application of the global social media monopoly, Facebook Inc., has been unable to offer a mobile internet-based payments service to its 400 million-plus users in India. Is it on account of lawsuits pending before the Supreme Court? Are two organisations, the country’s central bank and apex monetary authority, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella body vetting...

Bengaluru/Gurugram: On August 31, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, that included Justices Vineet Saran and M R Shah, ruled in favour of a company in the Adani group in a dispute with public sector power distribution companies in Rajasthan. The verdict, issued three days before Justice Mishra retired from the court on September 2, has granted Adani Power Rajasthan Limited (APRL) – which owns a 1,320 megawatt capacity thermal power station in Kawai, Baran district –...

On September 1, a Supreme Court bench led by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justices S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah ruled on the so-called AGR (or Adjusted Gross Revenues) issue relating to back-payments for use of spectrum that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is claiming from private companies. The verdict, one of Justice Mishra’s final rulings prior to his retirement on September 2, was on petitions filed by the DoT and by telecom companies to permit a staggered payment schedule...