Archives: All articles - English

Gurugram: On Friday, the Centre for Justice and Accountability, a non-profit organisation based in San Francisco, California, the US, filed a complaint with the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee on behalf of Ahimsa Wickrematunge, daughter of slain Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was murdered on January 8, 2009, the international news agency Associated Press reported. The committee is a body of experts established by the International Covenant on Civil and Political...

IN recent weeks, a series of attempts have been made by governments in different countries, notably Australia and the United States, to curb the overweening dominance of two of the biggest digital monopolies on the planet. Unlike many parts of the world where a consensus has emerged that the unrestrained dominance of Alphabet (the parent company of Google, YouTube and the Android operating system on mobile phones) and Facebook (including WhatsApp and Instagram) is terrible for humankind, the...

Bengaluru/Gurugram: On September 23, Annapurna Devi, member of the Lok Sabha from Koderma, Jharkhand, and R K Singh Patel, MP from Banda, Uttar Pradesh, both belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wrote letters to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, levelling allegations of financial malpractices against Sanjay Gupta, the resolution professional appointed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to manage the corporate insolvency resolution proceedings for the ailing...

Gurugram: In a regulatory filing for the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on November 26, CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited (earlier Crompton Greaves Limited) announced that all its existing directors––Ashish Guha, Sudhir Mathur, Ramni Nirula, Jitender Balakrishnan, Narayan Seshadri, Pradeep Mathur, Aditi Raja and Rathin Roy––had resigned from the company and its subsidiaries. In their place, six new directors were appointed, signalling the change in...

Gurugram: On November 20, banks that had loaned money to CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited (formerly Crompton Greaves Limited), which used to be headed by Gautam Thapar, agreed to a one-time loan restructuring programme paving the way for the Murugappa group to take over the well-known power equipment manufacturer. Once among India’s high-profile, jet-setting corporate captains, why is Thapar a beleaguered man today? He has been ousted from the company he once headed. He cannot leave the...

Bengaluru/Gurugram: In a letter dated September 20 to Union Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, Kumar Ketkar, has claimed that the government’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is failing to collect huge amounts running into lakhs of crore rupees in back payments of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues that it is entitled to claim from Mukesh Ambani-headed Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). Ambani is India’s and Asia’s richest man and also one of...

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...