Congress figurehead, Rahul Gandhi, has said tribal protests against Adani’s coal mines in the Hasdeo forests are ‘justified’. Results of his work behind the scenes on the ‘problem’ should be ‘visible in a couple of weeks.’
A firm owned by a long-time friend of Gautam Adani is running lucrative covid tests at Adani-run airports in India. The firm appears to have charged rates that are substantially higher than those charged by laboratories at other airports. The company, North Star Diagnostics Private Limited, is owned by Adani’s long-time buddy Dr Malay Ramesh Mahadevia and his immediate family members, including his wife Sonali Mahadevia and his two daughters Tulsi and Bansari.
The firm, Opalina Technologies, was involved in the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign. Shivnath Thukral owned stake in this firm, and his father continues to do so. Shivnath Thukral, a public policy director, India, at WhatsApp Inc (owned by Facebook, now known as Meta) since March 2020, had once owned a stake in Opalina Technologies – a company that has provided software solutions for India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, the prime minister’s office, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The privatisation of Pawan Hans Limited – the Indian government-owned helicopter operator – is shrouded in mystery. The entity that has acquired a controlling stake in Pawan Hans is Star9 Mobility Private Limited, a consortium led by a Dubai-based company about which little information is available. Indian regulators had imposed sanctions on this company, which appears not to have satisfied the eligibility criteria.
The privatisation of the public sector helicopter operator raises questions that the government so far has refused to answer. An investigation by The Wire and NewsClick. On April 29, 2022, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved Star9 Mobility Private Limited’s bid to buy the government’s 51% stake in public sector helicopter service provider Pawan Hans Limited for Rs 211 crore.
Since March 16, the displaced persons, led by Oram, were sitting on an indefinite dharna protesting further displacement and demanding the implementation of recommendations made by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
On 28 March 2022, Adivasi (tribal) protesters were arrested and jailed in the Sundergarh district of the state of Odisha in eastern India for obstructing construction work on a railway line that is intended to carry coal mined by Adani in Australia to an Adani coal power station in India.
The way Patanjali acquired Ruchi Soya is an instructive example of nationalised banks, regulatory institutions and tribunals enabling massive wealth accumulation.
In a controversial decision that will benefit the Adani Group to the detriment of tribal forest-dwellers, leaders of the Indian states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have sanctioned clearance of forests to expand an Adani coal mine. In an unpleasant twist, while Gautam Adani is perceived to be close to PM Narendra Modi of the BJP, this decision was made by leaders of the Indian National Congress, which opposes Modi’s party.
