As political developments over the past year seem to have weakened the hold on power of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Adani Group has been reaching out to leaders of political parties opposed to Modi’s ruling BJP party. Is Group head Gautam Adani of the view that his proximity to Modi may work against his business interests in the future?
Global Village Foundation, a Delhi-based “think-tank” with close links to RSS and BJP-led Haryana government, filed a petition that led Supreme Court to stay proceedings of a commission of inquiry instituted by the West Bengal government into allegations that Israeli Pegasus software was used to spy on several Indian politicians, activists, court workers, public servants, and journalists. Why? An exclusive investigation for NewsClick.
This is an eye-witness account of the weekend’s protest by hundreds of Indian tribal people (Adivasi) against coal projects in the Hasdeo forests. They gathered in one of the threatened villages to call on the Adani Group and governments to end the takeover of ancestral lands for coal mining. It was the first step along a 300-km path to the state capital that started on Monday, facing down attempts by supporters of Adani’s coal-mining agenda to disrupt the peaceful protest.
An Indian government authority that investigates violations of customs law has alleged that three Adani Group companies have used intermediaries to artificially inflate the prices of imported coal-power goods. This practice, known as over-invoicing, enables companies to enrich a related third party and even to launder money, while passing on costs to consumers. The allegations against the Adani Group companies have bounced around inside the legal system for years, with little progress.
India’s opposition Congress party has alleged that India’s Modi government has taken steps to ease the process of privatizing the Container Corporation of India (CCI) in order to expedite a takeover by the Adani Group. The Opposition has warned of a potential Adani monopoly over India’s import-export transport infrastructure.
A recent protest against alleged encroachment on pasture by an Adani solar-power project in the western Indian state of Rajasthan was the latest in a series of conflicts spurred by an aggressive plan for huge arrays of solar panels in this arid zone. The sprawling industrial installations threaten ancestral grazing lands, oases and some of the last habitat of the Great Indian Bustard. Such conflicts could be avoided with proper regulation and community consultation.
The prices of shares of six publicly-listed companies in the Adani Group fell off the cliff on Monday after India’s securities depository froze the trading accounts of three Mauritius-based funds that hold stakes worth close to US $6 billion in these Group firms. At their lowest level, the six stocks fell in value by an estimated 17.7 billion Australian dollars.
A Bangla language op-ed about how communism in West Bengal needs the emergence of a Dalit Communist party to revive
In a rare instance of not getting its way, the Adani Group failed earlier this year to acquire the assets of the scandal-tainted finance company, DHFL. However, with messy legal disputes potentially de-railing the outcome of the bankruptcy process, there is a chance that a fresh round of bidding may yet take place. This would put Adani back in the race for DHFL’s assets.
