Amit Shah: Sunstroke

• Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah's son Jay Amitbhai Shah's Temple Enterprise Private Ltd. engaged in negligible activities and recorded losses in previous years. 
• In 2014-15, it showed a profit of Rs 18,728 on revenues of only Rs 50,000 before jumping to a turnover of Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16.
• Temple Enterprise’s revenues came at a time when the firm received an unsecured loan of Rs 15.78 crore from a financial services firm owned by Rajesh Khandwala, the samdhi (in-law) of Parimal Nathwani, a Rajya Sabha MP and top executive of Reliance Industries.
• Shah’s lawyer sent in a response with a warning that criminal and civil defamation proceedings would be launched in the event of “any slant or imputation which alleges or suggests any impropriety on his part.”
• During UPA-II, BJP confronted Congress party president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra, how he managed to grow his real estate businesses on the basis of unsecured loans from DLF. 
• The massive increase in revenues is coming from the “sale of products”. This included Rs 51 crore of foreign earnings, up from zero the previous year.
• The ROC filings reveal an unsecured loan of Rs 15.78 crore from a listed entity, KIFS Financial Services. The revenue of KIFS Financial Services for the same financial year when the loan was given was Rs 7 crore. The annual report of KIFS Financial Services does not reflect the Rs 15.78 crore unsecured loan given to Temple Enterprise.
• KIFS Financial Services promoter Rajesh Khandwala’s daughter is married to Parimal Nathwani’s son. Ahmedabad-based Nathwani heads the Gujarat operations of Reliance Industries. He is an independent member of parliament from the upper house. His re-election to the Rajya Sabha in 2014 was supported by BJP legislators in Jharkhand.
• Jay Shah’s lawyer said in his written response to The Wire stated that Rajesh Khandwala is an old friend of Shah's family.
• Specific question to Khandwala about why the annual report of KIFS Financial Services for the loan year does not mention the loan to Jay Shah’s company went unanswered.
• The massive increase in revenues is described in the filings as coming from the “sale of products”. This included Rs 51 crore of foreign earnings, up from zero the previous year.
• Shah’s filings with the RoC also reflect Rs 25 crore worth of finance from the Kalupur Commercial Cooperative Bank. The board of directors of the bank include individuals from the Nirma group and Nirma university. The chairman emeritus of the bank is Nirma’s Ambubhai Maganbhai Patel.
• Chudasama, a former director of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank, was chargesheeted by the CBI in 2010 for attempting to “convince, coerce, threaten, and influence witnesses on [Amit Shah’s] behalf to conceal the truth from the CBI” about the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser-bi. In 2015, a special CBI court discharged Chudasama from the case, just as it had discharged Amit Shah too in December 2014.
• Jay Shah’s partnership has also availed of a Rs 10.35 crore loan from IREDA. It is controlled by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Piyush Goyal was the minister at the time the loan was sanctioned.
• BJP will unleash 'whataboutery' technique instead of defending or explaining.

The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah

Kudos to Rohini Singh and The Wire for exhibiting courage to publish article against Modi & Amit Shah when entire media got subverted and dancing to Modi's tunes. The report created ripples on social media. Jay Amit Shah filing defamation case and his advocate abstaining from court speaks volumes. Piyush Goyal addressing a press conference defending a non-political entity but also proudly proclaiming that Jay Amit Shah would slap a 100 crore defamation suit against the organization and its reporter is only meek acknowledgement of facts. There was an eerie silence on news channels. In an ideal world this intimidation should have led to an outrage in the media. An investigative report should have been the subject of discussion, criticism, arguments and debate. Silence by intimidation being the last on the charter of a journalistic organization. The BJP leaders, including Union Railways minister Piyush Goyal and Home Minister Rajnath Singh have defended Jay Shah, even as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took potshots at BJP saying that BJP's campaign of Beti Bachao (save the girl child) now appears to have turned in to the campaign about Beta Bachao (save the son). All politicians are same whether BJP or Congress. They loot public money for personal enrichment. They are parasites barring very few exceptions. As the citizens of India, it is our right to demand that the govt and its loonies stop destroying an important hallmark of democracy [Media]. Who ever posed a threat to our media will be voted out. 

Modi's failures

Modi ascended to power in 2014 riding on the tsunami of anti-incumbency of scam ridden Congress led UPA. While Modi is still drawing huge crowds abroad with his charisma and is darling of upper middle classes which are in complete disconnect with lower classes, peasants & rural population is a colossal failure in India during the past two and half years, despite favorable crude oil prices at less than one third of its peak prices. Their argument that "those who governed us for 60 years should not ask for an appraisal in merely 24 months" is untenable.


Here is the list of failures:

1. Industry stagnating and exports are falling consistently.
2. Inflation especially food inflation is rising.
3. Job creation dismal. Textiles, leather, metals, automobiles, gems and jewellery, transport, information technology and the handloom sectors together created just 135,000 jobs during 2015, 67 per cent lower than 421,000 jobs that were added in 2014, the last year of the Manmohan Singh government.
4. Make in India remains a slogan only.
5. Bringing back black money in Swiss banks etc in 100 days remains a shallow promise.
6. PSU Bank's NPA doubled from Rs.2.86 to Rs.5.71 lakh crores in the past one year, due to default by corporate's close to ruling BJP. Improving liquidity or recapitalization needed urgently for banks remain operational.
7. Despite crude oil prices falling by 70% from its peak prices, consumer sale prices were reduced by just 15%. GOI retained 85% advantage to itself by increasing excise duty etc.
8. Riding on the wave of low oil prices, Modi government hasn't made any meaningful impact on Indian economy so far.
9. The BJP had promised to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP) at the rate of cost of production along with 50 per cent profit. Agricultural sector is in distress with  no hike in Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farmers.
10. The biggest failure, however, is the mishandling of the agriculture and drought situation across the country and the continuing neglect of agriculture. While Modi promises to double agricultural incomes, it is yet to be seen how he will achieve that target. Agricultural growth rate has fallen from about an average of 3.7 per cent per year under UPA to just about one per cent in Modi's tenure.
11. The drought situation was totally neglected. The drought manuals and rules by the government itself said that water trains and tankers are to be pressed into service as last resort and number of steps ought to have been taken before reaching that step which the government at the centre and state missed. Lack of seriousness by the government of India in assessing and mitigating the drought situation and crisis worsened afflicting nearly 33 crore Indians across several states. Drought is, perhaps, the only natural calamity one can plan against in advance, unlike floods and earthquakes. National Disaster Management Authority manual on management of drought speaks of "drought mitigation" as part of public policy and not just drought relief but this was clearly lost on the Modi government.
12. All schemes are being renamed and repacked with reduced central contributions passing on the burden on states. They are unable to conceive any new sensible scheme so far on their own.
13. Cross border firings and ceasefire violations in Jammu & Kashmir are at a high.
14. Modi's Pakistan policy and his foreign policy is defective. It has been driven by style over substance, adventurism over analysis; by self projection, vanity and petty domestic political calculations over larger interests. The ministry of external affairs has been more like a tour operator or logistics handler, and not a source of policy and executive inputs. Modi's relentless foreign travel remained pleasure trips burdening exchequer.
15. Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) remained a big failure, despite tough talk.
16. Demonetization of big notes of Nov 8, 2016, except for its secrecy in unveiling failed to achieve any of its stated objectives viz. black money, fake money, terrorist financing & corruption except causing disruption to civic life in all segments especially informal economy, agriculture and rural economy apart from causing innumerable difficulties for common man for exchanging old notes or withdrawing their own cash from banks. About 70 people died standing in bank/ATM queues and 15 bank employees died due stress and long work hours continuously. Manmohan Singh had rightly remarked that "I do not disagree with the objectives but the process of demonetization is monumental mismanagement and is a case of organised loot and legalized plunder of the common people".
17. Failed to recover Rs.8,000 crores lent to King Fischer Vijay Mallya who has absconded and banks have just written off as bad loans.
18. GST bill still incomplete.
19. Swachh Bharat, Yoga, LPG subsidy give up & Cashless transaction campaigns, even though good, doesn't deserve that much high decibel campaigns.
20. Smart Cities & Digital India projects are yet to take off from the ground despite announcements a year ago.
21. Has not fulfilled many of the AP Reorganization Act 2014 commitments or BJP promises of 2014 election campaigns to Andhra Pradesh. Whatever little has been done was with delay of two years reducing its impact and results.
22. Diverting lot of money for his pet project Ahmedabad - Mumbai bullet train which serves only rich & upper middle classes with ticket price of Rs.3,000.
23. Many agreements and concessions for enriching richer people but nothing for poor or rural population.
24. Modi and his Cabinet colleagues foreign trips cost the exchequer Rs.567 crore during 2015-16, an increase of more than 80% from the previous year Rs 269 crore. This is besides the over Rs.500 crore spent by his bureaucrats on their foreign travel.
25. Reliance has resorted to stealing gas from ONGC gas fields during 2009-11 to the tune of Rs.12,000 crores. Against the consultant recommended claim of ONGC for Rs.30,000 crores Modi passed orders on Reliance to pay up Rs.10,000 crores recently. This was contested in courts by Reliance.
26. Recollect BJP's political failed adventures in Uttarakhand and Arunchal Pradesh to usurp power leading to a suicide by an innocent Ex-CM in Arunachal Pradesh. It was rumored that BJP spent Rs.15 crore per MLA crossing in intense horse-trading.
27. NDA and all state governments are spending lots of money on advertisement campaigns while doing very little on the ground.
28. While Assam's BJP win can't be termed as endorsement of Modi's government, Delhi & Bihar's defeat is a clear rejection for Modi. In all the five states that went to the polls recently, BJP dropped its vote share since 2014, and minus Assam. Even the Congress party scored nearly twice as many Assembly segments compared to the BJP. The Modi tsunami is now withdrawing back to the sea and those who revelled when it hit the coast are now in a real danger of being drowned by it.
29. Artificial JNU controversy on nationalism is another black spot on Modi.
30. Modi government seemed more keen on confrontation than conciliation in order to get tricky legislation's passed. Consequently, very little has actually got done on the development and economic front.

The reason for the victory of Narendra Modi was the tremendous support he got from first-time young voters and floating voters who saw him as the best alternative then may very well change their opinion come 2019 and that is the nature of a fence sitter who isn't ideologically wedded to what the BJP represents.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel but in the case of Modi's government, pseudo-patriotism is the last resort of the incompetent.

My View:

The last two years, if seen in totality, offer very little for the Modi government to gloat about. Modi government harping on the past that Congress hasn't done anything is futile. While Congress was certainly bad, they never meddled with the lives & livelihood of poor & peasants. In the absence of strengthening Lok Pal & RTI bringing Politicians, Bureaucrats, Judiciary & Businessmen under its purview, granting autonomy and teeth to CBI, CVC  & ACB etc and no steps to enforce transparency & accountability, Modi's talk about elimination of corruption & black money etc is shallow and is a mere lip service. Modi should do something for the nation with sincerity of purpose evident rather than blaming Congress for all the ills of nation even after two and half years of ascending to power. It sounds nice only during first quarter and second quarter but sounds awkward in the 10th quarter. Above all, Modi government in collision course with Supreme Court regarding judges appointment matters for prolonged periods of over an year doesn't august well irrespective of merits.

Great Indian Gas Robbery by Reliance

• ONGC and RIL were allocated, by MoPNG, adjacent blocks for development of undersea wells off K-G basin in 2000.
• Since the blocks were adjacent to each other and contiguous oil and gas fields or reservoirs, under the provisions of the PSC, they should have been jointly developed by the two companies. 
• Four wells have been drilled by RIL within distances ranging within 50m to about 350m from the blocks of ONGC and wells have been so drilled and constructed that there is a pre-planned and calculated slant/angular incline towards the gas reserves of (the) petitioner with a clear idea to tap the same. Production of gas from the KG-D6 block by RIL started in April 2009.
• ONGC contended that RIL might have drawn natural gas worth up to Rs 30,000 crore from its fields adjacent to the Relaince's fields.
• After months of legal wrangling ONGC and RIL, agreed on an independent consulting firm based in the US which would give its technical findings in the dispute. This consultant, DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) based out of Dallas, Texas, in the US, submitted an interim report on Oct 9, 2015 which stated that natural gas worth $1.7 billion or over Rs 11,000 crore had been extracted by RIL in an unauthorised manner from an area on the ocean bed where gas extraction was supposed to be controlled by ONGC. 
• What is worse is that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) in the Government of India has been complicit in the alleged theft by Reliance for its conscious and systematical pilferage of Gas.
• An estimated 11.89 bcm of gas from ONGC blocks would have “migrated” to Reliance blocks by Jan 1, 2017 and this volume would go up to 12.71 bcm by May 1, 2019 and after such a high volume of “migration” of gas, it would no longer be economically viable for ONGC to develop the particular undersea fields. ONGC could seek over Rs 25,000 crore by way of compensation. 
• RIL said that all its operations had been undertaken in accordance with the PSC and the development plan approved by the management committee which had government representatives holding veto powers. It added that all well locations and their profiles had been specifically reviewed and approved by the committee.
• ONGC’s decision to move court surprised so many despite being under pressure. The minister of petroleum and natural gas in the UPA government, Veerappa Moily shot off a note to the Secretary in the MoPNG, Saurabh Chandra, calling for an enquiry as to why ONGC had dared to initiate legal action against its biggest shareholder i.e. MoPNG owning 70% of ONGC shares. 

My View:
Crony capitalists, like Mukesh Ambani,  armed with huge amounts of money are like vultures always waiting for any sector to open up and with connivance of politicians in power and bureaucrats holding positions blatantly exploit loopholes which were consciously retained in the system to benefit them. Reliance, the largest corporate conglomerate has benefited from the way government policies are structured, it lays bare the alarming facts of a natural disaster waiting to happen due to the ruthless exploitation of the country. Needless to say management and enforcement of contracts are crucial to good governance in any sector. In the case of alleged gas robbery by Reliance, the management committee, which included representatives of the ministry, apparently acquiesced in whatever RIL did, and the contractual provisions for joint-management of the gas fields and imposition of penalties were never invoked. This does not augur well for a country that is aggressive inviting foreign investments. In the absence of political will and administrative honesty we as a nation makes one steps forward and these vultures pulls us several steps backward. In the absence of matured systems, aggressive privatization leads us to disaster and impoverish the nation while enriching ruthless corporates and businesses. 

Reliance with its attitude is dangerous to the society and must be disarmed and wound up and debarred for conducting any business. Its wealth and creating jobs and contribution to the economy is no justification for tolerating its unjust & unlawful activities. In fact, the larger the company the more is their responsibility towards law compliance and social order.

Despite common consultant's report confirming gas robbery and ONGC independent directors forcing filing of case against Reliance (A1) and Ministry of petroleum (A2) 70% owner of ONGC equity, three years ago Modi government not taking any precise action against Mukhesh Ambani's Reliance speaks volumes about his neat & clean administration.