Month: March 2024

The authorities in the United States are investigating if entities or persons linked to the Adani Group, including its founder billionaire Gautam Adani, were involved in bribing officials in India for favourable treatment in relation to an energy project, reported Bloomberg News.

The investigation, being led by the US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department’s fraud unit in Washington, is also looking into the role of an Indian renewable energy company named Azure Power Global.

“We are not aware of any investigation against our chairman [Gautam Adani],” the Adani Group said to Bloomberg News.

Various US authorities had last year initiated an inquiry into the representations made by the Adani Group to its American investors in the wake of the allegations of stock manipulation by Hindenburg Research.

In January last year, the American short-seller Hindenburg Research had alleged in a report that the Adani Group was pulling off the “largest con in corporate history” through accounting fraud, improper use of tax havens and money laundering. The Adani Group rejected these allegations, but the report pummeled the stocks of its listed companies and wiped out $111 billion of investors’ money.

Subsequently, a batch of petitions was filed in the Supreme Court of India seeking a court-monitored investigation into the allegations.

Earlier this year, the top court refused…

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Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, “the most remarkable woman” Eleanor Roosevelt had ever met, was a pioneering politician and diplomat celebrated internationally for her brilliance, charm and glamour. Marlon Brando called her the woman he admired most in the world, while ordinary American men gave up watching sports to come hear her speak.

She was India’s first woman cabinet minister, first ambassador to the United Nations and first ambassador to the Soviet Union. She was also the first woman elected President of the UN General Assembly. Madame Pandit, as she was widely known, moved easily in global circles, even as she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of suffering millions. She traded barbs and quips with Winston Churchill, out-debated Jan Smuts, and garnered more attention than James Cagney. She was arrested for the attempted assassination of Benito Mussolini, and later told John F Kennedy not to go to Dallas. At the end of her career, she came out of retirement to battle her own niece, Indira Gandhi, in an epic clash of democracy versus authoritarianism.

Based on eight years of research and using material in five languages from seven countries and over forty archives, Manu Bhagavan has written a comprehensive biography of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. In a conversation…

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Manohar Lal Khattar was on track to become the first chief minister in Haryana’s 58-year history to complete two full terms in office. His sudden resignation on Tuesday, months before the state assembly elections, came as a surprise.

His successor, Nayab Singh Saini, won a floor test in the state legislative assembly on Wednesday – indicating that the Bharatiya Janata Party had the numbers on its side to continue governing the state even after ending its four-and-a-half years old alliance with the greenhorn Jannayak Janta Party on Tuesday.

Political observers in Haryana told Scroll that Khattar’s resignation was in continuance of the BJP’s tactic of changing chief ministers in states before elections in order to counter anti-incumbency. According to them, the elevation of Saini – who belongs to a caste categorised as an Other Backward Class – is meant to appeal to OBCs in Haryana as well as other states.

#WATCH | Haryana BJP president Nayab Singh Saini takes oath as the Chief Minister of Haryana, at the Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh. pic.twitter.com/ULZm5kqwLG

— ANI (@ANI) March 12, 2024

Well-worn strategy

This marks the fifth instance since 2021 of the BJP switching the chief minister in a state in the run-up to assembly elections.

It proved successful for the party in three states: the BJP retained power…

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Several companies bought electoral bonds after they were faced with action by central government agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, the Income Tax Department, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Goods and Service Tax authorities, an analysis by Project Electoral Bond shows.

They include companies in the top five donors list, such as Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd, and Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital. Who encashed the bonds they purchased will only be known once the missing Unique Identification Numbers for electoral bonds – that link the buyer to the receiver – are revealed by the Election Commission of India.

Here are some companies that faced action and bought electoral bonds soon after. This list will be updated if the Project Electoral Bond team finds more information.

1. Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited

Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited – the biggest buyer of electoral bonds, having spent Rs 1,368 crore on them between October 2020 and January 2024 – has faced raids several times over the last few years.

Run by “Lottery King” Santiago Martin from Coimbatore, the company focuses on online lotteries. Martin has been under the scanner of agencies since 2007. In 2011, the CBI registered 30 cases against him…

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Advances in technology in recent decades have obviated the need and desire for humans to move. Many of the world’s population sit for long periods throughout the day, whether in front of a computer at work or in front of a TV at home. Given that the human body is made to move, all this sitting is clearly bad for our health. A new study from the University of California, San Diego, confirmed this – and then some.

A total of 5,856 female participants aged 63 to 99 years were asked to wear an activity monitor on their hip for seven days at the start of the study. The researchers then followed them for a decade, during which 1,733 participants died.

The researchers used artificial intelligence to work out from the activity monitor how much time the participants were sitting and then linked this to their risk of death. The data showed that participants who sat more than 11 hours a day had a 57% higher risk of dying during the study period than those who sat less than nine and a half hours a day.

But regular exercise will undo the health risks of sitting too much, right? Not according to the study by the University of…

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Between April 2019 and January 2024, four firms linked to the Kolkata-based Keventer group of companies donated over Rs 600 crore to political parties through electoral bonds. This means that the group bought the most bonds after the lottery giant Future Gaming and Hotel Services and the Hyderabad-headquartered Megha group of companies.

The Keventer group, which is led by the industrialist Mahendra Kumar Jalan, has a range of interests, including food processing and real estate.

Firms linked to the group began purchasing the anonymous bonds a year after the Enforcement Directorate reportedly launched a preliminary inquiry against one of its companies, Keventer Agro Limited. The case, an alleged disinvestment scam involving hundreds of crores of rupees, picked up steam and the Enforcement Directorate began an official investigation by October 2019.

Even as the four firms were buying up bonds, the Enforcement Directorate raided the group’s office in Kolkata in February 2021. A year-and-a-half later, in September 2022, the Supreme Court delivered a verdict in its favour, dismissing an appeal that sought an independent investigation into the matter.

An initial analysis of the data released by the Election Commission of India shows that three of the four firms linked to the Keventer group are among the top 11 donors on the list.

Keventer Foodpark Infra…

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The Enforcement Directorate on Friday arrested Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and MLC K Kavitha for her alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor policy case, ANI reported.

Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, will be taken to Delhi, where she will be questioned in connection with the allegations. The action comes after the central agency conducted a raid at her home in Hyderabad, reported NDTV.

The Enforcement Directorate’s case is based on a first information report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation alleging irregularities in the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy.

The agencies have alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party modified the policy to ensure a 12% profit margin for wholesalers and a nearly 185% profit margin for retailers.

The Enforcement Directorate has claimed that Kavitha is part of a so-called “South Group” that paid at least Rs 100 crore in kickbacks to leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party through arrested businessman Vijay Nair.

Kavitha was first questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation for over seven hours in December 2022. On March 11 last year, she was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in the same case for over nine hours.

She had then moved the Supreme Court against the Enforcement Directorate summons. On February 28, the court had extended immunity from coercive action by the central…

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Russia has continued to disregard basic principles of humanitarian law and has violated human rights, which has led to increasing civilian suffering since its invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said in its report published on Friday.

The report said that the torture of civilians by the Russian authorities was “widespread and systematic”. It also documented incidents of rape and sexual violence committed against women.

On February 24, 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, triggering the most deadly conflict in Europe since World War II.

The commission was created by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022 to investigate the alleged violations of human rights and international law in connection with the invasion. It comprised Norwegian jurist Erik Møse (Chair), Colombian academic and transitional justice expert Pablo de Greiff and human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover.

The report, published on Friday, said that Ukrainian prisoners of war were tortured in several detention facilities in Russia.

“Victims’ accounts disclose relentless, brutal treatment inflicting severe pain and suffering during prolonged detention, with blatant disregard for human dignity,” it said, adding that this had led to “long-lasting physical and mental trauma”.

The report said that it was necessary to continue investigations to determine whether “some of the…

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