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Adani Saheb ke Achche Din

Yes, the Year 2022 was special. Very, very specail for Gautambhai Adani. His wealth stands at around $ 150 billion and makes him the 2nd richest on Planet Earth. The homeless, jobless, hopeless can make do with promises and pipe dreams.

To herald our $ 5 trillion vishwaguru status Apna Gautambhai did an 8 pm primetime interview with a leading TV channel recently. People were very puzzled. Had he taken over NDTV or India Today? Or, had he taken over both? In any case, how does it matter? Aren’t they all the same where sycophancy, spewing hatred, side-stepping real issues are concerned? But, some people may have felt very nervous, because if the mask (which is what politicians are for their corporate masters) could suddenly announce something as momentous as demonetisation at 8 pm, what the real power-behind-the-throne might have in store for the praja, the hoi polloi was beyond imagination.

Given Gautambhai’s status as one of the lords of the present world, the interviewer was appropriately fawning, falling over himself, prostrating himself to ensure that nobody would make the baseless allegation of him having a spine. He covered himself in glory by rising to the same depths as Prasoon Joshi interviewing PM in the US, or Akshay Kumar wanting to know whether PM licked his mangoes or sucked them! That is completely consistent with current standards of mainstream journalism. That guy will never, ever face an IT, ED, CBI raid.

And, the great interviewee seemed to be talking in such measured tone, with endless pauses, perhaps acting out the illusion that he was either doing a katha, religious discourse like one of the present-day dime-a-dozen baba-cum-businessman! Or, he could be pontificating out of a cave. More realistically, the culprit may have been the damn teleprompter that has often screwed up our dear PM’s performances.


Whatever the pauses and teleprompter might suggest it was a stupendously well-choreographed event, a feature film masquerading as a documentary. Now, that is potentially a threat to Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan’s livelihoods. And the man’s vocabulary encompasses concepts and words such as democracy, ‘laxman rekha’, development, credible, independent, global network, vested interests.One would almost get the feeling that an omnivore has suddenly gone vegan! People in this country are dying to hear about a lakshman rekha in business scruples! On ethics! Debts! Respect for environmental laws!

It is not clear whether it was Ravish Kumar who stung him into giving the interview (case of ant going into the elephant’s year!), or the Hindi newspaper ghost interview that he gave. Imagine the 2nd or 3rd wealthiest man on the planet being interviewed by somebody without a face, name or identity, i.e., a ghost.

Given the inane questions, the long teleprompted pauses, and neatly mixed long and close-up shots, the jury is still out on whether the whole PR exercise served its purpose or was a disaster. Rising stock prices does not necessarily raise the person’s standing in the public eye. With his astounding Animal Farm logic that ‘Government praise requires courage’ Gautambhai will definitely steer his channel to compete with Al Jazeera and take the godi element of media to hitherot unknown heights!

Anand Mazgaonkar

https://youtu.be/NFtmSnHOmXs?t=244 The issue of Adani Group being close to defaulting..  in बड़े बड़े Defaulters पर RBI का बड़ा खुलासा, Modi Govt. on Nirav Modi, Mehul Chauksi Defaulters Dec 25, 2022

https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/creditsights-finds-errors-in-its-report-on-adani-companies-debt-122090801410_1.html  

“(Adani’s) Management views that the group’s leverage is at manageable levels, and that its expansion plans have not been mainly debt funded,” CreditSights said.

But CreditSights said on Thursday it still had concerns about the Adani group’s overall debt levels.

For Adani Transmission, CreditSights corrected its Ebitda estimate to Rs 5,200 crore from Rs 4,200 crore
For Adani Power, it corrected its gross debt estimate to Rs 48,900 crore from Rs 58,200 crore

How political will often favors a coal billionaire and his dirty fossil fuel  By Gerry Shih, Niha Masi h and Anant Gupta December 9, 2022 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/09/india-coal-gautam-adani-godda/
The tale of Gautam Adani’s giant power plant reveals how political will in India bends in favor of the dirty fuel..

Sukla Sen's post in https://groups.google.com/g/greenyouth/c/h2HGrKnclpk/m/0i9cIwXUCQAJ..  Love Story Extraordinary?

Outcome: Meteoric Rise of Gautam Adani: From US$ 7 (or 8?) Billion in 2014 to 148 Billion on September 20 2022.  The Net Worth Skyrockets to 20 Times Over a Period of 8 Years!. Over roughly the same period Indian GDP has risen from $2.1 trillion to $2.66 trillion -- around 1.25 times!  https://www.livemint.com/Politics/xziKtmtOxBJntZb41p2hDL/India-GDP-seen-surging-74-in-data-that-has-puzzled-economi.html

For a comparison, with the second most favoured captain of Indian industry:  Mukesh Ambani's net worth of 18.60 billion US$ in 2014 has risen to 88.8 billion US$ (as on September 20 2022), i.e. just a tad over 4.75 times (as against 20 in case of Adani over the same time period).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires_2014    https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/mukesh-d-ambani/

and https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/india/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD >.)

That's a graphic real time illustration of what crony capitalism is all about . While the relationship is of course symbiotic, it should not be too
difficult to figure out who is primarily dependent on whom? Who has options and who, really, hasn't?

"By the time he had befriended Modi, Adani was already a successful businessman, and grew his net worth to an estimated US$7 billion by 2014. But it was only after the BJP leader became prime minister that Adani's fortunes really took off"- https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3190991/indias-gautam-adani-asias-richest-man-still-goose-lays-golden
 
After Modi’s 2014 election victory, Adani lent the prime minister-elect his private jet for a victory tour. Adani’s wealth has risen from an estimated $8bn at the time of Modi’s election in 2014 to $137bn today, a rise of more than 1,600%." https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/30/india-gautam-adani-worlds-third-richest-person
 
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/gautam-adani-pm-modi-s-constant-companion-on-overseas-trips/story-CMDqyMTSNxoewGpQVqEeDK.html

https://scroll.in/article/923095/from-2014-to-2019-how-the-adani-groups-footprint-expanded-across-india

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/pm-modi-wanted-power-project-given-adani-sri-lankan-official-alleges-then-retracts-164874