In a conversation with colleague Manoj Warrier on June 1, 2009, Radia discusses a letter being drafted for Reliance Group’s Manoj Modi on a suitable communication plan that will be finally showed to Mukesh Ambani. “You’re expecting us to take care of certain situations,” she asks Warrier to write, adding “I don’t want to go into this whole thing about journalism…gatekeepers”. She also sought a decision on blacklisting PTI – “Are you going to work with Tatas to get them blacklisted…do we have an alternative to PTI.”
Supreme Court had queried infamous Ramalinga Raju of infamouss Sathyam scam forgetting admitted himself into hospital and subsequently canceled his bail
The judiciary should not grant him anticipatory bail and the doctors, if they declare him ill must be thoroghly examined and Raja must undergo medical test in a north indian state, preferably in West Bengal before being certified as ill.
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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday sent a notice to former telecom minister A Raja to appear before it for questioning in connection with the 2G scam. Sources said, shortly after the summons, Raja checked into Chennai’s Apollo Hospital complaining of illness. He has also sought anticipatory bail on health grounds.
Radia calls up Vir Sanghvi on June 20, 2009, the day before his Counterpoint column appears in HT. “Wrote it”, says Sanghvi, “I’ve dressed it up as a piece about how public will not stand for resources being cornered, how we’re creating a new list of oligarchs…” Niira Radia replies: “Very nice, lovely, thank you, Vir.” Sanghvi goes on to say, “It’s dressed up as a plea to Manmohan Singh, so it won’t look like an inter-Ambani battle except to people in the know.”
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The contents of a fresh set of leaked phone conversations involving Niira Radia and her associates paint an alarming picture of the extent to which the influential lobbyist — whose clients include Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata — sought to influence, use, manipulate and even browbeat the media in pursuit of her corporate agendas. Apart from highlighting the use of journalists to plant stories and columns or as intermediaries with politicians, the latest tapes released by the news magazine, Outlook, suggest more strong-arm lobbying techniques were also used or considered, including the possibility of blacklisting the national news agency, PTI.
Outlook, which had earlier published 140 conversations originally intercepted by the Income Tax department as part of its ongoing surveillance of Ms. Radia, now says it has 800 more conversations in its possession. Nineteen of those audio tapes, with partial summaries, were published on its website by Sunday evening. Editor Vinod Mehta said that all the tapes were being vetted, and eventually would be put in the public domain, except for those which were purely private conversations.
In one tape, HT Media advisor Vir Sanghvi has a follow-up conversation with Ms. Radia regarding his June 21, 2009 column in the Hindustan Times on the tussle between the Ambani brothers over gas pricing, framed as an article about oligarchs taking over natural resources.
“Wrote it… I’ve dressed it up as a piece about how the public will not stand for resources being cornered, how we’re creating a new list of oligarchs,” Mr. Sanghvi tells Ms. Radia. “Very nice, lovely, thank you, Vir,” she says, while he adds: “It’s dressed up as a plea to Manmohan Singh, so it won’t look like an inter-Ambani battle except to people in the know.”
Although many journalists were heard speaking to Ms. Radia on the tapes, public ire has focused on NDTV’s editor for English news, Barkha Dutt, and Hindustan Times columnist Vir Sanghvi, two of the country’s best-known journalists.
On the recording, Ms. Dutt appeared to be agreeing to pass on a message to the ruling Congress party—she later said she was only humoring Ms. Radia and never passed on any messages. Mr. Sanghvi appeared to be tailoring his column according to the lobbyist’s suggestions—an accusation he has denied, saying he was only stringing Ms. Radia along for information.
It’s no longer unusual for Indian public figures to offer clarifications on Twitter and Barkha Dutt offered her first personal reactions on her Twitter page the day the story broke. Her first formal statement only appeared on her channel’s web site on Nov. 27 although NDTV did put out a company statement Nov. 18.
She tweeted on Nov. 19 that “Gathering information against the backdrop of a political story is not unethical. Nor is using that information to get more information.” Later she tweeted that she was “Struck by the bizarre irony of being accused of favouring a man i have never met (raja) and have always attacked in print and on TV.”
A month after the cabinet formation, it is business as usual. They discuss an “income tax matter” for a client who has told them “We are in a fight. Hum logo ke survival ka sawaal hai”. Her client was unhappy that Radia & Co had not briefed journalists well. After all, she says “aisa to nahin…ki Raja ne samjahaya nahin hoga income tax ka implication.” What was the “implication”?
The conversations, which were recorded by investigators for the income tax department, raise serious issues about ministerial propriety.
The income tax sleuths had sought permission to tap the telephone of Radia, who was being investigated by the CBI and the income tax department in the telecom spectrum scam. These conversations were recorded of one year, starting from August 20, 2008.
Raja was lobbying hard to become the next telecom minister and was being helped in this endeavour by Radia.
The tapes led to accusations of misconduct by many of these people. Leading journalists in India were heard on the tapes acceding to requests from lobbyists to fix stories and run scripted interviews with politicians.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has announced that they have 5,851 recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radia’s attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale.
The tapes appear to demonstrate how Radia attempted to use some media persons to influence the decision to appoint A. Raja as telecom minister. The original tapes are now annexures in a Supreme Court petition seeking Raja’s prosecution.
The opposition parties in India have demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam, which could also to be extended to include a probe into the Radia tapes to ascertain the media’s role in the controversy.
The Government is also accused of selectively releasing merely 10 hours of the 2000 hours recorded of the Radia tapes. Home Minister P.Chidambaram expressed himself against leakage of telephone conversations tapped for investigations but felt “some of it is inevitable”.
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