The first India assignment for Nira Radia, who was fascinated byairplanes, was to smoothen the entry of Singapore Airlines to India in 1990s.
That project failed to take off, but it introduced her to two important personalities — then aviation minister Ananth Kumar and Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group, which was to be Singapore Airlines’ Indian partner.
Never the one to be put down, Radia created ripples in the aviation ministry in 2000 when she applied for a license to start an airline under her own firm with a capitalisation of all of Rs1 lakh. Ananth Kumar was the aviation minister at that time. But it was a controversial project and her application was rejected. Later, Kumar was moved out of the civil aviation ministry.
However, it was her second meeting with Ratan Tata that became her a biggest stepping stone as a businesswoman. Tata was so impressed with her that he appointed her to manage the corporate communications of the Tata group — leading to the birth of Vaishnavi Corporate Communications in 2001. For many years, Vaishnavi’s main client remained the Tata group, so much so that that it was mistaken for being a Tata firm.
Radia, who grew up in Kenya and holds a British passport, transformed her prized catch into a magic wand that opened bigger doors. Soon, she had a client list that comprised 50 big companies. Then, she had the most powerful industrial baron in India, Mukesh Ambani, in her kitty, who was looking for some kind of assistance in media management in 2008-09.
In between, she also allegedly got involved with the issue of new 2Glicenses in 2008, partly because her own client — Tata Teleservices — stood to gain or lose from how the licenses were issued.
Promoting an individual to be a Minister,blocking an elected candidate to become a cabinet Minister,threatening through lobbyist a Minister, if he grants Licence to a competitor,attempt to benefit from a land scam,planting stories in the Media,control of Media funds and with holding it,donating (? )Hospital Equipment…
all this ‘official secrets’?
Since when Tata did become part of the Government?
( or he is?)
On the same logic, even Terrorists can claim to privacy as it involves destabilization of the Government?
Here Radia talks to Chandolia on the ways the Tatas can fund a hospital in Perambalur, A. Raja’s hometown. Later, the Tata Foundation allotted Rs 9 crore to upgrade hospitals in the district.
‘(Tatas) can provide either equipment or some wards.’
NR: I did speak to Krishna Kumar, I did speak to him, he was supposed to tell the…take the…you see, let me tell you where they are coming from…they’re going ahead, they want to do that, they (are) doing the hospital in Perambalur, no problem right? But what they want to do is, and because the charter of the trust allows them to do it only in a particular manner, what they have to do is, they have to provide equipment for the hospital.
Radia talks to Venkat, who is a part of Ratan Tata’s office, about getting a clearance from Tata on a meeting (possibly Sunil Mittal) at a neutral place – at the Chambers or Radia’s residence. Venkat also says he (Tata) doesn’t want her to come to his (Sunil Mittal’s) office as he is worried someone might take undue media advantage (seeing her at Mittal’s office). Radia says she can handle the media. She also asks Venkat if he has spoken to his boss (Ratan Tata) about Noel (Tata)
16 11-188819-0-28-20090529-125818: N. K. Singh
“Mukesh swung it for him”– N K Singh to Radia on Murli Deora getting a successive second term as the petroleumminister with support from Mukesh Ambani. Did Mukesh Ambani earn Murli Deora his second term as the petroleum minister? And has civil aviation minister Praful Patel worked more as a minister for Naresh Goyal (owner of Jet Airways)? This is what N.K. Singh tells Radia in the second part of their conversation where they discuss the new cabinet. “Murli’s incompetence is proverbial”, Singh says. But in a more worrying insight, he says that Murli Deora is always “busy trying to appease” questioners in Parliament so that “he can stay out of (uncomfortable question).”
In this May 31, 2009 conversation, Radia tries to manipulate the media against Anil Ambani’s RCom. She talks to one of her colleagues Atul, who looks after regional and vernacular media, trying to highlight some development in Jammu where RCom is involved but the police have not named them. While Atul says that he believes they (RCom) have managed the SSP, Radia says: “Unless the media puts pressure on the SSP to name the operator,” RCom will escape this. Also talks about informing the DoT about this, not through the media but “on their own”.
Related:
:Anil Ambani‘s Reliance Communications On Thursday refuted the CAG report on 2G spectrum scam that was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
In a statement, the company defended itself saying it had no holding in Swan Telecom when the 2G license was granted.
The CAG report on 2G scam had said Anil Ambani‘s firm Reliance Communications had been given undue benefits in the spectrum allocation.
The statement also said that the company was ready to provide all relevant information to resolve “doubts” expressed by CAG report.
Reliance Communications’ statement said that the company had a 9.9% shareholding in Swan Telecom only till December 5, 2007.
It also stated that Swan was granted a letter of intent (LOI) only on January 10, 2008.
The statement clarified that the group had no shareholding in Swan Telecom at the time of the “license grant” or any time thereafter.
It also said that the company did not take any steps to actively pursue Swan license application at any stage.
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.”
Related;
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.”
Chandolia.
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