'Anil Ambani firm got 143.7 mn euro tax waiver after Rafale deal'

Agencies
April 13, 2019

New Delhi, Apr 13: New Delhi: France waived taxes worth 143.7 million euros to a French-registered telecom subsidiary of Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications in 2015, months after India's announcement of buying 36 Rafale jets, a leading French newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday.

In its reaction, Reliance Communications rejected any wrongdoing and said the tax dispute was settled under a legal framework which is available for all companies operating in France. The French newspaper said the French tax authorities accepted 7.3 million euros from Reliance Flag Atlantic France as a settlement as against original demand of 151 million euros. Reliance Flag owns a terrestrial cable network and other telecom infrastructure in France.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after talks with the then French President Francois Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016. The Congress has been alleging massive irregularities in the deal, saying the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating the deal.

The Congress has also been targeting the government over the selection of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale. The government has rejected the allegations.

The French newspaper said the company was investigated by French tax authorities and found liable to pay 60 million euros in taxes for the period 2007 to 2010. However, Reliance offered to pay 7.6 million euros only as a settlement but it was French tax authorities refused to accept the amount.

The authorities conducted another probe for the period 2010 to 2012 and asked the company to pay an additional 91 million euros in taxes, the report said. It said by April 2015, the total amount owed by Reliance to the French authorities in taxes was at least 151 million euros. In October, six months after Modi announced in Paris about the Rafale deal, the French authorities accepted 7.3 million euros from Reliance as a settlement as against the original demand of 151 million euros.

A spokesperson of Reliance Communications said the tax demands were "completely unsustainable and illegal" and that the company denied any favouritism or gain from the settlement.

"During the period under consideration by the French Tax Authorities - 2008-2012 i.e. nearly 10 years ago, Flag France had an operating loss of Rs 20 crore (Euro 2.7 million). French tax authorities had raised a tax demand of over Rs 1100 crore for the same period," the official said. "As per the French tax settlement process as per law, a mutual settlement agreement was signed to pay Rs 56 crore as a final settlement," he said.

Comments

Dodanna
 - 
Saturday, 13 Apr 2019

Just wait and see. All chores acounts will be seized and published all over India. Indian Telecom;privatized airports and seaport and Vijaya Bank all will be pulled back to its original track.

 

All chaddi back industrialit's and rIchest businessman hidden agenda will be disclosed.

 

Let the innocent Indians understood how chowkidaar and groups playing with our nations wealth.

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Agencies
February 5,2020

New Delhi, Feb 5: Days after a gunman opened fire in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of anti-CAA movement, YouTuber Gunja Kapoor was detained at the protest site on Wednesday after she was caught covertly filming the protests in a burqa.

Kapoor runs the channel ‘Right Narrative’ on YouTube and her pinned tweet on Twitter says she is followed on the microblogging site by PM Narendra Modi.

According to police, the protesters turned suspicious after Kapoor asked them "too many questions". She was caught by some of the women protesters after they identified her as the popular YouTuber. The incident led to a commotion at Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a senior police official said.

She was taken to Sarita Vihar police station where her identity was ascertained, police said.

The incident sparked outrage on social media. Many took to Twitter to question why Kapoor was at the protest in disguise. Others expressed concern about her motives at secretly filming the protests.

Meanwhile, praises flew in for the women of Shaheen Bagh who can be seen defending Kapoor from angry protesters after she was caught.

This is not the first time that a right wing social media activist has landed in trouble in Shaheen Bagh where residents and other women and children have been sitting in protest for nearly two months since the passing of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 in December last year.

In January, Deepa Sharma had posted videos online about the "traumatic" experience she had when she was allegedly heckled and harassed by Shaheen Bagh protesters. While the woman's claim could never be verified, other pieces of rampant fake news aimed at delegitimising and villainising protesters has taken social media by storm.

From doctored videos of women protesters allegedly accepting they were paid Rs 500 to attend protests to alleged fights over biriyani and anti-India sloganeering, trolls on social media seem to be working overtime to taint the ongoing protests.

The latter, however, show no signs of giving up. In fact, as Delhi nears elections on February 8, protesters have arranged for music performances by eminent artists, including pop celebrity Prateek Kuhad, till February 7.

Sit in protests take place 24x7 with women showing up in thousands to spend the night and sing songs of protest. And with polls around the corner, the protests have become an active part of political discourse with Aam Aadmi Party's Manish Sisodia expressing his support for the protesters at a recent press conference.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

Hyderabad, Feb 26: Hyderabad Police on Tuesday registered a case against well-known poet Imran Pratapgarhi for his statement asking why there was "no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad".

According to Charminar Police, the complaint was registered by Sub-Inspector S Guruswamy, who was on duty at the QQ Stadium on February 24 where an Ehtaji Mishaira (Poetry Program) against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register Commission and National Population Register was held.

Permission for the said event was granted by Hyderabad Additional Commissioner of Police to the program organisers with certain guidelines including that poetry program should be held on February 24 from 6 pm to 9 pm, and no speaker should give provocative speeches in the program.

However, police said that the program was started by the organisers at 6 pm and continued till 9:48 pm even after police officers asked them to end the event by 9 pm. The program was attended by around 3,000 members at QQ stadium.

According to police, while addressing the meeting Pratapgarhi said: "Mujhe hairath hai us Hyderabad mein koi Shaheen Bagh kyu nahi hai (I am surprised why there is no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad)", which is "provocative" and may cause fear to any section of the public.

In this regard, a case has been registered against organisers for disobeying public servants' orders and the poet has been booked for delivering provocative statements under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Further investigation is underway.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir took to Twitter to condemn the police action.

"Hyderabad Police booked a case against poet Imran Pratapgarhi for expressing surprise on why there is no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad. For police, this sentence is provocative. Is Shaheen Bagh not a part of India?," Shabbir tweeted.

"Shame on TRS Government and Hyderabad Police for targeting a poet for no-fault," he added.

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Agencies
June 16,2020

Mumbai, Jun 16: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, is all set to pick up a stake in Jio Platforms, which would complete 25% of Jio’s equity dilution to the investors, said a report by the Gulf News.

Jio Platforms is part of the Reliance Industries empire owned by Mukesh Ambani. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) will acquire 2.33% for an estimated $1.5 billion, the report said.

So far, Jio Platforms has raised investment from 10 different global investors in seven weeks, the latest being TPG Capital buying 0.93% equity for Rs 4,547 crore and private equity firm L Catterton picking up a 0.39% stake for Rs 1894.50 crore.

Jio Platforms has raised a total of Rs 1.04 lakh crore so far from leading global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG and L Catterton since April 22.

With PIF coming on board, Jio Platforms would have diluted 25% of its equity. That's the maximum they intend to dilute to financial investors, which includes Mark Zukerberg's Facebook.

Any new investors coming on board in future will have to be "strategic investors, a tech giant, for instance," said a source who was part of the deal-making process, the report said.

In recent days, Jio Platforms, which will merge telecom, content streaming, gaming and ecommerce features into its app, has seen Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and ADIA pick up significant stakes amounting to $1.2 billion and $750 million, respectively.

Reliance Industries' owner, Ambani, Asia's richest man, has been on an investor acquisition spree, with the likes of Facebook and private equity majors such as KKR and Silver Lake Capital investing in Jio Platforms.

The contours of the deal with Saudi Arabia's PIF was finalised during Ramadan. "It was always Mukesh Ambani's wish to have a special relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE," said Anshuman Mishra, a London-based confidante and family friend of the Ambani family of longstanding, Gulf News quoted as saying.

He has also worked extensively with Gulf sovereign wealth funds over the years.

"Saudi Arabia's coming in to close the financial investor round in Jio is indicative of the special nature of the relationship. This is also indicative of the multi-billion-dollar partnership announced last year with Saudi Aramco.

"This is a major success for the present Indian government's foreign policy initiative in the gulf and symbolic of India's significance in the GCC," it said.

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