Army man-turned-Bajrang Dal leader held for blackmail along with associates

Bengaluru, Mar 25: Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday targetted Centre over surge in coronavirus cases in the country, alleging that the government has miserably failed in tackling the unprecedented situation and was still not managing the crisis well.
"The government has miserably failed in tackling this very serious disease. They are not properly managing the crisis," senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah told ANI.
Siddaramaiah's response comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown in the entire country to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.
In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Modi said that it is vital to break the chain of the disease and experts have said that at least 21 days are needed for it.
The Prime Minister said the lockdown has drawn a "Lakshman Rekha" in every home and people should stay indoors for their own protection and for that of their families.
Noting that the Centre has on Tuesday allocated Rs 15,000 crore for the treatment of coronavirus patients and to strengthen health infrastructure, he said testing facilities, personal protective equipment, isolation beds, ICU beds, ventilators and other necessary materials will be ramped up.
The Prime Minister said the country will have to bear the economic cost of lockdown but saving the life of every citizen is his priority and the priority of the Central and state governments as also of local administrations.
Noting that the virus spreads like fire, he said that if care is not taken for 21 days, the country, a family can go behind by 21 years.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India has reported about 536 individuals have been confirmed positive among suspected cases and contacts of known positive cases. A total of 22,694 samples from March 24 till 8 pm.
Ten people have died so far due to the deadly virus, according to the data by Union health ministry.

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For many Indian tycoons, 2019 turned woeful as lenders -- empowered by the nation’s recent bankruptcy law and desperate to clean up soured debt from their books -- started seizing assets of delinquent firms or dragged them into insolvency.

Indian banks wrote off a record $39 billion of loans in the 18 months through September in a bid to repair their balance sheets as they battled the world’s worst bad debt pile. Making matters worse, a shadow banking crisis led to a funding squeeze, crushing debt-laden businesses that were critically dependent on rollover financing.

“Life has come a full circle for tycoons that had enjoyed debt-fueled growth,” said Nirmal Gangwal, founder of distress and debt restructuring advisory firm Brescon & Allied Partners LLP. “Many firms collapsed like a house of cards. The downfall was rather unprecedented.”
The government has also been cracking down on economic crime to assuage public anger over absconding businessmen. It’s even barred some from traveling overseas if they were deemed a flight risk.

Here are some of the country’s biggest and most-storied businessmen who saw their fortunes fade. Spokespersons for none of these tycoons, except Essar, immediately replied to emails and text messages seeking comments.

Anil Ambani

The chairman of Reliance Group, which makes movies to metro lines, had a close shave with jail time in March before his elder brother and Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, bailed him out at the last minute. The woes of the ex-billionaire came to the fore when India’s top court asked him to pay Ericsson AB’s India unit about $77 million of past dues or go to jail since Anil Ambani, 60, had given a personal guarantee. His telecom carrier slipped into insolvency this year, while unprofitable Reliance Naval & Engineering Ltd. faced a cash crunch. Reliance Capital Ltd. is selling assets to pare debt. Ambani is also fending off Chinese lenders in a London court.

Malvinder & Shivinder Singh

Karma caught up with ex-billionaires and brothers Malvinder Singh, 47, and Shivinder Singh, 44, and how. Scions of a prominent business family, they once helmed India’s top drug maker and second-largest hospital chain. In October, the two were arrested on charges of fraudulently diverting nearly $337 million from a lender they controlled. India’s market regulator found in 2018 that the brothers had defrauded their hospital company of about $56 million. The collapse of the $2 billion empire turned brother against brother, prompting their mother to broker a peace deal that was short-lived. In February, Malvinder accused Shivinder and their spiritual guru of fraud.

Shashikant & Ravikant Ruia

After a hard-fought battle to keep their flagship steel mill, the first-generation entrepreneurs finally saw the bankrupt Essar Steel India Ltd. pass on to ArcelorMittal last month. The $5.9 billion takeover was almost two years in the making with multiple legal wrangles. The group, controlled by Shashikant Ruia, 76, and Ravikant Ruia, 70, were also reprimanded by a U.K. judge in March this year for concealing documents. Started in 1969 as a construction firm, Essar Group diversified, investing about $18 billion between 2008 and 2012, and piled on debt. In 2017, the group had sold another prized asset, Essar Oil.

Selling an asset to pare a liability shouldn’t be seen as a “lost asset,” an Essar spokesman said, adding that the group remains a diversified conglomerate.

VG Siddhartha

Before jumping off a bridge into a river in July in an apparent suicide, the founder of India’s biggest coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day had penned a letter that spoke of pressure from lenders, a private equity firm and harassment by tax officials. He had spent much of the last two years pledging ever more of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd. shares to refinance loans for ever shorter periods, at ever higher interest rates. “I would like to say I gave it my all,” V.G. Siddhartha, 60, wrote in the letter. “I fought for a long time but today I gave up.”

Naresh Goyal

The former ticketing agent who built India’s largest airline by value, stepped down as chairman of Jet Airways India Ltd. in March, caving in to pressure from banks who took over the company. Cut-throat price wars and surging costs pushed Jet deeper into loss. The airline stopped flying in April and went into bankruptcy two months later as lenders failed to find a buyer. In July, an Indian court barred Naresh Goyal from flying overseas after the government said it was investigating an alleged $2.6 billion fraud involving Jet Airways.

Rana Kapoor

The founder of Yes Bank Ltd., which became India’s fourth-largest non-state lender, tweeted in September 2018 that his shares were invaluable and requested his children never to sell them upon inheritance. But trouble was brewing. The nation’s banking regulator, which found the lender had repeatedly under-reported its bad loans, refused to extend his tenure as chief executive officer. This forced Rana Kapoor, 62, to step down by end-January. Kapoor, who has pledged some of his Yes Bank shares in July, sold almost his entire stake in the lender by October.

Subhash Chandra

The rice trader-turned-media mogul, 69, who brought cable television into Indian homes in the early 1990s with his ZEE TV, resigned as chairman of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. in November and lost control of his crown jewel. Subhash Chandra has been selling stake in Zee Entertainment in the past few months to repay group’s debt.

Gautam Thapar

A default by Gautam Thapar, founder of the paper mill-to-power transmission Avantha Group, on pledged shares made Yes Bank Ltd. the biggest shareholder in CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd. In August, the firm was hit by an accounting scandal forcing the board to remove Thapar, 59, from the chairman’s post. A month later, the market regulator ordered a forensic audit of the firm and barred Thapar from accessing securities market.