Israel warns citizens not to travel to India, citing terror threat

New Delhi, Mar 30: Congress MP Rajmohan Unnithan on Monday approached the Supreme Court seeking directions to open the Karnataka-Kerala border to allow movement of ambulances and other emergency vehicles for the transport of essential items to Kerala.

Unnithan, who is an MP From Kerala's Kasaragod constituency, filed a plea seeking direction to Karnataka to open the borders with Kerala and in particular Kasargod-Mangalore border at Talappadi.

The petition sought directions to Karnataka to allow the movement of ambulances, emergency vehicles, trucks and other vehicles carrying essential and non-essential items to Kerala. It also sought to stay the blockade imposed by Karnataka with its border states.

The plea also sought directions to Karnataka to register an FIR and constitute a special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of this court to enquire against the concerned authorities including the police officials whose action led to the death of two citizens.

It said that the imposition of such a blockade at a time when the supply of commodities is itself hit hard and when a medical emergency has plagued the entire country is a clear violation of Articles 21 and 19(d) of the Constitution.

"This blockade has also resulted in cutting off the essential lifeline of National Highways and State Highways and major District Roads leading to the State of Kerala which has resulted in the shortage of supply of essential and non-essential items to the State of Kerala leading to shortage supply of food and medical supplies," the plea said.

"This ill-planned and dangerous blockade has claimed the life of a 70-year-old woman who was denied entry into Karnataka even for the purpose of urgent medical treatment which was only available in the medical hub of Mangalore. This is a clear case of violation of the right to life with dignity by the state as citizens are made to die on the roads because of the action of the state which is in total disregard to Article 21," it added.

This comes as the country is under a 21-day lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which according to the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs has claimed the lives of 29 people and infected a total of 1071 people as on Monday morning.

Feb 19: Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty was once a typical billionaire with a taste for the high-life.

He splurged on a private jet, vintage cars and two entire floors of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. His website shows him hobnobbing with politicians, Bill Gates and Bollywood royalty.

“The thrill of speed and freedom makes me love cars,” Shetty, 77, told local reporters last year.

Shetty had more than enough money -- at least on paper -- to afford such a lifestyle from companies he helped found, including hospital operator NMC Health Plc and financial services firm Finablr Plc. On Dec. 10, his stakes in the public companies were valued at $2.4 billion, making up the bulk of a fortune spanning education, hospitality and one of the world’s oldest tea companies.

Then, a week later, Carson Block came along.

Block’s investment firm, Muddy Waters, issued a report criticizing NMC’s accounts and disclosing a short position. Since then, Muddy Waters’s scrutiny has snowballed into a troubling scenario for Shetty that sheds light on his complex share arrangements and casts doubts about his net worth. His holdings in Finablr and NMC are worth $885 million, but Shetty’s fortune may now be just a fraction of that, depending on the size of his borrowings.

Filings this month show that Shetty pledged a quarter of his NMC stake against loans with First Abu Dhabi Bank and Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank. Two other shareholders may own half of his reported stake. Another lender -- Al Salam Bank Bahrain -- has already sold some of those shares to enforce security over a loan for Shetty, and NMC said Tuesday that First Abu Dhabi Bank sold another chunk earlier this month.

The situation “seems to have gone beyond some of the issues that Muddy Waters focused on initially,“ said Gavin Launder, a fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management, who owned shares in NMC until October. “The increased scrutiny has unearthed other issues.”

Law firm Herbert Smith Freehills has launched a review of Shetty’s holdings at his request, a spokesperson for the Indian-born businessman said, declining to comment further until the analysis is completed. Shetty resigned Sunday as NMC’s chairman.

In its Dec. 17 report on NMC, Muddy Waters hinted at potential overpayment for assets, inflated cash balances and understated debt. Shares of the United Arab Emirates’ biggest private health-care provider have since plunged 67%, and the firm is now the focus of takeover speculation. The sell-off also spread to Finablr, whose stock has tumbled 64% in that span.

NMC has disputed Muddy Waters’s claims, and the company hired former FBI Director Louis Freeh to conduct an independent review of the short seller’s allegations. Meanwhile, local regulators “are making inquiries with the relevant parties,” a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority said.

Shetty is hardly the only ultra-wealthy person to leverage his assets. Elon Musk has used his shares in Tesla Inc. to obtain personal loans, while Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison has put up millions of the company’s shares to fund a lavish lifestyle that includes trophy properties, America’s Cup teams and the Indian Wells tennis facility in California.

But such deals can also sour, as demonstrated by Shetty’s lenders selling shares his investment firm pledged. He and his advisers are investigating details of the sales as part of their legal review, according to filings.

To complicate matters, Shetty pledged another batch of NMC stock in 2018 as part of a so-called equity collar arrangement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that uses options to limit the impact from share moves. Last month, he also pledged most of his stake in Finablr to refinance a loan from the company’s takeover of foreign-exchange firm Travelex for about $1.2 billion.

BRS Ventures Investment, the UAE-based holding company for most of Shetty’s assets, doesn’t report consolidated financials, preventing a complete analysis of his net worth. His other assets include a catering company, a waste-management firm and pharmaceutical business Neopharma, which four months ago was in the early stages of planning for an initial public offering.

Block, 43, earned his reputation as a short seller a decade ago through targeting U.S.-listed Chinese companies that he claimed were frauds. More recently, his San Francisco-based firm focused on British litigation-finance firm Burford Capital Ltd. and Japanese biotech stock PeptiDream Inc. Short sellers seek to benefit from a decline in a company’s share price.

Shetty founded NMC in 1975 after moving to Abu Dhabi from his native India. He created Finablr two years ago to consolidate his financial brands before listing it on the London Stock Exchange in 2019.

Block said he didn’t anticipate NMC’s shareholding drama.

“I wouldn’t have been able to predict that we’d get these bizarre disclosures about unclear share ownership coming out of the company,” he said in a Feb. 13 phone interview. “This has been obviously a more dramatic unraveling than we usually see.”

Kozhikode, May 21: Six employees of a private clinic here and a taxi driver have been put on mandatory 14 days quarantine as a lady gynaecologist running the dispensary tested positive for COVID-19 in Bengaluru.

District Medical Officer Dr V Jayashree said the gynaecologist had returned to Karnataka a fortnight ago and tested positive while she was on quarantine there. Six staff members of the clinic at nearby Thamarassery and the taxi driver who dropped her inBengaluruon May 5 have been asked to go on quarantine, she said.

Patients had visited the clinic, belonging to the gynaecologist and her doctor husband, till April-end. Sources said the district administration is trying to figure out thecontacts of the gynaecologist, including pregnant women, for being quarantined.