Owaisi to campaign for JD(S), BSP candidates in Karnataka

Abu Dhabi-based NMC Healthcare has reportedly received bids to sell its distribution unit and will soon be selling it to different parties.

The development comes over three months after NMC Healthcare’s founder and then-chairman B R Shetty stepped down amid allegations of massive fraud. 

The company, which recently laid off hundreds of workers, is offloading stake in the subsidiary as it is considered non-core and requires substantially high working capital to run the operations. In addition, this stake sale will help the company pay off some of its debt

"There are parties who have strong interest in the distribution business. NMC will be offloading the unit soon and that also to different parties," a source said.

"The company is in the process of exploring options for NMC Trading, the group's distribution business, which it has determined to be non-core and requiring substantial levels of working capital. The process should not materially adversely impact distributors' activities, nor NMC Trading's customers," an NMC Healthcare spokeswoman said.

The UK-court has appointed Alvarez & Marsal as administrator to oversee the operations of the debt-ridden hospital operator. The healthcare firm has been caught in a whirlpool of $6.6 billion debt while its senior former high management team is under investigation for financial irregularities.

The UAE Central Bank has direct local banks to freeze all bank accounts of NMC founder BR Shetty and his family members as well as accounts of those companies where he has a stake. The Central Bank move is subsequent to a criminal complaint filed by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which has the largest exposure to NMC Healthcare, amounting Dh3 billion.

As the company faces financial difficulties, Reuters reported that NMC Health delayed May staff salaries and now expects to complete making payments by the first week of June.

The spokeswoman said: "The company has been in regular dialogue with its creditor constituencies through various creditor committees, including the direct bank lenders to its NMC Trading businesses."

Bhopal, Mar 18: Congress leader Digvijay Singh's detention by police in Bengaluru is display of "dictatorship and Hitlarshahi" by the BJP, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said here on Wednesday.

Singh staged a protest near a Bengaluru resort this morning where rebel MLAs of Madhya Pradesh Congress are staying, and demanded that he be allowed to meet them.

Singh, who has been detained by the police, accused the BJP of holding the MLAs captive and said that he would go on a "hunger strike".

Reacting to this, Nath said if the need arises he would also go to the Karnataka capital.

"Preventing Congress Rajya Sabha candidate and other ministers from meeting MLAs, misbehave with them, forcibly taken them into custody is totally a dictatorship and hitlershahi (sic)," Nath said in a tweet.

"Entire country is watching how an elected government is being made unstable and how BJP is murdering democratic values," Nath said.

"Why they are not allowing them to meet MLAs. What BJP is afraid of. BJP is playing a dirty political game in the state," the chief minister tweeted.

Demanding immediate release of detained Congress leaders, Nath said that democratic norms and Constitutional values are being stifled.

Later speaking to reporters, the CM said, "Why the BJP is afraid of presenting 16 MLAs here (Bhopal)? What is the problem in one person (Singh) meeting with 16 legislators?"

Nath reiterated that his government had proven majority on floor of the House in the last 15 months since coming to power.

Amid political uncertainty in Madhya Pradesh, the state Congress Legislature Party on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking direction to the Centre and the BJP-led Karnataka government to grant it access to communicate with its rebel MLAs staying in Bengaluru.

The apex court had also directed the Kamal Nath government to respond by Wednesday to a plea by senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking immediate floor test in the Assembly.

Bengaluru, July 23: The Janta Dal (Secular) and Congress that had joined hands together in Karnataka ‘to keep communal forces at bay, have once again turned archrivals. The development comes a year after the collapse of JD(S)-Congress coalition government in the state.

Recently, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah claimed that the Congress would have won at least 10 seats in the Lok Sabha elections had it not been for the alliance with the JD(S). In response, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy of the JD(S), who headed the coalition government, blamed the Congress for its many 'conspiracies'.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Kumaraswamy said he was prompted by Siddarmaiah's claims to recall what transpired during the coalition government. 

"There will never be a future alliance with Congress," Kumaraswamy declared, in a letter to his party colleagues on Wednesday. He claimed that there were many conspiracies on part of Congress, which led to the fall of the coalition government.