Investigations
The Sweet Deal
In a three-part series for The Indian Express, I, along with a colleague, unearthed the business links that billionaire Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon had with the family of Chanda Kochhar, who was the MD and CEO of ICICI Bank, one of the largest private banks of India.
We unveiled that while Dhoot struck sweetheart deals with Kochhar’s family, companies linked to Videocon were extended hundreds of millions of dollars in loans by ICICI Bank, which were later termed Non-Performing Assets. Kochhar eventually had to step down, and is being investigated by the government agencies.
Look who is busting fake news for 13 Ministers: site with Exam Warriors link
In 2018 more than a dozen ministers were sharing links from a website to bust “fake news”. But under the garb of fact checking legitimate, critical news stories, the ministers were pushing misinformation. I found that the website had close ties to BlueKraft Digital Foundation, an organisation that had exclusively published books authored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, some key officials of BlueKraft Digital had worked closely with Modi during his 2014 prime ministerial campaign.
Essar’s Industry of Influence
With the help of a whistleblower I documented how Essar Group, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, used its heft and contacts to influence decision-making from the top to the bottom, with links from the President of India to local journalists in the country’s hinterland.
Indians with links to prime real estate in Dubai
Parsed through a list of 129,000 entries in a Dubai database from 181 nations, in partnership with international investigative platform the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), to check Indians who were linked to 20 of the top real estate projects in Dubai. I reported on the Indian nationals mentioned in the database who had been accused of financial impropriety and had been investigated by Indian agencies. Further, in a second report I wrote about 21 Indian citizens linked to these exclusive properties who had ties to international tax havens, and had been named in Swiss Leaks, Offshore Leaks, Panama Papers and Paradise Papers.
Business
Rigged: How cronyism and corruption rigged the game against ONGC
Trying to understand why the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, one of the largest government-owned companies, was failing at its existential job, I uncovered that it was not just bureaucratic incompetence, but also external influence. Reliance Industries, the largest corporate group in the country, had been luring both, information and officials, from ONGC, and had even allegedly stolen gas from one of its fields. The government for its part, saw ONGC as a cash cow, and left it to foot the bill for the massive fuel subsidies. It has left the company compromised and India’s energy security vulnerable.
The Tempest: Have Radhika and Prannoy Roy set NDTV adrift?
New Delhi Television or NDTV, as it is more popularly known, has been one of the top TV news platforms in the country. It has produced some of the best, or at least the best known, faces of the English-language news media. I reported that through a series of transactions a sizeable share of promoter’s holdings of this publicly listed company had come to be owned by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The ownership has been masked through shell companies, giving Ambani a large say in the business decisions. More importantly, the transactions that resulted in this transfer of shares were suspect, giving the government leverage to intimidate the promoters at a time when the incumbent regime is extra sensitive to critical coverage.
Who finances India’s news media?
Probing the links between media and shell companies I found that three big businessman, including Mukesh Ambani, owned significant shares in five national media networks, masked by the shell companies in several cases.
Aadhaar officials part of private firms that use Aadhaar services for profit
India’s Aadhaar project has been mired in controversy since it was launched in 2009. The statutory authority responsible for creating this unique database with demographic and biometric information for all Indian citizens is the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). I reported that a few key officials of UIDAI, who had either worked with it in the past or were still involved with it, had become part of start-ups and had funded projects that wanted to monetise Aadhaar-based businesses, raising concerns of impropriety and conflict of interest.
Bad News: Why English-language news broadcasting is a losing game
In 2012 I reported how English-language TV news in India is not a profitable business, but has an outsized influence, with a minuscule national viewership. I had reported about the allegations of rigging of the process of measuring viewership in the story, an issue that became national news again in 2020.
Defence
Before troops took Kailash heights, Army looked East to relieve Ladakh pressure
As the military face-off between India and China in eastern Ladakh completed a year, brought out new facets of how India planned its response to Chinese aggression in 2020, looking at options in the east, before deciding to restrict the conflict to one region.
Winter at LAC
With tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops spending the winter at heights above 15,000 feet in an unprecedented deployment, a detailed look at what it takes to keep the troops battle ready in such conditions.
Satellite imagery shows how Chinese changed status quo on Pangong bank, Galwan Valley
As the standoff between India and China progressed all through 2020, used commercial satellite imagery to show where and how China had transgressed India’s perception of the Line of Actual Control, and built military infrastructure on the Indian side.
Month before standoff, China blocked 5 patrol points in Depsang
While the focus had been on the four friction points in eastern Ladakh where China had transgressed in May 2020, I, along with a colleague reported about another friction point, Depsang Plains, which is strategically very significant for India. China had been blocking Indian troops from accessing its patrolling limits in Depsang even before the standoff began.
Navy makes strong pitch for third aircraft carrier
In January 2021 the government appointed country’s first Chief of Defence Staff with the mandate to prioritise India’s defence acquisitions among the armed forces. With just one aircraft carrier available to it, and a second likely to be commissioned next year, the CDS has not been very keen on the Navy’s demand for a third carrier. But the Navy has been pushing back.
Politics
Myanmar nationals fleeing to India after the coup
In March 2021 I tracked down Myanmar nationals who were fleeing the country after the February coup in which the Tatmadaw deposed the Aung San Suu Kyi-led NLD government. I reported that the government of a small northeast Indian state of Mizoram, where most of the refugees had reached, was extending basic help to them. But the Union Government ordered all Myanmar-bordering states to not only deny any assistance, it even wanted the states to push them back into Myanmar. The refugees said that going back would mean death for them, as most of them were police personnel who had defied orders to shoot their own and fled their country.
The Spectre: Politicians play on the fear of immigrants in Assam
Reporting on the state assembly elections in Assam in 2016, I found that the Bhartiya Janta Party, which was in opposition in the state at that time, was reviving the xenophobic faultlines in the state, which borders Bangladesh. But more dangerously, it was pushing to divide the state along communal lines as well. BJP won that election, and the state’s politics has become more polarised on communal lines since. One of the two figures I profiled for the story, Himanta Biswa Sarma, became Assam’s chief minister in 2021.
Modi’s 2019 sweep
I reported extensively across four states before the 2019 general elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi came back to power with one of the strongest mandates that any government has won in decades. In the final roundup, I explained with a colleague how it was Modi government’s welfarism, over the nationalistic campaign, that may have actually helped him surpass his 2014 victory in terms of seats won.
Inside Man: The convenient opinions of Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati
Goolam Essaji Vahanvati was the Attorney General for India in 2013. In the constitutional post that he held he was supposed to protect the interests and rights of Indian citizens. However, I reported, that Vahanvati instead used his position to protect the government he was serving, and his rich and powerful business friends.
Interview with Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu
Got the first political interview of M Venkaiah Naidu after he took over as the Vice President of India in August 2017, in which he spoke about how different political parties need to come up with a code of conduct for their parliamentarians.
Krishn Kaushik 