DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2024, LUCKNOW, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES ALLEGATIONS OF BRIBERY TO SECURE POWER DEALS Adani aware of probe a year ago... told markets news false: US indictment SUKALP SHARMA NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22 ON MARCH 18 this year, three days after news agency Bloomberg reported that the US was “probing Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his group over potential bribery”, Adani Enterprises told Indian stock exchanges that the report was “false”. But almost exactly a year ago “on or around March 17, 2023”, Gautam Adani’s nephew Sagar Adani, Executive Director of Adani Green Energy, was approachedintheUSbyFBIspecial agents who took custody of his electronic devices, according to the November 20 US indictment of Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and six others. The FBI had also handed Sagar Adani a search warrant and served him with a grand jury subpoena. If not Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani definitely knew about the bribery probe, the indictment suggests. It said the “search warrant further described certain evidence subject to seizure, including evidence ‘related to the payment of or an offer to pay, bribes, kickbacks or provide or offer to provide any other thing of value to Indian government officials in order to obtain or retain business advantages’”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED In US, FBI seized nephew Sagar Adani’s electronic devices in March 2023 Under the scanner in ● the US THE US indictment and SEC charges claim that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani were aware of the bribery probe by the US authorities at least since March 2023, but continued to withhold such information as they went about raising funds in the US. Adani has denied all allegations. THE EDITORIAL PAGE DAMAGED: INDIA INC CREDIBILITY BY SANJAYA BARU PAGE 10 Election results today, Mahayuti & MVA dial independents, rebels Hotels,choppersbookedforwinningcandidates,virtualmeetson ALOK DESHPANDE MUMBAI, NOVEMBER 22 AHEAD OF the Maharashtra Assembly election results Saturday, the ruling Mahayuti and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi have beDECISION gun reaching out to inde2024 MAHARASHTRA pendent and rebelcandidates should their need arise to cross the halfway mark in the 288member House. Hotelshavebeenbookedand helicopters kept ready in case CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Naidu assures action, BJD says charges baseless, Baghel calls for probe SREENIVAS JANYALA, SUJIT BISOYI & JAYPRAKASH S NAIDU HYDERABAD, BHUBANESWAR, RAIPUR, NOVEMBER 22 REACTING FOR the first time to theindictmentof GautamAdani in the United States, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Friday said in the Legislative Assembly that the state government is in possessionof theindictmentreports, andassuredthatactionwouldbe taken if irregularities are found. UPASIKA SINGHAL & MANISH SAHU HATHRAS, LUCKNOW, NOVEMBER 22 At a counting centre in Thane on Friday, on the eve of the results. Counting of votes for the Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections as well as bypolls across several states will take place on Saturday. Deepak Joshi ONTHEnightof November8,after the Food Corporation of India's (FCI) godown in Hathras shut down for the weekend, a group of monkeys made their waytowardsanopenwindowin one of buildings where grains are stored. Thewindowwashigh,andto get to it, the monkeys would have had to make their way over a doorway, perch themselves on the parapet and then manoeuvre through an open slot. PAGE 12 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 According to officials, some of the windows needed their screens replaced as the godown was undergoing maintenance. At least 145 monkeys never made it out of the building. On Friday, veterinary doctors exhumed the bodies of five of the monkeys, who were allegedly buried – surreptitious – and conducted a postmortem. “The bodies were quite putrefied, so we cannot say anything concrete right now. They most likely died after inhaling poisonous gas, but we’ve collected a few samples and sent them for testing… We expect theresultsbySaturday,”saidone CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Captain Bumrah’s dream spell cracks open India-Australia series on Day 1 SRIRAM VEERA TRUMP PICKS PAM BONDI AS ATTORNEY GENERAL Naidu said that ever since his Telugu Desam Party-led NDA government came to power, it has been discussing alleged corruptionduringtheYSRCongress Party regime from 2019 to 2024. “I have all the reports of the indictment filed in the US. We will study them and take action accordingly. We will inform what action we will take,” Naidu said in the Assembly. ReactingtosomeNDAmembers demanding action against former chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, Naidu said the In Hathras, 145 monkey deaths, a cover-up & a tip-off EXPRESSINAUSTRALIA THE WORLD PERTH, NOVEMBER 22 ON A mind-boggling opening day of the first Test of the series in Australia, where three-quarters of the day was filled with chants from Australian fans before the Indian Tricolour and voices filled the Perth air, the Indian bowlers answered the burning question that faced them ahead of the game: What would happen once Jasprit Bumrah’s first spell ends? Who would keep up the pressure? Jasprit Bumrah celebrates the wicket of Australia’s Steve Smith in Perth on Friday. AP A question that hung in the air even more ominously after India were shot out for 150 by tea, and Bumrah had done what Bumrah does, a triple strike that left Australia gasping. The answer came in the final session in anutterlystunningfashion,even as the shadows slowly crept across the arena, as India re- sponded by an audacious counterpunch that left Australia reeling at 67 for 7 at stumps. It was a bowling performance that cracked open the entire series and shredded the dread that it might turn out to be a one-sided affair. Harshit Rana was the first to stepup,beforeMohammadSiraj too perked up after Bumrah’s triplestrikeasAustraliawereleft wobbling like intoxicated men by stumps. It, of course, needed Bumrahtostrikefirst,butthathe did wasn’t a surprise. When he finished his opening spell with three wickets, that included the big scalps of Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith in successive deliveries, the fear was that that wouldbeitforIndia.Theywould lose the venom, and Australia would bounce back to regain CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Bengal’s rural housing scheme runs into fresh trouble, discontent over ‘missing names’ on lists PAGE 1 ANCHOR RAVIK BHATTACHARYA & ATRI MITRA SOUTH 24 PARGANAS, PURBA BARDHAMAN, NOVEMBER 22 STANDINGINfrontof herkutcha house in Konkon Dighi village of WestBengal’sSouth24Parganas district, Jahanara Mir, 30, points to the roof — stacks of hay atop plastic sheets to keep the cold and water out. She says her fisherman husband Fakir Mir had applied for a pucca house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) in 2017 but in vain. Whentheyheardthatthelist of final beneficiaries from amongthe2017-2018applicants wasout,thecouplerushedtothe local Raidighi block office. Fakir Mir's NREGA ID number was on the list — but against a beneficiary named ‘Dholapada Haldar’. “No one here has heard of Dholapada Haldar. I’m sure his name is the reason why my husband’s name did not appear in the awas yojana (housing scheme) list. Look at our house — it is falling apart,” says Jahanara, who shares the cramped quarters with her aged in-laws. The implementation of the flagship rural housing scheme, consistently dogged by allegationsof irregularitiesinthestate, has run into fresh trouble. With the state government announc- `6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Jahanara Mir, flanked by her in-laws, in Konkon Dighi village of West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district. Ravik Bhattacharya ing that the 2017-2018 list of beneficiaries — the last such list tobedrawnup— wouldgettheir firstinstallmentbyDecember,in October, a statewide survey was startedtoupdateandfinalisethe list. But the Block Development Officers (BDOs), who are carry- ing out the survey, were met with protests across the state — in South 24 Parganas in October, followed by demonstrations in villages across North 24 Parganas, Purba and Paschim Bardhaman, Birbhum, West and East Midnapore, Malda and Murshidabad, among other districts. Theprotestersallegedseveral irregularities in the list, includingghostbeneficiariesandallotment of funds to people who already own concrete houses. The scheme has been at the centre of a tussle between the state and the Centre. In December 2020, acting on complaints of irregularities, the Centre decided to withhold the funding for the 2017-2018 state CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AN ICIJ-THE INDIAN EXPRESS INVESTIGATION Before Russia-Ukraine war, Western oil firms ‘cut deals’ to favour Moscow’s allies Inflated budgets, rigged bids, lucrative contracts: trail of dodgy transactions marked oil flows through 1500-km Caspian Pipeline Consortium, used by Russia, Kazakhstan SUKALP SHARMA & RITU SARIN NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22 FORALLthecurrentdiscourseon globalsanctionsandcensure,before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western oil giants, including affiliates of Chevron, Shell and Exxon Mobil, signed off on allegedly inflated budgets,riggedbids,andgavelucrative contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kazakhstan elite. This is one of the key revelationsof CaspianCabals,aninvestigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of which The Indian Express is a partner, into the 1500-km Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), one of the world’slargestcrudeoilpipeline systemsusedbybothRussiaand Kazakhstan. The CPC takes crude from large oil fields in western Kazakhstan and also from Russian producers to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, from where it is transported to buyers globally through tankers. In2023,CPCcarried63.5million tons of oil to international markets – around 10 per cent of CPC crude is Russian, the rest is fromKazakhstan’slargeoilfields Kashagan and Karachaganak. Since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, CPC paid at least $816 million to shareholders Transneft and Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company – and $321 million in taxes to Russian authorities. Thekeyfindingsof theinvestigation: ■Westerncompanies,ledby Chevron Corp., made payments to subcontractors who didn’t perform the work. In one case, they authorized a $48-million advancepaymentforwork—including building electricity lines to a new pumping station in southern Russia — that went missing as soon as it was paid. ■ Western oil companies — affiliates of Chevron, ExxonMobil,Italy’sEniS.p.A.and Shell — sought to curry favor with Putin allies and the politically influential Kazakh elite by granting them hefty contracts. ■ CPC cut corners on safety and downplayed the severity of a 2021 oil spill that didn’t just lead to environmental damage CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 OTTAWA DIALS DOWN ON ALLEGED NIJJAR PLOT After MEA rebuff, Canada rejects report: ‘no proof linking PM, Jaishankar, NSA’ SHUBHAJIT ROY & DIVYA A NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22 IN A significant move indicating anattempttodialdowntensions between Ottawa and Delhi, Canadian National Security AdvisorNathalie G Drouin, contradicting a report in The Globe and Mail daily, has said the government of Canada “has not stated, nor is it aware of evidence linking” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval to “the serious criminal activity” in Canada – a reference to the killing of Khalistan separatist Canadian National Security Advisor Nathalie G Drouin Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year. The Canadian NSA’s statement came two days after India rejected the report in The Globe and Mail. “We do not normally comment on media reports. However, such ludicrous statements made to a newspaper, purportedly by a Canadian government source, should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve,” Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, had said. On November 19, The Globe and Mail report stated, “Canadian security agencies believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India knew about the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia and other violent plots, according to a senior national-security official who worked on the intelligence assessment of New Delhi’s foreigninterference operations in Canada.” It also mentioned that Canadian and American intelligencetiedtheassassinationoperations to Union Home Minister CONTINUED ON PAGE 2