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castevictim | 5 years ago

I think the lack of geographical proximity to Jio, didn't give Mr. Ben the complete picture of the forces at play.

The story of Jio (Reliance) cannot be told without the political-corruption-nexus in India, by investing in Jio - Facebook, Google, Qualcomm etc. not only acquire stake in 'The Enterprise' of India but also guaranteed of political favors apart from access to data from millions of Indians through a single unregulated channel.

Let me give you an example of the political reach companies like Adani, Reliance etc. which are in nexus with current ruling party - BJP have in India. I have personally heard from Ex. High Court judges that when they were presiding over cases involving Adani, Reliance they were approached by officials from those companies and were asked "Would you like to be a Governor after your retirement?".

As there is practically no real opposition party left in India, BJP will rule India for for decades to come as it slips into total authoritarianism(like CCP).

So being on good terms with Jio/Reliance aka BJP, guarantee these companies unfettered access to Indians and especially their data. I'm sure BJP already has the necessary infrastructure in place for analyzing data from Jio customers, now with Facebook, WhatsApp, Google you can see where this is going.

As any non-alignment with Jio/Reliance/BJP means 'the end' as we are seeing with even Govt. institutions like BSNL(Telecom), HAL (Aircraft Manufacturer) etc. Any business in India or from abroad now should appease Jio if they have to survive.

discuss

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unmole|5 years ago

> nexus with current ruling party - BJP

It's not like things were too different before. Mukesh Ambani supposedly referred to the INC as Apni Dukaan. Both the Congress and BJP are more than happy to appease Motabhai.

Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/mukesh-said-haan...

castevictim|5 years ago

Yes, but the systematic dismantling of the independent agencies did not happen during congress period even though there were always bootlickers around in every govt.

Remember Auditor General of India, CBI(FBI equivalent) discovered and booked Congress-alliance party members for scam while they were ruling? Now, CBI has become a laughing stock is being used as lap dogs for ruling party to get parties into alliance with them.

rusticpenn|5 years ago

Atleast there was no situation where BSNL was not granted 5G rights, while Jio is granted with this. IT feels like Reliance is govt funded while BSNL is private.

blueblisters|5 years ago

Ben later cited two articles written by people who are arguably closer in geographical proximity to Jio:

- https://hind.substack.com/p/reliance-origins/

- https://hind.substack.com/p/from-oil-to-jio

The articles say that the Ambani family was very close to the Gandhis too. It's very hard to find a complete picture of how Reliance works - I guess they keep a very tight inner circle. Most accusations of impropriety are very vague. I don't think anyone disagrees that Reliance has tremendous political influence, but it's hard to argue that influence is greater than other Indian oligarchs (Mittals, Tatas, Birlas etc.). It's especially hard to curry favor at the expense of the other.

I think the biggest reason for Reliance's relative success in cornering the telecom market is that their oil exports cashflow allows them to borrow money at much lower rates than their competitors, without worrying about hedging costs. The recent spate of investments have almost certainly been accelerated due to the drop in oil prices which has hurt their long-term debt settlement prospects tremendously. The investments gave a much needed sigh of relief for the Reliance group of companies and their bondholders.

castevictim|5 years ago

>but it's hard to argue that influence is greater than other Indian oligarchs (Mittals, Tatas, Birlas etc.)

That's naive at best.

It's no secret that Billionaires have their way anywhere in the world, especially in India where inequality is enforced, armored with the caste system. So, an Entrepreneur belonging to high caste, heading a company (Infosys, TCS etc.) has far less hurdles than a lower caste individual whose even the right to education via the reservation system would be questioned at every step of their life.

That said, Reliance - BJP nexus is nothing like India has seen before, so the political favors received by the Mittals, Tatas, Birlas pale in comparison. Details in other comment replies.

>The investments gave a much needed sigh of relief for the Reliance group of companies and their bondholders.

It was not like Jio was struggling for survival, which loads of other companies and millions of Indians do at this pandemic. Govt.'s answer to them? Get a loan from the Bank(Which none of the Banks are willing to give, even farmer gold loans have been halted in several states).

Where else have we seen global competitors who are fighting neck and neck in different markets invest in a single company which hasn't proven anything else other than undercutting competitors with inferior technology? Only thing which makes Reliance-Jio different from any other companies in India are its political influence and that is why these global players are rushing to invest. That and the wretched data.

KorematsuFred|5 years ago

I see that claim being thrown around a lot but it does not have much merit IMO.

India is very corrupt but then all companies know that already. There is nothing special that Reliance can offer that Vodafone or Airtel wont. In fact during the Congress government India saw the largest scam ever perpetuated by non-Reliance players.

Reliance is also not a winner always. Reliance industries has burned its hands on retail, 2G services, agriculture, social media and many other business.

People assign too much competence of current BJP government. Had they been half as competent as their opponents claim we would have seen a far different India.

castevictim|5 years ago

>People assign too much competence of current BJP government.

That is mistaking its competence to get votes, retain power to competence in governance, the latter should have been very clear when it demonetized the currency plunging millions into poverty and economic turmoil from which the India has never recovered from.

We are telling BJP is criminal, racist, and fascist political party(Its parent RSS directly borrowed its ideology from Nazi) which will go to any length to get votes and be in power.

newyankee|5 years ago

The auction irregularity conducted by the alleged Shell company which was bought by JIO and highlighted by CAG was done in 2010. This was the era of UPA2. Stop bashing BJP with over exaggerations. It is pretty well understood that Ambani is close to all political parties in India.

castevictim|5 years ago

Proportion and depth matters.

>The auction irregularity conducted by the alleged Shell company which was bought by JIO and highlighted by CAG was done in 2010

CAG highlighted irregularity with so many other things with the auction and top ruling party-alliance members were booked for scam, why didn't BJP take further action on this report then?

Meanwhile, Airtel/Vodafone (Competitors to Jio) have been asked to pay $ 12.3 Billion AGR dues after supreme court order. This wouldn't have happened if the ruling BJP Govt. had respected the order of TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal) which stayed the payments in 2015 in favor of said telecom companies.

This kind of blatant favoritism for Reliance, Adani etc. leading to total destruct ion of competitive business environment in India did not happen before.

aluksi|5 years ago

While there is some resemblance of truth in your argument but to compare India's democratically elected government to CCP authoritarianism is totally absurd. There is always lobbying and influence peddling in any government in any part of the world but to pronounce something diabolical with rather tenuous anecdotal evidence is just political posturing.

harsh3195|5 years ago

For decades? I think that's a gloomy thought. But these companies do have lobbies in all political parties. So whose in power won't make much of a difference.

castevictim|5 years ago

>So whose in power won't make much of a difference.

It does, depending upon whether a party has a moral ceiling. Whether there's something which they wouldn't do. Unfortunately, there is no such limit for a party which does not believe in democracy.

Why has India dropped in democracy ratings drastically?[0]

What's worrying is, now that BJP has taught other parties how India's democracy can be broken, even if by some miracle some other party comes to power, it will do the same. So, I will agree with you then.

But, that's not going to happen as BJP has ensured that no elections in future would be fair[1].

[0]https://www.oneindia.com/india/democracy-index-2019-india-sl...

[1]https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2020/jul/15/asian-....

sbmthakur|5 years ago

> Let me give you an example of the political reach companies like Adani, Reliance etc. which are in nexus with current ruling party - BJP have in India. I have personally heard from Ex. High Court judges that when they were presiding over cases involving Adani, Reliance they were approached by officials from those companies and were asked "Would you like to be a Governor after your retirement?".

Corruption in judiciary is widely known and it predates Adani, Reliace etc. Nothing much can be done here as the Constitution exempts contempt of court from freedom of speech.

> As there is practically no real opposition party left in India, BJP will rule India for for decades to come as it slips into total authoritarianism(like CCP).

Similar predictions were made for Congress but things turned out differently. BJP has even lost some key states recently. That doesn't look like CCP in anyway.

coder_seeker|5 years ago

> by investing in Jio - Facebook, Google, Qualcomm etc. not only acquire stake in 'The Enterprise' of India but also guaranteed of political favors apart from access to data from millions of Indians through a single unregulated channel.

What about the rest of the dozen investor's including private equity and sovereign funds that have invested in Jio. What political favors could they possibly gain? I think these investor's are mostly looking at multiple rates of return when Jio will IPO either in India or overseas (probably US). It is just a super attractive investment opportunity that is similar to any Silicon Valley High Growth startup.

fakedang|5 years ago

Uh, anything?

Say you want to acquire property for cheap, like a port or a rezoned development. But laws get in the way. You call in Reliance and demand a favour, then they'll demand a favour from the government. It's happened very often in India to not notice. An affiliate of one of the funds in question actually owns port property in India. Private Equity has a lot to gain from this deal, and not just returns.

ece|5 years ago

Since gas prices are on high side and highly regulated by the government in India, I don't think Reliance ever faced pressures the way other refiners in the world did with low/high oil prices. If anything high pump prices are just another form of subsidy to Reliance as oil prices have stayed low in recent years.

sassy_samurai|5 years ago

This guy is talking out of his ass. There's no truth to what he's saying. He's an anti-national Muslim.

known|5 years ago

What else can we expect when 50% Ministers in Modi Cabinet are Brahmin and 80% Judges in Courts are Brahmin; And Brahmin are just 3% in India; https://archive.is/ojjbF