Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) made the headlines on January 4, 2021 following a public statement assuring farmers that it has not indulged in contract farming or purchase of agricultural land and has “absolutely no plans to do so.”

However, the two-page long statement seems flimsy after considering past activities of the company under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) schemes. The company’s flagship programmes such as the Bharat India Jodo (BIJ) scheme and plans to engage in biodiesel production while engaging farmers have especially been criticised by experts and media channels for its ‘self-promoting’ attitude.

RIL introduces the scheme on its website using flattering catch-phrases such as “enriching lives of marginalised communities” and “enhances livelihood opportunities,” promises to work with grassroot organisations and technical resource agencies to “create a knowledge and resource platform for collaborative large-scale impact.”

Yet, agricultural scientist A. Prasad Rao voiced concerns about details of the 2010 initiative in a Frontline article published in 2013.  He pointed out that while the programme takes care of all expenses from land tilling to input supply and technology for the first three years, it also binds peasants with contracts.

Rao said that farmers unknowingly agree to conditions stipulated in the English-language contract, including a clause that stipulates agreement details should not be revealed to anyone until the expiry of the three-year period. Another clause enables a member of the village Farmers’ Association to become a member of the farm producers’ company. Moreover, any dispute can only be settled at the headquarters of Reliance Foundation (Mumbai), effectively keeping farmers from legal help.

Similarly, during a legal analysis of the three farm laws – the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance & Farm Services Act, the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act – SabrangIndia observed that the contract farming Act puts similar legal restrictions of farmers.

The BIJ programme also claims to encourage ecological sustainability through resource conservation, use of cleaner technologies and promotion of biodiversity. At the same time, RIL also employed thousands of farmers to invest in jatropha plantation, a water-intensive crop if used for commercial purposes, said DownToEarth in 2015. The report worried about possible drinking water shortage and encroachment on pastoral lands and animal habitats if plans continued.

A social worker based in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh Ashok Pradhan told DownToEarth that large corporations would use the jatropha-hype created by the government to grab vast stretches of forest and pastoral land. He also mentioned that the state government promised 200,000 hectares (ha) to some of the largest private sector companies such as Reliance.

The article said the rush for land would only victimise poor farmers, fighting to protect their land from rich Haryana and Punjab farmers eyeing the lucrative bio-diesel business.

Earlier in 2008, Livemint stated that RLS has “alliances” with farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, to build clusters of 100,000 acres for 100,000-tonne biofuel extraction plants. RIL also signed agreements with 1,200 farmers for one- and two-year-old jatropha plantation on 2,200 acres of wasteland in Nizamabad, Andhra Pradesh.

When SabrangIndia approached farmer leader Hannan Mollah regarding the company’s statement he said, “Reliance has thousands of acres of land under its ownership. This land has not fallen from heaven but has been taken from farmers. We are sure that they will continue to do so in future.”

Earlier, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) rejected RIL’s statement as a “ploy to serve business interests.”

Incidentally, Reliance, the biggest mango producer in the country, also owns 600 acres of land at Jamnagar, Gujarat.

Regardless, the statement says that the company does not own agricultural land and even goes so far as to say that it helped farmers gain significant profits by creating technology-enables supply chains.

In response, Mollah said, “Compared to farmers’ benefit, retail chain owners have much more to benefit since they are ones who determine the quality of products and the middlemen who carry out the business. This narrative of companies losing out for farmers is completely false. Reliance has always believed in advertisement. That is what this statement is. It is an advertisement created for the benefit of Reliance.”

Related:

Reliance Industries claims it stands with farmers, not for contract farming

Are the new farm laws constitutional?

Haryana: Farmer protesters suffer tear gas shellings, survivors claim police used expired shells

Farmers protest faces new enemy in the form of winter rains

Farmers ask Centre: Do you stand with corporates or farmers?

Former Minister calls Centre’s three agri laws “draconian”, demands repeal

Rajasthan julloos at par with Delhi protests! Farmers observe relay fast

Change of Land Use permission granted to Adani raises eyebrows

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Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Aramco, will be acquiring 20% of shares of the Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries’ oil-to-chemicals division. Why did Reliance decide to sell 20% of its shares? Meanwhile, Reliance has decided to provide broadband services at lower prices from September 5, which would take the company closer to having a monopoly over India’s digital communication sector. NewsClick spoke with senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on the issue.

Courtesy: News Click

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Image: Prakash Javadekar Twitter
 
New Delhi: The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) condemned the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s (MHRD) list of eminent institutions on Monday. The President Rajib Ray and secretary Vivek Chaudhary made their qualms known against a pro-corporation government’s interference in deciding what is an eminent institute.
 
“DUTA has consistently opposed the Government’s obsession with rankings as the quality parameters used for ranking Higher Educational Institutions tend to ignore notions of Equity, Access and Public Accountability while emphasising on a narrow and arbitrary notion of Excellence. The exercise in creating a separate list of Eminent Institutions is also geared towards promoting a special economic zone for Higher Education brands that may pursue commercial aims with impunity and without any public accountability. This criticism is amply borne out by the MHRD’s announcement of a list of Eminent Institutions,” their statement said.
 
“These Eminent Institutions feature IITs wherein women’s access is limited to 14 per cent of the total students’ strength. Obviously, the diversity of students’ profile and Equity is not a matter of concern, here. But more shockingly, the MHRD has selected Jio Institute of Reliance Foundation over many other prestigious Institutions that had applied,” it said.
 
As of today, Jio only exists as a proposal.
 
“Jio Institute has no record of academic or socially relevant accomplishments; it would be hard to establish details about its faculty, campus infrastructure and courses. The inclusion of clauses which allow paper proposals to qualify as an Eminent Institution is an academic corruption of the highest order. It is turning a government scheme as a promotion for a private player,” they said in the joint statement.
 
“Institutional reputation is not built in a day. It takes years, in fact, decades, to build great institutions of Higher Education. Hence, Jio Institute’s designation as an Institution of Eminence is arbitrary and makes a mockery of this exercise. It proves the extent to which the MHRD, and by extension, this Government, is besotted by corporations and big businesses. Such shameful decisions become the basis of the fear that this Government intends to put Higher Education up for sale and stoop to any level to accomplish Privatisation. The DUTA unambiguously objects to the MHRD’s announcement of the list of Eminent Institutions and the inclusion of Jio Institute in the list,” they said.
 
The MHRD has also begun the process to repeal the UGC Act, 1951. According to the draft bill that will replace the UGC, monetary grants would be under the purview of the ministry. Presently, the University Grants Commission (UGC), which came into existence in 1953, provides financial assistance to eligible colleges.

A dangerous precedent is being set in the country by tactful measures being employed to undermine India’s education system, its teachers and students. The government seems to be in love with the idea of privatising education or taking complete control of institutions and make them pander to ideology instead of serving the masses their rightful and unbiased education.
 
Read also
Draft bill an attack on higher education in India
Dismantling the UGC with impunity
 

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Industrialist Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence said it has signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence for the design and construction of 14 Fast Patrol Vessels for the Indian Coast Guard valued at Rs 916 crore, the company said on Monday.

These ships are medium range, high speed vessels, and primarily used for patrol within the exclusive economic zone, coastal surveillance, and anti-smuggling, anti-piracy, search and rescue operations. They also support front-line warships in the hour of need.

Virtually all the private sector and public sector Shipyards had bid for the project, including Larsen and Toubro, Cochin Shipyard, Goa Shipyard, and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers.

"This is the first time, a private sector shipyard has been awarded a contract to design and build such class of ships for the Indian armed forces. Reliance Defence will be developing the design in-house," a regulatory filing by the company said.

Reliance's shipyard has the largest dry-dock in the country with considerable expertise in modular construction technology for building large ships for both commercial usage and the navy. 
 

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The Mint  reports that the oil ministry has decided not to take any coercive action to recover the $1.55 billion it has demanded from Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) as compensation for producing gas allegedly at the expense of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) from a shared offshore reservoir while the dispute remains under arbitration, an official aware of the development said.

Keeping the demand, raised on November 4, in abeyance is a departure from the approach the government had taken in several past disputes that have gone into arbitration, including with RIL and Cairn India Ltd. The development will avert an immediate financial impact on RIL, one of the largest private investors in the oil and gas sector.

The move is also set to signal certainty of the regulatory regime governing resolution of disputes in the natural resources sector, and is in line with the Modi administration’s intent to improve the country’s track record on enforcing commercial contracts, an indicator in World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking.

The oil ministry has been campaigning for investments into hydrocarbon exploration and has set a target for reducing oil and gas import dependence by 10 percentage points to 67% by 2022.

The ministry raised the demand after the Justice A.P. Shah panel, which looked into ONGC’s claim of gas flow between the neighbouring fields of the two companies, recommended on  August 31 that RIL should compensate for the “unfair enrichment” it had by way of retaining the gains of gas flow into its block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG D6).

“Recovery of the compensation will be kept in abeyance. There is little sanctity in arbitration if coercive measures are taken simultaneously,” a person briefed about the oil ministry’s position said on condition of anonymity. An email sent to RIL on Thursday remained unanswered at the time of publishing.

This contrasts with the approach the government had taken earlier. When gas price was raised by 33% to $5.61 per million British thermal unit on October 18, 2014, the government insisted that since an arbitration with Reliance was pending since November 2011 on recovery of cost of gas production, the incremental revenue from price hike should be kept in an account maintained by GAIL (India) Ltd till legal proceedings are over. That arbitration is still on.
Also, the government had in May 2014 attached the residual stake of 10% that UK’s Cairn Energy Plc holds in Cairn India Ltd in relation to a tax dispute arising from the controversial 2012 retrospective amendment to the Income Tax Act. That dispute too is in arbitration.

Dispute resolution is one area the government is working on to improve investor interest in the country’s sedimentary basins, the entire unexplored part of which will be opened up for bids next year under a new open acreage policy.

Director General of Hydrocarbons Atanu Chakraborty told Mint in an interview published on October 13 that the upstream regulator was planning to set up a portal to facilitate communication among stakeholders in the industry that will help in reducing disputes. At the moment, there is no such mechanism for companies operating different blocks which are adjacent to one another.

According to Kalpana Jain, senior director, Deloitte in India, prolonged disputes do not augur well for the natural resources sector considering the high risk and capital-intensive nature of the industry.

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ताजा मामले के अनुसार रिलायन्स जियो के विज्ञापनों में प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के फोटो के इस्तेमाल का विवाद अदालत में पहुंच गया है। मुंबई में एक व्यक्ति ने बॉम्बे हाईकोर्ट में जनहित याचिका दायर कर कहा कि निजी कंपनी के सिम को प्रमोट करने के लिए भारत के प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी की तस्वीरों का इस्तेमाल गलत है।
 
याचिका में कहा गया है कि प्रधनमंत्री को बिना बताये अगर उनकी तस्वीरों का इस्तेमाल हुआ है तो ये हैरान करने वाली बात है। 
 
याचिकाकर्ता ने यह भी कहा है की प्रधानमंत्री को अगर डिजिटल इंडिया एजेंडा को प्रमोट करना है तो उसके लिए बीएसएनएल और एमटीएनएल जैसी सरकारी टेलीकॉम कंपनियों को प्रमोट करना चाहिए ना कि रिलायंस को ।

याचिकाकर्ता ने मामले में केंद्र सरकार, राष्ट्रपति, प्रधानमंत्री, रिलायंस इंडस्ट्रीज लिमिटेड, रिलायंस जिओ इंफोकॉम लिमिटेड और मुकेश अंबानी सहित तक़रीबन 25 लोगों को पार्टी बनाया है।

Courtesy: National Dastak

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लेकिन जिन लोगों ने जियो सिम खरीद लिया है वह अब इसे लेकर रो रहे हैं। किसी को स्पीड की दिक्कत है तो किसी को कॉल करने में समस्या है। जियो के कस्टमर जियो के फेसबुक पेज पर कंपनी से बस एक ही सवाल पूछ रहे हैं कि आखिर तेज स्पीड का दावा करने वाली मुकेश अंबानी की कंपनी जियो 4G स्पीड कब देगी।

आपको बता दें कि हाल ही में रिलायंस जियो ने एक रिलीज जारी कर ऐलान किया था कि महज 26 दिन में 1.6 मिलियन यूजर बना कर कंपनी ने रिकॉर्ड बना दिया है। 

अब इस रिकॉर्ड के बाद कंपनी को यह भी देखना चाहिए कि क्या उन 1.6 मिलियन लोगों को कंपनी वादे के मुताबिक बेहतर स्पीड दे पा रही है? और फ्री वॉयस कॉल तो ठीक है लेकिन क्या जियो यूजर्स एयरटेल और वोडाफोन जैसे यूजर्स से बेहतर कॉल कर पाते हैं।
 
जियो को अपनी बैंडविंड्थ को मजबूत करने की जरुरत है। जियो का बेहद कम समय में इतना लोकप्रिय होने का खास कारण हैं इसके डेटा टैरिफ प्लान और अगर ऐसे में कंपनी यूजर्स को वहीं ठीक तरह से मुहैया ना करा सके तो ये जियो के लिए और कस्टमर्स के लिए भी गंभीर समस्या है।

Courtesy: National Dastak
 

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Image: fonearena.com

Make no mistake, Reliance Jio's entry into mobile data and voice services is going to cause a tectonic shift in the industry. Not because the rates for data are low, and voice is free. The Jio rates are not significantly lower than what other players are offering. Nor because the PM himself appears to be pushing Jio, an Ambani product, using his “image”.

So why do I think this is a tectonic shift? Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio has now birthed the convergence paradigm — all voice calls should be treated as data — that everybody knew was coming. They just moved the start date of this paradigm forward. Further, they have built an infrastructure that is primarily geared to data, and therefore in line with this new paradigm.

For a telecom company or a consumer, revenue is finally not the revenue per call or revenue per Gigabytes (GB) of data, but what the telecom company extracts from you as a consumer: the average revenue per user (ARPU). It is the monthly bill that you pay that really matters. This is what Jio is betting on. It recognises that voice calls based on internet applications on your smart phone – Whatsapp, Signal, Skype – are already being done as data. As they do not have any existing voice customers, they lose nothing by offering free voice. In order to get free voice, the consumer will have to subscribe to a data plan. As long as the average revenue per user remains high in the data plans, Jio has no problem giving away voice free.

Looking at Jio's data plans, their ARPU – even for the lowest slab which is Rs. 149 for 28 days – is going to be higher than what the bulk of voice consumers today pay and almost the same as the ARPU of Vodafone, which has the highest ARPU – of Rs. 178 per month – among the existing telecom players.

Most of voice calls today use data links for the backhaul, particularly for long distance. Jio is using this model for all voice calls. For those who would argue that this is the dreaded Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) that needs to be separately licensed, they “forget” that the existing Unified License already has a license for VOIP, which the existing operators have not exercised. JIO is using the hole that exists in the existing Unified License scheme of the VOIP license to defeat the “keep VOIP out strategy” of the existing major players. With Jio, they now have an enemy within their ranks. This is the major disruption that is on the anvil now.

Can the existing telecom operators fight this disruption? That will depend on what they do now. One is clearly offering VOIP as per their original terms of the Unified License and bring down the costs for voice. The second is to offer a quality of service that is better than what Jio can offer. The have a country wide network, and can leverage that to their advantage. What they will find hard to beat, is the fibre optic network that Jio has built across the country, that is streets ahead of the competition.

Are Jio rates ridiculously low as it is being hyped in the media? No, they are not. This is the razzmatazz of marketing. They have apparently offered Rs. 19 for free voice and 0.1 GB of data, which is unlimited at night. Seems very attractive for young users, does it not? But let us look a little closer. The Rs. 19 plan is for a day! This means over 30 days it is Rs. 570 and therefore not low at all. And night is defined as 2 AM to 5 AM! The Jio plans, once you look at them closely, look a lot less attractive than they appear at first sight. If we “deconstruct” them, offer by offer, we see they have a 7 day plan, a 21 day plan, and finally a 28 day plan. If we convert them to equivalent monthly plans – apples to apples and not apple to oranges — we find that there are others who are offering similar data services. For example, Anil Ambani's Reliance is offering data services – Rs. 500 for 5 GB as against Jio's Rs.499 for 4 GB — that are actually cheaper than equivalent Jio plans.

For the existing telecom operators, this is the evil day they have been postponing. About 70% of their income is from voice calls. If we consider them as data, the voice consumers are being charged 60 to 70 paisa per call minute, which should only be 2 paisa per minute in data terms. Of course, they would have to generate more revenue to compensate for their voice revenue loss by treating voice as data. This demands that their data traffic increase dramatically and requires a major scaling up of their networks. This is what they have not done. Instead, they have been relying on very high data charges (based on purchasing power parity calculations) and the huge income they earn from their legacy voice services.

Is Jio a boon to the Indian telecom sector? Far from it. While Reliance did break – along with BSNL and the consumers – the mobile operators cartel, they also broke a number of laws. Some of them were criminal acts, carried out with full knowledge of the owners – Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani. They got away with a rap on the knuckles and some minimal fines. In this case too, they have received the blessings from the Department of Telecom in various ways. One is securing the 4G or BWA license itself. They created a front company – Infotel Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd – who paid Rs.12,847.77 crore for 20 megahertz (MHz) of the spectrum in all 22 circles, or 5,000 times its net worth of Rs. 2.5 crore! Once Infotel secured the licenses, all pretence was dropped and it was formally “acquired” by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its May Report has charged that Reliance Jio has been shown undue favours to the tune of Rs. 20,000 crore. The DoT has tried to give an answer to the CAG's observations and we will have to see what the CAG now does. But there is little doubt that a company with net worth of Rs. 2.5 crore where the reserve price itself in thousands of crores is a gross violation of bidding practices.

This article first published on www.Newsclick.in
 

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Image credit:  Twitter/Scroll Staff

On Friday, readers of the national dailies The Times of India and the Hindustan Times woke up to a full-page jacket advertisement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, dressed in a blue jacket, staring at them from under the words “Jio: Digital Life”.

The advertisement for Reliance Jio, the second coming of Reliance Industries in telecom, carried the words “Dedicated to India and 1.2 billion Indians” in bold type, followed by a short message:

“In the journey of time, there come a few life changing moments. Our honourable Prime Minister’s inspiring vision of a Digital India is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realising our Prime Minister’s Digital India vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio Digital Life will give the power of data to each Indian, to fulfill every dream and collectively take India to the global digital leadership…”

The tribute-in-an-ad came a day after Mukesh Ambani, chairperson of Reliance Industries, launched Reliance Jio in Mumbai with Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan by his side. There too Ambani, the richest man in India, had voiced a short dedication to Modi.

“Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for Digital India is a life changing moment,” he said. “Jio is a dedication to that Digital India dream of the Prime Minister, his vision for the 1.2 billion people of India.”

Headed by Ambani’s daughter Isha and son Akash, both 24 years old, Reliance Jio’s 4G services are touted to disrupt the telecom industry. It is offering data services at as low as Rs 50 per GB, reportedly the lowest data charge anywhere in the world, free voice calls along with free roaming in India. According to Ambani, customers can show up with the unique biometric-based Aadhaar card at a Jio store and get a SIM card within 15 minutes.

A long time coming, Jio was expected to launch a media blitzkrieg. But an ad with the prime minister’s image? Social media was not amused. In fact, it wondered if the usage of the image was even legal.

According to The Emblems And Names (Prevention Of Improper Use) Act, 1950, "…No person shall, except in such cases and under such conditions as may be prescribed by the Central Government use… for the purpose of any trade, business, calling or profession… any name or emblem specified in the Schedule or, any colourable imitation thereof without the previous permission of the Central Government or of such officer of Government as may be authorised in this behalf by the Central Government."

Of course, Reliance may well have received written permission from the government to use Modi's picture, which would make it okay to do. Previous matters in which this Act have come up have also suggested some nuance in interpreting the law, as with Montblanc's use of Mahatma Gandhi to sell pens a few years ago, resulting in a controversy.

The only caveat to the law is: "The name of pictorial representation of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj or the Prime Minister of India, except the pictorial use thereof on calendars where only the names of the manufacturers and printers of the calendars are given and the calendars are dot (sic) used for advertising goods."

It should be noted that the advertisement came on a day when central trade unions have called for a nationwide strike to protest against "anti-labour policies" of the Modi government.

Twitterverse used the opportunity to respond with jokes.

Meanwhile, the front page looks even more incongruous because on Friday night, Modi – who rarely gives one-on-one meetings – is set to appear in an interview given to Network18, a media company that happens to be owned primarily by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited.

Article was first published on Scroll.in
 

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