After efforts to target the Adani Group were thwarted, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has turned its focus towards one of India’s leading mining companies, the Vedanta Group. In a report published on August 31, 2023, the George Soros-backed organisation claimed that Anil Agarwal-led company ‘covertly’ lobbied the Modi government to weaken key environmental regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Employing similar strategies it used while carrying out a hit job at the Adani Group, OCCRP accused the central government of bending and modifying environmental policies to profit Vedanta Group chairman Anil Agarwal, whom the organisation went on to call ‘powerful people close to India’s government.’
Similar to the Adani-Ambani rhetorics that the Indian opposition, especially the Congress and both leftist Indian and International media have been overusing since Modi came to power, the report by OCCRP used terms like “a fan of Modi” for the Vedanta chairman to insinuate that the PM Modi-led BJP government was giving undue favours to the businessman.
It read that the central government approved the changes requested by the mining giant, without public consultation and implementing them using what experts say are illegal methods.
The OCCRP report read that in January 2021, when the world was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta Group, communicated to former environment minister Prakash Javadekar that mining companies could enhance production by up to 50 per cent without requiring new environmental clearances, potentially boosting India’s economic recovery.
“The government could add “impetus” to India’s “rapid” economic recovery by allowing mining companies to boost production by up to 50 per cent without having to secure new environmental clearances, he (Anil Agarwal) wrote in a letter to the then environment minister Prakash Javadekar that January,” said the OCCRP report.
The George Soros-backed organisation claimed Vedanta’s oil business, Cairn India, also successfully lobbied to have public hearings scrapped for exploratory drilling in oil blocks it won in government auctions.
“The year before Agarwal wrote to Modi, one of the company’s subsidiaries, Cairn Oil & Gas, also started lobbying to scrap public hearings for oil exploration projects. As with mining, the government quietly amended the law with no public consultation. Since then, at least six of Cairn’s oil projects in the northern deserts of Rajasthan have been greenlit for development,” the report read.
Before continuing, we should first examine the veracity of the serious charge OCCRP has brought against the Vedanta Group and the central government. In its report, the organisation has tried to portray that Anil Agarwal, the chairman of Vedanta Group wrote a letter to the then environmental minister asking for a personal favour, which the latter immediately approved due to Modi’s ‘friendship’ with such big industrialists. It basically accused the Modi government of approving environmental clearance for Vedanta without public consultation due to the personal equation it shared with the likes of Anil Agarwal.
The report also went on to claim that previous industry initiatives aimed at encouraging similar change had failed. But Agarwal got his way around.
However, this was no personal favour the Modi government granted to Anil Agarwal. This is, in fact, a government decision applicable to all miners not just Vedanta. It is normal for companies to write such letters to the ministry. These are official letters on record and do not suggest any scam.
In fact, an official press release by the Coal Ministry in August 2022, stated that in order to enhance coal production to meet the country’s energy requirement, the Ministry of Coal requested the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to consider expansion of mine without public consultation up to 50% of their production capacity.
In the press note, the Ministry of Coal mentioned the names of 10 such projects, undertaken by various companies, other than Vedanta, that were granted such environmental clearances.
Here it becomes abundantly clear that the letter written by Anil Agarwal to Prakash Javedkar was a similar official communique that the aforementioned companies that undertook those 10 projects might have written to the ministry asking for environmental clearance to enhance coal production. In the given situation it is laughable that the Soros-backed organisation OCCRP is calling an official communication, lobbying. This appears to be a clear case of prejudice against the incumbent BJP government, a similar one which has deliberated the organisation to maliciously target the Adani Group.
Unfazed by the erroneous information it disseminated in its unrelenting contempt for the incumbent Modi government, the report continued its ad hominem attack on the Prime Minister. It claimed that while Modi vowed to reduce India’s carbon emissions by a billion tons by 2030 and reach net zero emissions within 40 years, he approved changes to environmental laws and policies to economically benefit specific corporate entities or sectors, even though he was aware of the negative effects those changes would have on the environment.
“Publicly, Modi has pledged to reduce India’s carbon emissions by a billion tons by 2030 and reach net zero emissions within 40 years after that. But experts who reviewed OCCRP’s findings say they show his government has prioritized the interests of oil and mining companies over the fight against climate change,” OCCRP report read.
“Over the last few years, it is clear that most changes in environmental laws and policies have been largely guided in terms of the economic benefit it would bring to certain corporate entities or sectors,” it added.
Towards the end of the report, OCCRP quoted Vedanta’s response to its report. “One of the leading natural resources organizations in India” the company operated “with an objective of import substitution by enhancing domestic production in a sustainable manner,” it quoted Vedanta spokesperson as saying in an email response.
“In view of the same, continuous representations are submitted for consideration to the Government in the best interest of national development and India’s march towards self-reliance in natural resources,” the Vedanta spokesperson added in the email.
Well, here it becomes imperative to recall that OCCRP, following the footsteps of US-based short seller ‘Hindenburg Research’, recently did a hit job on the Adani group. Global left-wing media houses like the Financial Times and Guardian used the report by OCCRP to claim that the Adani family secretly invested in the Adani group shares, calling it a ‘family linked to PM Modi’.
The report by Financial Times claimed that Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod Adani was behind this and that the investment structures were “provided by an Indian financial group now called 360 One”.
The Guardian report, also based on the same report by OCCRP, didn’t mention the name of 360 One. It alleges that investments into Adani stock from two Mauritius-based funds were overseen by a Dubai-based company run by a known employee of Vinod Adani. It does not mention any involvement of any fund manager like 360 ONE.
No sooner, Rahul Gandhi rushed to address a press conference where he used these reports to resume his attack on PM Modi alleging links with Adani. He repeated already debunked lies, like the claim that Chang Chung-Ling is a Chinese national when the fact is that he is from Taiwan.
Mauritius-based fund 360 One denies allegations in OCCRP report
However, the allegations levelled by OCCRP and parroted by the leftist media and the Congress scion fell flat after yesterday (Thursday, August 31) 360 One came up with a clarification denying any links with the alleged transactions. 360 ONE made a filing with the BSE and NSE denying the claims made in the Financial Times report.
OpIndia also tried to delve into the ambiguity of the claims. We specified how it was not clear what the allegation was exactly as if the Vinod Adani company invested in stocks other than Adani, there is no question of buying Adani shares to inflate prices. It was also not clear why 360 One would pay money to an Assent subsidiary to advise on the investment. Ideally, it should get payment for investment advice.
Notably, just a few days ago, OpIndia also predicted that the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is planning a shakedown of India’s financial markets, following the footsteps of US-based short seller ‘Hindenburg Research’. OCCRP is funded by the likes of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF), the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, groups with a history of funding anti-India activities.
