[castevictim]

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.

[unmole]

> 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]

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.

[sseth]

During congress rule, CBI was referred to as a "caged parrot". The CBI did not act unless forced by the Supreme Court.

The CAG is a very different body - it is much more independent of government, and did raise issues around 2G spectrum allocation and many other areas during Congress time. I mean, the UPA had a minister running an entire TV station out of BSNL lines running to his home, so really it was pretty blatant and hard not to catch.

We should not confuse this type of corruption with doing favors to business which does not show up in government books, and is not easy for CAG to catch.

[gigatexal]

To be fair I can’t think of a congress party member that was wanted for crimes against humanity on an international scale until he became PM and all was forgiven. [1]

[1](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30826044)

[castevictim]

It is indeed extraordinarily sad that we have accustomed to have 'A mass murder accused' as prime minister and it is not even part of discussions against the party which hosts him.

[known]

No sane person will respect Modi if they knew all the ugly/sub-human things he did to become CM/PM; Hope 22 crores who voted for Modi are regretting now;

[sbmthakur]

You missed an important detail. A committee under the aegis of the Supreme Court of India cleared him of all those crimes against humanity.

[rusticpenn]

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.

[cocoland2]

I had my rant about BSNL down below. BSNL by a far distance has to be the worst in terms of Customer service , which is sad because i know of brilliant engineers who joined as Junior Engineers in BSNL clearing PSC. Unless there is accountability , there is no chance BSNL will survive. Note that this is really bad , especially for rural areas where BSNL had the strongest connectivity

[castevictim]

I have spoken with several top BSNL authorities. Systematic hurdles are being thrown at them from performing even routine tasks necessary to maintain telecom infrastructure.

e.g. Roads cannot be dug up by BSNL for repairing their telephone lines, where as Reliance can. If they indeed proceed to dig up the road, they are threatened with a police case. In several cities, only Reliance have permission to dig the roads for new telephone/broadband lines.

In HAL, future Aircraft/Helicopter productions were halted after the Rafael deal was signed up with Jr. Ambani's Reliance. But when the whistleblower letter from PMO hit the roof, supreme court was involved, some HAL old projects were given permission to continue to not raise suspicion. But still, many in HAL beleive it's done for and only companies in nexus with BJP with no prior experience will manufacture military Aircraft in the future(This was before the China fiasco).

[sbmthakur]

> In HAL, future Aircraft/Helicopter productions were halted after the Rafael deal was signed up with Jr. Ambani's Reliance. But when the whistleblower letter from PMO hit the roof, supreme court was involved, some HAL old projects were given permission to continue to not raise suspicion. But still, many in HAL beleive it's done for and only companies in nexus with BJP with no prior experience will manufacture military Aircraft in the future(This was before the China fiasco).

The Rafale deal is not even about manufacturing fighter jets. Not sure from where such anecdotes come from.

[blueblisters]

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]

>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.

[cocoland2]

There is a rush to the Indian telco space , not just JIO there is talk of Airtel getting infusion from Amazon

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/teleco...

P.S. The house always wins , does not matter who is at the centre. The little one Ambani was super close to the Congress (Ambani - Amar singh - SP - Congress) to be clear. He lost a truck load of money.

[KorematsuFred]

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]

>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.

[naruvimama]

Fanta, Autobahn & Volkswagen are also products of the Nazis.

One of the reasons Modi/BJP's opponents failed is because of the level of ridiculous accusations they level against them.

An one point even staunch communists and Congress supports lost faith in their politics.

I really do not understand how much people can hate the success of others. Contrast Reliance with the likes of Karunanidhi dynasty or the Gandhi dynasty, not only do these dynasts directly loot public money in the billions. They also have them stashed abroad, often in sensitive projects like Hamabanthota run by enemy states like China.

[sassy_samurai]

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

[known]

They're suffering from Mass Hysteria :)

[newyankee]

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]

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]

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.

[castevictim]

>as it slips into total authoritarianism(like CCP).

https://scroll.in/latest/950716/india-slips-10-spots-to-51st...

[harsh3195]

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]

>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]

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

Are you implying that they lost key states like Maharashtra on purpose?

[harsh3195]

I mean, out of the two parties who can be in power in the near future, one has been involved in the 2G spectrum scam and the other is, well, bjp. The moral ceiling seems super high for both.

[known]

"Who's right doesn't matter, who has the power does" --Thucydides (471 BC - 400 BC)

[sbmthakur]

> 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]

> 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]

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]

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]

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

[known]

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

[castevictim]

Add to that, judicial system which is statistically proven to be Brahminical[0].

But in jail two-third of prisoners are Dalits, tribals and from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 19% are Muslims[1].

[0]https://www.huffingtonpost.in/suraj-yengde/theres-a-caste-bi...

[1]https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/majo...

[known]

And this is why in 1932 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award Ambedkar demanded a Separate Country (not Reservations) where Brahmin/Bania/Kshatriya can live on a Visa;

[saagarjha]

I think that is probably the most poorly written Wikipedia article I have read in a while.