The Income Tax department survey operation against the BBC India continued for the second day with the sleuths understood to be making copies of electronic and paper-based financial data of the organisation, officials said Wednesday, February 15, 2023.
The tax department had launched the action on Tuesday at the British Broadcasting Corporation‘s (BBC) Delhi and Mumbai offices along with at least two linked premises as part of an investigation into alleged tax evasion against the British broadcaster in India.
Sleuths knocked at the doors of the BBC around 11:30 am on Tuesday and they are still present, sources aware of the development said. The tax officials are speaking to staffers of the BBC in the finance and some other departments even as other staffers and journalists were allowed to leave Tuesday night. Some computer peripherals and mobile phones were cloned as part of the operation, officials had said.
The action, which sparked a sharp political debate with the ruling BJP accusing the BBC of “venomous reporting” and the opposition questioning the timing of the move, came weeks after the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, on the Prime Minister and the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The survey is being carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, officials had said on Tuesday. While there has been no official statement from the Income Tax department on the action, the BBC has said it was cooperating with the authorities.
Aware of BBC raid, cannot offer any judgement: U.S.
The Income Tax officials said the operation was part of a tax evasion investigation.
“We are aware of the search of the BBC offices in Delhi by Indian tax authorities. I would need to refer you to Indian authorities for the details of this search. Beyond this discrete action, what I’ll say more broadly is the general point that I’ve consistently made in this context, but in a universal context as well,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters here.
“We support the importance of free press around the world. We continue to highlight the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as human rights that contribute to strengthening democracies around the world. It has strengthened this democracy here in this country. It has strengthened India’s democracy,” Price said.
These universal rights are the bedrock of democracies around the world, he asserted.
When asked if this action went against some of the spirit or value of democracy, Price said, “I couldn’t say. We’re aware of the facts of these searches, but I’m just not in a position to offer a judgement.”
The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted a survey operation at the British Broadcasting Corporation’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai. The surprise action comes weeks after the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and India. Tax officials said the department is looking at documents related to the business operations of the company and those related to its Indian arm.
Israeli-linked internet activity operating fake social media campaigns in India: Report
A team of Israeli contractors who are feared to have interfered with more than 30 elections around the world have been linked with software to operate fake social media campaigns across several countries, including India, a report said on Wednesday.
In an international investigation by a journalist consortium including by The Guardian newspaper in the U.K., a so-called “Team Jorge” unit has been linked with allegedly offering a sophisticated software package named Advanced Impact Media Solutions (Aims) to commercial clients as one of its key services.
The unit is said to be run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and Team Jorge is accused of using means such as hacking, sabotage, and automated disinformation online. When questioned, Hanan told the investigation that he denies “any wrongdoing”.
The newspaper report said on Wednesday that over several months last year, along with its reporting partners on the investigation, it had tracked Aims-linked bot activity across the internet and found it was behind “fake social media campaigns, mostly involving commercial disputes, in about 20 countries including the U.K., U.S., Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Senegal, India, and the United Arab Emirates”.
The consortium of journalists that investigated Team Jorge includes reporters from 30 global media outlets including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País. The project, part of a wider investigation into the disinformation industry, has been coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a French non-profit with a mission to pursue the work of assassinated, threatened or jailed reporters.
The investigation is part of Story killers, a collaboration led by Forbidden Stories, and was inspired by the work of Gauri Lankesh, a 55-year-old journalist who was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home in 2017.
The Guardian notes that hours before Lankesh was murdered, she had been putting the finishing touches on an article called “In the Age of False News”, which examined how so-called lie factories online were spreading disinformation in India.
In the final line of the article, which was published after her death, the late Indian journalist wrote: “I want to salute all those who expose fake news. I wish there were more of them.” The undercover footage for the latest investigation into Team Jorge was filmed by three reporters, who approached the unit posing as prospective clients.
In more than six hours of secretly recorded meetings, Hanan and his team reportedly speak about how they could gather intelligence on rivals, including by using hacking techniques to access Gmail and Telegram accounts.
In addition to Aims, Hanan allegedly told reporters about a “blogger machine”—an automated system for creating websites that the Aims-controlled social media profiles could then use to spread fake news stories across the internet.
Adani-Hindenburg row: SC agrees to hear fresh PIL of Congress leader on February 17
The Supreme Court on Wednesday listed on February 17 a petition filed by Congress party leader Dr. Jaya Thakur seeking investigation against the Adani Group on the basis of a report submitted by U.S.-based short seller firm, Hindenburg Research, accusing it of market manipulation and financial fraud.
Media reports said the group of companies related to Adani lost about $100 billion in market value following the report.
The petition has also sought an investigation into the alleged investment of “huge amounts of public money” by the Life Insurance Corporation and the State Bank of India (SBI) in the FPO of Adani Enterprises at a rate of ₹3,200 per share when the prevailing rate in the secondary market was around ₹1,800 per share.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud agreed to list the petition along with two others already scheduled for hearing on January 17.
The Centre and the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had on February 13 said they had no objection to the Supreme Court constituting an expert committee to examine the existing regulatory regime and frameworks in the securities market to protect investors from share value meltdowns like seen in the Adani Group.
Meanwhile, SEBI had said in court that it was already enquiring into the allegations made in the Hindenburg report as well as the market activity immediately preceding and post the publication of the report in order to identify violations of SEBI Regulations, including but not limited to SEBI (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices relating to Securities Market) Regulations, 2003; SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015; SEBI (Foreign Portfolio Investors) Regulations, 2019; and Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODI) norms and short selling norms.
The market regulator has attempted to allay fears by saying that the events concerning the Adani Group, following the Hindenburg report, were “localised to a single group of companies and that there is no significant impact at a market-wide level or at a system-wide level, that might warrant a system level review of the regulatory frameworks in operation”.
However, it had acknowledged that “entity level issues that have arisen have had a significant impact at the entity level and warrant detailed examination by the regulator”.
“While the shares of the Group have seen significant decline in prices on account of selling pressure, the wider Indian market has shown full resilience. The combined weight of the Group companies in Sensex is zero and in Nifty is below 1%,” it noted.
G20 host India to propose China, other creditors take haircuts on loans: Sources
India is drafting a proposal for G20 countries to help debtor nations badly hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic and Ukraine war, by asking lenders including China, the world’s largest sovereign creditor, to take a large haircut on loans.
Two Indian government sources told Reuters of the proposal as Finance Ministers and Central Bank chiefs from the Group of 20 prepared to meet in Bengaluru next week. The gathering will be the first major event of India’s one-year presidency of the G20, a bloc composed of the world’s biggest economies.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday it would hold a virtual meeting with the World Bank, India, China, Saudi Arabia, the United States and other wealthy Group of Seven (G7) democracies on Friday to try to reach understandings on common standards, principles and definitions for how to restructure distressed country debts.
“India is designing a proposal” to try to persuade countries like China to take a big haircut in lending to nations in difficulty, said one of the Indian officials, both of whom declined to be named as they were not authorised to talk to the media. China and other G20 countries were aware that India was working on a proposal, the officials said.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters on Wednesday it had nothing to share beyond spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s comment at a news conference on Tuesday.
“China takes the debt issue of developing countries seriously and supports relevant financial institutions to put forward solutions. It is our consistent stance that multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors, which hold the bulk of the debt of developing countries, should participate in the debt relief efforts,” he said.
The People’s Bank of China and the Finance Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. India’s finance and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to emails and messages seeking comment either.
New Delhi expects the United States to be one of the main backers of its proposal, said one of the sources. A spokesperson for the U.S. Treasury declined to comment.
U.S. Treasury officials have previously said that they are opposed to China’s demand that multilateral development banks also take haircuts on debt principal in any restructurings. It was unclear whether the Indian proposal would advocate multilateral lenders taking haircuts.
Two of India’s neighbours, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, are in economic crisis, and urgently seeking international help before they run out of foreign currency to pay for vital imports. India and the Paris Club of creditors recently told the IMF they supported Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring plan as the bankrupt nation sought a $2.9 billion loan. The United States said earlier this month it was willing to do its part too but that “we need to see credible and specific assurances that (China) will meet the IMF standard of debt relief”.
The Export-Import Bank of China has offered Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on its debt and said it would support the country’s efforts to secure an IMF programme, which a Sri Lankan government source said was not enough.
The IMF, the World Bank and the United States have pushed for the so-called Common Framework -- a G20 initiative that was launched in 2020 to help poor countries delay debt repayments -- to be expanded to include middle-income countries but China has resisted.
In December, World Bank President David Malpass said the world’s poorest countries owed $62 billion in annual debt service to bilateral creditors, a year-on-year increase of 35%, triggering higher risk of defaults.
In Brief:
The Supreme Court on February 15 agreed to hear next week a plea seeking a direction to all the states to frame rules for menstrual pain leaves for female students and working women at their respective work places. The plea was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, which said it would be listed on February 24.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
