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Tradition of debate and dissent not new to BJP
This is not the first time that characters from the Mahabharata have been evoked by BJP leaders in the midst of a spat. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha spoke of Duryodhan and Dushasan earlier this week, the day after the PM mentioned the lesser known figure Shalya (who apparently ended up helping the Kauravas against the Pandavas in the epic battle).

The quick response from the PM suggests he is worried about projections of doom and gloom about the economy; if he were not, he would have just ignored the criticism. In saying that there are people who only sleep well after spreading pessimism all round, he is also sending a message to the rank and file, tired or retired, to hold their peace.

For although things have been quiet and more orderly in the BJP since Modi powered them to single party rule in 2014, there is actually a tradition of fierce debate and contest in the BJP. Modi would know better than most as he was the target of many overt and covert battles.

Today both Sinha and former Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie have little stake in the regime of Narendra Modi, from which they have been excluded, something that makes it a little easier for their voices of conscience to speak out. But let’s recall that the BJP actually has a history of fierce personality clashes, rivalries, inner-party debates and dissent. Not being a party dominated by a particular family as the Congress and several regional parties are, people in the BJP argued over ideas and contested each other. It was healthy and at one time made for great stories.

Indeed while putting the finishing touches to my book on the BJP that maps the journey from the Vajpayee to the Modi era, I have dug out old interviews with a range of leaders, from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to LK Advani, Jaswant Singh, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh et al, that deal with the debates that once rocked the party.

There are several interviews with the irrepressible exiled RSS genius in the BJP KN Govindacharya (furious with the economic direction of the Vajpayee government); and RSS pracharaks who rose to be BJP president such as Kushabhau Thakre, Jana Krishnamurthy. All of whom are, in those interviews, soothing ruffled feathers, denying or conceding there are problems, both ideological and personal.

The Modi Way
Modi too appears in some of my early articles when he was in charge of organisation and based in Delhi. What is fascinating is the manner in which he says that the cadre is the key to electoral success and getting workers down to each booth the way to the BJP’s expansion, something he did in Gujarat and current BJP president Amit Shah does with extraordinary energy across India. Create a structure, then you will create a party, Modi tells me in 1999, Modi tells me in 1999, in a story I had forgotten.

Modi has risen to the top, surviving the hostility, first, from a faction-ridden BJP state unit in Gujarat. Later he would deal with the misgivings of Vajpayee and then post 2004 the resentment of a true party builder such as Advani.

He has negotiated machinations within the party and larger parivar that took its time to accept him as the Supreme Leader he has become today; no such challenge confronts those at the helm of parties led by political dynasties.

There is no debate as to where the power lies today; different from the age of Vajpayee, when Advani was at times seen then as the “real” leader of the party as opposed to the acceptable ‘mask’. The two veterans had a complex equation, while the second rung often openly slugged it out. Chaos notwithstanding, all of them did, with a bunch of allies, lead the NDA through the first complete term of a non-Congress regime in India.

Modi is more solitary in nature; but his corporate loyalty to the BJP remains. It cannot be ignored that there are individuals holding top cabinet posts in the Modi regime, such as Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who were once seen to be acting in tandem with those who were opposing his ascent. Equally, there is a rather quiet Uma Bharti, living out her days as minister — recently shifted from Ganga rejuvenation to sanitation and drinking water — who at one point abused the entire top rung of the BJP, from Advani to Mahajan to Jaitley. About Modi she said during a time when she was expelled from the party, that he does not bring vikas (development) but vinash (destruction).

As long as the BJP under Modi remains a politically successful project, the views of Sinha and Shourie will not really hurt. But if we are indeed in the midst of an economic disaster, then the two veterans (one of whom, Shourie, is no longer a formal member of the party) would have revived the tradition of dissent in India’s ruling party.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...aywrap&ncode=75903408e0b98cc62ba08fe4f10059f3
 
You know elections are scheduled in Gujarat when out of work journalist (who briliantly predicted SP sweep in UP and was subsequently fired from ET-Now) brings out a story in leftist rag TheWire regarding how Amit Shah's son "benefited" immensely from the rise of his father.

The story can be read here
https://thewire.in/185512/amit-shah-narendra-modi-jay-shah-bjp/

This story was rebutted briliantly point by point by Op India

The Jay Amit Shah story: Low on Facts, High on innuendo
180725d442ad4738949a9efb00058db1

ByOpIndia Staff
Posted on October 8, 2017

After a hiatus of a few months, journalist Rohini Singh makes a comeback. Singh was last seen as a journalist with Economic Times. She was on the forefront of their coverage of the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2017. To say she read Uttar Pradesh wrong, would be an understatement, and soon after the results she disappeared from public gaze as well as social media. In 2016, she had attempted to expose “irregularities” relating to then Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel, and the attempt was debunked here.

Now, around a month before Gujarat elections, she is back, this time with a leftist site called TheWire, which itself has been party to fake news in the past. Singh’s latest scoop is titled: “The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah” and documents the rise of Amit Shah’s son’s businesses, and how they coincide with Narendra Modi becoming prime minister. Of course, words like “scam” are not thrown around, but nudge-nudge-wink-wink statements and questions are asked.

But this article is not about Rohini Singh. This is about facts. And the lack of facts in the article in thewire.

The “Golden Touch” setup

Firstly, Singh places the proposition before us, which justifies the title of “Golden touch”:



The innuendo is clear: No sooner did Modi become PM, a failed business of Amit Shah’s son, became an overnight success. First of all, the year in which the revenue shoots up, coincides with the year in which Temple Enterprises Pvt Ltd, went in for one major change: Jay Amit Shah was appointed as director in the company just before the financial year started, in January 2015. Perhaps, this is when the company decided to expand.

Secondly, “Revenues” or “Turnover” refers to total sales or service income. “Profit” or “loss” refers to such Revenues minus all expenses incurred. Now, let us tabulate the above data:



The above table is made up only from the data provided by Singh. Does it seem odd, when you notice that she mentions the profit figure for 3 years, but then in the 4th year, “forgets” the profit figure and instead focuses on turnover? One of the crux of the article is that the turnover jumped 16000 times, hence Mr Jay Amit Shah has the “golden touch”. But would a man with the “golden touch” incur a loss of Rs 1,48,00,551 (Rs 1.48 crores)? Yes, as per the same Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings (link at the end) which Singh quoted so much, this company with Rs 80.50 cr revenues, had Rs 81.99 cr as expenses, and incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power.

Of course, revealing such information would puncture the entire narrative that Jay Amit Shah’s business was successful just as Modi came into power. Hence, this small piece was hidden by Singh.

But was it hidden completely? No. She mentions this loss in another paragraph, after she has built the case of the “golden touch”. However, here there is no context given, and more innuendo follows:



In a latter paragraph:



Note the innuendo: suddenly stopped its business. Net worth “fully eroded”. Little abnormal. The language clearly raises suspicion on the “sudden” closure and of the claim of net worth being eroded. Some basics again: Net worth is the amount by which assets exceed liabilities, which is generally equal to Shareholders’ funds (Capital) + Accumulated profits/loss. Have a look at the company’s Net Worth in the Financial year when it had the “golden touch”, and within 7 months of which, it stopped business activities:



From Rs 20 lacs of shareholders’ funds on 31.03.2015, thanks to the “golden touch” year, the networth became NEGATIVE Rs 77.99 lacs on 31.03.2016.

So to put this entire thing in context: Jay Amit Shah had a “golden touch” due to which, his company incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, ended up with a negative net worth of Rs 77.99 lacs, and shut down business activities. Quite a “golden touch” that!

Too completely prove, how illiterate or devious Singh is, read this paragraph:



Rohini Singh, former journalist at Economic Times, now writing for TheWire.in, just claimed that Reserves and Surplus which turned negative Rs 80.2 lacs from positive Rs 19 lakhs “jumped”! Even grade school children are taught that numbers with brackets with them are negative figures, and basic financial literacy means you know that negative reserves are losses!

After the above, it may not even be necessary to read the remaining article and take any of its “facts” on face value.

The mysterious loans given to the man with the aforesaid “Golden Touch”

The next thread of innuendos by Singh is how Jay Amit Shah’s concerns got loans from various entities. Firstly, this loan:



In another paragraph, Singh mentions that KFIS is a Non-Banking Financial company (NBFC). As seen above, Singh again puts up some figures: Loan given Rs 15.78 crores, Revenue Rs 7 crores. Prima facie these numbers can evoke shock. How can someone with an income of Rs 7 crores lend Rs 15.78 crores? Well that is what NBFCs do!. An NBFC is almost like a bank i.e. it lends money to borrowers, but unlike a bank, does not accept bank deposits from public. Hence it is called a “Non-Banking” Financial Company.

The revenue earned by NBFCs is of course interest on loans. Thus, if an NBFC extends loans of Rs 1000, the income can be expected to be around Rs 100 to Rs 200 from that loan, depending on the interest rate varying from 10% to 20% (on a very high side). Thus it is perfectly normal for NBFCs to have low revenues but high loans. For example, Bajaj Finance, which is one of India’s biggest NBFCs had Rs 9977 crores Revenue vs Rs 57,683 crores of loans given for March 2017 i.e. Loans were almost 6 times more than revenues. Singh clearly does not understand financial companies. Lastly, she claims that the loan given was not mentioned in the balancesheet of KFIS. Do banks or NBFCs list out the names of all their borrowers on the balancesheet? Are they even allowed to do so? No! Just to be sure, check the above linked balancesheet of Bajaj Finance, which is also a listed NBFC.

Next she mentions how Kusum Finserve, another concern of Jay Amit Shah, had managed to raise a loan of Rs 25 crore from a cooperative bank against collateral valued at under Rs 7 crore. Oddly, she herself busts this, when she puts forth the reply from Jay Shah’s lawyer. There was no “loan” of Rs 25 crores. There was only a Letter of Credit (LC) of up to Rs 25 crore.

What is an LC? An LC is an obligation taken by a bank, to pay the agreed amount to the seller on behalf of its customer. An LC is mostly used for imports, and the money is paid to the seller abroad, against an import bill. The amount is utilised as and when imports are made by the buyer, and replenished as and when further sales are made. Since the amount under an LC is paid against purchases of actual goods, the goods act as security for such amount, and hence the initial security given is usually lower than the total LC limit. When the bank actually pays the money to the selelr abroad, it has dual security: That of the property given before using the LC, and also of the goods which are bought using the LC. Again, a business journalist should have known this.

The last loan in question is a Rs 10.35 crore loan from a public sector enterprise, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). She again uses innuendo to question how a Public Sector enterprise gave a loan to the same Kumsum Finserve. This concern had applied for a loan for the project of for a 2.1 MW wind energy plant. It is also mentioned that “The Wire has reached out to IREDA about its lending policies and will add its response later.”

Maybe the wire did not have an internet connection, because the entire terms and conditions of availing loans from IREDA is available on the site, and any private entity in India can apply for a loan! It is important to note here that the mission of IREDA is to promote, develop and extend financial assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency/ conservation projects. It has sanctioned around Rs around Rs 37,000 crore of credit for clean energy projects so far and further Rs 28,000 crore to developers, which aids generation capacity of around 7,000 MW. It plans to sanction around Rs 13,000 crores this financial year. Not quite the puzzle now is it?

Low on Facts, High on Innuendo.

So what does this major “expose” by Rohini Singh prove: It shows how a company owned by Amit Shah’s son, made a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, and eroded its net worth, forcing it to shut operations. Another company took standard business finance facilities from a cooperative bank. These finance facilities were misrepresented by Singh as “loan”. It also made use of a Government scheme to promote renewable energy by taking a loan for a wind power project. While narrating this Singh could not even distinguish between a negative reserves position from a positive position.

Perhaps this is why The Economic Times did not have faith in Singh.

Links:

Annual Report of Jay Amit Shah’s company Temple Enterprise Private Ltd

Copy of article in TheWire (in case it goes down in a “cyberattack”)

With inputs from @muglikar_ and @attomeybharti

http://www.opindia.com/2017/10/the-jay-amit-shah-story-low-on-facts-high-on-innuendo/

And then this happened

DLnlNg8UIAMfHGR.jpg
 
You know elections are scheduled in Gujarat when out of work journalist (who briliantly predicted SP sweep in UP and was subsequently fired from ET-Now) brings out a story in leftist rag TheWire regarding how Amit Shah's son "benefited" immensely from the rise of his father.

The story can be read here
https://thewire.in/185512/amit-shah-narendra-modi-jay-shah-bjp/

This story was rebutted briliantly point by point by Op India

The Jay Amit Shah story: Low on Facts, High on innuendo
180725d442ad4738949a9efb00058db1

ByOpIndia Staff
Posted on October 8, 2017

After a hiatus of a few months, journalist Rohini Singh makes a comeback. Singh was last seen as a journalist with Economic Times. She was on the forefront of their coverage of the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2017. To say she read Uttar Pradesh wrong, would be an understatement, and soon after the results she disappeared from public gaze as well as social media. In 2016, she had attempted to expose “irregularities” relating to then Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel, and the attempt was debunked here.

Now, around a month before Gujarat elections, she is back, this time with a leftist site called TheWire, which itself has been party to fake news in the past. Singh’s latest scoop is titled: “The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah” and documents the rise of Amit Shah’s son’s businesses, and how they coincide with Narendra Modi becoming prime minister. Of course, words like “scam” are not thrown around, but nudge-nudge-wink-wink statements and questions are asked.

But this article is not about Rohini Singh. This is about facts. And the lack of facts in the article in thewire.

The “Golden Touch” setup

Firstly, Singh places the proposition before us, which justifies the title of “Golden touch”:



The innuendo is clear: No sooner did Modi become PM, a failed business of Amit Shah’s son, became an overnight success. First of all, the year in which the revenue shoots up, coincides with the year in which Temple Enterprises Pvt Ltd, went in for one major change: Jay Amit Shah was appointed as director in the company just before the financial year started, in January 2015. Perhaps, this is when the company decided to expand.

Secondly, “Revenues” or “Turnover” refers to total sales or service income. “Profit” or “loss” refers to such Revenues minus all expenses incurred. Now, let us tabulate the above data:



The above table is made up only from the data provided by Singh. Does it seem odd, when you notice that she mentions the profit figure for 3 years, but then in the 4th year, “forgets” the profit figure and instead focuses on turnover? One of the crux of the article is that the turnover jumped 16000 times, hence Mr Jay Amit Shah has the “golden touch”. But would a man with the “golden touch” incur a loss of Rs 1,48,00,551 (Rs 1.48 crores)? Yes, as per the same Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings (link at the end) which Singh quoted so much, this company with Rs 80.50 cr revenues, had Rs 81.99 cr as expenses, and incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power.

Of course, revealing such information would puncture the entire narrative that Jay Amit Shah’s business was successful just as Modi came into power. Hence, this small piece was hidden by Singh.

But was it hidden completely? No. She mentions this loss in another paragraph, after she has built the case of the “golden touch”. However, here there is no context given, and more innuendo follows:



In a latter paragraph:



Note the innuendo: suddenly stopped its business. Net worth “fully eroded”. Little abnormal. The language clearly raises suspicion on the “sudden” closure and of the claim of net worth being eroded. Some basics again: Net worth is the amount by which assets exceed liabilities, which is generally equal to Shareholders’ funds (Capital) + Accumulated profits/loss. Have a look at the company’s Net Worth in the Financial year when it had the “golden touch”, and within 7 months of which, it stopped business activities:



From Rs 20 lacs of shareholders’ funds on 31.03.2015, thanks to the “golden touch” year, the networth became NEGATIVE Rs 77.99 lacs on 31.03.2016.

So to put this entire thing in context: Jay Amit Shah had a “golden touch” due to which, his company incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, ended up with a negative net worth of Rs 77.99 lacs, and shut down business activities. Quite a “golden touch” that!

Too completely prove, how illiterate or devious Singh is, read this paragraph:



Rohini Singh, former journalist at Economic Times, now writing for TheWire.in, just claimed that Reserves and Surplus which turned negative Rs 80.2 lacs from positive Rs 19 lakhs “jumped”! Even grade school children are taught that numbers with brackets with them are negative figures, and basic financial literacy means you know that negative reserves are losses!

After the above, it may not even be necessary to read the remaining article and take any of its “facts” on face value.

The mysterious loans given to the man with the aforesaid “Golden Touch”

The next thread of innuendos by Singh is how Jay Amit Shah’s concerns got loans from various entities. Firstly, this loan:



In another paragraph, Singh mentions that KFIS is a Non-Banking Financial company (NBFC). As seen above, Singh again puts up some figures: Loan given Rs 15.78 crores, Revenue Rs 7 crores. Prima facie these numbers can evoke shock. How can someone with an income of Rs 7 crores lend Rs 15.78 crores? Well that is what NBFCs do!. An NBFC is almost like a bank i.e. it lends money to borrowers, but unlike a bank, does not accept bank deposits from public. Hence it is called a “Non-Banking” Financial Company.

The revenue earned by NBFCs is of course interest on loans. Thus, if an NBFC extends loans of Rs 1000, the income can be expected to be around Rs 100 to Rs 200 from that loan, depending on the interest rate varying from 10% to 20% (on a very high side). Thus it is perfectly normal for NBFCs to have low revenues but high loans. For example, Bajaj Finance, which is one of India’s biggest NBFCs had Rs 9977 crores Revenue vs Rs 57,683 crores of loans given for March 2017 i.e. Loans were almost 6 times more than revenues. Singh clearly does not understand financial companies. Lastly, she claims that the loan given was not mentioned in the balancesheet of KFIS. Do banks or NBFCs list out the names of all their borrowers on the balancesheet? Are they even allowed to do so? No! Just to be sure, check the above linked balancesheet of Bajaj Finance, which is also a listed NBFC.

Next she mentions how Kusum Finserve, another concern of Jay Amit Shah, had managed to raise a loan of Rs 25 crore from a cooperative bank against collateral valued at under Rs 7 crore. Oddly, she herself busts this, when she puts forth the reply from Jay Shah’s lawyer. There was no “loan” of Rs 25 crores. There was only a Letter of Credit (LC) of up to Rs 25 crore.

What is an LC? An LC is an obligation taken by a bank, to pay the agreed amount to the seller on behalf of its customer. An LC is mostly used for imports, and the money is paid to the seller abroad, against an import bill. The amount is utilised as and when imports are made by the buyer, and replenished as and when further sales are made. Since the amount under an LC is paid against purchases of actual goods, the goods act as security for such amount, and hence the initial security given is usually lower than the total LC limit. When the bank actually pays the money to the selelr abroad, it has dual security: That of the property given before using the LC, and also of the goods which are bought using the LC. Again, a business journalist should have known this.

The last loan in question is a Rs 10.35 crore loan from a public sector enterprise, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). She again uses innuendo to question how a Public Sector enterprise gave a loan to the same Kumsum Finserve. This concern had applied for a loan for the project of for a 2.1 MW wind energy plant. It is also mentioned that “The Wire has reached out to IREDA about its lending policies and will add its response later.”

Maybe the wire did not have an internet connection, because the entire terms and conditions of availing loans from IREDA is available on the site, and any private entity in India can apply for a loan! It is important to note here that the mission of IREDA is to promote, develop and extend financial assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency/ conservation projects. It has sanctioned around Rs around Rs 37,000 crore of credit for clean energy projects so far and further Rs 28,000 crore to developers, which aids generation capacity of around 7,000 MW. It plans to sanction around Rs 13,000 crores this financial year. Not quite the puzzle now is it?

Low on Facts, High on Innuendo.

So what does this major “expose” by Rohini Singh prove: It shows how a company owned by Amit Shah’s son, made a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, and eroded its net worth, forcing it to shut operations. Another company took standard business finance facilities from a cooperative bank. These finance facilities were misrepresented by Singh as “loan”. It also made use of a Government scheme to promote renewable energy by taking a loan for a wind power project. While narrating this Singh could not even distinguish between a negative reserves position from a positive position.

Perhaps this is why The Economic Times did not have faith in Singh.

Links:

Annual Report of Jay Amit Shah’s company Temple Enterprise Private Ltd

Copy of article in TheWire (in case it goes down in a “cyberattack”)

With inputs from @muglikar_ and @attomeybharti

http://www.opindia.com/2017/10/the-jay-amit-shah-story-low-on-facts-high-on-innuendo/

And then this happened

DLnlNg8UIAMfHGR.jpg

@ashok321 I hope this satisfies you
 
you know Modi govt has really hit the corrupt when opinion pieces are being written glorifying corruption

If the Prime Minister wants to find out why big Indian businessmen are not even beginning to revive investment three years into his tenure, then he should rethink his hunt for black money. In a business climate already vitiated by too many regulators and too many inspectors, the black money hunters add another burdensome layer of rules and regulations. Before he next condemns ‘shell companies’ as vectors of money laundering, he would do well to examine if many of them are not just part of the process of doing business. There is much else that needs to be done urgently to bring back higher rates of growth and desperately needed jobs, so the Prime Minister must put the economy at the top of his list of priorities.

http://indianexpress.com/article/op...rrative-prime-minister-narendra-modi-4879618/

Corruption is morally indefensible, but may be economically efficient. So, in an economy used to such illegality, it is costly to remove corruption. We are told that for SMEs, the GST has been a shock. They made their small profits from tax evasion as they bought and sold. Now, with the GST, they have to declare every transaction and incur the tax along the way. Black money hoards represented the profits of a thriving private economy. Eliminating corruption effectively means reducing the profits of doing business in an economy practised in tax evasion and other forms of illegal behaviour.

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/out-of-my-mind-corruption-or-growth-4879630/
 
You know elections are scheduled in Gujarat when out of work journalist (who briliantly predicted SP sweep in UP and was subsequently fired from ET-Now) brings out a story in leftist rag TheWire regarding how Amit Shah's son "benefited" immensely from the rise of his father.

The story can be read here
https://thewire.in/185512/amit-shah-narendra-modi-jay-shah-bjp/

This story was rebutted briliantly point by point by Op India

The Jay Amit Shah story: Low on Facts, High on innuendo
180725d442ad4738949a9efb00058db1

ByOpIndia Staff
Posted on October 8, 2017

After a hiatus of a few months, journalist Rohini Singh makes a comeback. Singh was last seen as a journalist with Economic Times. She was on the forefront of their coverage of the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2017. To say she read Uttar Pradesh wrong, would be an understatement, and soon after the results she disappeared from public gaze as well as social media. In 2016, she had attempted to expose “irregularities” relating to then Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel, and the attempt was debunked here.

Now, around a month before Gujarat elections, she is back, this time with a leftist site called TheWire, which itself has been party to fake news in the past. Singh’s latest scoop is titled: “The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah” and documents the rise of Amit Shah’s son’s businesses, and how they coincide with Narendra Modi becoming prime minister. Of course, words like “scam” are not thrown around, but nudge-nudge-wink-wink statements and questions are asked.

But this article is not about Rohini Singh. This is about facts. And the lack of facts in the article in thewire.

The “Golden Touch” setup

Firstly, Singh places the proposition before us, which justifies the title of “Golden touch”:



The innuendo is clear: No sooner did Modi become PM, a failed business of Amit Shah’s son, became an overnight success. First of all, the year in which the revenue shoots up, coincides with the year in which Temple Enterprises Pvt Ltd, went in for one major change: Jay Amit Shah was appointed as director in the company just before the financial year started, in January 2015. Perhaps, this is when the company decided to expand.

Secondly, “Revenues” or “Turnover” refers to total sales or service income. “Profit” or “loss” refers to such Revenues minus all expenses incurred. Now, let us tabulate the above data:



The above table is made up only from the data provided by Singh. Does it seem odd, when you notice that she mentions the profit figure for 3 years, but then in the 4th year, “forgets” the profit figure and instead focuses on turnover? One of the crux of the article is that the turnover jumped 16000 times, hence Mr Jay Amit Shah has the “golden touch”. But would a man with the “golden touch” incur a loss of Rs 1,48,00,551 (Rs 1.48 crores)? Yes, as per the same Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings (link at the end) which Singh quoted so much, this company with Rs 80.50 cr revenues, had Rs 81.99 cr as expenses, and incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power.

Of course, revealing such information would puncture the entire narrative that Jay Amit Shah’s business was successful just as Modi came into power. Hence, this small piece was hidden by Singh.

But was it hidden completely? No. She mentions this loss in another paragraph, after she has built the case of the “golden touch”. However, here there is no context given, and more innuendo follows:



In a latter paragraph:



Note the innuendo: suddenly stopped its business. Net worth “fully eroded”. Little abnormal. The language clearly raises suspicion on the “sudden” closure and of the claim of net worth being eroded. Some basics again: Net worth is the amount by which assets exceed liabilities, which is generally equal to Shareholders’ funds (Capital) + Accumulated profits/loss. Have a look at the company’s Net Worth in the Financial year when it had the “golden touch”, and within 7 months of which, it stopped business activities:



From Rs 20 lacs of shareholders’ funds on 31.03.2015, thanks to the “golden touch” year, the networth became NEGATIVE Rs 77.99 lacs on 31.03.2016.

So to put this entire thing in context: Jay Amit Shah had a “golden touch” due to which, his company incurred a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, ended up with a negative net worth of Rs 77.99 lacs, and shut down business activities. Quite a “golden touch” that!

Too completely prove, how illiterate or devious Singh is, read this paragraph:



Rohini Singh, former journalist at Economic Times, now writing for TheWire.in, just claimed that Reserves and Surplus which turned negative Rs 80.2 lacs from positive Rs 19 lakhs “jumped”! Even grade school children are taught that numbers with brackets with them are negative figures, and basic financial literacy means you know that negative reserves are losses!

After the above, it may not even be necessary to read the remaining article and take any of its “facts” on face value.

The mysterious loans given to the man with the aforesaid “Golden Touch”

The next thread of innuendos by Singh is how Jay Amit Shah’s concerns got loans from various entities. Firstly, this loan:



In another paragraph, Singh mentions that KFIS is a Non-Banking Financial company (NBFC). As seen above, Singh again puts up some figures: Loan given Rs 15.78 crores, Revenue Rs 7 crores. Prima facie these numbers can evoke shock. How can someone with an income of Rs 7 crores lend Rs 15.78 crores? Well that is what NBFCs do!. An NBFC is almost like a bank i.e. it lends money to borrowers, but unlike a bank, does not accept bank deposits from public. Hence it is called a “Non-Banking” Financial Company.

The revenue earned by NBFCs is of course interest on loans. Thus, if an NBFC extends loans of Rs 1000, the income can be expected to be around Rs 100 to Rs 200 from that loan, depending on the interest rate varying from 10% to 20% (on a very high side). Thus it is perfectly normal for NBFCs to have low revenues but high loans. For example, Bajaj Finance, which is one of India’s biggest NBFCs had Rs 9977 crores Revenue vs Rs 57,683 crores of loans given for March 2017 i.e. Loans were almost 6 times more than revenues. Singh clearly does not understand financial companies. Lastly, she claims that the loan given was not mentioned in the balancesheet of KFIS. Do banks or NBFCs list out the names of all their borrowers on the balancesheet? Are they even allowed to do so? No! Just to be sure, check the above linked balancesheet of Bajaj Finance, which is also a listed NBFC.

Next she mentions how Kusum Finserve, another concern of Jay Amit Shah, had managed to raise a loan of Rs 25 crore from a cooperative bank against collateral valued at under Rs 7 crore. Oddly, she herself busts this, when she puts forth the reply from Jay Shah’s lawyer. There was no “loan” of Rs 25 crores. There was only a Letter of Credit (LC) of up to Rs 25 crore.

What is an LC? An LC is an obligation taken by a bank, to pay the agreed amount to the seller on behalf of its customer. An LC is mostly used for imports, and the money is paid to the seller abroad, against an import bill. The amount is utilised as and when imports are made by the buyer, and replenished as and when further sales are made. Since the amount under an LC is paid against purchases of actual goods, the goods act as security for such amount, and hence the initial security given is usually lower than the total LC limit. When the bank actually pays the money to the selelr abroad, it has dual security: That of the property given before using the LC, and also of the goods which are bought using the LC. Again, a business journalist should have known this.

The last loan in question is a Rs 10.35 crore loan from a public sector enterprise, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). She again uses innuendo to question how a Public Sector enterprise gave a loan to the same Kumsum Finserve. This concern had applied for a loan for the project of for a 2.1 MW wind energy plant. It is also mentioned that “The Wire has reached out to IREDA about its lending policies and will add its response later.”

Maybe the wire did not have an internet connection, because the entire terms and conditions of availing loans from IREDA is available on the site, and any private entity in India can apply for a loan! It is important to note here that the mission of IREDA is to promote, develop and extend financial assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency/ conservation projects. It has sanctioned around Rs around Rs 37,000 crore of credit for clean energy projects so far and further Rs 28,000 crore to developers, which aids generation capacity of around 7,000 MW. It plans to sanction around Rs 13,000 crores this financial year. Not quite the puzzle now is it?

Low on Facts, High on Innuendo.

So what does this major “expose” by Rohini Singh prove: It shows how a company owned by Amit Shah’s son, made a loss of Rs 1.48 crores as soon as Modi came into power, and eroded its net worth, forcing it to shut operations. Another company took standard business finance facilities from a cooperative bank. These finance facilities were misrepresented by Singh as “loan”. It also made use of a Government scheme to promote renewable energy by taking a loan for a wind power project. While narrating this Singh could not even distinguish between a negative reserves position from a positive position.

Perhaps this is why The Economic Times did not have faith in Singh.

Links:

Annual Report of Jay Amit Shah’s company Temple Enterprise Private Ltd

Copy of article in TheWire (in case it goes down in a “cyberattack”)

With inputs from @muglikar_ and @attomeybharti

http://www.opindia.com/2017/10/the-jay-amit-shah-story-low-on-facts-high-on-innuendo/

And then this happened

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Any allegation made by Kapil Sibal has to be taken with a pinch of salt, like his infamous defence of 2G scam
 
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