A full-page advertisement in the leading US newspaper Wall Street Journal calling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and 10 senior government officials anti-foreign investors has triggered a major controversy in India.
The advertisement has been published at a time when Sitharaman is in the US to attend the meetings of the G20 Finance Ministers and central bank governors.
Published on October 13, the advertisement has named Sitharaman, Antrix Corp Chairman Rakesh Sasibhushan, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Supreme Court judges Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian, Special PC (Prevention of Corruption) Act Judge Chandra Shekhar, CBI DSP Ashish Pareek, Enforcement Directorate (ED) director Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman. ED Assistant Director R Rajesh and Deputy Director A Sadiq Mohamed have also been named in the ad.
The ad has alleged that those named “decimated the rule of law by weaponising the institutions of the state to settle scores with political and business rivals, making India unsafe for investors.” It also features a QR code at the bottom, which leads to a website of the US-based think tank Frontiers of Freedom.
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Kanchan Gupta, a senior advisor to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, claimed that the campaign is being run by Ramachandran Viswanathan, the former CEO of Devas Multimedia. “Shameful weaponisation of American media by fraudsters. This shockingly vile ad targeting #India and its Government appeared in @WSJ. Do you know who is behind this and similar ads? This ad campaign is being run by fugitive Ramachandra Vishwanathan, who was the CEO of Devas,” Gupta wrote on Twitter.
A few others have also condemned the advertisement.
Who is Ramachandra Vishwanathan?
Viswanathan, who owned Devas Multimedia, got entangled in a conflict with the Indian government as his firm’s contract for developing wireless broadband was cancelled in 2011.
As per news reports, the startup was liquidated in May 2021 by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and a case was filed against Viswanathan and nine others for allegedly diverting 85 per cent of foreign investment worth Rs 529 crore it received after a 2005 satellite deal with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
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This year in June, the ED moved a Bengaluru court to declare Viswanathan a “fugitive economic offender” in connection with the failed satellite deal with Antrix Corp. The CBI too has registered an FIR against a few others like Executive Director of Antrix, KR Sridhara Murthi, MG Chandrasekhar and Vishwanathan alleging that the accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy and abused their position by favouring Devas by giving it rights for delivery of videos, multi-media and information services to mobile phones using S-Band through GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A satellites and terrestrial systems in India.
What is Frontiers of Freedom?
The Frontiers of Freedom (FF) was founded by US Senator Malcolm Wallop in 1995 and is currently headed by George Landrith.
On its website, the organisation in its self description has said: “it is an educational foundation” promoting the principles of “individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, free markets, and traditional American values”.
FF president Landrith also tweeted the advertisement that came out on WSJ. In a tweet, he said: “The actions of Indias Magnitsky11, Sitharaman, Narendra Modi & BJP send a clear message to potential investors in India: India is a dangerous place to invest,” he said in another tweet.
The ad was published days after Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia carried a snake charmer caricature on its front page to show the booming Indian economy with the headline “The hour of the Indian Economy”. The caricature didn’t go down well with many social media users in India as they thought the depiction had a “racist tone”, as it still portrays India as a land of snake charmers.
