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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

AI’s Maharaja smiles joyfully

All 30 grounded aircrafts now fly Mumbai : Air India’s Maharaja is all pleased as punch at 80. After years of huge costs and efforts, the last of the grounded 30 aircraft – inherited by the Tata Group during the privatization in Jan. 2022 – is now resurrected fully and took to the skies gracefully on Monday.   The aircraft is the gleaming VT-ALL, a Boeing 777-300ER, that was gathering grime since February 2020, and becomes the final among the two-and-half dozen aircraft that have been revved...

AI’s Maharaja smiles joyfully

All 30 grounded aircrafts now fly Mumbai : Air India’s Maharaja is all pleased as punch at 80. After years of huge costs and efforts, the last of the grounded 30 aircraft – inherited by the Tata Group during the privatization in Jan. 2022 – is now resurrected fully and took to the skies gracefully on Monday.   The aircraft is the gleaming VT-ALL, a Boeing 777-300ER, that was gathering grime since February 2020, and becomes the final among the two-and-half dozen aircraft that have been revved up and revived in the past few years, AI official sources said.   It marked a symbolic milestone for Air India itself - founded in 1932 by the legendary Bharat Ratna J. R. R. Tata - which once ruled the roost and was India’s pride in the global skies.   Once renowned for its royal service with the iconic Maharaja welcoming fliers on board, in 1953 it was taken over by the government of India. After years of piling losses, ageing aircraft, decline in operations and standards – almost like a Maharaja turning a pauper - it returned to the Tata Group four years ago.   This time it was not just the aircraft, the brand and the deflated Maharaja coming into the large-hearted Tata Group stables, but a formidable challenge to ensure that the airline could regain its old glory and glitter. Of the total around 190 aircraft in its fleet were 30 – or 15 pc – that had been grounded and neglected for years.   At that time, the late Ratan N. Tata had directed that all these valuable aircraft must be revived as far as possible and join the fleet. Accordingly, the VT-ALL, languishing at Nagpur for nearly five years, was ‘hospitalized’ at the Air India Engineering Service Ltd., its MRO facility in May 2025.   New Avatar Then started a thorough, painstaking nose-to-tail restoration of an unprecedented scale, in which over 3000 critical components were replaced, over 4,000 maintenance tasks executed, besides key structural upgrades like the longeron modification, engines, auxiliary power units, avionics, hydraulics, landing gears and almost every vital system was rebuilt or replaced.   After the repairs, the old aircraft was reborn, under the gaze of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and technical assistance from Boeing, and the new ‘avatar’ jetliner emerged with the highest global safety standards.   The aircraft cleared all the rigorous checks, a successful test flight, earned the mandatory Airworthiness Review Certificate and then made its maiden commercial flight from Monday, March 16 – after a wait of six years.   Sturdy Fliers Created in 1946 to become an instant global icon, the Air India’s mascot Maharaja now sports a youthful and chic look, a welcome with folded hands, closed eyes, featuring a bejewelled turban, stylish jootis, and a textured kurta in Air India’s new colours. He is prominently visible at various touch-points in a flyer’s journey, such as First Class, exclusive lounges, and luxury products.   Today, he commands a mix fleet of around 190 narrow and wide-body Airbus and Boeing aircraft like : A319, A320, A320neo, A321, A321neo, A350-900 and B787-8, B787-9, B7770200LR, B-777-300ER. With the merger of Vistara and agreements signed for 10 A350 and 90 A320 aircraft, the Maharaja’s fleet is slated to soar to some 570 in the near future.

Gautam Adani charged with paying USD 265 mn bribe to Indian officials

  • PTI
  • Nov 22, 2024
  • 4 min read
Gautam Adani

New York/New Delhi: Billionaire Gautam Adani has been charged by US prosecutors for allegedly being part of a scheme to pay USD 265 million (about Rs 2,200 crore) bribe to Indian officials in exchange of favourable terms for solar power contracts.


Adani and seven others including his nephew Sagar have been charged with paying bribes to unidentified officials of in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to buy expensive solar power, potentially earning more than USD 2 billion profit over 20 years.


The indictment also names New Delhi-based Azure Power, which had won a similar tender for supply of 4 GW. But when Azure could not cough up its one-third share of the bribe money paid to the states for buying expensive power, Adani made the firm give up part of its contract taken over by Adani through SECI.


Adani has been charged with bribery and securities fraud in two separate cases brought by US authorities -- a criminal indictment by the US Department of Justice in a New York court that charges him and seven others including his nephew Sagar. Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Gautam and Sagar Adani and an Azure Power executive with "violating the anti-fraud provisions of securities laws".


The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.


US authorities allege that the bribes paid were concealed from the US banks and investors from whom the Adani group raised billions of dollars for the projects that were to supply 12 gigawatts (GW) of solar power.


US law allows pursuing foreign corruption allegations if they involve certain links to American investors or markets.


US authorities allege that between 2020 and 2024, the Adani firm and its subsidiaries raised more than USD 2 billion in US dollar bank loans from international financial institutions and US-based asset management companies and offered more than USD 1 billion in securities underwritten by international financial institutions and sold to investors in US.


Adani and his co-defendants sought to "obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts through corruption and fraud at the expense of US investors", Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller said.


US Attorney Breon Peace said the defendants "orchestrated an elaborate scheme" and sought to "enrich themselves at the expense of the integrity of our financial markets".


The indictment charges Gautam and Sagar Adani as well as Jaain with multiple counts of conspiracy and securities fraud, and it charges Ranjit Gupta and Agarwal, who are former executives of another publicly traded renewable energy company, with FCPA violations. Agarwal and three former employees of a Canadian institutional investor — Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra - have been accused of obstruction of justice and FCPA violations.


The indictment may throw the conglomerate again in a turmoil just as it rebounded from US short seller Hindenburg Reseach's damning fraud allegations.


Hindenburg allegations of "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud" in January 2023 had led to the conglomerate seeing USD 150 billion wipeout in market value at its lowest point. The group stocks have since recovered most of the losses.


Adani Group had denied all allegations made by Hindenburg.

"Specifically, on or about March 17, 2023, FBI special agents approached Sagar Adani in the United States and pursuant to a judicially authorised search warrant, took custody of electronic devices in his possession," the court document said.


Some conspirators, according to the documents, referred privately to Gautam Adani with the code names "Numero uno" and "the big man", while his nephew allegedly used his cellphone to track specifics about the bribes. "On or about March 18, 2023, the defendant Gautam S Adani emailed himself photographs of each page of the search warrant executed and grand jury subpoena served on the defendant Sagar R Adani."


USD 85.5 billion – Worth of Gautam Adani

18 – Adani’s rank in the list of world’s top billionaires


What is their alleged role?

In the indictment, prosecutors accuse the 62-year-old Adani and two Adani Green Energy Ltd executives -- executive director and his nephew Sagar R Adani and CEO Vneet S Jaain -- of conspiring to defraud investors.

The trio is accused of orchestrating the scheme with the help of the five other defendants, who face Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and obstruction of justice charges.


It says Gautam Adani personally met with a government official several times, and the defendants met in person to discuss the alleged scheme with each other multiple times. The scheme was extensively documented by the defendants, according to prosecutors.


As an example, Sagar Adani used his cellphone to track details of the bribes offered and promised to government officials, and Jaain used his phone to photograph a document summarizing various bribe amounts owed.


Defendant Rupesh Agarwal also prepared analyses of the bribery scheme using PowerPoint and Excel that summarized various options for paying and concealing bribe payments, and he shared those analyses with other defendants, it is alleged.


The charges

Adani group had in 2021 won a bid to supply 8,000 megawatt (8 GW) of power generated using locally manufactured solar cell and modular plants but could not meet the price expectations of state governments buying such electricity.


Adani is alleged to have met the then Andhra Pradesh chief minister in 2021, following which the state government agreed to buy 7,000 MW of power.

Andhra Pradesh officials were paid at the rate of Rs 25 lakh per MW, totalling Rs 1,750 crore (USD 200 million) for 7,000 MW the state ended up purchasing.


Odisha purchased 500 MW of power through the same route.

"Andhra Pradesh bribe payment was approximately USD 200 million," the court document showed. Odisha purchased 500 MW of power.


The document also stated that central government entity Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI), which originally awarded the solar manufacturing linked power tender, entered into the sale agreements with Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu between July 2021 and December 2021.


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