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By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

A Scientist beyond Mockery

While Indian politics has never been particularly gentle towards intellectuals, it was unusual even by Parliament’s standards for the Director of one of India’s foremost technological institutions to be dismissed with a sneer. Opposition leader and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shameful reference to Professor Veezhinathan Kamakoti, Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, as a “gaumutra expert,” reduced a lifetime of scien tific accomplishment to a sarcastic political...

A Scientist beyond Mockery

While Indian politics has never been particularly gentle towards intellectuals, it was unusual even by Parliament’s standards for the Director of one of India’s foremost technological institutions to be dismissed with a sneer. Opposition leader and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shameful reference to Professor Veezhinathan Kamakoti, Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, as a “gaumutra expert,” reduced a lifetime of scien tific accomplishment to a sarcastic political label besides exposing dynastic arrogance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and charged with recommending robust, transparent, and leakproof measures to overhaul India’s public examination systems following widespread paper leak controversies. But rather than engage with solutions to problems that have resulted in the controversies, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra chose the path of cheap theatricality. Snickering from her parliamentary perch, she dismissed Prof. Kamakoti as a “gaumutra expert”. The remark immediately drew a scathing open letter from over 200 university vice-chancellors and eminent academics, who rallied to Kamakoti’s support and condemned her for diminishing scholarship itself. More fundamentally, Vadra’s sneer exposed the deep-seated pathology of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty: a reflex of aristocratic condescension toward self-made intellect, combined with an ingrained disdain for India’s indigenous traditions. Unlike Priyanka Gandhi, Professor Kamakoti is not a beneficiary of ancestral political inheritance but an intellectual titan forged entirely by merit. Holding an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Madras, Kamakoti has spent decades on the front lines of information security and VLSI design. His crowning achievement was in leading the team that engineered Shakti, India’s first industry-grade, open-source RISC-V microprocessor that fundamentally reshaped the nation’s technological trajectory. Shakti provided India with a blueprint for true silicon sovereignty. Kamakoti’s work extends to aerospace-grade chips designed alongside ISRO, over 150 peer-reviewed international papers, and pivotal roles on the National Security Advisory Board. Under his directorship since 2022, IIT Madras has consistently held the No. 1 position in engineering in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). Yet Kamakoti’s genius also lies in tangible wealth creation. The IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC), nurtured under his leadership, has spawned a portfolio of over 540 startups valued at approximately Rs. 74,000 crore ($8 billion), generating more than 11,000 direct high-tech jobs. Kamakoti’s record speaks of a scholar who stayed in India to forge its critical infrastructure and empower a generation of young innovators. The point is why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra felt entitled to mock him? The controversy stems from remarks Kamakoti made regarding ethnoveterinary traditions, where he cited scientific literature discussing the antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory properties of bovine bio-fluids - a field actively published in peer-reviewed global journals, including Nature. It seems that for the Gandhi family, any intellectual inquiry that touches upon ancient Indian heritage or traditional knowledge systems is an immediate target for ridicule. For decades, the Congress hierarchy has operated under an unearned superiority complex that views Hindu traditions as some backward superstition to be mocked from the high towers of westernized privilege. The contrast between the scholar and the dynast could not be starker. Professor Kamakoti is a world-class computer scientist who earned his platform through decades of gruelling research, building microprocessors and billion-dollar startup ecosystems. Priyanka Gandhi is a political heir whose primary qualification for public office remains her surname, possessing a portfolio of inherited political capital and a distant diploma in Buddhist Studies. When the academics signed an open letter in support of Kamakoti, while warning that such dismissive labelling risks undermining the constitutional duty to develop a scientific temper, they pinpointed the heart of the issue. True scientific temper means testing hypotheses with rigor, regardless of their cultural origins. True ignorance is mocking what one lacks the intellect to understand. The sharp public backlash against Vadra’s comments also reflects a profound shift in the Indian electorate. The era in which hereditary elites could belittle self-made scholars without accountability has come to a close. In a modern India driven by chip designers, space missions, and digital enterprise, the nation’s true heroes are men like Kamakoti, builders who create value through pure intellect, and not platinum-spooned dynasts whose sole claim to power is ancestral pedigree. In attempting to humiliate an eminent scientist, Priyanka Gandhi did not diminish Professor Kamakoti; she merely laid bare the intellectual vacuum of her own political lineage. When forced to choose between a self-made technocrat advancing national sovereignty and a political heir armed only with arrogance, a rising India has already made its choice.

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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