RE: [IAC#RG] Obscene: How Mittal could spend 60 million Euros on daughter's wedding in Spain

http://beyondheadlines.in/2013/12/cias-trojan-horse-enters-the-heart-of-india/

CIA's Trojan Horse enters the Heart of India

Shelley Kasli

December 11, 2013

The CIA uses philanthropic foundations as the most effective conduit to channel large sums of money to Agency projects without alerting the recipients to their source. From the early 1950s to the present the CIA's intrusion into the foundation field was and is huge. A U.S. Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA. The CIA considers foundations such as Ford"The best and most plausible kind of funding cover". The collaboration of respectable and prestigious foundations, according to one former CIA operative, allowed the Agency to fund "a seemingly limitless range of covertaction programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses and other privateinstitutions". The latter included "human rights" groups beginning in the 1950s to the present. One of the most important "private foundations" collaborating with the CIA over a significant span of time in major projects in the cultural Cold War is the Ford Foundation.

CIA & The Ford Foundation

By the late 1950s the Ford Foundation possessed over $3 billion in assets. The leaders of the Foundation were in total agreement with Washington's post-WWII projection of world power. A noted scholar of the period writes:

"At times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of government in the area of  international cultural propaganda. The foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions inEurope, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects". This is graphicallyillustrated by the naming of Richard Bissell as President of the Foundation in 1952. In his two years inoffice Bissell met often with the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, and other CIA officials in a "mutual search" for new ideas. In 1954 Bissell left Ford to become a special assistant to Allen Dulles in January 1954. Under Bissell, the Ford Foundation (FF) was the "vanguard of Cold War thinking".

One of the FF first Cold War projects was the establishment of a publishing house, Inter-cultural Publications, and the publication of a magazine Perspectives in Europe in four languages. The FF purpose according to Bissell was not "so much to defeat the leftist intellectuals in dialectical combat (sic) as to lure them away from their positions". The board of directors of the publishing house was completely dominated by cultural Cold Warriors. Given the strong leftist culture in Europe in the post-war period, Perspectives failed to attract readers and went bankrupt.

Another journal Der Monat funded by the Confidential Fund of the U.S. military and run by Melvin Lasky was taken over by the FF, to provide it with the appearance of independence.

In 1954 the new president of the FF was John McCloy. He epitomized imperial power. Prior to becoming president of the FF he had been Assistant Secretary of War, president of the World Bank, High Commissioner of occupied Germany, chairman of Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank, Wall Street attorney for the big seven oil companies and director of numerous corporations. As High Commissioner in Germany, McCloy had provided cover for scores of CIA agents.

Than CIA's head Allen Dulles' best bud, John McCloy,is shown here with David Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan executives after he successfully merged the Warburg's Manhattan bank with Rockefeller's Chase bank. A top Rockefeller leutenant, McCloy acted for decades on the family's behalf as an adviser to presidents and dictators. He even shared a box with Hitler and Goering at the 1936 Olympics.

McCloy integrated the FF with CIA operations. He created an administrative unit within the FF specifically to deal with the CIA. McCloy headed a three person consultation committee with the CIA to facilitate the use of the FF for a cover and conduit of funds. With these structural linkages the FF was one of those organizations the CIA was able to mobilize for political warfare against the anti-imperialist and pro-communist left.

Official photo of Warren Commissioners that covered-up JFK Assassination. Allen Dulles(than head of the CIA) is seen second from left. To his right is John J. McCloy, lawyer and troubleshooter for both the Warburg and Rockefeller family. McCloy was appointed as a member of the Warren Commission, purely for the purposes of disguising Rockefeller's crime.

Numerous CIA "fronts" received major FF grants. Numerous supposedly "independent" CIA sponsored cultural organizations, human rights groups, artists and intellectuals received CIA/FF grants. One of the biggest donations of the FF was to the CIA organized Congress for Cultural Freedom which received $7 million by the early 1960s. Numerous CIA operatives secured employment in the FF and continued close collaboration with the Agency.

McCloy (extreme left) with the rest of the gang, the other six hacks & fraudsters, of the Warren Commission, as they present the phony report to President Ford.

From its very origins there was a close structural relation and interchange of personnel at the highest levels between the CIA and the FF. This structural tie was based on the common imperial interests which they shared. The result of their collaboration was the proliferation of a number of journals and access to the mass media which pro-U.S. intellectuals used to launch vituperative polemics against Marxists and other anti-imperialists. The FF funding of these anti-Marxists organizations and intellectuals provided a legal cover for their claims of being "independent" of government funding (CIA).

One prominent journalist, Andrew Kopkind, wrote of a deep sense of moral disillusionment with the
private foundation-funded CIA cultural fronts. Kopkind wrote

"The distance between the rhetoric of the open society and the reality of control was greater than  anyone thought. Everyone who went abroad for an American organization was, in one way or another, a witness to the theory that the world was torn between communism and democracy and anything in between was treason.The illusion of dissent was maintained: the CIA supported socialist cold warriors, fascist cold warriors, black and white cold warriors. The catholicity and flexibility of the CIA operations were major advantages. But it was a sham pluralism and it was utterly corrupting".

When a U.S. journalist Dwight Macdonald who was an editor of Encounter (a FF-CIA funded influential cultural journal) sent an article critical of U.S. culture and politics it was rejected by the editors, working closely with the CIA. In the field of painting and theater the CIA worked with the FF to promote abstract expressionism against any artistic expression with a social content, providing funds and contacts for highly publicized exhibits in Europe and favorable reviews by "sponsored" journalists. 

The interlocking directorate between the CIA, the Ford Foundation and the New York Museum of Modern Art lead to a lavish promotion of "individualistic" art remote from the people — and a vicious attack on European painters, writers and playwrights writing from a critical realist perspective. "Abstract Expressionism" whatever its artist's intention became a weapon in the Cold War.

The Ford Foundation's history of collaboration and interlock with the CIA in pursuit of U.S. world hegemony is now a well-documented fact. The remaining issue is whether that relationship continues into the new Millenium after the exposures of the 1960s? The FF made some superficial changes. They are more flexible in providing small grants to human rights groups and academic researchers who occasionally dissent from U.S. policy. They are not as likely to recruit CIA operatives to head the organization.

More significantly they are likely to collaborate more openly with the U.S. government in its cultural
and educational projects, particularly with the Agency of International Development.

The FF has in some ways refined their style of collaboration with Washington's attempt to produce world cultural domination, but retained the substance of that policy. For example the FF is very selective in the funding of educational institutions. Like the IMF, the FF imposes conditions such as the  "professionalization" of academic personnel and "raising standards." In effect this translates into the promotion of social scientific work based on the assumptions, values and orientations of the U.S.empire; to have professionals de-linked from the class struggle and connected with pro-imperial U.S. academics and foundation functionaries supporting the neo-liberal model.

As in the 1950s and 60s the Ford Foundation today has developed a sophisticated strategy of funding human rights groups (HRGs) that appeal to Washington to change its policy while denouncing U.S. adversaries their "systematic" violations. The FF supports HRGs which equate massive state terror by the U.S. with individual excesses of anti-imperialist adversaries. The FF finances HRGs which do not participate in anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal mass actions and which defend the Ford Foundation as a legitimate and generous "non-governmental organization".

In the current period of a major U.S. military-political offensive, Washington has posed the issue as "terrorism or democracy," just as during the Cold War it posed the question as "Communism or Democracy."  In both instances the Empire recruited and funded "front organizations, intellectuals and journalists to attack its anti-imperialist adversaries and neutralize its democratic critics. The Ford Foundation is well situated to replay its role as collaborator to cover for the New Cultural Cold War.

CIA's Trojan Horse reaches India

India had been sucked into the spiral of this Cultural Cold War since a long time. However with the US economy already bust and the EU falling like dominos; it is again the East where the West would anchor  it's sinking ship of so called Exceptionalism that fuels the Western Civilization. The game on the  Indian side is very well crafted and carried out through CIA's Trojan Horse which has entered into the  heart of Indian Politics – Delhi.

A new political party pledging to sweep corruption from the Indian capital made surprising gains in
state elections, grabbing a huge share of votes from the incumbent Congress party and leaving Delhi with no clear leader on Monday — and no party willing to form a coalition.

The fledgling Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man's Party, seized 28 of Delhi's 70 assembly seats just nine months after its formation. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party took first place with 31, while Congress was left with a meagre eight, a stunning decline from its previous 43.

All three ruled out entering into a governing alliance, leaving the capital in a leadership lurch and raising the possibility of new elections.

CIA lays the "Foundation" of Indian Policymaking

The Ford Foundation, which completes six decades in India next year, provides a continuing flow of
grants to institutions, think-tanks, civil society, and even farmer groups, to carry out research and advocacy work. 

The sums are not inconsequential—about $15 million (about Rs 70 crore) a year. And the recipients—320 grants, over the past four years—are the who's who of civil society and advocacy groups in India.

Its representative, Steven Solnick, said the Foundation's last installment to Kabir (an NGO run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia) was in 2010. "Our first grant to the NGO was of $1,72,000 in 2005 ; the second was in 2008 of $1,97,000," he told Business Standard.

Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in AAP(Aam Aadmi Party), has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years.

Link for $197,000 – now removed by Ford. Refer screenshot of the same below.

http://www.fordfoundation.org/grants/grantdetails?grantid=107117

In reply to an RTI query that questioned the funding and expenditure of Kabir, the organisation has disclosed that they have received funds from the Ford Foundation (Rs 86,61,742), PRIA (Rs 2,37,035), Manjunath Shanmugam Trust (Rs 3,70,000), Dutch Embassy (Rs 19,61,968), Association for India's Development (Rs 15,00,000), India's friends Association (Rs 7,86,500), United Nationals Development Programme (Rs12,52,742) while Rs 11,35,857 were collected from individual donations between 2007 to 2010.

Kejriwal Admits, His NGO Took Money From Ford Foundation 2 Years Back

Interestingly, a major part of the funding to an organisation that is prominent in the "War against corruption" has come from abroad and mainly from the United States. Apar from the UNDP, Ford Foundation and the India Friends Association are US-based organisations, while PRIA and Association for India's Development are headquartered in Asia.

The foundation, on its part, makes no bones about its neo-liberal agenda, broadly pro-market, seeking accountability in governance, and promoting marginalised groups. It funds a small number of institutions, but chooses effectively. At a post-budget meeting two years back, it was noted that all the think-tanks represented (NCAER, NIPFP, ICRIER and the Centre for Policy Research) on the dais received grants from the foundation. Academicians and scholars from these think-tanks are regularly consulted by the government on various policy issues.

On whether the views of these intellectuals actually get reflected in subsequent policies, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia declines to comment. "I don't really have a view on it," he says. He does, however, concede that India's association with the foundation "is something that has been on for a long time".

Moreover, three of core members ( Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia) are also Magsaysay award winners which are endowed by the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller.

As far as the Magsaysay Award winners are concerned, this award is an American award for Asians established and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation ostensibly in memory of Ramon Magsaysay, the former President of Philippines.

According to well-placed sources in  the U. S.  Intelligence community opposed to the State Department's policy toward the Philippines, $30 million in covert funds was supplied to the Philippine opposition to  help finance  its presidential campaign.  This  $30 million was  laundered through Hong Kong,  where the money was converted into  the Philippine peso at the black market rate of 20 pesos to the dollar.

Philippine  sources reported that  the money  had, been  in part funneled  into the CIA-controlled citizens elec­tion watch group,  called Namfrel ,  the National Movement for a Free Election, which was originally created  in  1953 in order  to  bring Ramon Magsaysay into power.  Namfrel  was central  in the State Department's policy of intervening  into the Philippines 

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Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 13:03:52 +0530
From: jagjit.ahuja@gmail.com
To: indiaresists@lists.riseup.net
Subject: Re: [IAC#RG] Obscene: How Mittal could spend 60 million Euros on daughter's wedding in Spain

This is what Political Parties in power and the bureaucrats of our  Governments have been closing their eyes in taking action  during the last 66 years giving rise to multiplication of such society tycoons every day.

Now Kejriwal Government when formed should catch and punish  the top few to set an example for others to follow.

Jagjit

Brig J S Ahuja (Retd)

Consultant Resources

91 9885723618 / 91 9676506639

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 10:05 PM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:

Bully for the Spaniards who are "upset at this obscene display of wealth which trashes their culture", What were we Indians doing ? Does the AAM AADMI PARTY have anything to do with  this, and why their deafening silence on this scandal ? Did Sunita Kejriwal ever investigate this serious fraud on the Hindustani nation ? (http://www.jswispat.in/management.htm) And why were the Karat's so quiet when Hindustan's starving workers were angry but goras were apparently chomping foie-de-gras (mashed goose liver) secretly behind the shrubberys?

http://www.moneylife.in/article/pramod-mittal-spent-60-million-euros-on-daughters-lavish-wedding/35570.html?

Pramod Mittal represents but one example of the quiet, high-stakes game of rich, influential bank defaulters that often misuse the CDR route without a slight change in their lavish lifestyle or spending

Pramod Mittal, the younger brother of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, owes a lot of money to Indian banks. However, instead of repaying bank loans, both Pramod and his brother Vinod Mittal have managed to use the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) route repeatedly to escape unscathed. Surprisingly, despite being a bank defaulter, Pramod Mittal has reportedly spent 60 million Euros (about Rs505 crore) for his daughter's lavish wedding in Barcelona.

According to a report from Vanitatis (Spanish news portal), the wedding of investment banker Gulraj Behl and Shristi Mittal, the 26-year old daughter of Pramod Mittal and exercise director of Global Resources of Europe, could become one of the five most expensive weddings in history, as per the figures. "One of the employees of the municipality that is well connected to high places told us that probably the figure among all parties, lodging, rental of premises, hotel rooms and other expenses to be determined, could exceed 60 million Euros. So, according to Forbes, this wedding would be located in the second, between Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi, and Princess Salama, where it cost 76.25 million Euros in 1981 and of the Prince of Wales, for which 53 million Euros was paid in that year also. For now, Lakshmi Mittal's daughter, Vanisha, holds third place when she married in 2004 with Amit Bhatia, the Indian billionaire and disbursed no more and no less than 46 million Euros," the report says.

Pramod Mittal wanted discretion for this wedding but his ostentation made news. Mumbai Mirror, using quotes from Spanish media had said politicians and prominent citizens trashed the whole affair (the Mittal wedding) as 'obscene display of wealth' for which 'the national pride was on sale'.

Coming back to Pramod Mittal's outstanding bank dues, as reported by Moneylife, during the end 2010, State Bank of India (SBI) gave a fresh loan worth Rs130 crore to Ispat Industries (it was controlled by the Mittals at that time) adjusting Rs30 crore against earlier dues.

So, why would the bank sanction a fresh loan if it has to take back part of the money? Apparently, SBI was indulging in what is called 'evergreening'. By getting back part of the money, SBI has avoided classifying the loan as 'bad' which would have forced a series of actions. But SBI's action is in violation of the spirit of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. When Moneylife contacted them about this largesse, both SBI and Ispat Industries kept mum at that time.

Ispat Industries has failed to live up to every commitment it made as part of the corporate debt restructuring package so generously approved by lenders in 2003.

Pointing out that the credit appraisal committees of public sector banks (PSBs) had powers to sanction single loans up to Rs400 crore in the case of large banks and up to Rs250 crore in the case of small banks, Vishwas Utagi, general secretary, Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation, an affiliate of All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), alleged that promoters of large defaulting companies diverted bank loans into real estate and floated cricket outfits for competing in domestic league matches.

According to the bank employee union, over the past seven years, there are fresh bad loans worth Rs4.95 lakh crore only in PSBs, while during the same period, these lenders wrote off band debts worth Rs1.4 lakh crore. Top four defaulters of state-run banks constitute Rs23,000 crore of NPAs, the AIBEA said.

On 15 September 2010, Ispat shares soared in the foolish hope of a lender-blessed takeover, but fell immediately when the company denied as 'baseless' a report claiming that lending institutions had threatened to sell Ispat's debt-converted-to-equity to rivals such as Arcelor Mittal or Tata Steel. The Mittals claimed in a statement that "the lenders have reposed tremendous faith in the company since its incorporation"—a fact that ought to trigger a full-fledged government investigation.

This was just repetition of earlier scene. In July 2006, when Ispat wasn't repaying lenders, a media report said that ICICI Bank wanted to force Ispat's merger with Jindal Steel. At that time, it was already clear that the Mittals had squandered an excellent opportunity to ride the commodity boom and take advantage of the massive write-offs granted to all steel companies under what was to be a one-time CDR exercise. Within hours, the Mittals denied the report and the lenders didn't attempt to change the management either. Instead, they quietly cleared an unprecedented second CDR, which was officially disallowed under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules unless it was accompanied by a change in management.

In the same year, the lenders watched silently as Ispat's losses continued to mount but the Mittals splurged 14 million Euros to acquire a Bulgarian football club.

Quoting business analyst and author Alam Srinivas from Governance Now, the Hindustan Times, said, "Instead of trying to get back their money lent to Ispat, the banks helped the promoters to continue their unviable ways."

As on 30 June 2010, Ispat Industries owed over Rs7,200 crore to 15 lenders and had overdues exceeding Rs400 crore while its consolidated loss stood at Rs323 crore for a 15-month period.

However, both Pramod and Vinod Mittal ran out of their luck by the end of 2010. Three things sealed the fate of Ispat as it was taken over by Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel. Firstly, pressure from government agencies, especially the Income Tax department that conducted nationwide raids/searches on the company and its promoters. Secondly, lenders were under severe pressure because they would have to declare over Rs10,000 crore of outstanding borrowings as bad loans if some solution was not found before 31 March 2011. Also, with the loan-for-share scam having badly burned lenders such as Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) and LIC Housing Finance, even the most sympathetic lenders were scared to bend the rules for the Mittal brothers once again. Finally, Ispat was unable to pay salaries and utility bills and it was clear that any delay in selling the plant would have led to vandalisation and reduced value.

Ispat Industries got their debt restructured in 2003 and 2009, with promises to complete unfinished parts of their steel projects and even sell expensive flats.

Samar Halarnkar wrote in his article in Hindustan Times, that "In small towns, we found angry workers and rusting factories, but the owners led unchanging, caviar lifestyles. We found heated swimming pools, rooftop helipads, foreign homes, fast cars — and humungous loans."

"It was only in 2010, when the Mittal brothers asked for another debt restructuring that banks — after more than a decade of throwing good money after bad — forced them to sell the company. A year later, in an Istanbul palace, Pramod organised for his daughter one of the biggest, fattest Indian weddings the Turks had ever seen," the report says.

In short, while lenders use all methods to recover dues from aam admi or the common man, when it comes to rich, influential and resourceful defaulters, there are different rules for extending the debt line and life.

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