Fraud
September 4, 2012
India’s business houses are hardly the paragons of virtue as everyone knows. Many of the business houses are known to siphon money from the public companies […]
July 29, 2012
The International Monetary Fund along with the World Bank have received a lot of criticism in recent times because their policy prescriptions have had the opposite […]
February 1, 2012
India is a country with one of the biggest population of poor people living hand to mouth. But becoming super rich in this country is not rocket science. All you have to do is become a political crony and start counting your millions if not billions. Corruption in India is quite rampant and blatant which has been proved time and again with scam a day. Politicians and Businessmen have been jailed but they have managed to get out on bail using their millionaire lawyers to fake illness and other shenanigans. Some politicians are now involved in both professions with some rumored to be billionaires owning companies through surreptitious means and parking their money in Swiss banks. Business Groups in India see their shares rising and going down depending on which political party wins proving the nexus between politicians and businessmen. There has been no reforms to separate these two and now powerful politico-business dynasties have started ruling large parts of India.
July 3, 2011
Cord blood refers to the blood that is collected after the birth of a child after the umbilical cord has been cut and is extracted from the fetal end of the cord, diverting up to 75 ml from the neonate. It is usually done within 10 minutes of giving birth.An adequate cord blood collection requires at least 75 ml in order to ensure that there will be enough cells to be used for a transplantation
June 30, 2011
NGO Krishi Bikash Shilpa Kendra (KBSK) members have been involved in the past in job heist schemes where they have fleeced money from unsuspecting villages using jobs as incentives.5 members of the organization had been arrested in West Bengal .The organization had also used the names of central officials and the national emblem to embezzle money from poor villages.It does not have an inspiring track record with a former secretary in jail as well.There is little details about how this NGO will go about this program or how it would get funds to do it as well.
June 28, 2011
European Carbon Trading Market goes into a Huge Slump on Greek concerns,post 2012 Kyoto uncertainity
The European Carbon Trading Market which is the biggest cap and trade market in the world has gone into a monster slump with carbon credit prices having fallen to around 10 euros which is the lowest since March 2009 when almost every global asset had fallen to multi year lows.The trigger for the correction in prices is the future of the EUA scheme in which major carbon emitters in Europe are restricted to quotas and have to buy carbon credits if they exceed their limits.A huge amounts of United Nations CERs are sold into this market as they are allowed to to so.This has led to the mushrooming of a huge growth of carbon consultancies in India and China which help projects in obtaining these lucrative CERs.Note this has recently become highly controversial with a number of frauds happening in trading of these carbon credits.Top investment banks have been convicted of fraud and big sellers of CERs like the HFC producing companies have made ludicrous windfalls of hundreds of millions of Euros.Some of these companies have now started focusing in winning these CERs which are much more profitable than their core operations.
June 25, 2011
However analysts as they are wont are creatures of habit and don't go out of their comfort zone.They try to stay in the territory of the obvious and don't look at deeper problems.India has been rocked by a number of corruption scandals and telecom has been one of the biggest hit.Unitech Wireless one of the new operators is one the verge of having its properties attached by the Indian state while top executives on Reliance (ADAG) are in jail for colluding to defraud the Indian government of billions along with the former telecom minister Raja.While Airtel is not facing this problems,its insidious business practises are equally problematic if the come to light.In broadband companies in India,I wrote how service providers fleece and loot consumer through systematically fraudulent tactics.This is so widespread that I have no doubt that top management is aware if not actively promoting such activities.A refresher,telecom providers in India routinely activate value added services like ringtones (costing Rs 30/month) and other such services without the consumer's consent.As the amount is small and most of the consumers are illiterate without having the knowledge of what's happening ,these companies make a killing.Airtel is also doing this and making the biggest killing of the India consumer.Only a serious investigation on the lines of 2G telecom scam can uncover this corruption scam which goes on bringing hundreds of millions of illegal for these telecom companies.
May 12, 2011
StemCell Banking has become the latest marketing fraud to hit the Indian cities with overzealous marketers selling the option to bank the stem cells from the cord blood of newborns for around $2,500.Private storage of one's own cord blood is unlawful in Italy and France, and it is discouraged in some other European states.The companies have massive marketing teams which visit expecting parents with expensive brochures and CDs to convince them of the goodness of stem cell banking.These companies offer to take away the blood from the cord of a newborn from which they will extract the stem cells and store in in facilities for further use in the future.These companies have not only targeting parents but also doctors in India.No doubt paying expensive commissions to doctors ( medical profession in India too has become heavily corrupt).
May 6, 2011
CBI which is India's leading investigate agency controlled by the government at the centre has been known to be a pawn in the ruling party hands.It selectively investigates cases against the opposition and the ruling alliance repeatedly messing up intentionally cases of graft against government ministers at the state and federal level.The Ruling Party has often used CBI as a powerful tool against both alliance parties as well as the opposition parties.This blantant manner of corruption had made the Supreme Court directly take the supervision of CBI in the 2G Telecom Scandal investigation which has thrown top corporate and politicians in jail.Now CBI has started acting tardily in the Adarsh Housing Scandal in which top Congress ministers in Maharashtra,bureaucrats,retired generals and admirals had conspired to usurp real estate land worth crores of ruppees.
April 25, 2011
It is a common practice amongst these companies to add value added services like caller tunes without the customer's permission which is totally illegal.Since most of the customers do not know how the billing is happening and do not know how to turn it off,these companies make millions of dollars in illegal profits from such customers.Airtel,Reliance and other major telecom companies in India follow this practice widely and openly.Nobody is going to complain about 50c/month being charged wrongly by the telecom provider.However 50c multiplied by a 100 million customers is neat $50 million in profits for these companies.This overbilling of customers even extends to broadband customers as I recently found out .After a nightmarish experience with Tata Indicom whose pathetic customer service forced me to change to Airtel,I found a blatant case of overcharging of money in my very first bill.
April 4, 2011
India has been rocked by a number of scams and scandals in which the ruling Congress Party members have invariably involved.The Adarsh Housing Scam,Commenwealth Games Scam,2G […]
April 2, 2011
Indian Politicians Corruption and Lack of Respect for Law is becoming more blatant by the day.Despite numerous scams and scandals hitting the media everyday,the corruption continues on unfazed.The minister of education of the Goa state was found with an astounding 10 million dollars in cash at the Mumbai airport while Alagiri who is a federal minister has been found to have assaulted an election official in his hometurf of Madurai.These politicians have managed to make a mockery of the Indian justice system as they know they won't get prosecuted or arrested.Note numerous scandals have hit the headlines but none of the major minister or bureaucrats are doing jail time.Most of the corruption cases have been buried by equally corrupt Indian investigative agencies.The only cases being pursued is where India's Supreme Court has ordered a personal investigation.Expect none of these 2 above incidents to result in anything where Indian politicians continue to treat Indian democracy as a medieval feudal system.
April 2, 2011
Sharad Pawar,India's powerful agricultural minister and the president of the international cricket body ICC has managed to get involved in most corruption scams coming out in the last year or so.However he has managed to come out unscathed even as his fingers are in multiple corruption pies.The name of Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule ( who is a MP what a surpise) has come up in multiple corruption scandals like the 2G Telecom Scandal,IPL Cricket Scandal and Lavasa Scam etc.However it points to his influence and reach,that nothing has happened.He is the leader of a regional party which is part of the ruling coalition in the centre.
March 8, 2011
It is impossible to buy tickets to cricket matches as all the tickets have been given by the officials to their cronies and colleagues.So if you want to buy a ticket to see a cricket match you can't do that.This has even led to the ICC saying that it will lead to bad relations with sponsors .Note the Minister has cropped up in a number of major scams like the Lavasa Scandal,IPL Scam etc.However his role as an ally supporting the government has made him immune to any prosecution.The Indian Police instead of booking a case against ICC corruption has hit out at fans angry at being denied to see a match as no tickets are sold.India is a Banana Republic except that the Supreme Court manages to occasionally shame the government and bring a culprit or 2 to book
February 28, 2011
The Indian Stock Market Regulator SEBI has been seen doing nothing against blatant market manipulation and stock rigging scams.Mid cap and Small Cap Stocks are havens for rigging by promoters and stock brokers as SEBI seemingly does nothing.Even in the primary market,junk IPOs rule the roost with even the recent correction failing to see crap stocks making a debut (Sudar Garmets,Fineotex,Omkar etc.).To anyone with a modicum of common sense it is apparent that such low quality companies could not raise money without manipulating the markets.However SEBI in its infinite wisdom remains blind to this.Stock brokers like Ashika,Dangi continue to operate unimpeded despite being indicted for scamming.Even reputed stock brokers are involved in underhand and shady dealings.However SEBI does nothing indirectly encouraging fleecing of small and retail investors.Not that big investors like Goldman,GMO are immune to fly by night operators as well.
February 19, 2011
The CleanTech and Green Theme is being increasingly used by fraudsters and fly by night operators in the stock market.CO2 Tech Ltd.,a Pink Sheets Company has […]
December 9, 2010
Carbon Emissions Trading has always had profiteering built into it as private companies try to game a government regulated system for reducing GHG emissions.Carbon Trading which came into being after the birth of the Kyoto Protocol has got a lot of consultants and investment banks involved.While many of the schemes to earn carbon credits seem unethical they are not illegal.However a number of frauds have been unearthed in Europe which is the ground zero for Emissions Trading.The number of frauds have only increased since then with Italy suspending trading and 1.6 million carbon credits stolen from a Romanian carbon registry.The complexity and information asymmetry has always put the insiders in an advantageous position.The red tape and bureaucracy associated with the Carbon Trading Scheme ensures that common people and small business cannot take advantage of the carbon reduction scheme.