Billionaire Gautam Adani to Control 65% of News Service NDTV as Founders Sell Share

Several months after making a hostile takeover bid for New Delhi Television (NDTV), one of India’s most trusted news sources, the Adani Group will control nearly 65% of the company.

Swati Bhat

The Adani Group is chaired by billionaire Gautam Adani, the richest man in Asia and the third richest man in the world.

In August, Adani’s AMG Media Networks Limited (AMNL) acquired some 29% of NDTV indirectly, by buying out loans to the company and after an open offer to acquire more of the company, owned a 37% stake in the company, becoming the single largest shareholder in the process.

NDTV communiqued in a statement at the time that the loan buyout “was executed without any input from, conversation with, or consent of the NDTV founders.”

On Friday, NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy decided to sell 27.26% of their 32.26% share in the company to AMNL, it was disclosed in NDTV regulatory filings.

“The AMG Media Network, after the recent open offer, is now the single largest shareholder in NDTV. Consequently, with mutual agreement we have decided to divest most of our shares in NDTV to the AMG Media Network,” the Roys said in a statement. “Since the open offer was launched, our discussions with Gautam Adani have been constructive; all the suggestions we made were accepted by him positively and with openness.”

The Roys resigned from NDTV in November and the outlet’s star journalist Ravish Kumar, the subject of Vinay Shukla’s Toronto and Busan-winning documentary “While We Watched,” resigned earlier this month.

NDTV was founded in 1984 by the Roys. It currently operates two news channels and is known for being a watchdog of democracy by fearlessly questioning those in power, irrespective of which political party they belong to. As such, it has the reputation of being one of the few remaining independent – and therefore credible – news outlets in India.

With a market capitalization of $310 million, NDTV reported 2021 revenues of $45 million.

Adani, with a net worth of $120 billion, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Adani group has interests in the port management, electric power generation and transmission, renewable energy, mining, airport operations, natural gas, food processing and infrastructure sectors.

Unlike the other major billionaire-led group in India, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, which has significant media holdings, including digital rights ownership of the lucrative Indian Premier League cricket tournament, Adani’s media holdings are modest. AMNL was set up in April this year to be in “the business of publishing, broadcasting, distributing and advertising,” per a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The first step in building the Adani media empire was the May acquisition of a 49% stake in Quintillion Business Media, a digital business news platform.

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Facial Recognition Technology

The policies of the Government are aimed at ensuring an Open, Safe and Trusted and Accountable Internet for its users. With the expansion of the Internet, more and more Indians coming online, there is an increase in the facial recognition of biometric information, including information generated for purposes for facial recognition technology.

Pritish Bagdi

Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 provides that a body corporate which possesses or deals or handles any sensitive personal data or information in a computer resource owned or controlled or operated by it is liable to compensate an affected person for causing wrongful loss or wrongful gain to any person due to negligence in implementing and maintaining reasonable security practices and procedures. Government, in exercise of its powers under the said section, has prescribed the rules regarding sensitive personal data or information as well as the reasonable security practices and procedures to be complied with. As per these, sensitive personal data or information includes biometric information, and biometrics include technologies that measure and analyse facial patterns. The reasonable security practices and procedure includeimplementation of the international standard IS/ISO/IEC 27001 or Government-approved codes of best practices for data protection, and a comprehensive documented information security programme and information security policies that contain managerial, technical, operational and physical security control measures that are commensurate with the information assets being protected with the nature of business. Thus, law to regulate facial recognition technology and manage data related to such technology is in place.

Further, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has prepared a draft Bill, titled the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 and has invited feedback from the public as part of its public consultation exercise.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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Tourism Industry is one of the largest employers of women workforce: Shri G. Kishan Reddy

Government engages with Industry Stakeholders through various regulatory and voluntary measures to provide conducive environment for women employees to mitigate the difficulties faced by women employees

Tourism industry workforce faces varied challenges due to tourism industry being largely unorganized, seasonal and fragmented across sectors. Tourism Industry is one of the largest employers of women workforce and the Government engages with Industry Stakeholders through various regulatory and voluntary measures to provide conducive environment for women employees to mitigate the difficulties faced by women employees.

Various provisions in the laws being administered by different Ministries of Government of India provide for safety, equal opportunity and congenial work environment for women employees. These include:

(i) The Code on Social Security, 2020

(ii) The Code on Wages 2019

(iii) Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (as amended in 2017)

(iv) Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013

#thecommunique #tc #tcn #tourism #incredibleindia #lifestyle #tourism #womenempowerment #employment