गुजरात और मुंबई के वरिष्ठ पत्रकार उन्मेष गुजराथी ने नया अखबार लांच कर दिया है. ‘स्प्राउट्स’ नाम के इस नए अंग्रेजी दैनिक को मुंबई से लांच किया गया है.
उन्मेष हिंदी, अंग्रेजी और गुजराती, तीनों भाषाओं में पत्रकारिता करते हैं और समय समय पर तीनों भाषाओं के अलग अलग मीडिया माध्यमों में एडिटर इन चीफ रहे हैं. इन दिनों उनकी कलम अंग्रेजी में चल रही है.
स्प्राउट्स अखबार के कुल छह पेज हैं और दाम पांच रुपये है. कोरोना काल में ये अखबार डिजिटली ज्यादा मशहूर है.
बीते कल संडे एडिशन में अखबार के एडिटर इन चीफ उन्मेष गुजराथी ने राफेल मामले में प्रधानमंत्री मोदी पर जोरदार हमला किया.
देखें कवर स्टोरी….
Why PM Narendra Modi is shielding Anil Ambani ?
Unmesh Gujarathi–
Sprouts Editorial…
Ex French president Francois Hollande has admitted that the Anil Ambani group was imposed as a partner of Dassault by the Modi government
While the French Government has began a judicial probe into a Rs. 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal with India inked on June 14, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accused of shielding the guilty including industrialist Anil Ambani, who is stated to be a partner of Dassault Aviation.
Following the development, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala on Saturday urged Modi to come forward and order a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal.
A deal was signed between Modi government and Dassault Aviations for the purchase of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter aircrafts at a cost of the 7.8-billion-euro (Rs. 59 000 crore) in 2016. The sale was subject of a petition before the Supreme Court which sought a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into how and why the Modi government replaced an earlier agreement to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, the bulk of which would be manufactured in India by the public sector company HAL – with the off-the-shelf purchase of planes with some of the allied offset benefits going to Anil Ambani’s Reliance group.
The Congress has alleged that a deal purchase the 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) at a cost of Rs. 526 crore was finalised by the UPA government. Whereas the NDA Government on April 10,2015, announced to purchase 36 rafale at a cost of over Rs. 1,670 crore.
Now as per the Paris-based website “Mediapart”, the judicial probe would be conducted since the former head of the French public prosecution services’ financial crimes branch has overruled the advice, not to investigate allegations of corruption in the controversial deal. The Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA) formed in 2017 deals with all such suspicious cases.
The French media report, published on Tuesday, April 6, raises several questions about the less-than-transparent manner in which the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office, or Parquet National Financier (PNF), effectively disposed of a 2018 complaint filed by a well-known anti-corruption NGO called ‘Sherpa’.
In October 2018, Sherpa had filed a complaint alerting PNF and its former Head Éliane Houlette, about possible corruption in the deal. The complaint came in the wake of the admission by former French president Francois Hollande that the selection of the Anil Ambani group as Dassault’s partner was imposed by the Modi government. His admission also raised eyebrows because the Ambani group had also extended over a million euros worth of financing for a film project involving Hollande’s partner. The Mediapart alleged that the former head of the PNF Éliane Houlette, “made no serious attempts to investigate” Sherpa’s charges.
The Mediapart has documented how Dassault had agreed to pay one million euros to a middleman in India, Sushen Mohan Gupta, as a ‘gift’ for making models of the Rafale jet. Gupta is currently being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate in the Agusta Westland helicopter deal. Gupta has close links with BJP.
There was a suspicious deal between Dassault Aviation and Defsys Solutions( run by Gupta), in 2017-2018. The Defsys Solutions functioned as a middleman between Govt of India and Dassault. The Mediapart, has claimed that Gupta used an IT services company called IDS, where a member of his family allegedly worked, to receive payments from Dassault. In response, Gupta’s legal counsel claimed that the report was incorrect, since Gupta does not have any companies or bank accounts outside India and has never had any offshore dealings with Dassault, Thales or Safran as alleged.
Unmesh Gujarathi
Editor in Chief
Sprouts
[email protected]
उन्मेष गुजराथी उन विषयों पर साहस के साथ कलम चलाते हैं जिन्हें मुख्यधारा की मीडिया के संपादक लोग सत्ता के दबाव तले इग्नोर कर देते हैं… सांसद मोहन देलकर सुसाइड केस पर उन्मेष गुजराथी का ये आलेख देखें-
Why MP Mohan Delkar suicide case is lying in a cold storage ?
Unmesh Gujarathi
Sprouts News
Why is CM Uddhav Thackeray soft on Praful Khoda Patel?
Mumbai: Although an FIR has been filed on charges of abetment to suicide, in the mysterious death of an Independent MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli Mohan Delkar, at a Mumbai Hotel in February this year, the case has been lying in cold storage for the last three months.
Delkar (58), a seven-term Lok Sabha member, allegedly died by suicide at Hotel Sea Green South, at Marine Drive in South Mumbai on February 22,2021. His body was found at the sea-facing hotel. After initially registering a case of accidental death, an FIR was registered on March 09,2021 under IPC sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 506 (criminal intimidation), 389 (putting person in fear of accusation of offence in order to commit extortion) and also under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Delkar, a Tribal rights activist, had come to Mumbai on February 21, to attend a court hearing of one of his supporters, but hanged himself from the ceiling fan of the hotel, leaving a 15-page suicide note in Gujarati. The note held politicians and administrative officials responsible for “injustice”, “insult” and “bias” meted out to him and specifically named Praful Khoda Patel. Delkar was cremated with full state honours on February 23 at his home town Silvassa in presence of a large number of his supporters.
• Based on the suicide note and a complaint submitted by Abhinav, the Mumbai police had registered an offence against nine persons, including Patel, Sandeep Singh (district collector of DNH), Sharad Darade (then superintendent of police, DNH, now transferred to the Daman police headquarters), Apurva Sharma (resident deputy collector of DNH), Manasvi Jain (sub-divisional officer, police department), Manoj Patel (police inspector Silvassa), Rohit Yadav (DNH administrative department official), Fethsinh Chauhan (BJP leader) and Dilip Patel (revenue administrator of Silvassa). Subsequently the then Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh directed that the matter be investigated by the Special Investigating team(SIT).
Patel, considered to be a close confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, had allegedly harassed Delkar, pushing him to take this drastic step.
• In his complaint, to Mumbai Police, Abhinav stated that the accused had hatched a conspiracy to stop his father from contesting elections and to get control over his college. They also demanded Rs 25 crore by threatening to implicate him in a false criminal case, he alleged. His father had complained to various authorities about the harassment. “If my father had committed suicide at Silvasa, there were chances that investigation in the case would not have been proper, so he deliberately chose Mumbai to end his life,”, Abhinav had mentioned in his statement.
Abhinav had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on the treatment meted out to him by Patel and some ministers, but his letter was completely ignored.
• Praful Khoda Patel was the Home Minister of Gujarat when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of that state. He took charge as the administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu in August 2016. He was the first politically appointed administrator in the history of the union territories, a position that had previously been held only by officers from the Indian Administrative Services. In 2010, Amit Shah resigned as the minister of state for home in Gujarat, after he was arrested in connection with the allegedly staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Then Patel took over as the Home Minister of Gujarat.
• Delkar started his career as a trade union leader in Silvassa and fought for the rights of tribal people working in different factories. Later, he set up “Adivasi Vikas Sangathan” for the tribals in 1985. In 1989, he was elected to the 9 th Lok Sabha, from Dadra and Nagar Haveli constituency as an independent candidate. In 1991 and 1996 he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket. In 1998, he was elected to the Lok Sabha as a BJP candidate. In 1999 and 2004, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha as an independent and the Bharatiya Navshakti Party (BNP) candidate respectively. On February 04, 2009, he re-joined Congress and unsuccessfully contested in 2009 and 2014. In 2019 he distanced himself from the Congress and was elected as an independent candidate. However, in 2020, he had joined the Janata Dal(United) party.
“There is a conspiracy to stop my father from contesting elections and to get control over our college. That is why he was harassed to take a drastic step. Still I strongly believe in our system. I hope justice will prevail.”
— Abhinav Delkar
The Son of Mohan Delkar
