''Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis'' is a book written by Indian journalists

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (born 5 October 1955) is an Indian journalist, writer, publisher, documentary film maker and teacher. He has been a guest faculty member at IIM Ahmedabad for 18 consecutive years, and also taught at the IIMs at Calcutta a ...

Subir Ghosh Subir Ghosh (born 7 September 1966) is an Indian journalist and writer, whose works have appeared in print and online since 1991. His areas of focus are environment, human rights, conflict and Northeast India. He currently resides in Bangalore. ...

and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri. The book was officially released on 15 April 2014. The book deals with the issue of irregularities in the determination of the price of

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Overview

In the book, the authors claim to cover all the issues regarding the extraction of natural gas from the Krishna Godavari Basin. After a few publishers refused to accept the book unmodified, the Guha Thakurta decided to self-publish it. He choose the internet as the primary mode of distribution to avoid facing litigation, like those faced by the publishers of '' The Descent of Air India'' and '' Sahara: The Untold Story''. The book covers the various important aspect on the gas drilling in Krishna Godavari Basin. It also covers the legal dispute between

Mukesh Ambani Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India's most valuable company by market value. Acco ...

and

Anil Ambani Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (born 4 June 1959) is an Indian businessman. He was the chairman of Reliance Group (also known as Reliance ADA Group), which was created in July 2006 following a demerger from Reliance Industries Limited. He leads a numbe ...

over the pricing of gas supply between their two firms. It discusses technical issues of deep-sea drilling. It also includes an investigative report prepared by the

Comptroller and Auditor General of India The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is the supreme audit institution of India, established under Article 148 of the Constitution of India. They are empowered to audit all receipts and expenditure of the Government of India and the S ...

(CAG) of the alleged malpractices of

Reliance Industries Ltd. Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate company, headquartered in Mumbai. It has diverse businesses including energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is ...

(RIL). The books also claims the political system of India has created

crony capitalism Crony capitalism, sometimes called cronyism, is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of free enterprise, but rather as a return on money amassed through collusion between a business class and the political class. This is ...

in India. It claims that in sectors like infrastructure and energy, a few firms are getting project deals in exchange for political contribution. The book claims the CAG report states that the government prepared contracts that were favourable to RIL and the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

changed Petroleum Ministers to favour the firm.

Defamation notice

On 17 April 2014,

(RIL) sent a legal notice to the authors and the publishers. The notice claimed that the firm and its chairman were being defamed for personal gain. The notice also accused the distributors of the ebook version, Flipkart and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

, of conspiracy. Deepshikha Shankar, an event manager, who sent out the invitations for the book release was also accused by the notice. The notice claimed that the book was in contempt of the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) regarding the Krishna Godavari Basin is still pending in the court. The notice alleged that the book has tried to create a negative image of the firm when the lawsuit is still under arbitration. The notice demanded that the sales of the book be stopped and all existing copies in all forms be destroyed. The notice also demanded a public apology and threatened litigation if their demands were not met. Guha Thakurta responded to the notice by saying that the book was balanced as it quoted RIL's version of the events too. He mentioned that it also included interviews with RIL personnel like B. K. Ganguly. He said that the authors were exercising their right to free expression under the Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. He added that this was an act of intimidation and harassment and they will apply a proper legal response. On 23 April 2014, RIL sent another legal notice to authors and distributors seeking

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

in damages, to be paid within 10 days of the notice.

References

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External links

Official website
Indian non-fiction books Books about companies 2014 non-fiction books