When I came across this tweet from ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 4 Corners, I was quite surprised. Another Adani ‘expose’? The tagline was ‘Digging into Adani’ which was preceded by a line or two about how they “escaped” the police.
The real surprise was when I actually watched the video, a trailer for an episode where this team of journalists ‘investigates’ Adani in the port city of Mundra. I was surprised that, how could an international media outlet push out a video, which suffered from numerous logical and legal fallacies.
The Adani Group has been in the spotlight for quite some time now. It recently again came to the center stage when the Group was awarded a couple of contracts to build Australia’s biggest coal mine. At this time the internet blew up with articles popping left and right about their misconduct in the building of mines, as well as alleged corruption. Surprisingly, activists are attacking an investor instead of successive democratically elected governments.
These accusations were defused and moreover, their intentions were questionable at the very start, which is what makes me question this so-called investigation by the ABC TV. As they have been accused of biased coverage before and it would be no big surprise that their benefactors would stand to benefit from any changes to the coal mine project which would come from the maligning image of Adani and India.
The coal project was pre-approved by the Australian government which inherently means all laws were followed and all requisite permissions were taken. The incessant questioning by this group of journalists gives evidence of their lack of faith in the laws and systems of the Australian government of which they themselves are a subject.
Secondly, the footage which they have filmed is from the port city of Mundra, which lies on the Rann of Kutch, a sensitive coastal border area, often used by a hostile neighbor for infiltration into India. There is a reason why the filming of border areas is not allowed, the footage of security installations can be used by other hostile parties to find weaknesses in defense and for other intelligence purposes.
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And I don’t think there is a need to point out how big a security risk it is. Police have caught multiple Pakistani people trying to cross over into India. Hats off to local cops for identifying foreign elements.
Another thing that strikes me is the fact that the information that these people seem to be working on was provided by Ramachandra Guha, a historian whose credentials have been questioned often on account of ill-researched articles and opinions.
All in all, the questionable ethics of such a large media house, coupled with the lack of permissions and even the off chance that this is related to the Australian mine furor makes me question the validity of this video.
Image Credits: Google Images
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