About me
- Created on Sunday, 24 November 2013 11:47
Naresh Minocha is an independent Indian journalist known for his capability to produce researched news and analysis on wide range of subjects and issues. He leverages his passion for content aggregation to give depth to his write-ups. He has been spotting certain scams and trends right from their conception since the early eighties.
In his long career spanning over 42 years, he has worked with several leading Indian and foreign media organizations in different positions. The organizations/publications include Indian Express, Business Standard, Business India, icis.com asiatele.com (See CV). He has been working as consulting/contributing editor with different entities since 1998.
Minocha is a flag-bearer of journalists' right to ask questions to those who govern India and influence the public opinion. He thus created a digital innovation: Tweeting daily five questions (#5Qs) to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Like other scribes, he realized that Mr. Modi won't hold national press conferences- a platform that might give some opportunity to Independent scribes to put questions to him.
Hence Minocha embarked on a 'thousand-mile journey' by tweeting daily #5Qs to #Modiji on 12th February 2018. On 20th August 2020, he completed 920th set of daily #5Qs, aggregating to 4600 questions (a world record!). He has persisted with this accountability initiative in spite of all manipulations at twitter, including suspension of his account @nmleo1 before 2019 Lok Sabha polls for several months. Even his 2nd twitter account @nmleo_a1 was suspended for about a month in 2020. He believes his twitter presence is shadow-masked to reduce visibility of sharp questions with many that stir the soul. He can no longer link his twitter account with Facebook account for automatic uploading of #5Qs on the latter platform. The more the hurdle, the stronger is the will-power to defend the right to put questions in keeping with high standards of journalism.
Nareshminocha.com is not just a properly categorized archive of bylined write-ups penned since May 1980 when he started his career as a reporter in Financial Express. This website is a small attempt to ensure that the modern history is not distorted by certain opinion leaders who believe that public memory is short and they cannot be contradicted by the public for want of easy access to facts.
Had this website been developed three years earlier, Prime Ministerial prospect Rahul Gandhi would perhaps not have claimed that Sam Pitroda “brought mobile phones to India”, an untruth that he orchestrated during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in late 2011 with an eye on dalit votes.
This website is also an attempt to bust the myth that a newspaper has a short life of a few hours, after which it becomes a raddi/waste paper. This initiative gets additional significance from the fact that some of the publications where the write-ups appeared went out of the business several years ago. These include the Indian Post, the Sunday Observer and the Observer of Business and Politics.
This website would provide links to my latest write-ups appearing on websites of different entities. It would also serve as platform for certain exclusive news and views.
Minocha was at the forefront of exposing the Italian connection in the eighties that primarily focused on blatant favours doled out by Congress Government to Snam Progetti and Denmark’s Haldor Topsoe in which Snam divested its 50% stake in 2009.
He also earned a name for reportage into several telecommunication controversies in the eighties and nineties. The most notable and forgotten was the investigation into the plot against cellular mobile phones in which the national dailies were misled by vested interests into slamming cellular mobile phones. These ubiquitous gadgets, which were then popularly identified as car phones, were then labeled as eyesores and luxuries.
Minocha has also been ahead of other journalists and entities in flagging certain issues that became big controversies several years later. A case in point is the presumptive loss computed by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in the 2G scam in 2009.
Way back in May 1995, Minocha wrote a story in the Indian Express about a revenue forgo/presumptive loss of over Rs. 10,000 crore suffered by the Government by not going for licencee fee-based bidding for eight cellular licences for four metro cities. (Chance to Earn Rs 10,000 cr more lost). And he followed this concern for the revenue forgo under the 2G scam with a few more stories such as ‘Panel member flays privileges for metro cell operators’ published in the Pioneer on 30April1998.
He also reported and analyzed the 2G scam during BJP-led NDA regime in July 1999 (Govt has become de facto BIFR for service cos).
Another case in point is the coalgate scam. Before the term coalgate got coined after the CAG report hogged limelight in 2012, Minocha sensed something amiss in captive coal blocks allocation way back in March1997 when the concept of captive blocks was being diluted to a farce (Ispat coal project trips over Mauritius route).
In January 2007, he again turned torchlight on bizarre developments in coal blocks allocation (Coal mining licence raj turns public enterprises into commission agents!) in his column in taxindiaonline.com in January 2007.
In March 2013, a fortnight before the draft CAG report on coalgate was leaked to a national daily, Minocha pointed similarities between 2G scam and coal blocks scam and wondered why vigilant groups had overlooked the latter scam. (Probe both 2G & Coal scams; Levy level-playing tax).
He brought clarity to the coal scam in August 2012 by pointing out that both UPA Government and CAG had erred on fundamentals. (Suicidal UPA botched CAG probe into Coalgate).
Yet another instance of flagging issues several years before they emerge as media tsunami is that capital gains tax (CGT) liability of Vodafone that became a full-blown row in 2011-12. Way back in May 1996, Minocha wrote a story (Foreign JV partners make merry as FERA provides IT loophole) on deficiencies in telecom services joint venture guidelines that enabled exiting foreign partners in JVs to avoid paying CGT to Income Tax Department (ITD).
As put in that story, “if the new Government does not take a policy stand on this issue, such revenue leakages may acquire serious dimensions as the same problem is expected to recur in the case of other infrastructure projects such as power, road and port projects awarded to joint ventures through competitive bidding or licensing.”
He followed up this with two more write-ups – ‘Making mockery of norms’ in the Pioneer in August 1996 and ‘Govt missed four chances in Vodafone tax case’ in taxindiaonline.com in June 2012.
Minocha had occasionally written under two pen names – N.M. Leo and M. Norman. He has also penned many thought-provoking editorials that can’t be uploaded for the simple reason that such write-ups are supposed to represent the viewpoint of the media entity and hence do not carry the name of the writer. He has also written many stories and articles without byline, a few of which have been uploaded on this website for the sake of clarity in public discourse.
Minocha firmly believes that Journalism is prone to inherent errors. Journalists should thus be humble to admit mistakes and publish corrections with same prominence as given to the goofed-up write-ups. It here pertinent to upload sage advice given to me in 1991 by one of the Tata group Satraps, late D.S. Seth, when he served as Chairman and Managing Director of Tata Chemicals Limited.
I also at the same time believe that while trying to accommodate all sides of the story, one should not get over-awed by scheming stakeholders including certain dubious environmental NGOs who excel in mudslinging and blackmailing. They deserve fitting reply.
Minocha has never supported any political party or any of its affiliate. His stories and analysis in Organiser should thus not be construed as endorsement for its editorial policy or support for its publisher, RSS or its affiliate BJP. He wrote for Organiser in his capacity as an anti-establishment journalist and especially due to denial of writing opportunity by the mainstream print media for the last several years.
I believe the Executive (Mantriji-Babu combine), Legislature, Judiciary, Media and NGOs (excluding exceptions in each of these five institutions/pillars) have collectively transformed India into a managed anarchy from a democratic country visualized by the Constituent Assembly.
Minocha believes India can survive and become super power only if it embraces whole-heartedly population control, civil code and civic code. He has articulated these views in a few write-ups such as the one in January 2012- ‘Usher in democratic equilibrium & good governance’ and another in April 2009 ‘Forget Jai Ho; Chant Bharat Bachao!’
The country’s governance system must balance constitutional rights with constitutional duties of citizens, who should be identified only as Indians. It should be capable of channeling fervor and assets of different faiths into community action for the benefit of all Indians.
National discipline is the key to our collective survival and growth into infinity.