An Anthologette

 

An Anthologette

I came across only two (not even three) topics of intense interest for me in The Hindu of 2025-01-19: a. On industrial disaster, and social and environmental burden; b. On how to bring to justice the rich and the powerful for their criminal misdeeds. Hence, this anthologette (a neologism, diminutive of anthology).

Bhopal Gas Tragedy and Waste Disposal:

 Okay, Union Carbide bought itself justice, not from the public they made to suffer but from the rest of the current Indian taxpayers. On their behalf, now the Indian government is possibly imposing health dangers on the public of the town/village of Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. GoI has “moved 358 tonnes of hazardous waste to ...Dhar”. How much did it cost? Don’t worry, Indian tax payers would pay without a murmur. Union Carbide is sitting pretty, carrying a smirky smile on its face. The state government “was to incinerate waste at a Treatment,  Storage and a Disposal Facility (TSDF) ... more than 200 km away.” It is this factotum in the article that gave me the impetus to post my views on this. “...200 km away,” rephrased, reads “Out of sight, out of mind!” People of Bhopal would not care, Dhar people’s concerns would be brushed aside under the carpet, and of course, Indian taxpayers would take it on their chin without a murmur.

About the people of Dhar, the article goes on to say, “[The] State has secretly advanced the incineration date by a few days to sidestep local resistance”. I would call this “Democracy by stealth!”

An article sub-title says, “Why Pithampur?” Because, the Supreme Court of India opted for it! This judgement came in 2012 that is 28 years after the tragedy. Did someone say something like, “Justice delayed is justice denied”? And, further 13 years have passed. And, the actions of the government are tried to be cloaked in secrecy!

There were trial incineration testing, of about 10 tonnes of the waste, and no surprises, the tests came out successful, everyone was satisfied! “[No] adverse effects on the environment or on public health,” one of the authorities said. Yet, perhaps another wing of the same authority released, perhaps without any comment, a statement from a central government’s testing agency indicating that many important environmental parameters like color of water, chloride, sulphate and fluoride concentrations and total dissolved solids, “exceeded permissible limits.” So, who do we believe? There is no need. Believe whoever you wish, the end result would be the same: a shrug, and the shout, “Let it go!”

Of course, there was a sort of a walk back by the report’s author: the higher than permissible results “don’t appear to be linked to the TSDF operations.” Now, you may understand what I wrote just one line earlier–let it go.

Democracy by stealth, democracy by deception, and democracy by resigned acceptance – you choose your poison.

“Short Selling” as a tool for “[F]orensic financial research”

The above is a field that is very far down the ladder from the rung of the worst of my capabilities. I just could not have been interested. Yet, the topic forced me. Not my fault. The article is a profile of Nate Anderson, the fellow who took on some of the biggest names in finance (there is none bigger than Elon Musk) and made money. But, he is not the culprit in this post. On the contrary, it is how he made his money is of great interest. He correctly guessed how the oligarchs would try to game the system and he, in turn, gamed them! Astute, isn’t he!

Now to some sketchy details. Anderson was, as he says, an insider but playing the game honestly in a brokerage firm doing due diligence for hedge funds. Hmmm... that has to sink in, honesty in hedge fund dealings. His singular passion was, “unearthing scams.” Let us take him at his word.

Let me get to the meat between the buns. He started the firm Hindenburg.  One needs to wonder why he named it after an airship that ended up in flames. Anderson’s Hindenburg was perhaps to set flames to firms that are corruption personified, like Nikola, a maker of electric trucks. His first big success was with Nikola. What he alleged was that Nikola’s “management was lying about the technology status of its product”.  That perhaps was indeed Hindenburgian! Name established. He knew how to entice people into clicking (I do not know whether the news spread on the internet or through more conventional channels; but I am into the zeitgeist of the current times!).

Nikola was exposed as a fraudster when a video clip showed a Nikola truck seemingly “cruising at good speed, was actually rolling down on a slope in neutral gear”–an ouch... if ever there was one, to the company.

Hindenburg, the company, had set flames to Nikola and it had arrived. Anderson made a killing through his firm. Then came Elon Musk, a much bigger fish. He made money more than once as he chased Musk in his ordeal with Twitter takeover. I am not capable of going through that maze; just believe me (or search the web for the article that I have sourced; I do not like this verbifying a noun, but the zeitgeist demands!).

Then,  Gautam Adani. I do wonder why Hindenburg is silent on his shenanigans in Australia when he was in the business delegation that accompanied Prime Minister of India. But when Hindenburg dug its claws into Adani and some head honcho in SEBI, the regulator, the latter lost USD 150 billion in its market value. Perhaps Indian would forgive these minor transgressions (just chicken feed), but the US regulators, who may have smelled blood, may not let go.

That is it, for this anthologette. Next time I would try for a full-fledged anthology, on some other topic.

Raghuram Ekambaram