Niira Radia
Niira Radia (née Nira Menon; born 19 November 1960) is a former corporate lobbyist whose taped telephone conversations implicated her influence in the allocation of key ministries in the Government of India in 2009.
Acting as a liaison officer, Radia used her expertise in the areas of travel, aviation, government policies and the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to resolve Sahara Airlines' issues with the commercial department at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi.
Acting as aviation consultants, they traveled to Bahrain with Sahara Airlines CEO, Uttam Kumar Bose, to negotiate the purchase of helicopters from Eurocopter.
[8][9] The deal netted Radia and Singh a huge commission that they routed through Sofema, a company created the same year for guiding the foreign sales of large French aeronautic and defence groups.
[5] After the 1998 Indian general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formed a government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a year.
On 19 March 1998 Ananth Kumar, representing the Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka, became the Minister of Civil Aviation.
[12] KLM uk hired Crownmart to handle the legal formalities involved in the return of two aircraft leased to ModiLuft by AirUK in 1996.
[5] Even though it was forbidden for state governments to use middlemen and commission agents in the purchase of helicopters, Radia and Singh traveled to London to sign a contract with Sofema.
Since a Shiv Sena-BJP government was in power at Maharashtra at that time, Radia asked Ananth Kumar to arrange a meeting with a senior BJP functionary in Nagpur who facilitated the deal.
[6] In April 1999 Radia persuaded Ananth Kumar as Minister of Civil Aviation to change its policy of aircraft acquisition from Boeing to Airbus for Air India's new fleet requirements.
[20] In 2000 Singapore Airlines was keen to re-negotiate a more liberal air bilateral pact with the Indian civil aviation ministry to obtain a staggered increase in its flight frequencies over a multi-year period.
[6] Singapore Airlines was at that time also in talks with Ratan Tata over a 40% stake in Air India[22] and it put in a good word for Radia.
In 2000 Radia attempted to start her own airline, Crown Air, but the Ministry of Civil Aviation declined to give her permission because it failed to meet the requirements for adequate paid-up capital, ownership pattern, equity base and appointment of a chairman.
[23] Radia increased the paid-up capital from just ₹100,000 (₹1,00,000) to ₹300 million (₹30 million); clarified that she and her sister, Karuna Menon, were the promoters; obtained approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and the Home ministry to raise equity abroad; and started negotiations with International Lease Finance Corporation to obtain aircraft.
[3] In August 2000 Uttam Kumar Bose was sacked as CEO of Sahara Airlines after aircraft lease rentals negotiated by him were found to be as much as 50 percent higher than market rates.
Ltd. with former Finance Secretary CM Vasudev and former chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Pradip Baijal, as its founding members.
[29] In 2008 Mukesh Ambani also decided to outsource all of Reliance Industries public relations and lobbying work to Radia, who set up Neucom Consulting just for this purpose.
The foundation funded the construction of a Pejavara Adokshaja muth Sri Krishna temple at Vasant Kunj,[27] an expensive area of Delhi, for which land was allocated by the government at very low prices.
At a function in 2002 Pejavara Swami Vishwesha Teertha was present, along with senior BJP leader L. K. Advani who lay the foundation stone for the temple.
[41] Over a six-month period in 2009 India's Income Tax department taped Radia's phone conversations at the time of cabinet formation after general elections.
A news magazine published transcripts of the taped conversations that implicated Radia's influence in how key ministerial portfolios were allocated.
But Mossack Fonseca (MF) documents, investigated by The Indian Express, show her name simply as Nira Radia and establish that the PR professional whose telephone intercepts became public in 2010 managed an offshore account.
