By: Chitra Patel
Is George Soros angry with Modi or with his failed ambitions?
Billionaire Philanthropist George Soros recently delivered a speech in Davos where he accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of creating a Hindu National State and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims for their citizenship.
But who George Soros exactly is and what are his connections to India?
In 1969, George Soros started hedge fund management and eventually grew through the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 where he sold short more than $10 Billion in pounds profiting for $1 Billion. He is tagged as the ‘the man who broke Back of England’ and caused Black Wednesday. With this profit he started “Open Society Foundation”
George Soros developed he theory of reflexivity which states that “market values are often driven by fallible ideas of participants, not only by economic fundamental situations”. Ideas and events influence each other in reflexive feedback loops. In short, theory of reflexivity is a redefined and implementable session of psychological war. This is the reason Soros is regarded as ‘the puppet master’ of various global controversies and crises.
George Soros: Financial Spectator, Stock Investor, Philanthropist and Liberal Political Activist. Soros first visited India in December 2006, where he described India as a favourable nation with tremendous opportunities. He declared that he will be investing in India. In 2008, Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), Omidyar Network and Google.org announced $17 Million to small to medium enterprise companies for India – “Song Investment” at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.
In 2010, Soros bought 4% stake in Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) from Dubai Holdings.
Twilight Saga – Soros and Omidyar
It is believed that 2014 National Elections was funded by Omidyar Network India in support of Modi Government. Jayant Sinha, profiled as Venture Capitalist, Senior Advisor and Independent Director was the Director of Omidyar Network India that time, was also a BJP candidate (Winner) from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, India.
Open Society Foundation was in the list of 11000 banned foreign NGOs by the Indian Government in 2014-15 session. This might have triggered the hatred of Soros towards Modi as his foundation was involved heavily in Indian NGOs and SMEs. More importantly Soros criticised Modi for specially banning Christian NGOs, he also said that Modi’s vision is to eliminate every community from India other than Hindus as he himself originated from RSS, a Hindu devoted organization.
The Make Over – Aspada
Aspada was founded in 2009 and believed to be managing $100 Million in capital.
In 2011, Aspada Foundation acquired Song, majority stakes of which were owned by SEDF.
In 2013, Aspada Foundation committed $10 million to early stage businesses to make education, healthcare, and financial services more accessible to low-income people in India. Aspada also invested in agricultural supply chain companies in an effort to support small holder farmers.
Aspada Foundation received that $10 million from the Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF) and worked to promote economic opportunity and sustainable impact in India.
In 2014, they committed additional $15 Million to Aspada. Additionally, in March same year, it invested Rs 10 crore in Mumbai-based non-banking financial company Neo Growth Credit, a NBFC firm funded by Aspada.
In 2019, LGT Group, the largest family-owned private banking and asset management group, originally known as The Liechtenstein Global Trust, owned by the Princely House of Liechtenstein, acquired the majority stakes of Aspada from SEDF.
Aspada is now LGT Lightstone Aspada but with the same ‘so called’ visionary approach as Soros.
Rooted in 90’s
In 1994, George Soros and his offshore company Quantum Fund were in India, obviously looking for some easy form of cash. Then Soros Fund Management (SFM), reputed to be one of the world’s leading fund managers, had already taken up a 33% stake in its tie-up with the GIC Mutual Fund. Another Soros company, Chatterjee Petrochemicals Ltd. (CPL), run by a Soros money handler, Purnendu Chatterjee, has secured 25% equity in Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd., a 36-billion-rupee project near Calcutta. There were also reports that the Quantum Fund NMV, a Netherlands Antilles-based investment house, was picking up stocks from the Bombay stock exchange.
Soros’s procurement of 33% of the GIC Mutual Fund and investment in the Bombay stock exchange was no surprise, since Soros was considered as “a shark who follows money instead of blood”. But the CPL’s procurement of the 25% equity in Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd. offered a clear insight into how the Soros operation functions.
According to the reports of Ramtanu and Susan Maitra (renown journalist/authors), the CPL frontman was on Purnendu Chatterjee, a New York-based entrepreneur with ethnic ties into West Bengal. Chatterjee was given a boost by the local media as an investor par excellence, and, in due time, he made contact with the ostensibly Marxist Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu. Basu, whose British connections were always underplayed, went through with the deal without really checking the pedigree of the CPL, Soros, Quantum Fund, et al. As Ramtanu and Susan Indian puts it, it was a case of “naïve cunningness” on Chatterjee’s part.
The Economic Times, a leading daily, was asked on Aug. 17, 1994 that why CPL’s mysterious silence about the source of its funding was ignored, The paper reported that Chatterjee had acquired a poor reputation because of his troubles with the American Securities Exchange Commission, and it evinced surprise that he had developed direct contact with the West Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu. It would not be the first time in India that non-resident Indian investors, under the guise of giving back to their country some profit of their labour elsewhere, had taken the country for a ride. However, the Indian government’s avowed commitment to “globalization” and free-market liberalization, and obsession with money, will no doubt bring more of the sharks like Soros into this rather desperate economic scene.
But Soros, whose Quantum Fund N.V. board members include luminaries from such powerful financial operators as N.M. Rothschild and Sons merchant bankers and London based St. James Place Capital, has also been linked to the underground. According to reports from US State Department officials, Quantum Fund raised a huge amount of money to demolish European monetary stability in 1992. During this operation, such well-known criminals as Marc Rich, a fugitive metals and oil dealer now based in Switzerland, and Israeli arms merchant Saul Eisenberg were silent investors, along with a third Soros partner, Rafi Eytan, known as “Dirty Rafi,” who had served in London previously as the Israeli Mossad’s liaison to British intelligence.
Offerings in 2000’s
On 28 July 2010 SKS (www.sksindia.com), India’s largest microfinance institution (MFI) with 5.8 million clients, became the first MFI in India to float its shares through an initial public offering (IPO).1 The IPO was successful by any financial market standard: the offering was 13 times oversubscribed and attracted leading investment groups, such as Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and George Soros’ Quantum Fund.
Also, in 2010 The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh experienced a staggering 200 suicides by farmers in land. It was believed that SKS Microfinance which gave them loans was somehow credible. An 18-year-old girl drank pesticide after she was forced to hand over money meant for an exam fee, leaving a note, “Work hard and earn money. Do not take loans.”
Later that year SKS secured an initial US$64 million from a group of 18 anchor investors who agreed to buy 18 percent of the offering at the top of the offering window of INR 985 per share. The anchors included JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, India ICICI Prudential, Reliance Mutual Fund, and George Soros’ Quantum Fund.
Connection to India
India’s peculiar Ideology of democracy and the population boom provides potential market attracts businessmen all over the world. It is suspected that the Indian Economy is not being driven by India’s policies or Government, it is more to do with such ‘Internal Businessman’ like George Soros.
Like Hillary Clinton in United States (2006 Elections), George Soros through hid numerous ventures, was one of the major funder/donors for Prime Minister Modi.
“Not so Digital India”
Under PM Modi’s vision of Digital India, The Government of India introduced biometric-based identification (AADHAR), a Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to help citizens of India enjoy services like opening a bank account, filing tax returns, and availing rations swiftly by digitally authenticating their identity. A team of researchers from the Indian School of Business (ISB) and Digital Identity Research Initiative (DIRI) investigates and monitors the back-end servers of UIDAI.
DIRI, launched in 2017, is funded by Omidyar Network India and in 2019 they had given a grant of $1.8 Million to DIRI and committed $500000 more for future grants.
“Open Society and Ford Foundation – Under FCRA Scrutiny and Anti-India”
George Soros financed radical environmental groups partnering in “Global Climate Strike” to the tune of nearly $25 million. At least 22 of the left-wing activist groups listed as partners in the Global Climate Strike received $24,854,592 in funding from liberal billionaire George Soros between 2000-2017 through his Open Society Network.
Among the organizations receiving Soros funding were Fund for Global Human Rights, Global Green Grants Fund, 350.org, Amnesty International, Avaaz, Colour of Change, and People’s Action. Each of these groups has climate-related agendas and goals spanning from reducing global carbon emissions to less than 350 parts per million and 100 percent “clean energy,” to the elimination of new fossil fuel projects and a “green civil rights movement.”
The group 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben in 2008, has fought against coal power in India.
It is not clear how much funding the Global Climate Strike has actually received from these groups or in total. And, of course, Soros’ funding is over 18 years, so the numbers highlighted are not immediately relevant.
But what the investigation does show is how the Strike is being funded by a wide range of left-wing foundations, many of which in turn have relied on Soros money at some stage in the past.
This is the list of the relevant Soros donations:
Most of the organisations mentioned above were listed in the banned NGOs under FCRA act by Indian Government in 2014.
Open Society has also funded US based NGO Greenpeace, which came under heavy scrutiny by the Indian Government in 2014, which claimed that the NGO’s activities, research, and peaceful protests were “working against the economic progress of the country.” Greenpeace’s FCRA registration was then cancelled in August 2015 due to alleged failure to disclose the movement of funds properly. This cancellation was seen by many observers as heralding a new phase in the interpretation of FCRA regulations wherein the Government of India altered the definition of activities considered harmful to the national interest.
The Ford Foundation has faced similar challenges. In March 2015, the foundation was placed in the “prior permission” category after the MHA reportedly found that it was funding non-FCRA registered NGOs, a violation of Section 7 of the FCRA. Earlier that year, the Gujarat government filed a complaint with the MHA that the Ford Foundation’s funded “anti-India” activities of two NGOs–Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace and requested that the FCRA registration of these two NGOs be cancelled. After several months of seeking ministry clearance to process any foreign contributions, the Ford Foundation was taken off the government watch list and was granted the ability to fund its affiliates after registering under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), which falls under the jurisdiction of the finance ministry and maintains even tighter regulations that that of FCRA.
