Print: "Shekhar Gupta’s media venture Printline Media Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed sum from investors including Ratan Tata, Uday Kotak and Nandan Nilekani, all of whom are putting money in the company in their personal capacity. The company will use the money to launch its news site The Print, a multimedia digital news platform, in the next three months.

The anchor investors—the list also has Biocon Ltd founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Bangalore-based tech-entrepreneur Rajiv C. Mody and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma—will hold close to 20% equity in Printline Media. The remaining stake will be held by Printline founder Shekhar Gupta."

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/wZvHR4E6sGu9n6Q76kJGQI/Shekhar-Guptas-The-Print-raises-funds-from-Ratan-Tata-Nand.html

Wire: Recently, The Wire received considerably huge funding of Rs. 1.16 crores from a Trust, owned by the renowned Tata Group. https://trunicle.com/why-indian-corporates-fund-anti-india-fake-news-peddlers-like-alt-news-amp-the-wire/

Discovered a twitter trend dating 2-3 years back when news of TATA funding the Wire broke:

https://twitter.com/mohnotgaurav18/status/1085869904144814081

The Wire’s Science coverage is fully funded by specifically earmarked contributions from Rohan Murthy, who made a first grant of Rs 50 lakh in December 2015 and a follow-up grant of the same amount in May 2017.

https://www.hindupost.in/media/runs-funds-hinduphobic-anti-bharat-media-like-wire/

FactChecker.in:

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"INDEPENDENT AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED MEDIA FOUNDATION"

Grantees:

https://ipsmf.org/grantee-portfolio/

Caravan. AltNews. Mojo. NewsMinute. Print. Swarajya. EPW. DownToEarth. EastMojo. Feminism In India. The Citizen. Supreme Court Observer. The India Forum. Imphal Free Press. Kashmir Observer. Wire (Till 2020). Livelaw (Till 2020). The Ken (Till 2020). IndiaSpend.

Less well known grantees: Satyagraha- by Sanjay Dubey- founder-editor of Tehelka. Asiaville. Janjwar- "covers issues and events in the states of UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Haryana and Delhi. It particularly focuses on people’s movements." LiveHistoryIndia. India Development Review (IDR). The Bastion- started by three young students, and incubated at the Ashoka University near Delhi, "strives to leverage research and academia to put out data and evidence-based stories." Suno India. Sikkim Chronicle. Max Maharashtra- founded by journalist Ravindra Ambekar and is based out of Mumbai. Sadhna. Khabar Lahariya. Pragati- "online magazine that provides commentary about current affairs and public policy. It believes that national interest is best served by safeguarding individual liberties."

Previous Grantees: Gaon Connection. The Better India. Azhimukham. DoolNews. CGnet Swara: Indian voice-based online portal that allows people in the forests of Central Tribal India to report local news by making a phone call.

Donors

https://ipsmf.org/donors/

Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives Private Limited (Wipro’s philanthropic arm. Azim Premji was awarded Padma Bhusan by UPA govt in 2005 & Padma Vibhushan by UPA Govt in 2011)

Mr. Cyrus Guzder (logistics, courier business tycoon)

Ms. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Chairwoman of Biocon, Awarded Padma Shri by UPA Govt in 2005 & Padma Bhushan by Rajiv Gandhi Led Congress Govt in 1989)

Lal Family Foundation (Eicher Motors)

Manipal Education and Medical Group India Pvt Ltd (headed by CEO & MD Ranjan Pai, also has Mohandas Pai as Chairman of Board of one of the group companies)

Piramal Enterprises Limited (large pharmaceutical company)

Pirojsha Godrej Foundation ( Godrej Foundation funded LGBTQ groups came in news for campaigning against CAA and even went to the extent of deplatforming nationalist LGBTQ activists. https://www.opindia.com/2020/02/lgbtqia-event-rise-pride-circle-godrej-de-platform-gopi-shankar-madurai-pressure-anti-india-elements/)

Quality Investment Pvt. Ltd. (Mumbai based investment company)

Ms. Rohini Nilekani (wife of Infosys founder Nandan Nilekani who is also a member of member of Indian National Congress. Nandan Nilekani is also one of the board members of US-based think tank Berggruen Institute along with Raghuram Rajan, Jack Dorsey & founder of EBay-Pierre Omidyar (another corporate name found frequently funding "independent media" globally & in India). Berggruen Institute has sponsored Rahul Gandhi to comment on "fascism & death of democracy in India".

https://twitter.com/rahulgandhi/status/913761181780779010?lang=en

More Notable board members & members affiliated with Berggruen Institute:

Shaukat Aziz: Former Prime Minister of Pakistan (2004-2007); Eric E. Schmidt: Former CEO and Chairman, Google/Co-founder; Evan Spiegel: Co-Founder and CEO, Snap Inc.; Helle Thorning-Schmidt: Former Prime Minister of Denmark (2011-2015)

Jack Dorsey: Co-founder and CEO, Twitter and Square; James Cuno: President & CEO, The J. Paul Getty Trust; Max Von Bismarck: Billionaire investor & the Director and Head of Investors at the World Economic Forum from 2005-11; Mohamed A. El-Erian: Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz; Reid Hoffman: Co-Founder of LinkedIn; Partner at Greylock; Nandan M. Nilekani: Co-founder and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Infosys; Pierre Omidyar: Founder, Omidyar Group; Raghuram Rajan; Condoleezza Rice; Nicolas Sarkozy; Peter Schwartz: Senior Vice President for Global Government Relations & Strategic Planning, SalesForce; Stephen Schwarzman: CEO & Founder, Blackstone; Fareed Zakaria

https://www.berggruen.org/people/group/the-berggruen-network/

Other donors of IPSMF:

Rohinton and Anu Aga Family Discretionary No. 2 Trust (charity arm of Thermax Ltd., the energy and environment engineering business. More on Anu Aga-among the eight richest Indian women, and in 2007 was part of 40 Richest Indians by net worth according to Forbes magazine. In 2010 she was awarded the Padma Shri for Social Work by UPA Govt. She is currently Chairperson of Teach For India. She was nominated to Rajya Sabha by Congress on 26 April 2012)

Sri Nataraja Trust (Chennai based NGO started by Lakshmi Narayanan, ex-CEO of Cognizant Technologies)

Tejaskiran Pharmachem Ind. P. Ltd. (Mumbai-based chemical manufacturing company. Apparently has same registered address as Quality Investment Pvt. Ltd.)

Unimed Technologies Ltd. (Gujarat-based pharma company)

Viditi Investment Pvt. Ltd. (another investment company with same address as Quality Investment Pvt. Ltd.)

Notice how the IT & Pharma & International Courier sector companies needing continued access to US markets are predominating in this anti-India propaganda business. Speaking of IT companies, note that NASSCOM had demanded all FCRA regulations to be waived off and had demanded govt to import Pfizer & Moderna vaccines- stuff we would ideally expect from US lobby, right?

https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic.php?t=7329&start=80

Other Donors:

Alembic CSR Foundation (Pharma company)

Aamir Khan

C A Engineer

Chander Uday Singh

Dipa and Janak Dilip Dwarkadas

Malhotra Weikfield Foundation

AMM Foundation

GMR Group

Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

Naushad D Forbes (Also board member of CIA affiliates-Ford & Rockefeller funded Aspen Institute https://www.aspeninstitute.org/team/board-of-trustees/)

https://ipsmf.org/board-of-trustees/

Amol Palekar, Mr. Mukund Padmanabhan- Former Hindu editor, Mr. T.N. Ninan- chairman of Business Standard, Dr. Rukmini Banerji-CEO of Pratham Education Foundation, one of India’s largest NGOs working in the field of education. Shyam Divan- SC Advocate

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Although IPSMF website doesn't note funding to Factchecker.in, the website of FactChecker confirms funding from IPSMF, apart from special funds from IPSMF members as Rohini Nilekani, Vikram Lal & Lal Family Foundation (Eicher Motors), & Pirojsha Godrej Foundation

https://www.factchecker.in/trustees-patrons/

Main trustee of Factcheker.in is Govindraj Ethiraj, who is also cofounder of Omidyar funded BOOM Live & has worked at IndiaSpend- if you remember, also funded by IPSMF. Govindraj was named a 2018 McNulty Prize Laureate- Awarded by Mcnulty foundation, whose president is Anne Welsh McNulty, former executive at Goldman Sachs & who serves as trustee at Aspen Institute. Ethiraj is also a Fellow of the Inaugural Class of Ananta Aspen’s India Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Aspen Institute in turn is funded by Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller foundation- all 3 stated to be foreign policy arms of CIA since Cold War era as evidenced by constant appointment of CIA officials in these foundations & vice-versa, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg, Bezos, Lumina (Omidyar), and US govt directly via US Dept of State & US Agency For International Foundation. etc. It's funding list includes almost all big US corporates running upto hundreds, & for yr 2020 has been linked below.

https://mcnultyfound.org/about/who-we-are

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Institute

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2020-Contributions.pdf

https://archive.is/2WbZv

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Foreign corporate funding sources of IPSMF backed media

Curiously the grantee list of Ebay founder's org Omidyar Foundation And that of IPSMF coincide at a few places.

Omidyar Foundation (associated with toppling pro-Russia Ukraine regime, for funding promotion of US-backed Syrian rebels in movies, for buying out the Snowden Files about CIA surveillance but curiously not releasing them, funding International fact Checking Network) has direct equity stake in : Scroll. The Ken. Newslaundry (Madhu Trehan, founder of Newlaundry is daughter of VV Purie, owner of Thomson Press. Trehan also founded & owns India Today. Another founder of Newslaundry Shekri was also founder of NGO PCRF in which Kejriwal and Sisodia were also partners. PCRF received its first fund by Kejariwals price money of Magsaysay Award-funded by CIA proxy Rockefeller Foundation).

And has made grants to Swarajya.

https://www.omidyarnetwork.in/governance-and-citizen-engagement

Omidyar is also indirectly invested in Indian media via MDIF (which is also funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations). Grantees of MDIF: MDIF- Scroll. Josh talks. Graam Vaani. News Minute. Boom Live (Fact Checker- Please Note here that Soros/Omidyar fund both the Fact Certification Institute, IFCN, as well as "Fact Checkers").

https://www.mdif.org/portfolio/companies/?filter=asia

https://www.mdif.org/selection-membership-in-news-fund/

One of the most famous of Omidyar’s beneficiaries is ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms), which also has the Ford Foundation as one of its donors. It works in the area of ‘electoral and political reforms’ and has a great power to galvanize public opinions during elections in India. One of the eminent personalities gracing ADR is the self-styled historian, Ramachandra Guha, who is also a prominent writer at The Caravan magazine.

http://indiafacts.org/scroll-part-omidyars-breaking-india-network/

https://www.indiafacts.org.in/analyses/why-a-defunct-leftist-magazine-was-revived/

(Note: The global shenanigans of Omidyar Network and their network in India- from legal to educational to election-related to environment related is so vast & so deep that it has to be reserved for other posts. Omidyar funded Luminate itself funds over 583 policy action related super NGOs which in turn fund other NGOs. And Luminate itself is just one of the foundations of Omidyar. Here only its media funding has been covered).

https://luminategroup.com/portfolio

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Quint: Quint Digital Media Limited (formerly known as Gaurav Mercantiles Limited), Raghav Bahl & Ritu Kapur (66.42%)-former owners of News18, Haldiram's Pvt Ltd (17-18%), Elara Capital Ltd (10%), Mohan Lal Jain (4.99%)

NewsMinute which gets funds from IPSMF, Omidyar & Soros funded MDIF, also gets funding from Quintillion- owner of Quint Digital Media.

https://www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/thenewsminute.com-raises-funding-from-raghav-bahl-ritu-kapur-led-quintillion-media-62742.html.

Quint also partners with Bloomberg for BloombergQuint.

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And ALL the "Independent" Corporate backed News Media have joined together to form DigiPub whose internal committe includes Madan Lokur- Former SC Judge Currently runs a NGO funded by Soros, and has been appointed by Mamata Banerjee to investigate Pegasus story claimed by Soros & Omidyar funded Forbidden Stories, Citizens' Lab & Amnesty.

https://www.digipubindia.in/

Currently I don't have an idea whether digipub has FCRA and whether it is receiving money from corporate backers.

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Unrelated to media, but while googling stumbled on the fact that the exact same corporates which founded IPSMF also fund legal policy organisation, partnering with additional corporates like Kotak, Omidyar, Disney here. Vidhi Legal Policy.

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/patrons/

Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.

Pirojsha Godrej Foundation

Lal Family Foundation

Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited

Shri Vinay Toshniwal Memorial Trust Tree of Life Foundation

Mazumdar Shaw Philanthropies

ATE Chandra Foundation

Universal Comfort Products Ltd. (Voltas)

Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives

Omidyar Network India

NGC Network (India) Private Limited (Star-Disney)

Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd

Nandini Piramal Mekin Maheshwari R Dinesh Prashanth Prakash

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/board

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Pub: 02 Aug 2021 07:04 UTC
Views: 42