The contents of a fresh set of leaked phone conversations involving Niira Radia and her associates paint an alarming picture of the extent to which the influential lobbyist-whose clients include Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata-sought to influence use, manipulate and even browbeat the media in pursuitr of her corporate agendas, Apart from highlighting the use of journalist to palnt stories and columns or as intermediares with politicians the latest tapes released by the news magazine, Oulook,suggest more strong-arm lobbying techniques were also use or considered including the possibility of balcklisting the national news agency, India Report.
Outlook,which had earlier published 140 conversations originally intercepted by the Income Tax department as part of its ongoing surveillance of Ms.Radia,now says it has 800 more conversations in its possession. Nineteen of those audio tapes, with partial summaries, were published on its website by Sunday evening. Editor vinod mehta said that all the tapes were being vetted and eventually would be put in the public domain, except for those which were purely private conversations.
In one tape, HT Media advisor Vir Sanghvi has followup conversation with Ms. Radia regarding his June 21,2009 column in the Hindustan Times on the tussle between the Ambani brothers over gas pricing framed as an article about oligarchs taking over natural resources.
"Wrote it...I have dressed it up as a piece about how the public will not stand for resources being cornered, how we were creating a new list of oligarches". Mr Sanghi tells Ms. Radia."Very nice, lovely, thanks you,Vir",she says. While he adds: "Its dressed up as a plea to Manmohan Singh, so it won't look like an inter-Ambani battle except to people in the know".
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