See you in The Council of Indian Australians’ Australia Day & Indian Republic Day celebration on Friday, 28th Jan, 2011.
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Dr Yadu Singh/Sydney/31st Dec, 2010
Month: December 2010
The biggest Indian investment in Australia so far!
A Sydney-based good friend of mine provided me the news that a Hyderabad-based Indian Energy and Infrastructure giant, Lanco, has acquired Griffin’s coal mines for about $850 million a couple of days ago, after beating other bidders including Chinese. This is the biggest investment by an Indian company in Australia so far. This beats Adani Group’s investment of $500m on Linc Energy’s Galilee coal tenements in Queensland in August 2010.
I am very happy with this development because I want to see some serious investment by Indians in Australia and Australians in India. I want to see very deep relations between India and Australia. These relations need to be financial, political and strategic.
Lanco is a great business and its chairman Mr Lagadapati Madhusudan Rao is a respected business leader in India. They are a significant player in the Energy and Infrastructure sector in India. With what they are going to do in Western Australia where Griffin is based, Lanco will be a significant player in that state’s economy.
Lanco will be developing a Port and rail facilities in Banbury in South Western region of WA which will help them in linking Coal mines in Collie to Bunburry. They will guarantee jobs of about 400 people who are working with Griffin. Lanco has outlined their plan to triple if not more, the output of coal within a short term. They want to go from the current 4 million tonnes output to 15 million tonnes which will obviously provide employment to many more Western Australians. Griffin’s Administrator, KordaMentha, doesn’t see any problem in getting the approval for this business transaction from the creditors and the Foreign Investment Review Board. They must be thrilled as the business was sold for $850 Million rather than expected $700 Million. Secured creditors will get 100% of their money. This is a good news in itself.
Lanco will get a boost in its business because it is going to approve the supply contract which the Griffin’s administrator is finalizing with Perdaman Chemicals [Coal to Urea] plants and this will be for about 2.8 million tonnes. Lanco will not have any problem in selling the remaining Coal as it plans to export Coal to power-hungry Indian Energy businesses. Lanco itself is in that business. Additionally, Lanco may also bid for Griffin’s boss Ric Stowe’s Bluewaters Power Stations along with bidders from USA and China and Japan.
I congratulate Lanco for investing in Australia and becoming a big player in Western Australian economy. I must also congratulate my good friend, Gautam Sharma, and his hard working colleagues, for assisting Lanco in acquiring Griffin. For those who don’t know Gautam, he is originally from Andhra Pradesh, India. He studied in IT in Bangalore followed by UTS, Sydney. He has done a lot for Indian students. We have been in regular contact ever since and he played a big role in our Australia Day and Indian Republic Day celebration on 24th Jan, 2010. Like me and my close friends, he loves India and Australia equally and takes the good values from both.
Yadu Singh/Sydney/18th Dec, 2010
Related Articles
- Lanco Infratech Buys Australian Thermal Coal Mine (panasianbiz.com)
- India’s Lanco buys Australian thermal coal mine (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Linc Energy soars as coal asset suitor seeks $850 mln (reuters.com)
Parliamentary friends of India in NSW:Update.
Please refer to my earlier Post on this topic [http://t.co/MMfpkie]. I was happy with this and called it a good initiative. I did however make some comments in regards to the press release [ 101124 parliamentary friends of india[1] from the Premier. The press release did not mention who the other Co-Convenor was and what was the outcome of the letter from the Premier to the leader of opposition, Mr Barry O’Farrell.
After my last Blog post on this important topic, I have sought and received communication from the Leader of Opposition, Mr Barry O”Farrell.
It appears that a letter was written by the Premier to Mr O’Farrell after the press release on this matter was issued.
Mr O’Farrell advised that Mr Victor Dominello, MP [Member for Ryde] will be the Co-Convenor on behalf of the Coalition. He is well known in our community and is a supporter of our community, just like Mr Andrew Mcdonald, the other Co-Convenor.
My take on this matter is that the Leader of Opposition, Mr O’Farrell should have been consulted before issuing the press release and the Press Release should have included the names of both the Co-Convenors. Parliamentary Friends of India is a NSW Parliamentary group, not a group from a single political party. It must have full support from all sides in the Parliament. Otherwise, it will not work effectively for People of NSW.
Both parties are friendly with Indian Australian community and we welcome it. ALP leaders including our Premier are friendly with Indian Australians, just like Mr Barry O’Farrell and Liberal party leaders. Parliamentary friends of India has their enthusiastic support and Indian Australians of all political persuasions welcome its formation.
Yadu Singh/Sydney/14th Dec, 2010
Parliamentary friends of India: a good initiative in NSW.
It is a welcome initiative by NSW Govt to set up a Parliamentary friends of India in NSW. See the press release 101124 parliamentary friends of india[1] from NSW Premier, The Hon Kristina Keneally.
Dr Andrew Mcdonald, Member of Parliament from Macquarie Fields is the co-convenor. Andrew is well known in the Indian Australian community. I am sure, he will do a good job as a co-convenor. Who is the other co-convenor is not known prersently.
Indian Australian community is growing in numbers in NSW. It is appropriate that there is a better-qualitatively and quantitatively, interaction and engagement between the community and the Parliament. Our community does have a good interaction and relation with the NSW Govt and the opposition. Govt ministers and shadow ministers attend our functions regularly but it should extend to the Parliament too. I would even argue that major parties should consider one or two candidates from Indian Australians for the candidature in the state and federal elections.
Parliamentary friends of India is obviously a bipartisan group. It is crucial that the opposition and other parties in the NSW Parliament are involved in every stage of its formation. Premier’s press release is short on the details. It mentions that she has written to Mr Barry O’Farrell, seeking bipartisan support but there is no info about his response or support. To be effective, this body should have full participation and support from all sides in the Parliament. To do anything else may attract the criticism that politics is being played for the obvious reasons. The idea and the plan must be agreed by all sides in the NSW Parliament to make it effective.
My friends and I appreciate one thing more, specially. It is called “Parliamentary Friends of India“, not “Parliamentary friends of Indian sub-continent”. I agree with this approach. It is an appropriate decision, too.
We also appreciate that Premier Keneally has announced the establishment of Premier’s Indian Subcontinent Community Awards.
This is a good idea too but it would have been preferrable if it was called “Premier’s Indian Community Awards”, rather than bringing subcontinent word in it. There is a precedent in this matter. NSW already has a system of “Premier’s Chinese community service awards”.
Indian subcontinent is not a political entity. It is a geographical entity which is often not acceptable to some countries in India’s neighbourhood who do not want to put Indian word before subcontinent. In USA, where there are millions of people of Indian heritage and many from other countries from the Indian sub-continent, Indian community is accepted and recognised as Indian community, not as a part of Indian sub-continent community. It would not work if done any other way.
India and people from Indian heritage have a glorious history. India’s economic growth and contemporary conduct in the world affairs is something the whole world is proud of. India is a class of its own. India should be accepted for being India. Indians should be accepted for being Indians. “Indian” is our identity and we are proud of it. Lumping India and Indians in “Indian subcontinent” identity is not right and not acceptable. For any patriotic Indian and for those who are aware of the histrory and story of this great land called India, any identity for us other than “Indian” is not going to be acceptable. I am an Indian, not “subcontinental” or “Indian subcontinental”. My friends agree with me on this. I reject the attempt by some [who don’t understand what India is about because they were not born in India or don’t have the real touch with India] to redefine our identity.
Here, I don’t believe it would be out of place to point out that people should always remember that it is Indian Subcontinent, not just subcontinent before they set up anything for Indian sub-continent. People need to know the geography, history and politics involving Indian subcontinent.
While NSW Premier has done the right thing by putting “Indian” before “sub-continent”, it remains to be seen whether others in politics will follow her example and do the right thing by putting “Indian” before “subcontinent” in the name of their group?
Yadu Singh/Sydney/7th Dec, 2010
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