In yet another overt anti-India shocker by a foreign media house, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) carried a full-page advertisement targeting India, calling it an “unsafe place to invest”, according to a snip shared by Kanchan Gupta, senior advisor of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Furthermore, the larger motif of the ad was that of an old American western ‘Wanted’ poster.
The advertisement titled: “Wanted Modi’s Magnitsky 11 Meet the officials who make India an unsafe place to invest” carried pictures of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Antrix Corp Chairman Rakesh Sasibhushan,
It also carried names of Supreme Court judges Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian, Special Judge (PC Act) Chandra Shekhar, Enforcement Directorate’s (ED’s) Sanjay Kumar Mishra, ED Assistant Director R Rajesh, CBI DSP Ashish Pareek, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman, and ED Deputy Director A Sadiq Mohamed.
The ‘Magnitsky’ reference appears to be to a legislation called the Magnitsky Act that allows US govt to sanction foreign government officials who are deemed to be human rights offenders.
Gupta claimed that the ad campaign is being run by fugitive Ramachandra Vishwanathan, who was the CEO of Devas. “Vishwanathan is a declared fugitive economic offender in #India India’s Supreme Court has ruled that his firm Devas was involved in corruption. This is not a campaign against Modi Govt alone. It’s a campaign against Judiciary. It’s a campaign against India’s sovereignty,” he said.
The pointless advertisement blamed the abovementioned government officials for “decimating the rule of law by weaponizing the institutions of the state to settle scores with political and business rivals, making India unsafe for investors.”
The ad stated that they have asked the United States government to impose “economic and visa sanctions” against them under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
“Under Modi, a decline in the rule of law has made India a dangerous place to invest. If you an investor in India, you might be next,” it added, also not sufficiently demarcating whether it’s editorial content, advertorial, advertisement or any other.
