Former Karnataka Minister Roshan Baig gets bail in IMA case
Bengaluru: A special CBI court here on Saturday granted bail to former Karnataka Minister Roshan Baig in the multi-crore I Monetary Advisory (IMA) investment scam.
CBI arrested Baig on November 22 and had conducted raids at his residence the very next day.
The disqualified Congress MLA from Shivajinagar in the city, after the arrest, was produced before the court, which remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days.
Baig has been asked by the court to cooperate with the investigation and report before CBI officials on the second and fourth Monday of every month, official sources said.
He also has been asked to surrender his passport, inform the court if he changes address, and not to threaten witnesses, they said.
Baig's advocate, while citing his health condition, informed the court that his client has cooperated with the investigation and all the accused in the case have been granted bail, barring the MD and CEO of the IMA Group of companies.
The multi-crore ponzi scheme run by Karnataka-based IMA and its group entities allegedly duped over a lakh of people to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore promising higher returns.
The scam came to light in June last year when the IMA operator Mohammed Mansoor Khan fled the country accusing Baig and some government officers of cheating him.
Khan had alleged that Baig had taken about Rs 400 crore from him, which the latter had rejected outright.
Khan came to India after much persuasion by the police and surrendered.
The then Congress and JD(S) coalition government had formed a special investigation team to probe the matter.
However, the BJP government after coming to power handed over the case to the CBI.
The CBI had named an IAS officer, two IPS officers, a KAS officer, and a corporator among the accused in the case.
The state government gave permission to the Central agency to prosecute them.
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India should create strategic buffers to navigate 'most difficult' energy shock: CEA Nageswaran
New Delhi (PTI): Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Saturday said India needs to create strategic buffers in the face of the "most difficult" energy shock that the country is facing amid the West Asia crisis.
Nageswaran also said the rising prices of fertiliser and petroleum products globally due to the crisis will make it challenging to achieve the 4.3 per cent fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal, while below normal monsoon and pass-through of higher energy prices could lead to "potential inflation spike".
He also said India has employment challenge emanating from AI, and there is a need to ensure that IT sector becomes more competitive and not lose jobs to AI, and instead create jobs that use AI within the IT sector or in other services.
Speaking at the ICPP Growth Conference organised by the Ashoka University, Nageswaran said the current account deficit (CAD) in the current fiscal could rise to over 2 per cent of GDP, from less than 1 per cent in FY'26.
"The ... priority for us is to create strategic buffers. This energy shock is the most difficult one compared to any other previous energy shock in terms of energy lost as a percentage of total global energy supply, not just oil, including gas.
"And we also need to use this occasion to think about other areas where we are vulnerable in terms of import dependence, nickel, tin, and copper. We need to build strategic buffers if we have to make a shot at manufacturing and becoming indispensable," Nageswaran said.
Since the beginning of the war in West Asia on February 28, crude oil prices soared to a four-year high of USD 126 per barrel on Thursday, from about USD 73 level before the war.
Stating that geopolitics will compel policymakers to be nimble and flexible and shed old model of thinking, Nageswaran said India is better prepared than many other countries to deal with the crisis because of the fiscal leeway that the country has due to lowering of fiscal deficit ratio to 4.4 per cent of GDP in FY'26.
Nageswaran said the West Asia conflict is more of a price shock than supply shock for India as the government is managing the supply side deftly.
"This particular conflict, which is going to be on a low simmer or a high flame situation, whatever it is, it is going to be there with us in some form or the other because the military conflict may be over, but the strategic conflict is well and truly alive. It will be so for some time," Nageswaran said.
He said the conflict has four channels of shock: price and supply shock, trade impact, sticky logistics costs and remittance shock.
India imports 60 per cent of its LPG usage and of that, 90 per cent flows through the now closed Strait of Hormuz.
Nageswaran said the pass-through of high global energy prices would have to be a "balancing act". He said some pass-through is already happening in commercial LPG, and the levy of export duty on diesel and ATF.
The government has cut excise duty on petrol and diesel to shield customers from the impact of the rise in petroleum prices. "We are coming around to arriving at a certain modus vivendi with respect to burden-sharing between the fiscal policy side, inflation, households and the oil marketing companies. So it has to be a balancing act," Nageswaran said.
