Delhi to Brussels, ties of two groups behind EU MPs’ trip go way back

Pramila is also the chairman of the Srivastava Group, and Sharma’s website (www.madisharma.org) features an undated testimonial of the group’s vice-chairman, Ankit Srivastava, addressing her as “Dearest Madi (Aunty ji)” and underlining how “all of us at Srivastava Group and New Delhi Times appreciate you and all your work in the promotion of entrepreneurship, human rights and towards empowering others”.

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The IINS, a think tank, was founded in 1980 by Pramila’s husband Govind Narain Srivastava. More than a decade later, he launched the New Delhi Times newspaper (Ankit Srivastava, Govind Narain’s son, is currently its editor-in-chief). The co-founders of New Delhi Times Ltd were Pramila, Govind Narain’s brother Rakesh and the late Tamil Nadu leader, Vazhappady K Ramamurthy, according to records accessed by The Indian Express. Ramamurthy, who died in 2002, served as Union Minister of Petroleum in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government.

Members of European Parliament at Dal Lake in Srinagar. (Express photo by Shuaib Masoodi)

The IINS, New Delhi Times, besides other Srivastava Group companies, share a Safdarjung Enclave address in New Delhi. The Srivastava Group also has a Belgium address — 37, Square de meeus, Brussels 1000 — which it shares with EP Today, a self-proclaimed “monthly news magazine for the European Parliament”, that last month earned EU censure. While the Srivastava Group lists New Delhi Times among its group entities, it does not mention EP Today.

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Sharma, who describes herself as “Social Capitalist, International Business Broker, Education Entrepreneur” and speaker, has written for New Delhi Times variously as ‘EU Correspondent’ and ‘Founder, WESTT’. On September 14, her article ‘Why demolishing Article 370 is both a victory and a challenge for Kashmiri women’ appeared on EP Today website. On her website, Sharma says ‘Madi’ stands for ‘Make a Difference Ideas’.

Earlier this month, EP Today was in the news after EUvsDisinfo, a non-profit group funded by the EU, flagged it for targeting members of the European Parliament and other policymakers with media content critical of Pakistan and drawn mostly from Russia-owned television network RT. According to the non-profit, the European Parliament contacted EP Today this September regarding the unauthorised use of the institution’s name and suggested ways to rectify the situation and stop misleading the public.

Following EUvsDisinfo’s reports, the Facebook page of EP Today was taken down and its Twitter account permanently suspended. The website (www.eptoday.com) remains active.

Four days after it carried Sharma’s article on the scrapping of special status for Jammu and Kashmir, EP Today skipped a plenary event of September 18 where Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) criticised the curfew and information blackout in Kashmir by the Indian government. It then went on to publish separate articles quoting MEPs Ryszard Czarnecki and Fulvio Martusciello attacking Pakistan. Both Czarnecki and Martusciello were part of the EU delegation to Kashmir.

During her 2015 trip to Brussels, one of the people Pramila Srivastava discussed ways of improving the Indian educational system with was Czarnecki, then vice-president of European Parliament. In February 2018, the European Parliament dismissed Czarnecki, a Polish leader, from the post for using a Nazi slur against a politician.

Registrar of Companies (RoC) records show that New Delhi Times Limited, that now runs the bilingual web portal New Delhi Times and Nai Dilli Times, has not filed its annual returns or balance sheets since March 2006. It was recently struck off RoC records.

As per its last available records, for 2004-05, apart from the Srivastava family, New Delhi Times was owned by professors of Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi and Science Colleges in Patna and Jabalpur, as well as lawyers, students, journalists and teachers from across the country.

Records show the newspaper had revenues of Rs 7.3 lakh and booked losses of Rs 45,588 compared to profits of Rs 1.39 lakh in 2003-04.

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The other firms of the Srivastava Group include A2N Broadcasting Pvt Ltd, New Delhi Aviations Pvt Ltd, A2N Energy Pvt Ltd (incorporated only in March 2019), Srivastava Group Pvt Ltd, ANR Healthcare Pvt Ltd, and Srivastava Medicare Pvt Ltd.

Srivastava Group Pvt Ltd, which was set up in August 2018 as a holding company for the group, is yet to file its annual reports. Records show A2N Broadcasting has not had any revenue from operations since inception in 2015, while New Delhi Aviations, a travel agency, had revenues of Rs 4.79 lakh in fiscal 2019 and loans of Rs 30.10 lakh from its promoters and Nai Dilli Times. ANR Healthcare Pvt Ltd runs dental clinics in Delhi and had revenues of Rs 43 lakh and losses of around Rs 11 lakh in 2016-17, the last year for which financials are available for the firm.