Why has this book on GSPC accused Gujarat journos for failing to question Modi hype

By Rajiv Shah

It's indeed a shocking accusation, especially for we Gujarat-based journalists. Subir Ghosh -- the writer who shot into prominence for controversially criticising Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's top industrial house, for cronyism in a book he co-authored, "Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis" -- has called Gujarat-based journalists, without naming them, of "intellectual laziness" for failing to expose state PSU Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC).
In his new book, which was released recently in Ahmedabad ahead of state assembly elections, "Grand Illusion: The GSPC Disaster and the Gujarat Model", Ghosh does not stop here, he continues to heap insults on Gujarat journalists, saying, they did not report or question the the GSPC's actual reserves in its Krishna-Godavari misadventure, announced by Narendra Modi to be 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf).
Ghosh says, not only did newspaper reports seemed to buy the Modi argument of the 20 tcf claim as being "proved" reserves’, wrongly believing that "the gas in place" were "economic predictions" not based on actual numbers, he complains, "No journalist questioned the numbers since they would not have known the difference"!
The book, which, ironically, is a collection of media reports on GSPC, with little original investigation, apparently, conveniently skips my Times of India (TOI) reports in 2005 and 2006, which for the first time said (click HERE for details), quoting Gujarat government officials, that the gas find was all hype, nothing else, and it was "not more than 2 tcf (just 10 per cent of what Modi had claimed)" with not more than two-thirds being "recoverable.”
The story first appeared in TOI in 2005 after unconfirmed reports began to trickle in Gandhinagar Sachivalaya quoting sources in DG hydrocarbons, the Central regulator, that the gas find was quite low. Since the DG was a UPA appointee, and therefore possibly couldn’t be relied upon, the effort was made to confirm it from state officials. The story specifically said: The 20 tcf balloon had been pricked.
Recalling how Modi announced the 20 tcf claim before media in June 2005, Ghosh seems to make appear as if he was present on the occasion. His book describes it thus: "After three days of rains, the skies began clearing up that Sunday evening. As the day languorously drew to a close, journalists in Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad were jolted out from their weekend lethargy and summoned to a press conference that was to be addressed by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi."

Interestingly, Ghosh doesn't know: Modi called his "urgent" press conference, where I was prrsent, to announce the “biggest ever gas find in India”, valuing at around Rs 2 lakh crore, at the Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration (SPIPA), Ahmedabad, and we journalists -- whom he calls "lazy" -- had to reach the site amidst heavy rains lashing the city that day morning (not evening after "three days of rain").
Banking on information provided by Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, Ghosh in his book admits, the Opposition leader failed to create a stir around GSPC, with the TOI, Ahmedabad, "burying" what all he said on the sixth page in a single column, even though what he wanted to reveal "has been crying to be re-told" ever since.
Seeking to give full credit to Gohil, Ghosh says, "To his credit and in hindsight, he had raised the right questions, and even rattled off the right numbers", but regretting, "If journalists in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in Gujarat did not pursue the thread, it would have been either because of their own intellectual laziness, or their perception of the entire episode being that of unsubstantiated rants of a political leader out to get his rival party by hook or by crook."
The story that Gohil came up with was about "a dubious deal between the GSPC and a Canada-based company called GeoGlobal Resources", which held "a 10 per cent stake in the Krishna-Godavari Basin gas exploration project of GSPC", says Ghosh, even as quoting Gohil as saying, "At the time of offering the 10 per cent stake in the KG Basin block by [the] GSPC to GeoGlobal, the capital stock of GeoGlobal stood at a meagre $64..."
Calling Gohil "wise", Ghosh says, "He refrained from turning it into a BJP-Congress mud-fight, and assertively demanded a white paper on the subject from the government. The roles of chief minister Narendra Modi, minister of state for energy Saurabh Patel and other bureaucrats needed to be examined, he declared."
However, again Ghosh laments, attacking Gujarat journalists, "Still, he failed to cut ice. Once again, TOI relegated him to the same sixth page. Gujarati language newspapers gave the subject more prominence, but that was all. Goings-on at the GSPC remained news only of ‘local’ interest, that too of not much financial importance. The BJP maintained a cavalier attitude and remained dismissive of Gohil."

Ignorance is bliss, especially when you write a book whose sole aim is to ensure that facts -- imagined and real -- should fall in line with ideological considerations.

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.

Search This Blog