Let's talk about Indians

[LITTLEREDDOT]

How a celebrity CEO's rule of fear helped bring down hot Singapore start-up Zilingo​

Zilingo suspended its 30-year-old chief executive officer Ankiti Bose over complaints about alleged financial irregularities in March. ST PHOTO: FELINE LIM

Aug 4, 2022

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - At first glance, the implosion of vaunted fashion start-up Zilingo looked jarringly sudden.
When the Singapore tech darling suspended its 30-year-old chief executive officer Ankiti Bose over complaints about alleged financial irregularities, it was March. Within weeks, creditors were recalling loans, more than 100 employees had left, and Ms Bose found herself fired, though she denies any wrongdoing. The company's survival is now in question.
The Zilingo meltdown has rattled the tech industry in South-east Asia and beyond. The start-up had raised more than US$300 million (S$414 million) from some of the region's most prominent investors, including Singapore investment company Temasek and Sequoia Capital India, the regional arm of the Silicon Valley firm that backed Apple and Google. Ms Bose was a celebrity who criss-crossed the globe to speak at tech gatherings from Hong Kong to California.
Interviews with more than 60 people, including current and former staff, merchants, investors, entrepreneurs and friends of the key players, suggest that Zilingo struggled for years under Ms Bose's leadership. Her management style alienated employees and undermined the business, according to staff who worked under her.
The start-up veered from one strategy to another in pursuit of sales, including a US$1 million promotional trip in Morocco, loans to customers and a short-lived push into the United States. At one point, she became fixated on "crazy growth" to catch the attention of Japanese tech titan Masayoshi Son, according to two former employees with direct knowledge of the matter.
At the heart of the company's breakdown lies the soured relationship between Ms Bose and her long-time supporter, Mr Shailendra Singh, head of Sequoia India. Allies for years, they fell out as financial pressures mounted. Mr Singh lost faith in the management skills of the young founder he had championed, while Ms Bose believed Mr Singh betrayed her by pushing her out of her own company, according to people familiar with their relationship, who requested anonymity as the talks were private.
The clash grew so acrimonious that Sequoia's lawyers demanded in a May legal notice that Ms Bose stop making allegations that could tarnish Sequoia's reputation, the people said.

Zilingo's turmoil highlights an apparent lax internal corporate governance culture that is not uncommon in the start-up industry. For two years, the company failed to file annual financial statements, a basic requirement for all businesses of its size in Singapore. Auditor KPMG has yet to sign off on Zilingo's financial year 2020 results. While it is not unusual for start-ups to miss these deadlines, which can result in a fine of up to $600, it is typically a warning sign that firmer action may be needed by the board.
Yet, investors, including Temasek and the Economic Development Board's investment arm EDBI, put more funds into Zilingo at the end of 2020. Shareholders that together own a majority stake of the company only formally acted against Ms Bose after whistle-blower complaints were filed earlier this year.

Tech warning​

The saga has also become a warning for the region's tech community, which is assessing the fallout of global economic shocks from Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and global inflation.


"Whatever happened at Zilingo, there will be a lot more dramas in the next couple of years as the big worldwide recession impedes hot shots from raising money," said veteran investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings in Singapore. "I have seen this rodeo before."
Bloomberg News reviewed dozens of internal documents, e-mails, texts and other media from Zilingo, and Ms Bose sat for two extensive interviews, one before and one after her dismissal from the company on May 20. The board's decision to fire her was not abrupt, but rather the culmination of years of tension, according to the documents and people with direct knowledge of the matter.
"Board members were concerned about the company's performance over the last few years and sought to share suggestions to address the company's performance including cash burn," Zilingo and its board said in a statement to Bloomberg News.
"In March 2022, investors received complaints about serious financial irregularities which appeared to require investigation. With the support of the majority investor shareholders, an independent forensic investigations consultancy was appointed to look into the said complaints. After a comprehensive process lasting almost two months, including numerous opportunities for Ms Bose to provide documents and information, the company subsequently terminated Ms Bose for cause based on the findings of that investigation."
SPH Brightcove Video

Ms Bose said the process to terminate her was an "unfair witch hunt" and denied that she was given numerous opportunities to respond to allegations. She said she has not seen the investigation report, which was not made public. On the board's suggestion to implement changes, she said the team cut the cash burn by 70 per cent between the end of 2019 and the end of 2021.
"It was not easy, we did not succeed at everything," she said in July. "It was chaotic and painful, but we did do it and we made the best effort we could."
Zilingo's origin story is part of South-east Asia's start-up lore. Ms Bose came up with the idea as she wandered through Bangkok's Chatuchak market, where 15,000 stalls offer goods from across Thailand. She and co-founder Dhruv Kapoor wanted to build a platform that would allow such small merchants to sell to consumers across South-east Asia.

Mr Singh was instrumental from the start. He and Ms Bose had worked together at Sequoia and he was happy to support one of the firm's own. Mr Singh had started his career in Sequoia's Silicon Valley office, learning at the side of veteran investors Michael Moritz and Doug Leone. Mr Singh had transformed Sequoia Capital India over 16 years into the region's biggest venture capital (VC) firm with some US$9 billion of assets under management and 36 unicorns on its score sheet across India and South-east Asia.
He invested in Zilingo's seed round in 2015, when Ms Bose was 23 years old, and in every fund raising since. "We think the world of her," he told a fellow venture capitalist in 2016, in an e-mail seen by Bloomberg News.

Mr Dhruv Kapoor, co-founder and chief technology officer of fashion e-commerce marketplace Zilingo. PHOTO: ZILINGO
But like many upstarts, Ms Bose and Mr Kapoor faced challenges almost from the beginning. Their consumer-focused fashion site struggled because of the thin margins and low average income in South-east Asia, a fragmented region with different languages and currencies. By late 2017, they decided to reposition Zilingo into a business-to-business platform, where small manufacturers and wholesalers could sell goods directly to small retailers in the region.
In 2018, Zilingo raised US$54 million from investors. The company decided to splurge US$1 million to whisk nine social media influencers to Morocco for a three-day extravaganza, complete with camel rides, a hot-air balloon trip, yoga lessons and gourmet dinners.
It was a massive flop, according to an early employee with direct knowledge of the event. The goal of #ZilingoEscape was to bring in one million new users, one for each US$1 spent. The final tally was about 10,000, the person said. Ms Bose declined to comment specifically on the campaign, but said it was part of the company's US$10 million annual marketing budget.
This appears to have become a pattern for Ms Bose. With cash in Zilingo's coffers, she would dive into new initiatives to supercharge growth even if the immediate financial benefits were questionable. In one example, Ms Bose suggested that Zilingo subsidise a 2 per cent to 4 per cent discount for transactions, effectively paying merchants to trade with one another. She cheered on the team as gross merchandise value hit US$1 million for the first two months, even though Zilingo was getting no fees from the merchants, said a person directly involved.
In 2018, Ms Bose came up with the idea of giving out loans to suppliers and vendors who needed capital. It took off, so in the coming months Ms Bose cranked up the pressure. She told the team to give out more loans each month on a running basis, the person said. But no one could have predicted the pandemic, or the toll it would take on start-ups like Zilingo, and much of the debt had to be written off.
Yet Ms Bose's star was rising in the industry. In early 2019, Zilingo raised US$226 million, lifting its valuation to US$970 million. The charismatic CEO wooed tech gatherings with her vision of how start-ups like hers were a new model for the emerging world.
"We are about to shake things up quite a bit," Ms Bose said at a panel discussion in Singapore, flashing a wide smile and drawing applause from the audience.
Inside the company, she drove staff relentlessly. In one instance, Ms Bose messaged a senior lieutenant early on a Sunday morning and called about a dozen times. When the employee did not pick up immediately, she told the lieutenant: "You obviously don't care about the company enough."

Publicly, the company seemed to be going from strength to strength. In July 2019, Mr James Perry, former managing director and Asia-Pacific head of technology investment banking for Citigroup, joined Zilingo as its first chief financial officer.
It was a coup for Ms Bose, some 20 years Mr Perry's junior. Ms Bose said in an interview with Bloomberg News in 2019 that Mr Perry's experience and respect in the financial world would complement her "young and crazy" self and give confidence to investors. "He's James Perry, he's a god in finance," she said.
In the investment world, her big target remained Mr Son, whose SoftBank Group had upended venture capital by making huge bets on unproven start-ups. Ms Bose told her deputies that Zilingo needed to achieve rapid growth to catch Mr Son's attention, one of the deputies said.
Ms Bose met Mr Son twice that year, once in Jakarta and a second time in Tokyo, according to people familiar with the matter. She explained her vision for Zilingo, but Mr Son never backed her. Neither did KKR & Co, which was considering investing in the start-up at the time, the people said.
In October 2019, Zilingo announced it would spend US$100 million to expand into the US, establishing offices in New York and Los Angeles. Ms Bose's idea was to take advantage of then President Donald Trump's trade war by offering American retailers a way to avoid tariffs by finding producers outside China. Less than a year later, the company shut its US operations.
By the end of 2019, Mr Singh and other directors had told Ms Bose several times to slow the cash burn. But Mr Singh was not getting regular financial reports from Ms Bose, and it was not till a board meeting in November that the directors learnt that the company was actually going through some US$7 million to US$8 million a month, more than they had expected. Mr Singh picked up the phone and had a tough conversation with Ms Bose, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

Guzzling money​

It turns out that the company was guzzling money. The US$226 million Zilingo had raised from investors in early 2019 was gone in less than two years.
In 2020, the pandemic battered the business and Ms Bose saw an opportunity to supply personal protective equipment, inking a deal in April to supply 10 million KN-95 masks, valued at US$22.5 million, to India. Six months later, Zilingo was embroiled in a legal battle with the Indian government, which claimed the company had failed to deliver 3.2 million of the masks on time. The company did not comment on the lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
In September, Mr Perry left Zilingo to rejoin Citigroup.

Inside the company, former employees paint a picture of a boss who ruled by fear. She allegedly told some staff they would have no second chance in the start-up industry because of her powerful connections. She would publicly shame employees and declare that she had to do everything herself to save the company, one person said. Another described her as a narcissist who would throw anyone under the bus if it meant saving her own reputation.
Asked in an interview in Singapore before she was fired about the culture under her leadership, Ms Bose uncharacteristically paused and stared out of the window as the sun set over the city.
"I was 23 when I started the company," she said eventually. "I liked having control at the beginning. Of course, I made mistakes and learnt from them. By the time we got to the stage where we had all these senior people, I don't think I was a control freak."
In her most recent interview with Bloomberg in July, Ms Bose reiterated that she has not done anything wrong. "I'm going to be a lot calmer, a lot more empathetic and understanding of how people work together. That has been a big learning for me. Managing people, managing relationships, managing communications - I think all of this is coming down to that," she said.
By November 2020, Zilingo had barely enough cash to last a month. A group of existing investors, including Sequoia, EDBI, Sofina, Temasek and SIG, stepped in to rescue the company by purchasing US$25 million of convertible notes.
In January 2021, Mr Singh and Ms Bose met at the Four Seasons Hotel's alfresco cafe as they did from time to time to talk shop. Mr Singh suggested that Ms Bose consider stepping aside. He said Mr Ananth Narayanan, founder of brand-building service Mensa Brands and former CEO of fashion platform Myntra, could be a potential successor. The two men had met recently and, when Mr Narayanan said he was looking for a new opportunity, Mr Singh had thought of Zilingo.
Ms Bose was shocked. "Not yet," she said.
She went home and, that night, sent a series of emotional texts to Mr Singh, saying his suggestion was a gender-related issue and pouring her heart out. She said her departure would make her look bad, as though the firm needed to be saved by someone else. Mr Singh said it was just a preliminary idea and there was no need to discuss it again. He urged her instead to focus on improving metrics, finding a new CFO and fund raising, according to people familiar with the meeting and texts seen by Bloomberg.
Ms Bose ended the chat by saying they should work together towards the best possible outcome, and Mr Singh replied with two thumbs-up emojis. It was 2.29am.
The mounting pressure was also testing the relationship between Ms Bose and co-founder Mr Kapoor, the chief technology officer. They had clashed over the future of the company the previous month when the company was scrambling to stay afloat.
"I am scared honestly that we will not hit our goals," she texted Mr Kapoor several hours after the chat with Mr Singh. "When something is wrong, the blame falls on me, but everyone's there to take credit for the good," she wrote.
"I don't like being hated for busting my ass at all," she added.
Ms Bose spent most of the year trying to pull in more funds. In July 2021, the company took mezzanine debt of US$40 million from Indies Capital Partners and Varde Partners, but subsequent efforts to raise money from private equity and venture capital firms failed. One issue was a concern from potential investors that users were making fake transactions in key markets to bilk Zilingo's subsidies. Executives from two firms told Bloomberg News that they decided not to back Zilingo after they found evidence of merchant fraud in Indonesia, the country that accounted for more than half of Zilingo's gross merchandise volume in financial year 2021.
There was no suggestion that Zilingo was involved in the suspected fake transactions. Some existing investors, including Burda Principal Investments, Temasek and Sofina, questioned Ms Bose about the company's unaudited financial reports, according to people familiar with the matter. But Ms Bose was providing monthly financial updates to the board, and they were lenient as Zilingo was busy with fund raising at the time, one of the people said.
In March this year, Ms Bose received an ominous text on her phone: "Storm is coming your way."
A few days later, she was asked to join a meeting with investors at Burda's shophouse office in Singapore's Boat Quay, according to people familiar with the details of the meeting. There, Mr Singh and the two other shareholders dealt her a stunner. They said Zilingo's board had received complaints about alleged mismanagement and financial misrepresentation and they were suspending her during an investigation. Mr Singh urged her to be cooperative.
"We just want to save the company," he said, according to one of the people.

Ms Bose promised to help. As she left, she started running through the pouring rain.
"I think the tale is about what sometimes happens when you go into hyper-growth mode," said Ms Aliza Knox, senior adviser at Boston Consulting Group, who has held senior management positions at tech companies including Google and Twitter in Asia Pacific.
In these situations, start-ups need to think about adding independent board members beyond "founders and funders", she said. "Could some of the problems have been mitigated if there were a different kind of board a little bit earlier? That's an important question to ask."
Zilingo is not the only Sequoia-backed start-up embroiled in controversy. BharatPe's co-founder Ashneer Grover resigned from the fast-growing Indian fintech start-up in March after senior leadership accused him of misappropriation of funds. Mr Grover has denied the accusations against him, including that he stole company money to fund an extravagant lifestyle, which he said stem from "personal hatred and low thinking", he said on LinkedIn.
A forensic team from EY India has looked into Indian social commerce start-up Trell, another Sequoia-backed company, amid allegations of financial irregularities. Trell's three co-founders did not respond to requests for comment. Co-founder and CEO Pulkit Agrawal in March sent a note to investors, questioning the nature of the forensic audit, the Economic Times reported, citing its own review of the note.
Sequoia India and South-east Asia published a blog post in April, saying it would take "proactive steps" to drive corporate governance at start-ups it invests in.
Mr Singh is feeling the heat as he evolves from start-up cheerleader to champion of corporate governance. Increased scrutiny prompted some Sequoia-backed Indian founders to compare him to a forceful ruler from Indian history.
"There is art to setting up governance - the board, process and advisers - in such a way that brakes kick in automatically when something bad happens," said Mr Dmitry Levit, founder of Singapore-based VC firm Cento Ventures. He said many of Sequoia India's companies are like racing cars. "If somebody tries to run a Formula One car on off-road terrain in stormy weather, it cannot absorb the shocks."
Sequoia India said it has always cared about corporate governance.
"Building world-class companies requires first-rate governance," a Sequoia India spokesman said in a statement to Bloomberg. "There is always more we can do to work with founders so that their companies benefit from better, more robust standards of governance, such as stronger audit oversight, clear whistle-blower processes and the need to bring independent directors on board earlier."

Ankiti Bose was a celebrity who crisscrossed the globe to speak at tech gatherings from Hong Kong to California. PHOTO: ZILINGO

Salary questions​

The zeal for governance may have come too late for Zilingo. About a week after Ms Bose was suspended, a board director and an adviser to another shareholder questioned her about why she was drawing a monthly salary of $50,000. Her employment contract five years ago stated it as $8,500 and the adviser had just discovered she had been making considerably more since 2019, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ms Bose said the numbers are inaccurate but did not provide her salary information.
Investigators hired by the board also questioned her about three sets of revenue numbers for financial year 2021 that Zilingo had shared with external parties: US$190 million, US$164 million and US$140 million. Ms Bose explained to them that the US$190 million had been circulated before the year closed and before the cancellation of masks and other orders. The US$140 million was used in a due diligence report for fund raising, while the US$164 million included uninvoiced revenue, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.
But another document the company shared with a potential investor, seen by Bloomberg News, showed that Zilingo's net revenue for the year was about US$40 million. A representative for Kroll, the firm that conducted the probe, declined to comment.
Ms Bose said in an interview with Bloomberg News in May that Zilingo has used aggressive methods for recognising revenue, but that the calculations are standard practice for the industry and that all of its investors were fully aware of them. "These matters are well understood by all investors," Ms Bose said in the interview.

Zilingo "went through a tough time during Covid-19", said Mr Rohit Sipahimalani, Temasek's chief investment officer. "There were clearly some things the board was unaware of, and when there were complaints made, they investigated into it and actions have been taken subsequently."
Now, the company is in turmoil and some employees say they are worried about their future. The board in June was considering liquidating the company. After her suspension in March, Ms Bose herself filed a formal complaint to the board, asking it to also suspend Mr Kapoor and then chief operating officer Aadi Vaidya, a friend from college, for their poor work performance and lack of leadership. A representative of the company, Mr Kapoor and Mr Vaidya declined to comment. Mr Vaidya resigned last week after seven years with Zilingo, explaining "now is the time to move on, clear my head and reset priorities".
It is a steep fall for Zilingo from just five months ago, when Ms Bose's fund-raising efforts valued the company at US$1.2 billion.

 

[mudhatter]

ceca talent surplus


pap-pigs demand more of them

 

[laksaboy]

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Castes in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy​

Apple declined to say whether any complaints had been brought under its caste provision. PHOTO: AFP

Aug 15, 2022

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (REUTERS) - America's tech giants are taking a modern-day crash course in India's ancient caste system, with Apple emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of a rigid hierarchy that's segregated Indians for generations.
Apple, the world's biggest listed company, updated its general employee conduct policy about two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, which it added alongside existing categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ancestry.
The inclusion of the new category, which hasn't been previously reported, goes beyond US discrimination laws that do not explicitly ban casteism.
The update came after the tech sector - which counts India as its top source of skilled foreign workers - received a wake-up call in June 2020 when California's employment regulator sued Cisco Systems on behalf of a low-caste engineer who accused two higher-caste bosses of blocking his career.
Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, says an internal probe found no evidence of discrimination and that some of the allegations are baseless because caste is not a legally "protected class" in California. This month an appeals panel rejected the networking company's bid to push the case to private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come as early as next year.
The dispute - the first US employment lawsuit about alleged casteism - has forced Big Tech to confront a millennia-old hierarchy where Indians' social position has been based on family lineage, from the top Brahmin "priestly" class to the Dalits, shunned as "untouchables" and consigned to menial labour.
Since the suit was filed, several activist and employee groups have begun seeking updated US discrimination legislation - and have also called on tech companies to change their own policies to help fill the void and deter casteism.

Their efforts have produced patchy results, according to a Reuters review of policy across the US industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers from India.
"I am not surprised that the policies would be inconsistent because that's almost what you would expect when the law is not clear," said Kevin Brown, a University of South Carolina law professor studying caste issues, citing uncertainty among executives over whether caste would ultimately make it into US statutes.
"I could imagine that parts of ... (an) organisation are saying this makes sense, and other parts are saying we don't think taking a stance makes sense."


Apple's main internal policy on workplace conduct, which was seen by Reuters, added reference to caste in the equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment sections after September 2020.
Apple confirmed that it "updated language a couple of years ago to reinforce that we prohibit discrimination or harassment based on caste". It added that training provided to staff also explicitly mentions caste.
"Our teams assess our policies, training, processes and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are comprehensive," it said. "We have a diverse and global team, and are proud that our policies and actions reflect that."

Elsewhere in tech, IBM told Reuters that it added caste, which was already in India-specific policies, to its global discrimination rules after the Cisco lawsuit was filed, though it declined to give a specific date or a rationale.
IBM's only training that mentions caste is for managers in India, the company added.
Several companies do not specifically reference caste in their main global policy, including Amazon, Dell , Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and Google. Reuters reviewed each of the policies, some of which are only published internally to employees.
The companies all told Reuters that they have zero tolerance for caste prejudice and, apart from Meta which did not elaborate, said such bias would fall under existing bans on discrimination by categories such as ancestry and national origin on policy.

Casteism outlawed in India​

Caste discrimination was outlawed in India over 70 years ago, yet bias persists, according to several studies in recent years, including one that found Dalit people were under-represented in higher-paying jobs.
Debate over the hierarchy is contentious in India and abroad, with the issue intertwined with religion, and some people saying discrimination is now rare.
Government policies reserving seats for lower-caste students at top Indian universities have helped many land tech jobs in the West in recent years.
Reuters spoke to about two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States who said discrimination had followed them overseas. They said that caste cues, including their last names, hometowns, diets or religious practices, had led to colleagues bypassing them in hiring, promotions and social activities.
Reuters could not independently verify the allegations of the workers, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared harming their careers. Two said they had quit their jobs over what they viewed as casteism.

Some staff groups, including the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) at Google's parent company, say explicit mention of caste in corporate rules would open the door to companies investing in areas such as data collection and training at the same levels as they do to protect other groups.
"Significant caste discrimination exists in the United States," said Mayuri Raja, a Google software engineer who is a member of the AWU and advocates for lower-caste colleagues.
Over 1,600 Google workers demanded the addition of caste to the main workplace code of conduct worldwide in a petition, seen by Reuters, which they emailed to CEO Sundar Pichai last month and resent last week after no response.
Google reiterated to Reuters that caste discrimination fell under national origin, ancestry and ethnic discrimination. It declined to elaborate further on its policies.

'Not good for business'​

Adding caste to a general code of conduct is not unheard of.
The World Wide Web Consortium, an industry standards body partly based in Massachusetts, introduced it in July 2020.
California State University and the state Democratic Party have followed over the past two years.
In May this year, California's employment regulator, the Civil Rights Department, added caste to its example equal employment opportunity policy for employers.
Yet the move by Apple, a US$2.8 trillion (S$3.8 billion) behemoth with more than 165,000 full-time employees globally, looms large.
The iPhone maker's fair hiring policy now states that Apple"does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring, or promoting on the basis of" 18 categories, including "race, colour, ancestry, national origin, caste, religion, creed, age" plus disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
By contrast, many employers are hesitant to go beyond laws with their primary policies, according to three employment attorneys including Koray Bulut, a partner at Goodwin Procter.
"Most companies simply quote from the federal and state statutes that list the protected categories," Bulut said.

Some companies have, however, gone further in secondary policies that govern limited operations or serve only as loose guidelines.
Caste is explicitly written into Dell's Global Social Media Policy, for example, and in Amazon sustainability team's Global Human Rights Principles and Google's code of conduct for suppliers.
Amazon and Dell confirmed they had also begun mentioning caste in anti-bias presentations for at least some new hires outside India. They declined to specify when, why and how broadly they made the addition, though Dell said it made the change after the Cisco lawsuit was filed.
The companies' presentations include explanations of caste as an unwanted social structure that exists in parts of the world, according to a Reuters review of some of the online training, with the Dell material referencing a recent lawsuit"from the headlines."
John-Paul Singh Deol, lead employment attorney at Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, said that only including caste in training and guidelines amounted to "giving lip service" to the issue because their legal force is questionable.
This characterisation was rejected by Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, which sells anti-bias training to about 550 employers, and a longtime employment attorney.
"No company wants to have employee turnover, lack of productivity and conflict - that's just not good for business,"she said.
Yet explicitly referencing caste would likely invite an increased number of HR complaints alleging it as a bias, Yancey added. "Whenever you're going to call out something specifically, you're exponentially increasing your caseload," she said.
Apple declined to say whether any complaints had been brought under its caste provision.
South Carolina law professor Brown expects no immediate resolution to the debate over of whether companies should reference caste.
"This is an issue that ultimately will be resolved by the courts," he said. "The area right now is unsettled."

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

'I will end your life right now': Secondary school student taunts and threatens teacher in class​

AUGUST 24, 2022

Reddit/Shakiraleftboob


It is one thing to disagree with your teacher but quite another to behave aggressively towards him.
And one angry student here took it a step too far by even threatening to inflict harm on him.
More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.
In a viral video posted on several social media platforms yesterday (Aug 23), a male secondary school student was videoed behaving particularly aggressive towards a teacher in a classroom.
At the start of the 55-second clip, the teacher shouted "don't scold me" thrice at the boy who, in response, yanked down his face mask and replied "what are you going to do about it?" while pointing his finger at the teacher's face.
The teacher then reminded him to refrain from saying the "four-letter word", suggesting that he had used an expletive, to which the boy retorted, "get a bloody life first".
Someone in the background could be heard saying "fight, fight" to which the room erupted with laughter.
The boy then walked away but returned to the teacher pointing an accusing finger at him and brushed against his arm.
"Don't touch me," the teacher yelled repeatedly at the student, to which the boy responds "you watch your mouth".
The boy also threatened: "I will end your life right now".
Another man who was standing at the doorway observing the proceedings then stepped in to talk to the teacher.
In the final scene, the boy could be heard telling the teacher to "go away".
The students in the video were wearing what looks like St Andrew's Secondary School's uniform.
A spokesperson from St. Andrew's Secondary School told AsiaOne on Wednesday (Aug 24) that the school is aware of the incident. The school has engaged the student's parents and it will "work closely with them to counsel and guide him".
"We take a serious view on disrespectful behaviour towards staff and the student has been disciplined," said the school.

No respect given​

Multiple netizens flocked to the comments section to express their views on the incident with several calling the boy a "spoiled brat" and berating him for not showing respect to the teacher.

PHOTO: Screengrab/Facebook/The Alternative View
Some blamed the boy's parents for not bringing him up properly.
But there were those who said that the teacher should not have raised his voice at the boy.

PHOTO: Screengrab/Facebook/The Alternative View
Another netizen also pointed out that the person who recorded the video could possibly get into trouble as well.
According to information on that school's website, anyone who records or posts material on social media that causes the reputation of the school to suffer will be punished.

PHOTO: Screengrab/Facebook/The Alternative View
According to the school's code of conduct, any form of recording within the school compound, including photography, video or audio, is strictly prohibited unless prior consent is given by the school.
This isn't the first time a fight has broken out in a classroom.
Back in 2019, a video of a Whitley Secondary School teacher manhandling a student surfaced. In the clip, the teacher grabbed the student by the shirt in an attempt to drag him out of his seat.
The teacher had asked the student to leave the classroom for being "disruptive".

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Your picture: Walkway blocked by shopkeepers’ goods​

PHOTO: SHAN MUGAM SIDAMBARAM

Oct 28, 2022

I refer to the article, “Deepavali celebrations back in full swing after two years” (Oct 24).
The report cited the honorary secretary of the Little India Shopkeepers and Heritage Association saying the association was “expecting easily four to five million visitors over the course of the month”.
Given the number of visitors it was expecting over the month, the association should have worked with its members to ensure a safe and pleasant shopping experience.
My recent shopping experience in Little India was an unpleasant one, as shopkeepers had placed articles on the five-foot way in a manner that severely restricted pedestrian movements. Items such as baskets of coconuts, mangoes, and banana leaves were placed on the pedestrian walkways.
I witnessed parents with prams and the elderly having a tough time getting past the obstructions, with some choosing instead to walk on the busy road where they could to avoid the congestion.
This has been happening in Little India during major festive seasons like Pongal and Tamil New Year.
I hope the relevant authorities will act against inconsiderate shopkeepers who place profits above the safety of their customers.

Shan Mugam Sidambaram

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Doctors who use humiliating test on rape victims guilty of misconduct: India top court​

India's Supreme Court was referring to the “two-finger test”, a prohibited procedure used by some Indian medical examiners to determine if a rape victim is habituated to sexual intercourse. PHOTO: REUTERS

Rohini Mohan
India Correspondent

NOV 2

BENGALURU - The Indian Supreme Court has ordered that doctors using a humiliating and unscientific test on sexual assault victims be held guilty of misconduct by the government.
The court was referring to the “two-finger test”, a prohibited procedure used by some Indian medical examiners to determine if a rape victim has been sexually active. This test is officially reported as “per vaginum examination”.
“The so-called test is based on the incorrect assumption that a sexually active woman cannot be raped,” the court said on Tuesday. It added that the procedure “which tests vaginal laxity is an affront on women’s dignity” and “irrelevant” to determining whether rape had occurred.
Justice Hima Kohli and Justice DY Chandrachud made the comments while restoring a conviction and a sentence of life imprisonment for a man in Jharkhand state who had raped a 16-year-old girl in 2004 and set her on fire.
The judges said it was “regrettable” that the rape survivor who was severely burnt was subjected to the two-finger test.
“The probative value of a woman’s testimony does not depend on her sexual history. It is patriarchal and sexist to suggest that a woman cannot be believed when she states that she was raped merely because she is sexually active,” they added.
The Supreme Court also directed central and state governments to review medical school curricula and remove any material prescribing the two-finger test as part of the medico-legal examination of survivors of sexual assault and rape.


It had banned the invasive procedure in 2013, calling it a violation of a woman’s dignity and privacy. The judges at that time had noted that rape survivors are entitled to legal recourse that does not “re-traumatise them”.
After historic nationwide protests in India following a Delhi woman’s gang rape in 2012, India passed a stringent anti-rape law in 2014, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued comprehensive guidelines on how to examine victims of sexual assault.
The progressive 2014 protocol clearly forbids the two-finger test, determining past sexual history of the survivor, and assessing resistance of a survivor based on her physical build, among others. However, these guidelines are not legally binding.

Activists and medical experts say the test is still done in several parts of India, including on minors, due to a lack of monitoring, gender biases and regressive medical curricula.
Research by Mumbai-based Centre for Enquiry Into Health and Allied Themes (Cehat), which works on health and human rights, found that India’s medical degree curriculum, revised in 2019 after 21 years, was replete with gender and sexual stereotypes.
The forensic science and toxicology curriculum, for example, still contains unscientific terms such as defloration, virginity testing and types of hymen, which have no basis in medical science and perpetuate biases against women, said Ms Sangeeta Rege, director of Cehat.

Most women who report rape “do not even know” that the two-finger test is performed on them, Ms Rege noted, as it is part of the “entire environment of invasive exams done at the hospital without consent and insensitive police response that re-traumatise the sexual assault survivor”.
Victims often delay reporting sexual assault as they are reluctant to engage with the justice system or acknowledge the crime publicly. By the time a report is made, bruises may have healed and forensic medical evidence might have deteriorated.
Ms Kushi Kushalappa, who works at non-profit Enfold India rehabilitating child victims of sexual abuse, is doubtful about the evidence that a doctor could find during an examination, given the delay in reporting and the kind of sexual offences that can occur, including non-consensual penetration by fingers and objects, and non-penetrative sexual acts.
Although medical evidence is considered as circumstantial evidence, many courts still “rely very heavily on a good medical report that clearly states that there are signs of sexual assault or presence of forensic medical evidence”, she added.
India reported an average of 86 rapes every day in 2021, but by some government estimates, around 99 per cent of sexual assaults go unreported. Survivors are daunted by social stigma, fear, ignorance, low conviction rates, and unsympathetic police and legal systems.
Activists and experts welcomed the Supreme Court’s comments. Ms Rege said it was an opportunity for more states and medical bodies to “strictly enforce the 2014 guidelines for sexual assault examination”. She hoped that penalties for errant medical examiners would also encourage sensitive treatment of sexual assault survivors.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

72 complaints filed against S’pore shipping firm Tamilan Express Cargo for non-delivery of goods​

The complaints against Tamilan Express Cargo were lodged between January and December 2022. ST PHOTO: JESSIE LIM

Jessie Lim

DEC 12, 2022

SINGAPORE - Some 72 complaints have been lodged against Singapore-based shipping company Tamilan Express Cargo and Logistics for failing to deliver items from Singapore to India.
The complaints were lodged between January and December 2022 by consumers, most of whom said the items they sent via sea cargo delivery never reached their intended recipients, even after waiting for up to a full year.
In response to queries, the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) said: “The value of the items, which include electronic goods, household products, foodstuff, clothing and personal items, ranged between $90 and $20,000.
“In addition, consumers reported that the company was unresponsive to their requests for assistance and refund.”
Under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, it is an unfair practice for a supplier to accept payment for the supply of goods or services when it knows or ought to know it will not be able to do so within the period specified by the supplier.
Case said it has issued a warning letter to Tamilan Express Cargo and will engage it to enter a voluntary compliance agreement to cease its errant business practices and promptly resolve consumer complaints.
A search on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority website last week showed that Tamilan Express Cargo, which is located in Little India, was registered in July 2020.

When The Straits Times visited the firm’s premises last Wednesday, the shutters were down and there was a notice informing customers that it was relocating.
In the notice, Tamilan Express Cargo said 25 containers worth of items belonging to its customers would be delivered in India, but did not specify a timeline.
When contacted by ST, Tamilan Express Cargo did not respond to queries about why the items were undelivered and whether customers would be compensated.


The police confirmed that reports were lodged and they are looking into the matter.

The store front of Tamilan Express Cargo was shuttered and there was a notice informing customers that the store was relocating, when The Straits Times visited the shop last Wednesday. ST PHOTO: JESSIE LIM
Mr Santhanam Muthukarthikeyan, 41, paid $900 to ship five boxes of household items – including a $869 Samsung television set – from Singapore to his home town in Tamil Nadu, India.
The Singapore permanent resident said: “We had photo frames containing pictures taken when our family went on holiday in Bali and Dubai. I feel sad because these are memories we cannot get back.”
Since he engaged Tamilan Express Cargo’s services in May 2021, he has not received confirmation that his parcels have been delivered to his family in India.
Mr Muthukarthikeyan said: “For the first three months, they told me my items will reach in two weeks. When I kept asking, they said my items were stuck in Customs but they refused to give me more information about the port and parcel tracking number.”

Shipping companies ST spoke to said it was unusual for parcels to spend many months in transit between Singapore and India.
Mr Hameed Sulthan Yousoof Ali, 44, owner of Star Cargo & Logistics, said: “For the last six months, we have been delivering our items within 30 days.
“There is no port congestion. After 14 days, if your items are still in the container, you have to pay the shipping line a fee every day.”
Mrs Priyanka Mistry, 33, said her personal items, including her late mother’s wedding sari, remain missing despite Tamilan Express Cargo assuring her last December they would deliver them to Pune, India, where she currently lives.
The Indian national had paid $240 in shipping fees to the company.
Mrs Mistry, who is a housewife, said: “These boxes contain all my memories. I’ve written to Case, I’ve tried calling Tamilan, but I’m not getting any outcome.
“I can’t even buy furniture for my new house because I’m still waiting and hoping I can get those items back.”

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Ex-billionaire loses bid to block extradition to India in UK’s top court​

The ruling leaves former diamond billionaire Nirav Modi with very few options to remain in Britain. PHOTO: AFP

DEC 15, 2022

LONDON – Former diamond billionaire Nirav Modi lost a bid to ask Britain’s highest court to stop his extradition to India, where he is wanted in multiple criminal cases for masterminding one of the country’s biggest bank frauds.
The ruling leaves Mr Modi with very few options to remain in the UK. The jeweler had earlier sought to halt his extradition citing his mental health and suicide risks.
“The application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court is refused,” Judge Stuart Smith said on Thursday.
The decision is a boost to India’s efforts to get the custody of the infamous fugitive who became the poster boy for a series of bank frauds over the past decade in the diamond industry in India, which cuts or polishes about 90 per cent of the world’s supply.
The process to remove him from the UK may still take time. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is also wanted in India on allegation of loan fraud, in 2020 lost permission to take his extradition to the Supreme Court but is yet to be extradited.
The Indian government accused Mr Modi of defrauding the country’s second largest bank Punjab National Bank of around US$2 billion using credit guarantees for his diamonds business. Mr Modi has denied all allegations of wrongdoings and contested his extradition.
Anand Doobay, Modi’s lawyer, declined to comment. India’s foreign affairs ministry and the UK Home Office didn’t immediately comment on the ruling. BLOOMBERG

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Fight breaks out over reclined seat on Thai Smile flight to Kolkata: Reports​

A fight broke out after a passenger reportedly reclined his seat on a Thai Smile Airways flight while the aircraft was taxiing at Bangkok International Airport on Dec 27, 2022. (Screenshots from Twitter/@27saurabhsinha)

30 Dec 2022

SINGAPORE: A fight broke out on a Thai Smile Airways flight on Tuesday (Dec 27) after a passenger reclined his seat and refused to follow cabin crew's safety instructions.

The incident took place on Thai Smile flight WE313, which was scheduled to leave Bangkok at 11.30pm and arrive in Kolkata at 12.40am, the airline said in a statement.

The flight was taxiing at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport when the passenger in seat 37C reclined his seat, The Times of India reported.

When cabin crew asked him to put his seat upright, the passenger said he had a backache, according to a report of the incident Thai Smile Airways submitted to India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

The cabin crew explained that the seat had to be upright so it would not hinder evacuation or prevent other passengers seated behind from taking the brace position in an emergency.

According to The Times of India, the passenger replied: "I fly often, I know what to do."

When told that he would be reported to the pilot if he did not follow safety rules, the passenger said: "Okay, tell him. I am not scared."

Mr Alok Kumar, a passenger seated behind the man in 37C, said in an interview with India's NDTV that the man was "rude to the next level".

Mr Kumar said cabin crew were "pleading" with the man to put his seat upright, and other passengers were also shouting at him to follow safety instructions.

​

Passengers behaving badly – and what you can do about them​

A fight ensued when other passengers who objected to his behaviour came to talk to the passenger in 37C, according to the report.

A video of the incident was posted on Twitter by The Times of India senior editor Saurabh Sinha.

It shows two men - one in a dark dress shirt and another in a grey polo shirt - talking in raised voices with a cabin crew member between them.
Later, four other male passengers join the group. The man in grey can then be seen hitting and slapping the head of the man in the dark dress shirt several times.

The Times of India reported that the crew and other passengers tried to stop the fight. The flight captain was informed, and take-off was delayed.

The passengers involved in the fight were not removed from the aircraft. They returned to their seats and the flight eventually took off.

During the flight, cabin crew kept a watch on the passengers involved in the fight, while the passenger in 37C was not served alcohol, according to The Times of India.

No more fighting was reported and the flight proceeded as usual.

India's Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya M Scindia said that a police complaint has been made against the passengers involved.

"Such behaviour is unacceptable," he posted on Twitter.

Thai Smile Airways has said it "feels sorry" for the incident.

"We reaffirm that the incident has been taken care of as we followed the flight safety procedures in accordance with international standards," the airline posted on Twitter.

"Our flight crews have already provided support to the persons affected by an incident."

In a statement CNA received on Friday, the airline said that the flight's crew made an "urgent effort" to end the situation.

"THAI Smile would like to formally inform you that all of our crews and pilots strictly follow safety procedures according to the aviation standards."

 

[blackmondy]

Every shitskin problem can be solved just by drawing a blade across his neck.

 

[mudhatter]

Every shitskin problem can be solved just by drawing a blade across his neck.

Shitskin can say the same of slanty wuhan virus carriers.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Police arrest ex-bank executive for urinating on passenger during Air India flight​

Mr Shankar Mishra was on the run from the authorities after an elderly woman complained about the November incident. PHOTO: LINKEDIN

JAN 7, 2023

NEW DELHI - A sacked executive of United States banking giant Wells Fargo accused of urinating on a fellow passenger aboard an Air India flight has been arrested, a police spokesman said on Saturday.
Mr Shankar Mishra, the former vice-president of the bank’s Indian operations, was on the run from the authorities after an elderly woman complained about the November incident to the airline’s management.
Media reports said Mr Mishra had switched his phone off but remained in touch with his friends over social media and made a credit card transaction in India’s IT capital Bangalore, which gave away his location. He was being taken to capital New Delhi where police are investigating the allegations, the reports said.
A police spokesman in Delhi confirmed Mr Mishra’s arrest to AFP without giving any other details.
Wells Fargo said on Friday that its employee had been sacked after the “deeply disturbing” allegations came to light.
Mr Mishra was reportedly drunk during the journey from New York to New Delhi on Nov 26 when he allegedly unzipped his pants and urinated on a 72-year-old woman seated in business class.
The woman wrote a letter of complaint to Air India’s group chairman a day after the incident about “the most traumatic flight” she had ever experienced.


She said although she was offered a set of pyjamas and slippers after informing the crew that her clothes and shoes were soaked in urine, she was told to return to her seat after it was cleaned.
When she refused to return to the soiled seat, which was covered with sheets but still reeked of urine, she was offered a crew seat for the rest of the flight.
“I subsequently learnt from a fellow passenger that several seats were available in first class and he suggested to the crew that I be moved into one of those rather than being forced to sit in a soiled seat,” she wrote.

“Clearly, the crew did not feel that taking care of a distressed passenger was a priority.
“At the end of the flight, the staff told me they would get me a wheelchair to ensure that I clear customs as early as possible. However, the wheelchair deposited me at a waiting area, where I waited for 30 minutes, and nobody came to get me.
“I finally had to clear customs on my own and collected the luggage by myself – all in Air India pyjamas and socks,” she wrote.
The offender reportedly left the airport without facing any action upon landing. Air India filed a police complaint only on Jan 4 as it felt both sides had “settled the matter”, NDTV reported.
The victim described that she was “stunned” when Mr Mishra was brought before her by the flight crew and begged for her forgiveness, even though she had told them she wanted him arrested and did not wish to see him. The airline also gave Mr Mishra her contact number.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
SIA blacklists man who was unruly on one flight, hit cabin crew member on connecting flight
US flight makes emergency landing after passenger tries to enter cockpit
Air India said it had failed to properly address the incident and was reviewing its policy on serving alcohol during flights.
It has also issued “show cause” notices and de-rostered one pilot and four cabin crew members who were on the flight, Air India chief executive and managing director Campbell Wilson said in a statement on Saturday.
“Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground, and is committed to taking action,” he said.
The airline added that it will provide full cooperation to the affected passenger, regulators and law enforcement authorities, and is “committed to providing a safe environment for customers and crew, as well as operating in full compliance with all laws and regulations”.
The airline, recently bought by the Tata Group conglomerate after decades under state control, has faced severe criticism for its handling of the woman’s complaint.
India’s aviation regulator last week admonished its management for not reporting the incident at the time. AFP, REUTERS

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Man sues woman for trauma after she rejected him​

Selina Lum
Senior Law Correspondent

Jan 31, 2023

SINGAPORE - A man who wanted a romantic relationship with a woman initially threatened to sue her for emotional trauma after he found out that she saw him only as a friend.
The legal action was kept at bay after she agreed to take part in his counselling, but almost 1½ years later, Mr K. Kawshigan still could not accept that Ms Nora Tan did not want to be in a relationship with him.
After she cut off contact with him, he filed two lawsuits against her - a $3 million High Court claim for allegedly causing “damage to his stellar reputation” and “trauma, depression and impacts” to his life, and a $22,000 magistrate’s court claim for allegedly breaching an agreement to improve their relationship.
The latter suit was struck out in January by State Courts deputy registrar Lewis Tan, who said Mr Kawshigan’s claim was “manifestly groundless and without foundation” and amounted to an abuse of the court process.
In a judgment published on Saturday, Mr Tan said: “Considered in totality, I find that the present action was intentionally initiated by the claimant with the ulterior motive of vexing or oppressing the defendant by requiring her to defend various claims that fundamentally stem from the same factual matrix in different forums.”
He added: “This court will not be an accessory to his calculated attempt to compel engagement from the defendant who, after years of massaging the claimant’s unhappiness, has finally decided to stand up to his threats rather than cower and give in to his demands.”
Ms Tan and Mr Kawshigan met in 2016, and became friends over time.

In September 2020, problems began to arise when they became misaligned in how they saw their relationship. While Ms Tan regarded Mr Kawshigan only as a friend, he considered her to be his “closest friend”.
Ms Tan asked for their interactions to be reduced, which displeased Mr Kawshigan, as he felt it constituted taking a step back in their relationship. Nevertheless, she emphasised the need for boundaries and urged him to be “self-reliant”.
On Oct 22 that year, Mr Kawshigan issued her a letter of demand, threatening legal action for “monetary damages arising from negligent infliction of emotional distress and possible defamation”.

Ms Tan tried to reason with Mr Kawshigan. She told him in a text message that her “discomfort (was) genuine”. He responded by saying she could either comply with his demands to deepen their relationship or suffer “irrevocable” damage to her personal and professional endeavours.
Mr Kawshigan’s counsellor then asked Ms Tan to participate in their sessions. She agreed, as she thought it would help him come to terms with her decision not to pursue a romantic relationship with him.
After 1½ years, Ms Tan stopped the sessions as she felt they had become futile.

In April 2022, she started harassment proceedings against Mr Kawshigan. In response, he alluded to a potential claim against her in a text message peppered with terms like “damage that has strong legal basis” and “make your liability worst”.
After back and forth discussions on the steps to be taken to better align their relationship, Ms Tan decided on May 14, 2022 to cease communications as she felt she could no longer deal with his requests for increased interaction and his inability to respect her personal boundaries.
On July 7, 2022, he filed a High Court claim against her. He alleged that due to certain remarks and negligence on her part, he suffered a loss in earning capacity and business partnerships, as well as costs incurred in rehabilitation and therapy programs to overcome the trauma he suffered.
Ms Tan then obtained an expedited protection order against him and engaged lawyers to file her defence and counterclaim to the suit.
On Aug 27, 2022, Mr Kawshigan filed the magistrate’s court claim for alleged breach of the steps to better align their relationship.
He claimed that as a result of the breach, his earning capacity as an “active high-capital trader by night and a busy CEO by day” has been negatively affected, and that he has had to “source for deeper psychological assistance”.
Ms Tan then applied to strike out this claim.
The $3 million High Court claim is fixed for a pre-trial hearing on Feb 9.

 

[blackmondy]

The only things worth talking shitskins are their stinky body odour and their rapist DNA.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Lessons from the Adani debacle​

There are many red flags that investors need to watch​

Vikram Khanna
Associate Editor

The main cause of the Adani empire crisis was a report by a New York-based activist short-seller called Hindenburg Research. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Feb 7, 2023

Never before in corporate history has the net worth of a single individual fallen so much in one week. The chairman of India’s Adani Group, Mr Gautam Adani, lost US$52 billion (S$68 billion) between Jan 25 and Feb 1. And the market capitalisation of his group – until recently India’s second-largest conglomerate and biggest builder of infrastructure – crashed by more than US$100 billion over the period, from around US$218 billion.
How this dramatic story will evolve is a matter for speculation, but meanwhile, there are lessons to be learnt for investors.
To recap recent events, the main cause of the crisis that so swiftly engulfed the Adani empire was a bombshell of a report by a little-known New York-based activist short-seller called Hindenburg Research.

Damning allegations​

Accusing the Adani Group of pulling off “the largest con in corporate history”, Hindenburg made some damning allegations in its 106-page forensic study of the group, which it claims took two years to complete.
It alleged that the group had engaged in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” over decades. Part of its modus operandi, according to Hindenburg, was to use an intricate web of offshore shell companies, based mainly in Mauritius and controlled by the brother of the group’s chairman and close associates, that funnelled billions of dollars into Adani companies in India, inflating their stock prices.
The price increases were indeed spectacular. For instance, over three years through 2022, Adani Total Gas soared by close to 2,000 per cent, the group’s flagship company Adani Enterprises rose over 1,700 per cent, and Adani Green Energy – a renewables company – was up more than 750 per cent.
At their peak, Adani companies’ price-to-earnings ratios were stratospheric – more than 1,000 for Adani Green Energy, over 800 for Adani Gas, and over 400 for Adani Enterprises, all multiple times industry averages. Hindenburg estimated that the group’s seven listed companies had a downside of 85 per cent, based on fundamentals.

Backed by a 413-page document, the Adani Group vigorously denied Hindenburg’s allegations, which it described as “maliciously mischievous” and “a reckless attempt by a foreign entity to mislead the investor community and the general public, undermine the goodwill and reputation of the Adani Group and its leaders, and sabotage the FPO (follow-on public offering) of Adani Enterprises”, which had been planned for the end of January.
Defending its corporate governance and business practices, it said the Hindenburg report was “a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India”.
In a sharply worded rejoinder, Hindenburg Research claimed that the Adani Group had ignored or side-stepped its key allegations and that its response was “obfuscated by nationalism”.

It said the group had “attempted to conflate its meteoric rise and the wealth of its chairman, Gautam Adani, with the success of India itself”. And while India was “an emerging superpower with an exciting future”, that future is being held back by the Adani group, “which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation”.

Thumbs down from the market​

The markets apparently did not buy the defence of the Adani Group, whose share prices continued to plummet through the last week of January. Nevertheless, Adani Enterprises’ FPO went ahead and was even oversubscribed, thanks mainly to funding by some Indian tycoons, an Abu Dhabi conglomerate and a London-based asset manager.
Notably, retail investors and mutual funds hardly participated. In fact, along with institutions, they were likely among the sellers, because by the time the FPO closed, the share price of Adani Enterprises had fallen about 30 per cent below the offer price. This forced the Adani Group to cancel the offer and refund investors.
In a video address, Mr Adani explained that given the volatility in the stock price, this was the “morally correct” thing to do. The company considered the interest of investors “paramount” and wanted to “insulate them from further financial losses”, he said.
He added that “our balance sheet is very healthy with strong cashflows and secure assets, and we have an impeccable track record of servicing our debt”. He also claimed that Adani Enterprises’ future plans would be unaffected, and its growth would be internally funded.
But this would be a departure from the group’s past practice, which was to fund growth largely through debt, which had reached around US$30 billion by the end of January.
One of its borrowing tactics was by pledging shares to banks. Although this worked well while share prices were soaring, it would be hard to pull off when they are falling. Future bond and equity issues would also be difficult, at least until investor confidence is restored, which, judging from continued declines in the group’s share prices, has yet to happen.
It is doubtful that internal accruals alone can fund the group’s ambitious expansion plans. Although it operates in many infrastructure-based industries with steady and predictable cash flows, it lacks a major “cash cow” comparable to, for instance, the Tata Group’s IT giant Tata Consultancy Services or the Reliance Group’s petrochemical operations.
It has started to pre-pay some of its loans, which would reduce its debt-servicing burden. It can also sell off some of its impressive collection of assets. But as a result, it would have fewer resources as well as assets to enable its expansion – which means its future growth is likely to be slower than in the past.

Lessons for investors​

So what are the main lessons that can be drawn from the Adani Group’s debacle?
First, which should be obvious but was surprisingly ignored, is that companies’ share prices can be vulnerable when they rise exponentially, especially when the businesses in which they operate are, like in the case of the Adani Group, mainly traditional, with relatively low margins.
Second, even if allegations of fraud against a company are unproven – as is the case with those in the Hindenburg report – if they look damning and are even halfway credible, investors sell first and ask questions later, without even being deterred by the fact that, as a short-seller, Hindenburg had a vested interest in triggering declines in the share prices of Adani Group companies.
Third, investors should be cautious when investing in politically connected groups, even if this is only a perception. Although both the Adani Group and the government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi deny being connected, perceptions of their connectedness are widespread.
It is not lost on observers, for instance, that the group’s fortunes soared and Mr Adani’s net worth rose more than 14-fold, from about US$7 billion in 2014 – the year the Modi government came to office – to over US$100 billion by the end of 2022.
Perceptions of the political connectedness of companies, even if unproven, can unleash all manner of excesses, such as state-owned banks lending to these companies more freely than to others, money being poured into their stocks regardless of valuations, and regulators treating them with kid gloves. Such developments should be red flags.

The fact that the majority of the domestic lenders to the Adani Group were state-owned banks and that most private banks – which are less subject to political influence – have avoided exposure to the group is also notable.
Another red flag should appear when analyst coverage of a company or group is unusually thin. As at early January, most Adani Group companies had only one or two analysts covering them, whereas coverage of companies in the same industries as well as other large Indian companies was widespread. The disparity is curious, given the high-profile activities of the Adani Group and its size.
A similar concern should arise when retail investors and mutual funds avoid certain companies, as was the case with most of the Adani companies, which are not widely held by Indian mutual funds. The fact that these funds, together with retail investors, hardly participated in Adani Enterprises’ FPO was another sign of weak market confidence.
Fifth, while domestic scrutiny of companies can be cut short, suppressed or prevented through legal actions – and the Adani Group has succeeded in quashing many investigations into its practices by the Indian media – once global investors get involved, there is more external scrutiny of companies, which can be intense, fearless and harder to contain.
Finally, invoking nationalism – claiming, for instance, that the country is under attack – as a defence against a short-seller doesn’t work. It might score political points at home, but as the Adani Group’s sell-off testifies, it does not impress investors.
Despite its devastating setback, the Adani Group, which controls vast infrastructural assets and has a good record of project execution, is likely to remain a significant player in India, even if it grows more slowly.
Its fall from grace is unlikely to have a major impact on India’s growth story or macroeconomy, or even on its banking system; local banks’ exposure to the group, which is concentrated mainly in state-owned banks, is reckoned to be only around US$10 billion. The lenders’ claims that their loans are well collateralised are credible, given the Adani Group’s solid assets and the fact that most of their loans were made several years ago.
The biggest losers are likely to be international banks and bondholders, which account for most of the group’s debts and did their lending more recently and at higher valuations.
As to how India’s stock markets will be affected, although the Hindenburg report targeted a single group and the rest of India’s market was little affected, it did raise issues that will make investors more vigilant towards some of the corporate governance practices that prevail in India as well as the conduct of market regulators, which at least in the case of the Adani Group is widely regarded as falling short of best practices.
Restoring investor confidence in the Adani Group is achievable. But much will depend on actions by India’s market regulators pertaining to the group, which would need to be made public and be credible to investors and after that, what actions, if any, the group takes to change its business practices.
For both regulators and the group, maintaining the status quo is not an option.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Judge dismisses case brought by man against condo MC for not issuing him a carpark label​

Mr Manohar K.D. Nanwani, who moved into the Fort Gardens condo in September 2022, insisted on being given a carpark label, though he provided a document bearing his old address. PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM GOOGLEMAPS

Selina Lum
Senior Law Correspondent

Mar 14, 2023

SINGAPORE - A man who took the management corporation (MC) of his condominium to court because he was not issued a carpark label has lost the civil dispute, in a case the judge described as an abuse of the judicial process.
Mr Manohar K.D. Nanwani, who moved into the Fort Gardens condo in September 2022, had insisted on being given a carpark label, although he provided the MC with a document bearing his old address.
In his court action, he challenged a by-law of the condo that allows only residents with vehicle log cards showing the registered owner’s address within the Fort Road estate to be issued with a carpark label.
He claimed the by-law was invalid because it contravened the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act, and also argued that it was discriminatory.
But District Judge Jonathan Ng rejected his argument. In a written judgment published on Saturday, he also noted that Mr Nanwani subsequently updated his address on his identity card, which would automatically result in the change on his vehicle log card.
This meant he could have simply printed or downloaded a copy of his vehicle log card from the Land Transport Authority’s OneMotoring website to apply for a carpark label.
“Had he done so, this entire dispute would have fallen away. However, instead of taking this eminently sensible course, he conjured up a factual basis to keep this dispute alive,” said the judge.

Judge Ng concluded that Mr Nanwani was never interested in the legal merits of his case.
“His only interest has been in using the judicial process to vex and oppress the respondent.
“Indeed, this originating application, with its highly emotive, but ultimately baseless, claims of unreasonableness and discrimination, has been a quintessential abuse of process from start to finish,” he said.

Mr Nanwani had applied for a carpark label on Sept 30, 2022, but was never issued one.
In late October, he was told by a security guard that he would have to produce an updated vehicle log card bearing his Fort Gardens address.
A series of confrontations between Mr Nanwani and the MC followed.
On Nov 30, a notice was placed on his car, giving a “final warning” that unauthorised parking would result in the vehicle being wheel-clamped.

His lawyers then wrote to the MC’s lawyers, asking for a carpark label to be issued “immediately”.
After an episode where his car was wheel-clamped, and then unclamped, his lawyers sent a letter to the MC, once again asking for a carpark label and reserving his right to claim “aggravated damages”.
On Dec 14, the condo’s estate manager wrote to Mr Nanwani’s lawyers, giving him a deadline by which to produce his vehicle log card and offering him the opportunity to view the condo’s by-laws.
After more to-and-fro correspondence, Mr Nanwani filed a court application on Dec 20 seeking a declaration that the by-law was invalid, an order for the MC to issue him a carpark label, and a restraining order to stop the MC from wheel-clamping his car.
In response, the MC said residents used to abuse the system by sharing their carpark labels with friends and family who do not live at the condo.
To address this abuse, the by-law was made to ensure that carpark labels were tied to specific vehicles.
Mr Nanwani argued that the parking by-law is inconsistent with regulations which state that a management corporation shall not unreasonably withhold its approval to the parking or leaving of a vehicle on the common property.
But Judge Ng found that the MC, which was constituted in March 1995, was not bound by the regulations, which came into effect in April 2005.
Mr Nanwani had argued that the parking by-law is unreasonable and onerous.
But the judge said that there was a good reason for the by-law and that it was not onerous as the only steps involved are updating one’s identity card to reflect his Fort Gardens address and producing a copy of the vehicle log card to the MC.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

Human error over coding led to 6-hour disruption of DBS banking services in May: SM Tharman​

Ili Nadhirah Mansor/TODAY
A screenshot of the DBS Internet banking login page showing an error message on March 29, 2023.

• A disruption to DBS Bank’s digital banking and ATM services on May 5, 2023 was caused by human error in coding the program used for system maintenance, Parliament has heard
• This led to a significant reduction in system capacity, which affected the system’s ability to process internet and mobile banking, electronic payments, and ATM transactions
• Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam gave the update in response to questions from Jurong GRC MP Tan Wu Meng on Wednesday (July 5)
• The over six-hour disruption was DBS' second in two months, prompting the Monetary Authority of Singapore to call it "unacceptable" and impose fresh capital requirements on DBS

SUFIYAN SAMSURI​

Published July 5, 2023

SINGAPORE — A disruption to DBS Bank’s digital banking and ATM services on May 5, 2023 was due to human error in coding the program used for system maintenance, Parliament was told on Wednesday (July 5).
Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam provided an update on the issue in response to questions filed by Member of Parliament (MP) for Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Tan Wu Meng.
Dr Tan asked about the cause of the May disruption, and what is being done to strengthen the reliability and resilience of retails banks with significant market share here, especially in relation to digital banking services.
In his response, Mr Tharman, speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said that DBS' preliminary investigation showed that human error caused a significant reduction in system capacity.
This affected the system’s ability to process internet and mobile banking, electronic payment and ATM transactions, said Mr Tharman, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Monetary of Authority Singapore (MAS) chairman.

In a statement at the time, DBS had blamed the over six-hour disruption, the second to hit the bank in two months, on "a systems issue". It did not mention human error at that time.
Mr Tharman added that according to DBS, the cause of the incident was unrelated to the earlier March 2023 disruption, which was caused by inherent software bugs.
He said that DBS convened a special board committee to oversee the root cause investigation and a comprehensive review of the bank’s IT resilience following the March 2023 incident.
Following the May incident, MAS then tasked the committee to extend its review to cover the latest incident and to use “qualified independent third parties” for the review.
“The MAS has stated publicly that it regards this second disruption within a period of two months as unacceptable, and that DBS had fallen short of MAS’ expectation for banks to deliver reliable services to their customers,” Mr Tharman said.
He added that MAS' move to impose additional capital requirements on DBS reflects the seriousness with which MAS views the recent disruptions and the impact that they have had on customers.

“MAS may vary the size of the additional capital requirement imposed on the bank and take other regulatory actions depending on the outcome of ongoing reviews," he said.
“MAS requires all retail banks in Singapore to ensure that their mission critical systems supporting digital banking are resilient. This includes having the ability to recover quickly from any system disruptions,” he said.
Mr Tharman said that banks are subject to regular inspections and off-site reviews by MAS to ensure their adherence to regulatory requirements and expectations.
More details on the disruptions will be provided by the bank publicly when the review is completed, he added.
TODAY has sought comment from DBS.

 

[k1976]

How a celebrity CEO's rule of fear helped bring down hot Singapore start-up Zilingo​

Zilingo suspended its 30-year-old chief executive officer Ankiti Bose over complaints about alleged financial irregularities in March. ST PHOTO: FELINE LIM

Aug 4, 2022

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - At first glance, the implosion of vaunted fashion start-up Zilingo looked jarringly sudden.
When the Singapore tech darling suspended its 30-year-old chief executive officer Ankiti Bose over complaints about alleged financial irregularities, it was March. Within weeks, creditors were recalling loans, more than 100 employees had left, and Ms Bose found herself fired, though she denies any wrongdoing. The company's survival is now in question.
The Zilingo meltdown has rattled the tech industry in South-east Asia and beyond. The start-up had raised more than US$300 million (S$414 million) from some of the region's most prominent investors, including Singapore investment company Temasek and Sequoia Capital India, the regional arm of the Silicon Valley firm that backed Apple and Google. Ms Bose was a celebrity who criss-crossed the globe to speak at tech gatherings from Hong Kong to California.
Interviews with more than 60 people, including current and former staff, merchants, investors, entrepreneurs and friends of the key players, suggest that Zilingo struggled for years under Ms Bose's leadership. Her management style alienated employees and undermined the business, according to staff who worked under her.
The start-up veered from one strategy to another in pursuit of sales, including a US$1 million promotional trip in Morocco, loans to customers and a short-lived push into the United States. At one point, she became fixated on "crazy growth" to catch the attention of Japanese tech titan Masayoshi Son, according to two former employees with direct knowledge of the matter.
At the heart of the company's breakdown lies the soured relationship between Ms Bose and her long-time supporter, Mr Shailendra Singh, head of Sequoia India. Allies for years, they fell out as financial pressures mounted. Mr Singh lost faith in the management skills of the young founder he had championed, while Ms Bose believed Mr Singh betrayed her by pushing her out of her own company, according to people familiar with their relationship, who requested anonymity as the talks were private.
The clash grew so acrimonious that Sequoia's lawyers demanded in a May legal notice that Ms Bose stop making allegations that could tarnish Sequoia's reputation, the people said.

Zilingo's turmoil highlights an apparent lax internal corporate governance culture that is not uncommon in the start-up industry. For two years, the company failed to file annual financial statements, a basic requirement for all businesses of its size in Singapore. Auditor KPMG has yet to sign off on Zilingo's financial year 2020 results. While it is not unusual for start-ups to miss these deadlines, which can result in a fine of up to $600, it is typically a warning sign that firmer action may be needed by the board.
Yet, investors, including Temasek and the Economic Development Board's investment arm EDBI, put more funds into Zilingo at the end of 2020. Shareholders that together own a majority stake of the company only formally acted against Ms Bose after whistle-blower complaints were filed earlier this year.

Tech warning​

The saga has also become a warning for the region's tech community, which is assessing the fallout of global economic shocks from Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and global inflation.


"Whatever happened at Zilingo, there will be a lot more dramas in the next couple of years as the big worldwide recession impedes hot shots from raising money," said veteran investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings in Singapore. "I have seen this rodeo before."
Bloomberg News reviewed dozens of internal documents, e-mails, texts and other media from Zilingo, and Ms Bose sat for two extensive interviews, one before and one after her dismissal from the company on May 20. The board's decision to fire her was not abrupt, but rather the culmination of years of tension, according to the documents and people with direct knowledge of the matter.
"Board members were concerned about the company's performance over the last few years and sought to share suggestions to address the company's performance including cash burn," Zilingo and its board said in a statement to Bloomberg News.
"In March 2022, investors received complaints about serious financial irregularities which appeared to require investigation. With the support of the majority investor shareholders, an independent forensic investigations consultancy was appointed to look into the said complaints. After a comprehensive process lasting almost two months, including numerous opportunities for Ms Bose to provide documents and information, the company subsequently terminated Ms Bose for cause based on the findings of that investigation."
SPH Brightcove Video

Ms Bose said the process to terminate her was an "unfair witch hunt" and denied that she was given numerous opportunities to respond to allegations. She said she has not seen the investigation report, which was not made public. On the board's suggestion to implement changes, she said the team cut the cash burn by 70 per cent between the end of 2019 and the end of 2021.
"It was not easy, we did not succeed at everything," she said in July. "It was chaotic and painful, but we did do it and we made the best effort we could."
Zilingo's origin story is part of South-east Asia's start-up lore. Ms Bose came up with the idea as she wandered through Bangkok's Chatuchak market, where 15,000 stalls offer goods from across Thailand. She and co-founder Dhruv Kapoor wanted to build a platform that would allow such small merchants to sell to consumers across South-east Asia.

Mr Singh was instrumental from the start. He and Ms Bose had worked together at Sequoia and he was happy to support one of the firm's own. Mr Singh had started his career in Sequoia's Silicon Valley office, learning at the side of veteran investors Michael Moritz and Doug Leone. Mr Singh had transformed Sequoia Capital India over 16 years into the region's biggest venture capital (VC) firm with some US$9 billion of assets under management and 36 unicorns on its score sheet across India and South-east Asia.
He invested in Zilingo's seed round in 2015, when Ms Bose was 23 years old, and in every fund raising since. "We think the world of her," he told a fellow venture capitalist in 2016, in an e-mail seen by Bloomberg News.

Mr Dhruv Kapoor, co-founder and chief technology officer of fashion e-commerce marketplace Zilingo. PHOTO: ZILINGO
But like many upstarts, Ms Bose and Mr Kapoor faced challenges almost from the beginning. Their consumer-focused fashion site struggled because of the thin margins and low average income in South-east Asia, a fragmented region with different languages and currencies. By late 2017, they decided to reposition Zilingo into a business-to-business platform, where small manufacturers and wholesalers could sell goods directly to small retailers in the region.
In 2018, Zilingo raised US$54 million from investors. The company decided to splurge US$1 million to whisk nine social media influencers to Morocco for a three-day extravaganza, complete with camel rides, a hot-air balloon trip, yoga lessons and gourmet dinners.
It was a massive flop, according to an early employee with direct knowledge of the event. The goal of #ZilingoEscape was to bring in one million new users, one for each US$1 spent. The final tally was about 10,000, the person said. Ms Bose declined to comment specifically on the campaign, but said it was part of the company's US$10 million annual marketing budget.
This appears to have become a pattern for Ms Bose. With cash in Zilingo's coffers, she would dive into new initiatives to supercharge growth even if the immediate financial benefits were questionable. In one example, Ms Bose suggested that Zilingo subsidise a 2 per cent to 4 per cent discount for transactions, effectively paying merchants to trade with one another. She cheered on the team as gross merchandise value hit US$1 million for the first two months, even though Zilingo was getting no fees from the merchants, said a person directly involved.
In 2018, Ms Bose came up with the idea of giving out loans to suppliers and vendors who needed capital. It took off, so in the coming months Ms Bose cranked up the pressure. She told the team to give out more loans each month on a running basis, the person said. But no one could have predicted the pandemic, or the toll it would take on start-ups like Zilingo, and much of the debt had to be written off.
Yet Ms Bose's star was rising in the industry. In early 2019, Zilingo raised US$226 million, lifting its valuation to US$970 million. The charismatic CEO wooed tech gatherings with her vision of how start-ups like hers were a new model for the emerging world.
"We are about to shake things up quite a bit," Ms Bose said at a panel discussion in Singapore, flashing a wide smile and drawing applause from the audience.
Inside the company, she drove staff relentlessly. In one instance, Ms Bose messaged a senior lieutenant early on a Sunday morning and called about a dozen times. When the employee did not pick up immediately, she told the lieutenant: "You obviously don't care about the company enough."

Publicly, the company seemed to be going from strength to strength. In July 2019, Mr James Perry, former managing director and Asia-Pacific head of technology investment banking for Citigroup, joined Zilingo as its first chief financial officer.
It was a coup for Ms Bose, some 20 years Mr Perry's junior. Ms Bose said in an interview with Bloomberg News in 2019 that Mr Perry's experience and respect in the financial world would complement her "young and crazy" self and give confidence to investors. "He's James Perry, he's a god in finance," she said.
In the investment world, her big target remained Mr Son, whose SoftBank Group had upended venture capital by making huge bets on unproven start-ups. Ms Bose told her deputies that Zilingo needed to achieve rapid growth to catch Mr Son's attention, one of the deputies said.
Ms Bose met Mr Son twice that year, once in Jakarta and a second time in Tokyo, according to people familiar with the matter. She explained her vision for Zilingo, but Mr Son never backed her. Neither did KKR & Co, which was considering investing in the start-up at the time, the people said.
In October 2019, Zilingo announced it would spend US$100 million to expand into the US, establishing offices in New York and Los Angeles. Ms Bose's idea was to take advantage of then President Donald Trump's trade war by offering American retailers a way to avoid tariffs by finding producers outside China. Less than a year later, the company shut its US operations.
By the end of 2019, Mr Singh and other directors had told Ms Bose several times to slow the cash burn. But Mr Singh was not getting regular financial reports from Ms Bose, and it was not till a board meeting in November that the directors learnt that the company was actually going through some US$7 million to US$8 million a month, more than they had expected. Mr Singh picked up the phone and had a tough conversation with Ms Bose, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

Guzzling money​

It turns out that the company was guzzling money. The US$226 million Zilingo had raised from investors in early 2019 was gone in less than two years.
In 2020, the pandemic battered the business and Ms Bose saw an opportunity to supply personal protective equipment, inking a deal in April to supply 10 million KN-95 masks, valued at US$22.5 million, to India. Six months later, Zilingo was embroiled in a legal battle with the Indian government, which claimed the company had failed to deliver 3.2 million of the masks on time. The company did not comment on the lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
In September, Mr Perry left Zilingo to rejoin Citigroup.

Inside the company, former employees paint a picture of a boss who ruled by fear. She allegedly told some staff they would have no second chance in the start-up industry because of her powerful connections. She would publicly shame employees and declare that she had to do everything herself to save the company, one person said. Another described her as a narcissist who would throw anyone under the bus if it meant saving her own reputation.
Asked in an interview in Singapore before she was fired about the culture under her leadership, Ms Bose uncharacteristically paused and stared out of the window as the sun set over the city.
"I was 23 when I started the company," she said eventually. "I liked having control at the beginning. Of course, I made mistakes and learnt from them. By the time we got to the stage where we had all these senior people, I don't think I was a control freak."
In her most recent interview with Bloomberg in July, Ms Bose reiterated that she has not done anything wrong. "I'm going to be a lot calmer, a lot more empathetic and understanding of how people work together. That has been a big learning for me. Managing people, managing relationships, managing communications - I think all of this is coming down to that," she said.
By November 2020, Zilingo had barely enough cash to last a month. A group of existing investors, including Sequoia, EDBI, Sofina, Temasek and SIG, stepped in to rescue the company by purchasing US$25 million of convertible notes.
In January 2021, Mr Singh and Ms Bose met at the Four Seasons Hotel's alfresco cafe as they did from time to time to talk shop. Mr Singh suggested that Ms Bose consider stepping aside. He said Mr Ananth Narayanan, founder of brand-building service Mensa Brands and former CEO of fashion platform Myntra, could be a potential successor. The two men had met recently and, when Mr Narayanan said he was looking for a new opportunity, Mr Singh had thought of Zilingo.
Ms Bose was shocked. "Not yet," she said.
She went home and, that night, sent a series of emotional texts to Mr Singh, saying his suggestion was a gender-related issue and pouring her heart out. She said her departure would make her look bad, as though the firm needed to be saved by someone else. Mr Singh said it was just a preliminary idea and there was no need to discuss it again. He urged her instead to focus on improving metrics, finding a new CFO and fund raising, according to people familiar with the meeting and texts seen by Bloomberg.
Ms Bose ended the chat by saying they should work together towards the best possible outcome, and Mr Singh replied with two thumbs-up emojis. It was 2.29am.
The mounting pressure was also testing the relationship between Ms Bose and co-founder Mr Kapoor, the chief technology officer. They had clashed over the future of the company the previous month when the company was scrambling to stay afloat.
"I am scared honestly that we will not hit our goals," she texted Mr Kapoor several hours after the chat with Mr Singh. "When something is wrong, the blame falls on me, but everyone's there to take credit for the good," she wrote.
"I don't like being hated for busting my ass at all," she added.
Ms Bose spent most of the year trying to pull in more funds. In July 2021, the company took mezzanine debt of US$40 million from Indies Capital Partners and Varde Partners, but subsequent efforts to raise money from private equity and venture capital firms failed. One issue was a concern from potential investors that users were making fake transactions in key markets to bilk Zilingo's subsidies. Executives from two firms told Bloomberg News that they decided not to back Zilingo after they found evidence of merchant fraud in Indonesia, the country that accounted for more than half of Zilingo's gross merchandise volume in financial year 2021.
There was no suggestion that Zilingo was involved in the suspected fake transactions. Some existing investors, including Burda Principal Investments, Temasek and Sofina, questioned Ms Bose about the company's unaudited financial reports, according to people familiar with the matter. But Ms Bose was providing monthly financial updates to the board, and they were lenient as Zilingo was busy with fund raising at the time, one of the people said.
In March this year, Ms Bose received an ominous text on her phone: "Storm is coming your way."
A few days later, she was asked to join a meeting with investors at Burda's shophouse office in Singapore's Boat Quay, according to people familiar with the details of the meeting. There, Mr Singh and the two other shareholders dealt her a stunner. They said Zilingo's board had received complaints about alleged mismanagement and financial misrepresentation and they were suspending her during an investigation. Mr Singh urged her to be cooperative.
"We just want to save the company," he said, according to one of the people.

Ms Bose promised to help. As she left, she started running through the pouring rain.
"I think the tale is about what sometimes happens when you go into hyper-growth mode," said Ms Aliza Knox, senior adviser at Boston Consulting Group, who has held senior management positions at tech companies including Google and Twitter in Asia Pacific.
In these situations, start-ups need to think about adding independent board members beyond "founders and funders", she said. "Could some of the problems have been mitigated if there were a different kind of board a little bit earlier? That's an important question to ask."
Zilingo is not the only Sequoia-backed start-up embroiled in controversy. BharatPe's co-founder Ashneer Grover resigned from the fast-growing Indian fintech start-up in March after senior leadership accused him of misappropriation of funds. Mr Grover has denied the accusations against him, including that he stole company money to fund an extravagant lifestyle, which he said stem from "personal hatred and low thinking", he said on LinkedIn.
A forensic team from EY India has looked into Indian social commerce start-up Trell, another Sequoia-backed company, amid allegations of financial irregularities. Trell's three co-founders did not respond to requests for comment. Co-founder and CEO Pulkit Agrawal in March sent a note to investors, questioning the nature of the forensic audit, the Economic Times reported, citing its own review of the note.
Sequoia India and South-east Asia published a blog post in April, saying it would take "proactive steps" to drive corporate governance at start-ups it invests in.
Mr Singh is feeling the heat as he evolves from start-up cheerleader to champion of corporate governance. Increased scrutiny prompted some Sequoia-backed Indian founders to compare him to a forceful ruler from Indian history.
"There is art to setting up governance - the board, process and advisers - in such a way that brakes kick in automatically when something bad happens," said Mr Dmitry Levit, founder of Singapore-based VC firm Cento Ventures. He said many of Sequoia India's companies are like racing cars. "If somebody tries to run a Formula One car on off-road terrain in stormy weather, it cannot absorb the shocks."
Sequoia India said it has always cared about corporate governance.
"Building world-class companies requires first-rate governance," a Sequoia India spokesman said in a statement to Bloomberg. "There is always more we can do to work with founders so that their companies benefit from better, more robust standards of governance, such as stronger audit oversight, clear whistle-blower processes and the need to bring independent directors on board earlier."

Ankiti Bose was a celebrity who crisscrossed the globe to speak at tech gatherings from Hong Kong to California. PHOTO: ZILINGO

Salary questions​

The zeal for governance may have come too late for Zilingo. About a week after Ms Bose was suspended, a board director and an adviser to another shareholder questioned her about why she was drawing a monthly salary of $50,000. Her employment contract five years ago stated it as $8,500 and the adviser had just discovered she had been making considerably more since 2019, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ms Bose said the numbers are inaccurate but did not provide her salary information.
Investigators hired by the board also questioned her about three sets of revenue numbers for financial year 2021 that Zilingo had shared with external parties: US$190 million, US$164 million and US$140 million. Ms Bose explained to them that the US$190 million had been circulated before the year closed and before the cancellation of masks and other orders. The US$140 million was used in a due diligence report for fund raising, while the US$164 million included uninvoiced revenue, according to a document seen by Bloomberg.
But another document the company shared with a potential investor, seen by Bloomberg News, showed that Zilingo's net revenue for the year was about US$40 million. A representative for Kroll, the firm that conducted the probe, declined to comment.
Ms Bose said in an interview with Bloomberg News in May that Zilingo has used aggressive methods for recognising revenue, but that the calculations are standard practice for the industry and that all of its investors were fully aware of them. "These matters are well understood by all investors," Ms Bose said in the interview.

Zilingo "went through a tough time during Covid-19", said Mr Rohit Sipahimalani, Temasek's chief investment officer. "There were clearly some things the board was unaware of, and when there were complaints made, they investigated into it and actions have been taken subsequently."
Now, the company is in turmoil and some employees say they are worried about their future. The board in June was considering liquidating the company. After her suspension in March, Ms Bose herself filed a formal complaint to the board, asking it to also suspend Mr Kapoor and then chief operating officer Aadi Vaidya, a friend from college, for their poor work performance and lack of leadership. A representative of the company, Mr Kapoor and Mr Vaidya declined to comment. Mr Vaidya resigned last week after seven years with Zilingo, explaining "now is the time to move on, clear my head and reset priorities".
It is a steep fall for Zilingo from just five months ago, when Ms Bose's fund-raising efforts valued the company at US$1.2 billion.

White CECA is jin Chio and Handsome De.. Atas superior gene

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

6½-hour DBS service disruption in May due to human error, probe finds​

The outage on May 5 was DBS’ second disruption in two months. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
Lee Li Ying
Correspondent

July 6, 2023

SINGAPORE - The 6½-hour disruption to DBS services on May 5 was caused by human error, and unrelated to an earlier 10-hour outage in March 2023.
Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam gave this update on Wednesday in a written answer to a parliamentary question by Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong GRC) on the cause of the disruption, and what is being done to strengthen the reliability and resilience of retail banks with significant market share in Singapore.
The outage on May 5 was DBS’ second disruption in two months, which the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said was unacceptable.
Mr Tharman, who is chairman of MAS, said that according to the bank’s preliminary investigations, the disruption was due to human error in coding the programme that was used for system maintenance.
“The error led to a significant reduction in system capacity, which in turn affected the system’s ability to process Internet and mobile banking, electronic payment and ATM transactions,” said Mr Tharman.
This intermittently affected customers’ access to these services.
Mr Tharman added that the earlier disruption in March 2023 was caused by inherent software bugs.

He also noted that following the March 2023 incident, DBS had convened a special board committee to oversee the investigation into the root cause and a comprehensive review of the bank’s IT resilience. MAS also required the special board committee to extend its review to cover the latest incident and to use qualified independent third parties for the review.
More details on the disruptions will be provided by the bank publicly when the review is completed, he said.
A day after the May 5 disruption, MAS ordered an additional capital requirement on the bank.
DBS Bank will now need to apply a multiplier of 1.8 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk, up from the 1.5 times multiplier previously applied in 2022, after it suffered its worst outage in more than a decade in November 2021.
This means that the additional regulatory capital it must set aside now stands at about $1.6 billion, to buffer for unexpected losses and keep itself solvent in times of crisis.
Mr Tharman said the imposition of capital requirements on DBS reflects the seriousness with which MAS views the recent disruptions and the impact that they have had on customers. MAS may vary the size of the additional capital requirement imposed on the bank and take other regulatory actions depending on the outcome of ongoing reviews.
“MAS requires all retail banks in Singapore to ensure that their mission-critical systems supporting digital banking are resilient. This includes having the ability to recover quickly from any system disruptions,” he said, adding that banks are subject to regular inspections and off-site reviews by MAS to ensure their adherence to regulatory requirements and expectations.