Who is Sunanda Pushkar?

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New Delhi: All eyes may well be on minister of state for externalaffairs - Shashi Tharoor - for his complicity in the Rendezvousaffair. An affair which threatens to snowball into something that caneven derail the team's very bid and future existence. Tharoor hasvehemently denied that he has any economic interest in the franchiseand clarified repeatedly that he only played mentor in architectingthe consortium. But what of the consortium itself? Who is RendezvousSports World? Modi is clear when he says that a central ministerexerted pressure on him not to reveal the name of the key beneficiaryof the free equity. The name in question - Sunanda Pushkar. A lady whois in the process of marrying Shashi Tharoor as media has let us knowon Monday. Ergo, the central minister can only be Tharoor himself.
Who then is Sunanda Pushkar? She is sales manager with TecomInvestments in Dubai. What is Tecom Investments? After all free equityamounting to anything between 18 and 20 per cent is serious businessgiven that the size of the bid was a staggering $333.33 million (Rs1533 crore). Twenty per cent amounts to a sizeable Rs 306 crore.Nobody gives away stake amounting to $66 million to an individual.Unless the individual is holding these shares in proxy for someoneelse. One can only presume that Sunanda Pushkar who is marryingTharoor and is his companion these days in Delhi's social circuit iseither holding these shares for Tharoor or Dubai Holdings which ownsTecom Investments. The fact that free equity totalling 25 per cent wasgiven to disparate individuals whose very antecedents were not knownthrows into stark relief the issue of transparency in IPL. Thatanything between 18 to 20 per cent of that 25 per cent was given toSunanda Pushkar compounds RSW's problems. Modi has called it, but thisis certainly not the end of this unsavoury matter. Rendezvous claimsthat Modi is favouring Ahmedabad and Gautam Adani over Kochi. If oneexamines the shareholding pattern of Kochi, then there is no clarityon who has actually put in this humunguous amount of money. Does theamount forked out commensurate with the shareholding pattern revealedby Modi? Logic says only 75 per cent of the shareholders would havecoughed up $333.33 million, after all 25 per cent was given 'free.'Whew, someone needs to tell us who is behind this venture?
Tecom Investments, based in Dubai, is a subsidiary of Dubai Holding, aglobal company dedicated to knowledge and life-improving industries. Acreator of vibrant knowledge industry clusters, TECOM Investments iscurrently active in buoyant cutting-edge sectors like ICT, Media,Education, Life Sciences and Clean Technology. A recognized leader inthe global knowledge industry, TECOM Investments manages entities likeDubai Internet City, Dubai Media City, Dubai Knowledge Village, DubaiInternational Academic City, eHosting DataFort, International MediaProduction Zone, Dubai Outsource Zone, Dubai Studio City, DuBiotechand Enpark. TECOM Investments’ phenomenal growth also encompasseslocal and international joint venture interests like Empower, adistrict cooling service provider established as a joint venture withDubai Electricity and Water Authority, Emirates InternationalTelecommunications Limited, a joint venture with Dubai InvestmentGroup and SmartCity, a joint venture formed with SAMA Dubai to developand manage knowledge industry townships worldwide.Emirates International Telecommunications Limited holds stakes inTunisie Telecom and GO, telecommunication carriers in Tunisia andMalta respectively. SmartCity has already laid the foundations of aglobal network of knowledge driven clusters through agreements todevelop SmartCity Malta and SmartCity Kochi.
Pushkar's Linkedin profile states clearly that she is working withTecom since 2005 as sales manager. Rendezvous Sports World is nowgunning for Modi for breaching the confidentiality agreement.