AUSTRALIAN PM SCOTT MORRISON REACHES OUT TO MODI AMID FIGHT WITH FACEBOOK
NEW DELHI: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reached out to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for support in his fight against Facebook over a proposed law that aims to make the social media giant pay for sharing content from media organisations.
The matter figured in a phone call between Morrison and Modi on Thursday, amid worldwide outrage over Facebook blacking out news and media content for its users in Australia and barring them from sharing news articles.
Morrison said in a tweet on Friday that he and his “good friend” Modi had “discussed progress of our [Australia’s] media platform bill” but didn’t give details. He said India and Australia, as comprehensive strategic partners, can work together on common challenges such as Covid-19, the circular economy and an open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
Morrison also told the media in Sydney on Friday that the law figured in his call with Modi. “There’s a lot of interest in it. People are looking at what Australia doing,” he said. →P4
FACE-OFF WITH AUSTRALIA COULD COST FACEBOOK GLOBALLY
AUSTRALIAN PM SCOTT MORRISON SAID HE DISCUSSED THE FB ISSUE WITH LEADERS FROM INDIA, UK, CANADA AND FRANCE
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed on Friday to press ahead with laws to force Facebook to pay news outlets for content, saying he had received support from world leaders after the social media giant blacked out all media.
Facebook stripped the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets for Australians and blocked users of its platform from sharing any news content on Thursday, saying it had been left with no choice ahead of the new content laws.
The move, which also erased several state government and emergency department accounts, as well as non-profit charity sites, caused widespread outrage.
Morrison, who blasted Facebook on its own platform for “unfriending” Australia, said on Friday the leaders of Britain, Canada, France and India had shown support.
“There is a lot of world interest in what Australia is doing,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney. “That is why I invite... Facebook to constructively engage because they know that what Australia will do here is likely to be followed by many other Western jurisdictions.”
Canadian heritage minister Steven Guilbeault said late on Thursday his country would adopt the Australian approach as it crafts its own legislation in coming months.
The Australian law, which will force Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with
Australian publishers or face compulsory arbitration, is expected to be passed by the Senate within the next week.
Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he had spoken to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a second time following the news blackout. “We talked through their remaining issues and agreed our respective teams would work through them immediately. We’ll talk again over the weekend,” he said.
In its statement announcing the move in Australia, Facebook said the Australian law “misunderstood” its value to publishers. Frydenberg earlier told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that “there is something much bigger here at stake than just one or two commercial deals. This is about Australia’s sovereignty”.
Facebook and Alphabet owned Google had campaigned together against the laws with both threatening to withdraw key services from Australia if the laws took effect.
NEW DELHI: US-based Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) is exploring an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) for its Indian green energy platform, Vector Green Energy, to raise around $100 million in equity, two people aware of the development said.
InvITs are trusts that manage income-generating infrastructure assets typically offering investors a regular yield and a liquid method of investing in infrastructure projects.
Renewable energy InvIT plans have been gaining traction in the backdrop of India’s galloping electricity demand. These include InvITs from KKR-backed Virescent Infrastructure and Tata Power’s renewable energy InvIT in which Malaysia’s staterun oil and gas company, Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas is looking to invest.
“GIP is exploring an InvIT process for Vector Green,” one of the two people cited above said, requesting anonymity.
GIP is an infrastructure-focused global private equity player and has 800 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar energy assets portfolio under its green energy platform, Vector Green Energy, a substantive part of which it had acquired from IDFC Alternatives in 2018. Vector
Green had also acquired 306MW solar projects from RattanIndia Group in September last year.
Mint reported on July 9 last year about GIP planning to sell Vector Green Energy.
Queries emailed to a GIP spokesperson on late Wednesday night remained unanswered till press time.
GIP has been present in the Indian clean energy space and led a group of investors to acquire Equis Energy for $5 billion in October 2017. The sale included liabilities of $1.3 billion and the Indian portfolio of the Singapore-based renewable energy developer, comprising green energy platforms Energon and Energon Soleq.
This potential transaction comes at a time when India’s solar power tariffs have touched a record low of ₹1.99 per unit, and are expected to decline further. Also, this low tariff resulted in tariff-shopping with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd cancelling the Letters of Award for 700MW of solar power generation given to firms including GIP’s Vena Energy.
Despite these attempts, including the one by Andhra Pradesh government to renegotiate clean energy tariffs, and the financial crunch faced by the electricity distribution companies that got exacerbated by the pandemic, several deals are in play.