In 2008, Mukesh Ambani's trusted advisor Manoj Modi roped in Radia to handle the exclusive business of Reliance Industries and so was born NeUCom Consulting. In 2007, she started Noesis Strategic Consulting Services to handle strategic and business advisory assignments-bagging a contract to restructure the telecom licencing framework for the Sultanate of Oman- and Vitcom Consulting (which handles the accounts of actor Priyanka Chopra, Bloomberg Businessweek, Marriott Hotels, UTV World Movies and Endemol). Gradually the company started adding non-Tata accounts and so parallel agencies were formed to handle their business. This was her most powerful avatar yet, even if sometimes her idle gossip was mistaken for professional gospel. We knew little about her." Then, he says, "One day in 2001, we got a mail saying all 90 group companies would now be represented by Vaishnavi." Somewhere along the way, Radia, a believer in astrology, changed the spelling of her first name, adding an 'i'. "She was Londonbased, pushy, aggressive and representing Siemens Plessey in a joint venture with AT&T in India. A senior Tata executive recalls meeting her in 1992 shortly after economic reforms were initiated, and before he joined the group. By 2009, she was handling public relations for over 90 companies of the Tata Group with over 300 employees across 13 cities. Nudged by Tata, she started Vaishnavi Corporate Communications which initially handled the public relations of 14 Tata companies. According to Dheeraj, Kumar recommended Radia for the job. Tata wanted to promote the brand association of the hotels and the monument. At that point, Indian Hotels had also signed an MoU with the Department of Culture for the preservation and upgradation of the Taj Mahal. He was impressed with her knowledge of aviation. She met Ratan Tata while working on the Tata Airlines-Singapore Airlines joint venture. Dheeraj spent almost two years in jail on that charge after Radia got ace lawyer Mukul Rohatgi to fight her case.ΔΆ001 was her breakthrough year. ![]() In 2003, she accused him of abducting her then 18-year-old son, Karan, on the pretext of going for a long drive into Haryana and keeping him prisoner in a village till the boy escaped. Dheeraj paid a heavy price for his association with Radia. But Radia's aides insist that he was no more than an employee who resigned in 2002. He adds that they were soon "living like a family". Tejaswini, Kumar's wife, took the paper to court. It suggested that India's aviation policy was being influenced by the minister's relationship with Radia. A Kannada newspaper, Lankesh Patrike, at that point, wrote a story titled Anantana Monica (meaning Ananth's Monica), referring to the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky relationship. In case papers submitted to his lawyer, Rao Dheeraj Singh, a former employee and close friend whom she later fell out with, says she became "too involved with Mr Ananth Kumar and all the deals and contracts of the ministry were going through her'' (see box How to Use Friends and Influence People). During 1999-2000, she came close to the then Union Civil Aviation Minister Ananth Kumar through her spiritual guru, Vishwesha Teertha Swami, the pontiff of Sri Pejawar Mutt at Udipi in Karnataka. Bose was her pointman in her dream project, Crown Air. Anand helped her get KLM UK the possession of two of its aircraft from the Airports Authority of India, she spent many hours with his wheelchair-bound wife. Radia invested in the right people and made the extra effort when needed.
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