Gautam Adani indicted in the US

In today’s newsletter:

• Gautam Adani indicted on US bribery charges

• A watershed Hong Kong national security trial

• The future of Mumbai’s biggest slum

Good morning. Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has been indicted in the US for an alleged multimillion-dollar bribery scheme.

Federal prosecutors in New York accused Adani of orchestrating a years-long scheme to bribe Indian officials in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of solar power contracts and concealing such payments from US banks and investors.

Adani, one of Asia’s richest people and a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was indicted in Brooklyn on charges including securities fraud and conspiracy alongside seven other business executives, including his nephew Sagar Adani.

The indictments threaten to reignite a public relations crisis for Adani Group, the conglomerate he chairs, which has spent much of last year trying to move past the damaging claims of accounting fraud and stock market manipulation made by US short seller Hindenburg Research.

Follow this developing story here. And for more on Adani scroll down to today’s in-depth piece, which looks at his controversial plan to redevelop Mumbai’s largest slum.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Hong Kong reports October inflation data.

• Pony AI’s New York IPO: Shares of the Chinese robotaxi company will begin trading on Nasdaq. (Reuters)

• Sri Lanka: The new parliament convenes, and leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is expected to outline his priorities in a policy speech. 

Five more top stories

1. Former media tycoon Jimmy Lai denied asking the US to intervene during Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-government protests, as he testified for the first time in a watershed national security trial that could land him in prison for life. Lai, a fierce critic of the Chinese Communist party, faces charges of colluding with foreign forces and conspiracy to publish seditious material.

• More from Hong Kong: A top executive at US hedge fund Bridgewater Associates has bought a $12.2mn home in one of the city’s most exclusive neighbourhoods, in a move that drew a round of applause at a finance conference in the territory.

2. Ukraine has launched British-made Storm Shadow missiles at military targets in Russia for the first time, according to four people familiar with the matter. The move follows Kyiv’s first use of US long-range Atacms missiles on Russian soil on Tuesday, after authorisation from US President Joe Biden. Here’s what to know about the attack.

• More news: The US and several European embassies in Kyiv have temporarily closed their doors after Washington received intelligence that Russia is planning a large-scale attack on the Ukrainian capital.

3. The US Department of Justice is expected to ask a judge to force Google to divest one or more of its core products, including its Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system, among the potential remedies to curb its power over online search. The requests come after Google was found in August to have illegally monopolised the search market.

4. Former Wall Street trader Bill Hwang has been sentenced to 18 years in prison, capping an extraordinary fall from grace for the Archegos founder who was convicted of fraud and market manipulation earlier this year. The judge in the case said Hwang’s actions warranted “serious punishment”, and compared the scale of his crimes to those of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried.

5. More than 40,000 people marched on the New Zealand capital this week, in a show of anger at a proposed overhaul of a treaty underpinning Maori rights. The protest demonstrated the deep divisions in New Zealand, where the political pendulum has swung away from the progressive policies championed by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern.

News in-depth

The future of Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, the famous setting for the 2008 hit film Slumdog Millionaire, has become a political flashpoint ahead of state elections this week. Opposition parties allege a contract to redevelop Dharavi was wrongly awarded to Gautam Adani, a powerful tycoon widely thought to have close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Residents of Dharavi are concerned about Adani’s plan to transform the area into a “world-class” district, which is expected to displace an estimated 700,000 of the roughly 1mn people who live there.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Delhi’s toxic smog: What Indian media primly labels the “winter haze” is a collective action problem, writes John Reed.

• Robotics revolution: Our latest visual story shows how advances in physical AI mean machines are learning skills previously thought impossible.

• Xi Jinping in Latin America: Two summit photographs serve as metaphors for the eclipse of the US by China in one of the world’s most resource-rich regions, writes Michael Stott.

Chart of the day

Aid deliveries to Gaza have plummeted since Israel’s invasion of Rafah in May and hit all-time lows in November. The shortages have led to an increase in looting by armed gangs who act with the tacit support of the Israeli military, officials say.

Take a break from the news

From navigating future crises and driving recovery in left-behind regions to the migration, digital currencies and the care economy, here are the year’s best economics books as selected by Martin Wolf.