“BCCI HAS ALWAYS ACTED IN BETRAYAL, NOT FULFILLED ITS OBLIGATIONS AND PROMISES”

Sahara had raised the issue regarding significant reduction in the number of matches which was one of the most important basis and criteria for the bid, since 2011. BCCI had made pre-bid representations that 94 matches will be held in every season and then arbitrarily reduced the number of matches from 94 to 74 & then 76. Sahara had placed its bid for the IPL franchise based on the representations of BCCI which were false. The reduction in the number of matches has had a substantial financial impact due to the reduction in the central revenues under the Franchise Agreement.

This is not the only time that BCCI has treated Pune Warriors India with disdain and in an unfair manner.  Right from day one, when the rule of player retention was altered prior to IPL Season 4 (which was the 1st year of PWI in the League) all our requests for seeking a level playing field by having an Open Auction for the players were turned down. The original Franchise document of 2008 had a provision of Open Auction every three years. Hence, when constituting a new team we were deprived of the opportunity to bid for players of the likes of Sachin, Dhoni, Sehwag, Watson, Malinga etc.

The issue raised by BCCI in creating grounds for termination as non submission of Bank Guarantee seems like a desperate measure to cover for their non compliance of promises and obligations. Sahara has paid over Rs 1000 crore as Sponsorship fee for the Indian Team to BCCI since 2001 without any default ever. This is apart from the Franchise Fee for Pune Warriors which Sahara kept on paying since Year 1 despite being given false assurances of justice.

When Mr Subrata Roy Sahara himself wrote to the BCCI President expressing his concerns before the start of the last Season, the BCCI President chose not to respond himself, instead deputing his agency to send a denial for consideration. Mr Rajiv Shukla had met Mr Roy before Season 6 and assured him that all issues will be resolved and requested him to be patient. When the Season was on, the payment of the last installment for the Season was discussed and everytime Sahara was assured that the issue will be resolved and a mutually agreeable solution will be arrived at. However, again in stark contravention of the understanding and betrayal of trust, our Bank Guarantee was invoked. BCCI waited before conducting this act of betrayal because any such move midway through the tournament would have jeopardized their broadcaster commitments.  

Despite assurances given in a meeting between Mr. Subrata Roy Sahara and Mr N. Srinivasan, President – BCCI in February 2012, subsequent to which a joint media statement was issued whereby both parties agreed to start the arbitration proceedings to address Sahara’s claim for a reduction in franchise fee for 74 matches. However, in contravention of the understanding reached between the parties, no steps were taken by BCCI to address our long standing demand of the reduction of the Franchise Fee. In fact, far from starting the arbitration, BCCI has thwarted the process.

This made it evidently clear that BCCI did not want to honour their promises. Therefore due to non fulfillment of reciprocal obligations of BCCI and failure to keep its promises as given in Feb 2012, Sahara was left with no option but to hold back the Bank Guarantee till promises and obligations were fulfilled. But instead of fulfilling its promises and obligations, BCCI went ahead and terminated the Contract, though itself it is in breach.

As a promoter of sports, the insensitiveness towards our genuine concerns was very disheartening and this step though known, is unfortunate.

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PEACE SPEECH OF ‘SAHARASRI’ SUBRATA ROY SAHARA DURING SAHARA BALKAN PEACE FESTIVAL

Your Excellencies

Hon’ble Ministers

Distinguished Guests

Esteemed Journalist Friends

And our respectable elders and loving young ones who are witnessing this Peace festival live on Television Channels.

On behalf of Sahara Pariwar that is Sahara Family and myself I convey my thanks from the core of my heart that all of you have gathered here on our invitation.

This would not have been possible without the support and blessings of His Excellency President, Hon’ble Prime Minister, Hon’ble Dy. Prime Minister and their highly committed capable team of Republic of Macedonia.

I shall fail in my duties if I do not thank my senior colleague who is like a son to me; Shri Amreesh Chandra whose initiative has given shape to this peace festival.

As a promoter speaker I had to pass on this speech to our media friends in advance and also to facilitate  translation in 13 different languages so I have been asked to speak today verbatim that is same word by word whatever I have passed on to them.  So I have been asked to read out my lecture.

Today we have gathered to speak about and discuss peace.

Though it is Balkan Peace Festival, we are hoping that this message of peace will have a trickle effect and this initiative will actually be a message of Global Peace for the entire planet.

Although, I have already passed on my thoughts on Peace to all of you through more than 1800 words write up appearing in the Peace festival brochure which is already with you all, I still want to say something here in the presence of this August gathering for the great purpose.

For our external personality, that is, our body, food and water keeps it energetic, active and healthy, but for our internal personality that is the spiritual personality, that is for our mental body, the food is peace and happiness for giving us best quality mental health with lots of strong will power and positive energy always seen as active optimism.

Every human wants always to have a happy and satisfied life.

But no life can be happy and satisfied without a peaceful state of mind.  Happiness chases peace, but peace does not chase happiness.  Peace has to be in a person’s life and all around him.  Peace in his immediate family, peace in his neighbourhood, peace in his work place, peace in his city, peace in his country…. and so on.

Here in this peace festival if we only talk about peace between two countries, that is if we talk and discuss about war between the countries, I fear we shall reach nowhere, we won’t be able to achieve peace in the life of individual human beings for a long term or most desirably life long.  This is not about only stopping war, its about choosing PEACE.  WE CHOOSE PEACE OVER WAR.

Any country is not a human being in itself.  Country’s body and face is the combined and collective faces of people of the country, however, few human beings sit at the helm of affairs and take all decisions for the country.

If I talk about Macedonia, it is a very wonderful and a very peaceful country.  The first time when I had come here, on the first day itself our Hon’ble Prime Minister and Hon’ble Dy. Prime Minister, myself and my son roamed around in the main market area for almost 30 minutes to finalise a correct site for Mother Teresa’s statue.  To my pleasant surprise there were no security personnel’s as such accompanying us!

Gradually over a period of time, in this peaceful country, I interacted with various kinds of people from different walks of life and I found everyone very peace loving, law abiding and ethical.  I must appreciate everybody in the Government and Government machinery because we have not seen or felt any indication or even a desire of even one Euro. A wonderful and quite unbelievable corruption free Government and Government machinery.  So it is a very right thing happening that Sahara Balkan Peace Festival is starting in a beautiful, wonderful and peaceful country that is Macedonia.

When we talk about peace, compassion and humanity two names come immediately to mind.  Shri Mahatma Gandhi who is the symbol of Non Violence, no words and sentences can describe his unbelievably great personality.  Another great name is Mother Teresa.  I am really fortunate that I knew her personally, very closely and I can try to describe her in a number of pages, but truly speaking even after knowing her so closely I cannot describe that great personality in words and sentences.   Mother Teresa’s birth place is Macedonia.  Well, what a coincidence that first peace festival is happening in birth place of Mother Teresa.  What a wonderfully lovely feeling it is.

It is human beings everywhere who are instrumental in bringing about peace or violence.  In any country is Government or Government machinery, religious groups, sects or different kind of organisations, the human beings who are given leadership at various levels are responsible for Peace or Violence.  All such people out of ignorance about fundamentals of life, indulge foolishly in violence and in turn invite irritation, tensions, dejections, disappointments, dissatisfactions etc. in future in their own lives too.  May be at any moment of time some individual in a leadership position plans, thinks and initiates within a narrow limited vision; may be he does it out of greed, but he cannot visualise or does not have clarity about knowledge of life or about the future when he shall have to reap poison for his today’s wrong action or reaction seeds which he has sown.

I shall humbly request all of you here to kindly spare some time to read out my thoughts on peace which appear in the brochure of Sahara Balkan Peace Festival already handed over to you.  Two sets of the write-up together will give clarity to this thought of Peace.  So here today I am not making a long speech by explaining about the philosophical, that is psychological, or emotional aspect of life, in other words realities of life with which we are born with and we live with.

One very important point is that EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS A VERY STRONG COMPETITIVE INSTICT. A

human always wants to be victorious and finds enjoyment in defeating others. That used to be one of the principal reasons in the olden days that strong or weak Kings, used to continuously fight.  There used to be continuous small and big wars.  People under the winner Kings used to imagine their Kings as Heroes and used to satisfy their own strong competitive instincts through their winner Kings.  Ofcourse, material gain also used to be a principal reason for such fights and wars, but now by maximising own production and development through scientific ways and with peaceful import and export trade no material gains are really achieved by winning any war.  The truth is in today’s war nobody is a winner.  The price of a war has to be paid by both the sides.  So we should think, understand and discuss about satisfaction of humans strong competitive instinct to feel like a winner hero of some kind of battle.

Gradually sports have taken that place.  We satisfy our strong competitive instincts through the players who win laurels in the international arena.

I strongly feel and I want to strongly advocate that sports should be taken very strongly and very seriously by every country.  We should further try to make it more competitive, more interesting by introducing several incentives between countries. For example loser country will have to make a small hospital at their cost in the land of the winner countries. In Olympics or in such inter country sports marks for events could be given to the winners, which shall decide which country gives more import orders and which of them gets more export orders etc. etc.  Very active sports which are mentioned here can help tremendously to maintain harmonious relationship that is peace amongst the countries.

My humble proposal to Balkan region countries is to initiate in a big way and on a regular basis various discipline inter country games, sports tournaments etc.  Inter country competition of cultural events should also be introduced actively and if you all agree then kindly introduce incentives, may be small – small incentives for winner countries for different events.

This way countries will speed it up and acquire and aggressively do all kinds of good research and massive productions for sports items and for development of energy and skill of sports persons and then gradually and drastically reduce the concentration or focus on research and development of arms and ammunitions.  We should introduce in these tournaments various kinds of old and new highly skilled strong and thrilling adventure sports which excites human mind a lot and shall satisfy competitive instincts quite strongly.

We should always remember that human beings always want to live their lives with domination of positive characteristics in their mental body system provided they get good human environment where they get justice and fair treatment and where they can always get food, clothes and shelter comfortably and get a chance for their continuous growth and prosperity.  As human is born with positive  as well as negative characteristics, if there is injustice, discrimination all round with a tough, insecured life under wrong, corrupt leaderships, human being’s negative characteristics dominate their actions, reactions and all expression which culminates into disillusionment, dejection, disappointments, dissatisfaction, fights and battles.

So leaders of all levels should always always take care to provide good human environment as the highest priority so that majority of the people always enjoy domination of positive characteristics in their actions – reactions and in all expression which is always a natural and probably the strongest urge of may be 99% people.  Because every humans basically always desire and enjoy a peaceful life.

Another very important aspect to be considered is the high growth of population.  A human-being's 'I' or self is very dominating. He is born with it. So a high density of population creates all kinds of confusions, people lose their peace of mind because everybody desires a good existence. Say, for example in a room, there are 5 people who are very comfortable with total peace of mind and in the same room, there are 50 people who all lose their peace as they fight because a human’s natural strong instinct is for proper existence; they fight as to who among them shall get a chance to sit on a chair or the carpet and who may not even get a place to stand?

This problem of density of population becomes very grave if a big section remains illiterate, uneducated and afflicted with malnutrition, they don't live in peace and they also affect the peace of others around them. It implies that poverty and unemployment, coupled with illiteracy and no education of life, become a large hindrance to the peace of human mind that craves for the fulfilment of basic needs of health and survival, the lack of which creates unhappiness, disillusionment & fuzziness in the mind.

I do not have the details, but Macedonia has lower density of population.  My short term – long term suggestion to the country is to take all measures possible to always control this population density.  We should also understand that the poor class of people solely for pleasure indulge in free sex with a psychology that if there are more children, there shall be more hands to earn parent’s old age.  Such children in hutments remain a mass of bone and flesh without quality development of mental faculty.  So Government should define through law the ideal family size and an ideal family’s children should get all benefits, special facilities of 1^st grade citizen.  Parents out of domination of their ‘I’ that is the self, will choose the right path for their children.  Parents who do not follow ideal family definition of law of parliament shall lose all benefits and facilities for their children and should also lose the right to vote.  Always remember country’s constitution is written for the welfare of people and for the welfare of people today constitution should be amended as per today’s need of the masses.

Another point - Media is playing a bad role because newspapers, channels etc. mainly talk about negative happenings and give negative news of quarrels, murders, rapes etc. etc. This gradually puts human beings in a confined emotional sphere which always leads to enhanced demand of SELF, without considering other peoples genuine point of view and also leads to a situation where there is no peace of mind.  If there is curfew in the city people get confined in their rooms.  Similarly negative news sub-consciously and unconsciously forces human mind to get confined; meaning absolute self centeredness which causes all sort of problems like corruption and quarrels in the society.  So media should be forced to cut down negative stories and add more positive, encouraging news stories.

Well, at the end, I shall tell few things that God has given us, Brain, Mind, Heart & Soul with a very strong thinking power. We can achieve anything and everything with the aid of these faculties.

People all around the world who are in important, big or small leadership positions should be educated rather they need to be convinced for their peace of mind and only then we can expect all round peace for mankind.

This peace festival is initiated in Balkan region and shall be staged every year.  In next 12 years 12 Peace Festivals shall be staged.  Something has generated so much of high respect in me for the Balkan region after I heard 2 days back that 3 countries have already approached very enthusiastically and strongly to stage and host this peace festival next year.  Balkan region countries can become front runners for World Peace.  It will be the greatest contribution to the world.  Balkan region’s future generations shall feel extremely proud seeing their name written in golden letters in the History of the world. But for that you have to think and decide with confidence and practice everything mentioned here with new and right thoughts coming from positive brain storming sessions and show the path and set an example to the whole world in the coming years.

With kind regards to everybody

Subrata Roy Sahara

Managing Worker & Chairman

Sahara India Pariwar

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Historic Sahara Balkan Peace Festival organized by Sahara India and Government of Macedonia brought World Leaders come together for Peace

Skopje, October 7, 2013: The Government of the Republic of Macedonia and Sahara India Pariwar, had organised the first ever ‘Sahara Balkan Peace Festival’ in Skopje, Macedonia, the land of Mother Teresa. The two day festival was organised on 2^nd October the International Day of Non Violence celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The event aimed at bringing Balkan countries on one platform to pledge for World peace and will be organized every year in one of the Balkan countries on rotation basis.

The first ‘Sahara Balkan Peace Festival’ witnessed the gracious presence of Former Prime Minister of the U.K., Mr. Tony Blair along with His Excellency the President, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, President of Assembly and the entire cabinet of Republic of Macedonia, Lords and Baroness of England, along with diplomatic representation of World Bank, IFC as well as 8 countries including USA, UK, European Union, France, Qatar and Balkan countries like Croatia, Turkey Serbia.

The first ‘Sahara Balkan Peace Festival’ began on 1^st October, 2013 with a celebration at the Main City Square of Skopje, the scenic capital of the Republic of Macedonia, Europe. The event graced by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and the members of the Cabinet of Macedonia had glittering display of children’s performance by government promoted SOS orphan village, and India’s leading Shaimak Dawar and his Dance Company and fireworks which special performances designed for the event and was marked by lighting all the building of the square in blue, the color of Peace.

On 2^nd October the festival proceeded with the Peace Conclave organized to initiate a dialogue for global peace. The conclave is attended by Mrs. Chandni Roy of Sahara India Pariwar, Mohini Lady Noon, Chairperson of LILY Foundation; Lord Patel of Bradford OBE, Osmo Vatres, President of the Balkan Club of Peace, Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC PC, Former attorney general of the United Kingdom and a highly respectable Politician of the Labour Party in United Kingdom, Lord Noon of St. Johns wood MBE, Mr. Patrick McGhee and Mr. Arun Harnal with hundreds of delegates.

The festival was concluded with a summit at the newly build National Opera House of Macedonia. The event was marked by the lectures of Mr. Tony Blair, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Mr. Nikola Gruevski Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Subrata Roy Sahara and EDV & Peace - Baroness Scotland of Asthal, PC, QC on the topic of World Peace. The august summit was attended by eminent dignitaries from across the world.

Former British Premier and Chief Guest of the Peace Summit Mr. Tony Blair, in his address said, “The true difference today is between the open minded ones and the closed mind ones, between those who see the world led by the opportunities for connecting and globalization and those who want to close themselves and isolate from such globalization and see the things that connect us as a threat. I am not a pessimist for the world that we live in. I am always an optimist and I believe that we can always find the strength in ourselves and overcome the challenges”.

In the summit His Excellency Mr. Nikola Gruevski, Prime Minister of Republic of Macedonia, said, “We live in times when peace is interrupted in many parts of the world. Even today many societies are facing times of crises, crises of ethics, cultural descents and contorted values that produce violence that every normal person is horrified. But, that shouldn’t hesitate us. That doesn’t mean that we should give up or hold up. The people that are in the middle of these conflicts need help. Where weapons rule, reasons can’t reach. Let us recall the words of our greatest humanitarian Mother Teresa, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls”.

While speaking in Summit ‘Saharasri’, Subrata Roy Sahara, Managing Worker & Chairman, Sahara India Pariwar, said, “For our external personality, that is, our body, food and water keeps it energetic, active and healthy, but for our internal personality that is the spiritual personality, that is for our mental body, the food is peace and happiness for giving us best quality mental health with lots of strong will power and positive energy always seen as active optimism.

Every human wants always to have a happy and satisfied life.

But no life can be happy and satisfied without a peaceful state of mind.  Happiness chases peace, but peace does not chase happiness.  Peace has to be in a person’s life and all around him.  Peace in his immediate family, peace in his neighbourhood, peace in his work place, peace in his city, peace in his country…. and so on.

Here in this peace festival if we only talk about peace between two countries, that is if we talk and discuss about war between the countries, I fear we shall reach nowhere, we won’t be able to achieve peace in the life of individual human beings for a long term or most desirably life long.  This is not about only stopping war, its about choosing PEACE. WE CHOSE PEACE OVER WAR.

Any country is not a human being in itself.  Country’s body and face is the combined and collective faces of people of the country, however, few human beings sit at the helm of affairs and take all decisions for the country.

It is human beings everywhere who are instrumental in bringing about peace or violence.  In any country is Government or Government machinery, religious groups, sects or different kind of organisations, the human beings who are given leadership at various levels are responsible for Peace or Violence.  All such people out of ignorance about fundamentals of life, indulge, initiate or become instrumental foolishly in violence and in turn invite irritation, tensions, dejections, disappointments, dissatisfactions etc. in future in their own lives, too.  May be at any moment of time some individual in a leadership position plans, thinks and initiates within a narrow limited vision; may be he does it out of greed, but he cannot visualise or does not have clarity about knowledge of life or about the future when he shall have to reap poison for his today’s wrong action or reaction seeds which he has sown. Poison of future is not only for him but for the people of the country.

Well, at the end, I shall tell few things that God has given us, Brain, Mind, Heart & Soul with a very strong thinking power. We can achieve anything and everything with the aid of these faculties.

Balkan region countries can become front runners for world peace. It will be greatest contribution to the world.”

Under the auspices of the Festival, the Champions of Peace Award has also been conferred to Mr. Jeremy Gilley Hollywood actor and founder of Peace One Day Foundation for his efforts for Global Peace, especially his initiatives through Foundation and his astounding awareness campaign held in Hague on the 21st of September, 2013. The award was given by ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy Sahara to Mr. Jeremy Gilley. 

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Sahara Welfare Foundation awarded with Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practices by Asian Leadership Awards at Dubai

Lucknow, September 30, 2013: Sahara Welfare Foundation has been awarded the “Corporate Foundation with Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practices” in a glittering Asian Leadership Awards ceremony held at Dubai. Sahara Welfare Foundation was presented with this prestigious award on the basis of CSR work undertaken by the Sahara Group in uplifting the lives of underprivileged in the country and for the humanitarian work being done under the VEDAS (Village Esteem Development Adoption by Sahara) project. This is the first international award that Sahara Welfare Foundation has received as an organisation.

Speaking on the occasion, Smt. Kumkum Roy Choudhury, Executive Director Worker, Sahara India Pariwar, said “Sahara India Pariwar has always been committed in extending support under the aegis of Sahara Welfare Foundation to the needy and underprivileged in the country. This award is the recognition of our incessant efforts towards mainstreaming the lives of the helpless and underprivileged people. In fact, it’s the firm conviction of ‘Saharasri’ Subrata Roy Sahara, Managing Worker & Chairman, Sahara India Pariwar that every organization, along with its own development and progress should also contribute towards the cause of the society and the nation at large. This international award will surely act as a catalyst in boosting us with even more confidence to continue our endeavours for the betterment of mankind.”

The Asian Leadership Awards happens to be a leading industry event, recognizing and rewarding outstanding achievements in sustainability in the built environment and are a key benchmark for achieving best practices in the sector. These Awards are endorsed by the Asian Confederation of Business as well as World CSR Day. Over 20 categories under the Asian Leadership Awards recognize the achievements made by selected high profile corporate business leaders in Asia and honour their great contributions towards the country’s post-recession economic development.

Notes to the Editor

Sahara India Pariwar is a major business conglomerate in India with operations in multiple sectors, including financial services, life insurance, mutual funds, housing finance,  infrastructure & housing, print and television news media, entertainment channels, cinema production, consumer merchandise retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, sports, and information technology.

Sahara India Pariwar has always been prompt in its services towards the nation and its nationals who have sacrificed their lives at the altar of nationalism. Sahara India Pariwar’s commitment to Social Welfare is evident from the fact that 25% of its profits every year are dedicated towards social development activities. In fact, it’s the firm conviction of the Chief Guardian of Sahara India Pariwar, Hon’ble Saharasri, Subrata Roy Sahara that every organization, along with its own development and progress should also contribute towards the cause of the society and the nation at large.

Sahara also works on various Health programmes, including Mobile Healthcare Units, under which 52 medical vans across the country are running 30 days a month, throughout the year, taking free primary healthcare services to the remotest rural areas where medical services do not exist. Besides this, Sahara also works on various programs on Nutrition, Literacy, Vocational Training, Civic Development, Behavioural Change, Communication and Rehabilitation of the Physically Challenged People.

Under its Disaster Management initiatives, Sahara has always stood up in the need of the hour of the country, be it super cyclone of Orissa, earthquake in Gujarat, drought in Rajasthan or floods in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Sahara has adopted Bhimasar-Chakasar village in Taluka Anjar, District Kutch for relocation, rehabilitation and reconstruction of the village along with basic amenities, panchayat ghar, bus stop, post office, play ground, primary and secondary school and street lights. When the devastating earthquake hit Latur district of Maharashtra, Sahara India Pariwar came forward to rehabilitate the earthquake stricken citizens of the region and also developed a cluster of earthquake houses in Killari Village in Latur, The houses were handed over to the villagers by Reverend Mother Teresa.

Sahara is also providing monthly financial assistance is also provided to the families of the Martyrs of the Mumbai Nov '08 terror attack, Dantewada Massacre and to the families of Kargil War Martyrs. Today, it provides, monthly financial assistance to 320 families of martyrs.

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