Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA)

  One Rupee, Piramal Finance, and the Ruins of DHFL: A Letter to Mr. Ajay Piramal Posted on 9th January, 2026 (GMT 03:55 hrs) ABSTRACT This open letter to Ajay Piramal interrogates the moral dissonance between Piramal Finance’s “Neeyat” advertising campaign, which celebrates honesty through the return of a single rupee, and the lived reality of DHFL depositors whose life savings were erased through a deeply contested insolvency process. By juxtaposing corporate virtue-signalling with the transfer of nearly ₹45,000 crore of DHFL assets for ₹1, the text argues that legality has been deployed to eclipse legitimacy, and branding to obscure accountability. Situating the DHFL resolution within a wider system of crony capitalism, opaque political financing, captured institutions, and manufactured consent, the letter frames the episode as part of a broader legitimation crisis in BJP-ruled India, where ethics are subordinated to power and proximity. At its core, the piece demands that ...

  Anatomy of Democratic Unmaking: An Open Letter on India’s Transparency, Human Rights, and Accountability Crises Posted on 9th December, 2025 (GMT 07:58 hrs) ABSTRACT Submitted by activists, whistleblowers, and citizens associated with Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA), this appeal documents a systematic regression in transparency, accountability, civic space, and human-rights protections in India from 2014 to 2025 under successive BJP-led governments. Key manifestations include: declining global rankings on corruption (CPI 96/180 in 2024), press freedom (151/180 in 2025), and rule-of-law indices; erosion of the RTI Act through 2019 amendments, administrative obstruction, and violence against hundreds of RTI activists; the impending GANHRI downgrade of the NHRC from “A” to “B” due to executive capture and neglect of systemic violations, exemplified by its handling of the opaque DHFL insolvency harming lakhs of small depositors; electoral-finance opacity via Electoral Bonds ...