Impact!💥 Vantara changes course

Some stories keep going long after they’ve been published.

In 2024, Himal published an investigation by the reporter M Rajshekhar into Vantara – the massive private wildlife project helmed by Anant Ambani, a son of India’s (and Asia’s) richest family. This was the first major investigation into Vantara, and it revealed how the project was amassing thousands upon thousands of animals, including rare and endangered species, while India’s laws and regulations on protecting wildlife and preventing animal trafficking were steadily weakened.

Last month, Vantara was back in the news again, this time for announcing an organisational overhaul that it has framed as a “voluntary reset” and the start of a “new chapter”. It has said it is suspending all animal imports until June 2027 and appointing the former head of CITES – the UN body that regulates international trade in endangered species – to chair a newly created governing council. It has also committed to setting up a dedicated fund for in-situ conservation, in contrast to its earlier approach of bringing more and more animals to its facilities in Gujarat.

Read the press coverage, and you’d think Vantara has generously chosen to reform itself, just out of goodness of heart. But that’s hardly the full picture.

The announcement took me and many others by surprise because, on the face of it, Vantara was free to keep doing business just as it had. It had won multiple big battles when challenged. As suspicions piled up following a slew of critical reports on the project from international media and advocacy groups, the Supreme Court of India granted Vantara a “clean chit” last year after a whirlwind inquiry lasting less than three weeks, with the inquiry report withheld from public view citing “commercial confidentiality”. After CITES recommended imposing an import suspension on Vantara a few months later, diplomatic pushback led by Indian authorities convinced the organisation to reverse its stance.

So why the sudden change? I don’t know the full answer – but here’s what I do know. Crucially, there were some battles that Vantara did not win.

One of these was its battle to make M Rajshekhar’s investigation disappear. In May 2025, Vantara dragged Himal to the Delhi High Court alleging that we were in contempt of court – an approach that avoided any judicial scrutiny of the investigation’s actual contents. We knew what Vantara expected: particularly in India, a long list of media outlets that had published even brief reports asking uncomfortable questions of the project had swiftly taken them down at the first hint of legal challenge. But we went to court to fight, and saw the case summarily dismissed. As we said at the time, we chose to stand by the investigation and “resist any attempts at intimidation or the suppression of journalistic freedom”. The story stayed up then and is still up now, a record of facts that Vantara never dared challenge in court.

That’s not to say the Himal investigation single-handedly forced Vantara to change. Our investigation was followed by a wave of global scrutiny from international media, advocacy groups and wildlife regulators asking where Vantara’s animals came from and who was verifying the legality of its sourcing. And many of them, like us, faced intimidation and legal threats but never folded. All of those are also battles that Vantara did not win.

Every one of those battles matters, and every one was a step closer to where we are today. Whether this “voluntary” change is about controlling reputational damage or a move to get ahead of future international scrutiny or something else, it’s the battles Vantara could not win that add up to mean it has, seemingly, lost the war – though only time will tell if its actions going forward will actually match its recent declarations.

And let’s not forget the family central to all of this, the Ambanis. This whole saga underscores their immense power: their ability to silence the Indian media is well known, their ability to sway bureaucrats, diplomats and even the courts a matter of widespread speculation. But it also demonstrates the power of independent investigative journalism, and how factual reporting can endure even as so much else can be “managed” or erased.

Speaking of which, we’ve got another incredible investigation coming very soon. Last month I’d written to you about an investigation we were just about to release on Nepal – but in light of the devastating flash flood that hit the country right afterwards, we chose to hold that piece back and focus instead on covering the disaster. We’ll now be releasing the story later this week, and I can promise you that it’s an incredible read. Watch your inbox for that one!

All best

Roman Gautam Editor Himal Southasian

“Why was Ahmad Zahir’s voice both familiar and intimate to ears like mine – ears accustomed to traditional melodies – and to thousands of other village boys, just as it was to those who had grown up in the city?”

Last week, I belatedly found my way to a piece by the Afghan essayist Younus Negah from June, remembering the legendary Ahmad Zahir on the anniversary of both his birth and his tragic, unsolved death. It sent me back in earnest to his songs, which I’d heard only some of with Afghan friends many years ago. After just a few days of exploration I’m not sure I’ve settled on any firm personal favourites, but I’m sharing a wistful tune that’s drawn me back a few times already. Needless to say, there’s a whole lot more where this came from.

As a newbie fan, I don’t have a lot I can tell you about the man and his times. But Younus does and has, and you should read the piece (published by Zan Times, a terrific and highly recommended publication on Afghanistan) to get you started. Here’s just a sample: “Ahmad Zahir was born in 1946 and died in 1979. He lived for 33 years, during three decades that formed one of the most beautiful chapters in Afghanistan’s contemporary history. Ahmad Zahir seemed to be a symbol of radiance and wonder.”