Signs that things are better: RIL director

Yogendra P Trivedi, an independent director of Reliance Industries, would have fallen on a stove at a tea stall had security men not created a ring around him in time.

Led by sound byte hungry TV crews, the entire media pounced on the Supreme Court advocate and tax consultant when he emerged from the Reliance Industries board meeting at Maker Chamber IV in Mumbai's central business district.

The media were desperate for information-it had expected Reliance Industries vice-chairman and managing director Anil Ambani to address them, as he did before entering the building for a Reliance Industries board meeting on a share buyback proposal.

But Anil Ambani had driven his Rover Ranger inside the building 10 minutes before the board meeting was scheduled to start at 10 am and left immediately after the meeting ended at 10.40 am without talking to the waiting journalists.

Trivedi had decided to walk across the street to go to his office at Atlanta building, bang opposite Maker Chamber IV. On December 27, when the Reliance Industries board last met, he'd gone in his car to avoid the media.

Trivedi would have been mobbed had not an experienced Reliance Industries executive quickly directed security personnel to form a ring around him. Even so, the media peppered him with questions all the way to his office at Atlanta building.

Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani avoided the media when he came in and neatly ducked waiting journalists by leaving through an "exit" gate (he'd done this on December 27 too).

The board meeting inside the building was a tame affair. Contrary to expectations, Anil Ambani did not make any statements to the board.

According to Trivedi, the audit committee discussed some compliance issues and then the board discussed and approved the third-quarter results.

"The results are very impressive. Everybody ""- shareholders, the government and banks ""- should be very happy with the second quarter numbers," he said.

Asked whether issues such as Reliance Industries' investment in Reliance Infocomm and Anil Ambani's resignation from Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd, a Reliance group company, were discussed, he said they were not because they were not part of today's agenda.

Later, talking to Business Standard at his office, Trivedi said that Anil Ambani left immediately after the meeting ended.

Other members of the board, including Trivedi, spent a bit more time "chatting and having tea."

Before the meeting, he added, the brothers exchanged pleasantaries. "I am an optimist and there are signs that things are looking better," he added.