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Description of  ABSOLUTE POWER - Inside story of the National Stock Exchange s amazing success, leading to hubris, regulatory capture and algo scam.

In 1992, the Harshad Mehta scam led to profound changes in capital market regulation and infrastructure. One of these was setting up the NSE as a cleaner alternative to the century-old, scam- and faction-ridden BSE. In a supreme irony, NSE itself got embroiled in the algo scam originating in the Exchanges sanctum sanctorum: the co-location servers for high frequency trading. Were systems deliberately weak to allow unfair access to certain brokers? Did NSE employees collude with them? Who was responsible? Here is the whole story of NSEs commercial success leading to arrogance and fall from grace, even as it continues to remain a highly profitable near-monopoly. How NSE, set up by government-owned institutions, trounced the 100-year old BSE within two years to emerge as a transparent and efficient exchange platform. How NSE was involved in the Scam of 2001 but emerged unscathed How NSE launched its co-location services illegally in 2010 How SEBI allowed NSE to get away with repeated transgressions How SEBI stopped BSE from acquiring CAMS because of conflict of interest while allowing NSE to do just that. It then did an about turn in 2020 How NSE acquired a stake in Omnesys, the subsidiary of a brokerage firm, despite blatant conflict of interest with its role as first-line regulator How Chitra Ramkrishnas appointment as NSEs managing director in 2013 was manipulated and how she ran the Exchange like a private fief How NSE was repeatedly let off with a warning for serious violations such as fat-finger crash and client code modification How SEBI buried the algo scam by first asking NSE to fix responsibility, which it failed to do and then deliberately issuing weak show-cause notices. How the scandalous appointment and exit of Subramanian Anand was an egregious example of what was happening at the Exchange.