Govt puts major NGO funder Ford Foundation under watch

Bharti Jain

New Delhi:





The Centre on Thursday placed US-based Ford Foundation on its watch list for allegedly funding organizations not registered under the Foreign Contributions Registration Act 2010 and for other activities flagged by central intelligence agencies.This means that Ford Foundation, an old and generous contributor, cannot extend financial assistance to any organization or individual without clearance from the Union home ministry .
The action comes weeks af ter the Gujarat government sought action against the agency for “direct interference...in internal affairs of the country and of abetting communal disharmony“. The state government alleged two of the beneficiaries, Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice & Peace associated with activist Teesta Setalvad, were “proxy offices of Ford Foundation for a long-term plan“.
Official sources referred to alleged FCRA violations and denied that the action was part of efforts to squeeze the space for NGOs, many of them critical of the Centre on issues like environment, human rights and use of nuclear energy. The action against Ford Foundation follows tough approach towards other foreign-funded NGOs like Greenpeace.
“In exercise of powers conferred under Section 46 of FCRA, 2010, Reserve Bank of India is requested to instruct all banks...to ensure that any fund flow from the above mentioned agency to any person, NGO, organization in India may be brought to the notice of this ministry ,“ the home ministry directed in a letter to the RBI.
Responding to an email from TOI, Ford Foundation said it was unaware of the government's action but would “respond fully to offi cial queries directed to us“.Maintaining that the founda tion's activities were transparent and in the public domain, it said, “We have been and continue to be deeply respectful of the laws of the and and, therefore, of the process now underway . We are confident in our work and compliance with the law and ook forward to the outcome of this inquiry.“
Top home ministry officials, however, justified the action against Ford Founda tion, which through its Delhi office has so far made grants worth over $508 million to nearly 1,250 institutions in India-Nepal-Sri Lanka region. “Intelligence reports said the donor was funding non-FCRA registered organi zations. There were other allegations too. “Given that Ford Foundation was not doing due diligence while making donations...we invoked our powers under FCRA and followed due legal procedure to put it on the watchlist,“ the official told TOI.
“Government organizations can avail of foreign funding only with clearance of the department of economic affairs...Any instance of government organization receiving funds directly from this agency may be withheld and brought to the notice of this ministry ,“ said the letter.
Earlier this month, the government suspended the FCRA registration of Greenpeace India citing several irregularities. The move was slammed by Greenpeace and NGO activists alike.
“In any case, we are not blocking its funds but only subjecting them to scrutiny ...this will not affect bona fide activities of Ford Foundation in India as MHA processes for prior clearance do not take much time,“ said the official.
Ford Foundation is the 16th international donor to be put under watch by the government. Others include Greenpeace International, Climate Work Foundation and CORDAID.
Ford Foundation was on the radar of intelligence agencies for long, with alleged grants to India Against Corruption associated with the Anna Hazare movement being subjected to scrutiny .

Nov 20 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

India has world's largest number of voluntary givers

Mumbai: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Over 18Cr Indians Support NGOs By Giving Time, Resources

If “achhe din“ can be measured in terms of giving, India tops the charts when it comes to the largest number of volunteers anywhere in the world. Nearly 18.65 crore people in India support non-profit organizations (more popularly known as non-government organizations or NGOs) by volunteering their time and effort. In stark contrast, China, with only 6.8 crore volunteers, achieved a fourth place on this list.Compared with the previous findings relating to 2012, the number of Indians volunteering time has shot up by three percentage points as 29 million more people contributed their time during 2013.These findings were released by Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), an international nonprofit that compiles the World Giving Index annually .
India has climbed 24 places in its overall ranking of 69 out of the 135 countries that participated in the World Giving Index 2014 survey . This index looks at three measures of giving during 2013: The number of people who have given money to charity , volunteered their time or helped a stranger. In the previous year's survey , India's overall rank was 93. When it comes to the sheer number of participants in these acts of giving, India's booming population of over a 100 crore has shown that it has a large heart.
Nearly 40.9 crore Chinese went out of their way to help a stranger and China led the pack when it came to the largest number of people helping others. India, with 34.6 crore people doing so, came second.The percentage of people helping a stranger in India has increased by 10 percentage points, meaning 9.3 crore more Indians performed an act of kindness in 2013.
In fact, India, which was once noted for engaging in acts of non-institutional charity (especially at religious places or events) has increasingly begun to donate to NGOs. Despite having smaller adult populations than China, both India and the United States have more individuals donating money to charity .A total of 24.9 crore Indians donated to NGOs, followed by the US at 17.5 crore people and China at 14.8 crore.
While the proportion of people donating money in India has remained unchanged from the previous year (28%), population increase means that over four million more Indians are estimated to have donated money in 2013 than in 2012, says CAF India.
Meenakshi Batra, chief executive, CAF India, says: “The World Giving Index 2014 report shows an unprecedented growth in Indian generosity in recent years. With charities making more use of technology , people seem to be responding more quickly to appeals for help and natural disasters around the country .Let's hope this momentum continues.“

Jul 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

`Mind-boggling' number of NGOs in India: CBI

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





The CBI on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that the country has a ‘mind-boggling’ number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and counting them has become a difficult task as most do not file fund audit reports with authorities.Appearing for the CBI, additional solicitor general L N Rao told a bench of Justices H L Dattu, R K Agrawal and Arun Kumar Mishra that in West Bengal, there were around 2,34,000 NGOs but only 16,000, that is about 8%, had filed their audited reports on receipt of grants and expenditure.
The court had in September last year entrusted the CBI with the gigantic task of compiling information about all registered NGOs in the country, their funding and audit reports after advocate M L Sharma filed a PIL alleging irregularities in an NGO linked to social activist Anna Hazare.The CBI, through senior advocate K Radhakrishnan, told the court that ‘the infor
mation received so far from the states ran into lakhs of pages and the work involved is extremely voluminous’.The CBI said ‘no information has so far been received from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu in spite of reminders’.
The bench asked, “Has the CBI done anything about the NGOs which have been identified and data about whom have been compiled?” It said the CBI must find out how many of the NGOs have submitted audit report of their expenses. Rao sought three more months to complete the exercise. The bench agreed and asked the agency to compile the information sought by the court and file a report in three months.

Jun 12 2014 : The Economic Times (Mumbai)

Why India Shouldn't Fear Greenpeace





They also serve, the green fundamentalists

An Intelligence Bureau report has labelled Greenpeace a threat to India's economic security . It would be surprising if a report does not surface that claims that Amnesty International or India's own human rights organisations are a threat to internal security , concerned as they tend to be about the human rights of tribal people, convicts, putative terrorists and so on. Such assessments are one-sided, just as the reports of Greenpeace and human rights outfits tend to be. It is the job of the politician and public opinion to put things in balance, taking into account the skewed vision of these advocacy groups along with other concerns germane to society .Environmentalism, feminism and international concern for human rights and poverty removal are all things that started in the 1970s and have since gathered strength. Several organisations have sprung up to champion these causes. They influence politics and the public discourse and impact policy . In Germany , environmen talists have even formed a political party of their own. Greenpeace, Ac tion Aid, Amnesty International and the like are voluntary organisations that work across the world, draw their funding mostly from the rich countri es and draw volunteers in countries like India committed to the cause they represent. They serve an entirely legitimate purpose.
Their one-sided skew serves to compensate for another kind of one-sided skew that otherwise would drag social development away from the path that is desirable.
The point is not to demonise agencies like Greenpeace, but to appreciate and act on the sense in what they say .
Their huge grievance against coal should serve to mount pressure to adopt clean coal technologies, rather than to stop coal mining. Greenpeace had been among those agitating against the hazardous ship-breaking outsourced to India. This has helped bring in better regulation. The point is, in the absence of green fundamentalists, India would be a little too brown, grey and unhealthy than it ought to be and society would like it to be. Dissent and diversity of opinion work to the collective good, in short.