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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Delhi hangs sword over NGOs -Ananya Sengupta

Delhi hangs sword over NGOs -Ananya Sengupta

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published Published on Jun 19, 2015   modified Modified on Jun 19, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Tweaks the home ministry has proposed to rules governing foreign funding for NGOs will leave these organisations at the mercy of the government's unilateral interpretations of what violates an undefined idea of "national interest", social activists have said.

More than the suggested new rules themselves, put up on the ministry website for feedback yesterday, it's the mandatory declaration proposed for NGOs at the end that critics have termed "dangerous" and "arbitrary".

It's been proposed that an NGO, during registration or licence renewal, must declare that it will not use any foreign funds received for any activity "detrimental to national interest, likely to affect prejudicially public interest, likely to affect prejudicially the security, strategic, scientific or economic interest of the state and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto".

No explanation of what constitutes "national interest" or "public interest" has been provided.

The existing Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 2011, require only a declaration that the NGO does not publish newspapers or produce broadcast material, has not been suspended or blacklisted by any government arm, and is not a political party. The amended version retains these guarantees.

Activist Venkatesh Nayak said the mention of "national interest" in the declaration and not the rules per se betrayed a "conspiratorial" attitude.

If it were in the rules, the Centre could be forced to provide definitions right away but now it could involve a long-drawn court battle, activists suggested. The ministry has set a tight deadline for feedback - July 1 - after which it would be entitled to notify the new rules any time.

Nayak, programme coordinator with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said the amendments were dangerous because "national interest" was increasingly being identified with "Hinduism".

Anjali Bharadwaj of Satark Nagrik Sangathan said: "In the absence of guidelines (explanations), the rules are arbitrary and can be used against any organisation that raises uncomfortable issues."

One of the proposed changes is that NGOs will have to make public - on their official website or one prescribed by the government - each foreign contribution of whatever amount within a week of its receipt. This is now done only at the end of the financial year and only for donations that exceeded Rs 1 crore.

Also, banks must inform the Centre within 48 hours about every foreign contribution to every NGO. The current deadline is 30 days and the rule applies only to foreign contributions exceeding Rs 1 crore in a single transaction or over 30 days.

NGOs must also submit details of any Facebook or Twitter account they operate.

While the activists did not oppose these rules in principle, they said there could be practical problems initially, allowing the government scope for harassment.

"It's scary. Is the government assuming that all civil society organisations are thieves?" asked Enakshi Ganguly of the Haq Centre for Child Rights.

North Block has shown unusual alacrity in drafting the amendments - just a month ago, Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, had written to home secretary L.C. Goyal to set up "without delay" a mechanism to monitor foreign funding of NGOs.

The NDA government has cracked down repeatedly on NGOs. Last year, it scrapped the registration of 10,117 NGOs at one go citing failure to file returns of foreign funds received.

It pulled a Greenpeace activist off an international flight and put the Ford Foundation of America on the watch list citing "national interest and security".

The Telegraph, 19 June, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150619/jsp/nation/story_26592.jsp#.VYOuSfkj55w


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