According to <b>Madhu Badhuri of NGO Parivartan</b>, which has been in the forefront of the awareness campaign on RTI Act, the working of the CIC and the way it has drawn a "most objectionable" programme to mark the first year of the implementation of the RTI Act has shocked the activists.
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Whatever happened to <b>Sandeep Pandey's fast unto death</b> on the RTI issue. ZeeNews had him with the bunch booing at President Kalam. Shouldn't they be booing Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan on this? Why President Kalam?
Note the bunch:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Prominent among them included social activist Anna Hazare, former Chief Election Commissioner T. S. Krishnamurthy, former Governor P. C. Alexander, Magsaysay awardee and social activist <b>Sandeep Pandey</b>, human rights activist <b>Nandita Haksar </b>and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
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Sandeep Pandey hasn't answered some basic question put on this forum for about 2 years now by ex donors of ASHA and AID.
And he's fighting for 'right to information' - la irony.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->VHP, Bajrang were not quizzed
Â
Mumbai, Oct. 14: Most speakers at a seminar on âMalegaon Bomb Blasts: Who is to Blame?â felt the police would never get at the truth because of its one-sided attitude: it never investigates organisations like the Bajrang Dal, VHP or RSS.
Justice Kolse Patil referred to the haul of 195-kg of RDX in Ahmednagar town on September 2 and the strange facts around this affair. âThe man whose godown had stocked this was found dead on September 10 and an employee of his was absconding,â he said, adding, âThe one-sided attitude of the police and administration itself was proof that the truth would not be arrived at.â
Lyricist <b>Javed Akhtar </b>said the police officers investigating the Malegaon blasts were quick to rule out the possibility that the bombs might have been the handiwork of the Bajrang Dal, which has been active in the Marathwada region. âDoes RDX have a special stamp establishing its link to Muslims,â Mr Akhtar asked. Referring to the SMS circulating since 7/11 that said âEvery Muslim is not a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim,â he asked whether Naxalites, Maoists, ULFA and LTTE militants were all Muslims. âAre those responsible for the Gujarat riots just firemen then,â he asked.
<b>The meeting had been jointly organised by the Maulana Azad Research Centre, Malegaon; National Awakening for Development of Youth, Malegaon; Communalism Combat; Citizens for Justice and Peace; and Muslims for Secular Democracy. </b>Maulana Azhari said he was in favour of keeping a close watch on SIMI. However, he demanded that the police also keep an equally close watch on the activities of the VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS.
<b>Ms Teesta Setalvad,</b> co-editor of Communalism Combat, said, âMany questions need to be answered, and one issue is that even the VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS were making bombs and were responsible for bomb blasts in mosques in 2004 and 2005. <b>We are not trying to say Muslims are not involved in bomb blasts, but an investigating agency cannot close its eyes and ears to Hindu organisations creating another kind of terror</b>. <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> We have a right to ask them.âÂ
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<b>About 100 NGOs suspended in Russia </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->MOSCOW - Russia brushed aside U.S. objections Thursday and forced nearly 100 foreign non-governmental organizations, including leading human rights groups, to suspend operations for missing a deadline for re-registration under a tough, new law.
Those who had to stop work included Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have been persistent critics of President    Vladimir Putin, and some accused the authorities of deliberately keeping them in legal limbo.
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India should do same.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Partners in terror </b>
Pioneer.com
Utpal Kumar
It is bewildering to see human rights organisations queuing up to get Afzal's death sentence commuted. But they turn a blind eye to the fact that many of Delhi blast victims are yet to get compensation even a year after the dastardly act
When it was reported a few years ago that more than <b>800 NGOs in the North-East, excluding Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, were having links with insurgent outfits operating in the region, it sent shockwaves across the country</b>. After all, the organisations that were expected to apply the "healing touch" to the victims of insurgency were themselves co-partners in the acts of terror. Several incidents since then have reaffirmed the perception that a clear nexus exists between terrorists and the organisations masquerading as service-providers in the social sectors. The extent to which the NGO culture has permeated the region is evident from a fact that there is an NGO for every 263 people in Meghalaya. <b>Indeed, 'social service' is turning out to be a thriving business in the North-East!</b>
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising when one witnesses a strong movement in favour of Mohammed Afzal Guru, the mastermind of the terrorist attack on Parliament House - <b>and not a single one to hold a candle to the memory of the victims of last year's Delhi blast. Many of the next of kin of those killed, and several of the injured are yet to get Government compensation</b>. For Medha Patkar, a death sentence for Afzal is a reflection of "terrorism by the establishment". While agitating in New Delhi recently, she bemoaned: "Those who killed hundreds in Gujarat are roaming free and innocents are being punished." She continued, "Had Ms (Arundhati) Roy and others not stood up in support of Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani, he too would have been wrongly convicted in the Parliament attack case -the entire judicial system needs overhauling." As if all this was not enough, she said that Afzal's execution would "widen the rift between communities".
Two points emanate from <b>Ms Patkar's assertion. First, Afzal has been falsely implicated by the state in collusion with the judiciary. Second, death for Afzal will endanger the delicate balance of Hindu-Muslim unity.</b> Can there be anything more sinister than questioning the very legal system of the country? Why did this "liberal" brigade not raise a single voice when Geelani was acquitted by the court on the basis of lack of evidence? Incidentally, when <b>Ms Patkar was giving this high-pitched tirade against the state machinery, she was accompanied by no other than the Delhi University professor, who too was earlier accused of masterminding attack on the heart of Indian democracy.</b>
The Patkar-Roy phenomenon is not alone in taking on the anti-establishment mettle. <b>Noted Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande, too, was present at the gathering to oppose Afzal's death penalty.</b> It is ironical to find a Gandhian sitting comfortably with the NBA leader who has claimed the other day that she is "left-of-the-centre" and wants to make a "third front" of grassroots NGOs, students, slum-dwellers, workers and farmers, Maoists and even "the mainstream Left". <b>After all, it were the Marxists who often derided Mahatma Gandhi as the "lackey of imperialism" before Independence. It shows how much Gandhism has slipped into the fold of Marxism.</b>
This transformation in Gandhism is not a recent phenomenon.<b> In 2003, Ms Deshpande went on a visit to the US with the single-point agenda of lodging a protest against the US for not taking punitive measures against India for showing "complicity" with Hindu rioters in Gujarat. Not quite satisfied with this, she went ahead to say that Pakistan's Parliament is much better than its Indian counterpart, as 24 per cent women are given representation there!
Without going into the debate of the Gujarat Government's role in the post-Godhra killings, can Ms Deshpande's activities outside the Indian shores be justified? Doesn't her adventurism - or misadventurism - belong to a realm which even hardcore nihilists don't dare to tread? In a way, she showed the same distrust towards her country and its democratic institutions that has often been displayed by the brigade of "global citizens".</b>
A well-known sociologist, James Petras, writes in his article, NGOs in the service of imperialism: "Throughout history ruling classes, representing small minorities, have always depended on the coercive state apparatus and social institutions to defend their power, profits and privileges.<b> In the past, particularly in the Third World, imperial ruling classes financed and supported overseas and domestic religious institutions to control exploited people and deflect their discontent into religious communal rivalries and conflicts. While these practices continue today; in more recent decades, a new social institution emerged that provide the same function of control and ideological mystification the self-described non-governmental organisation (NGOs)." He further adds that by the end of 1999, there were 50,000 NGOs in the Third World, receiving over $10 billion in funding from international financial institutions, European-US-Japanese Government agencies and local Governments</b>.
A Home Ministry report suggests that Delhi (Rs 857 crore) receives the most of financial assistance, followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 800 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs 684 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 529 crore). The US leads in the list of donor countries (Rs 1584 crore), followed by Germany (Rs 757 crore) and the UK (Rs 676 crore). <span style='color:red'>Interestingly, among the top 25 recipients, about 18 are in some way linked with Christian organisations.</span>
There is no doubt that there are several NGOs in the country that are doing good job for the uplift of the poor and downtroddens. This, however, does not obfuscate the fact that many are hand-in-glove with anti-social elements. The country needs a Russia-like Bill that enables the Government to shut down NGOs found threatening the country's sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, national unity and originality, cultural heritage and national interests. The powers-that-be must closely look into the financial transactions of NGOs in the country.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â <b>Govt to scan foreign funds to NGOs </b>
Arijit Sen
CNN-IBN
Posted Friday , November 10, 2006 at 22:21 Email Print
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the Foreign Contribution Management and Control Bill that seeks to restrict NGOs and other organisations from receiving foreign funding.
The Government says some of the NGOs are being used to route funds for terror outfits and some are re-routing funds for private purposes.
<b>The approval simply means that the 32,000 NGOs and the Rs 7,000 crore foreign funding they have will now be under the scanner.</b>
It also means that Tsunamika, the doll that spread a lot of hope and was a symbol of strength to the families that lost all to the waves of destruction in December 2004, may not have the same strength to fight back the new Government law.
The Foreign Contribution Management and Control Bill plans to closely watch every penny coming into an NGO in India.
According to the Bill, all foreign donors need to be first cleared by the state before they can fund an NGO. The Government can refuse and cancel registration of NGOs if they do not use the foreign funds for development work.
Banks will now have to share information about an NGOs account. "<b>The old Act was more than adequate. It does not show its teeth. And when it does, see carefully and you will find that the whole purpose is to reduce the democractic space available for civil society work," says Country Director of Action Aid, Babu Mathew</b>.
The Prime Minister, not long ago, mentioned civil society should be strengtned to strengthen democracy.
But this proposed act which is supposed to give more teeth to NGOs actually has split them into two distinct groups - one which supports it and the other which thinks its repressive and anti-democractic.
<b>"It's the country's way of making sure that the right kind of money comes in and goes to the right kind of people and used in the right way," says Media Coordinator for Oxfam, Aditi Kapoor.</b>
The new Bill, which is likely to be introduced in the Winter Session of Parliament is for putting civil society organisations and the Goverment at loggerheads.
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<b>Jamboree called âIndia Social Forum</b>â <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>NGO Scenario in India . </b>
Understand, over 32000 NGOâs are registered in India , of whom around 10% are committed in serious work in their respective fields. As many as 500 NGOâs are funded by foreign money to a tune of Rs 7200 Crores as per the statistics made available from Ministry of Home affairs for the year 2005, most of these NGOâs are run by Christian minorities for so called charitable activities. A revised FEMA act pending since 2004 is being brought in for discussions in the winter secessions of the Parliament and is likely to get node. The new act is likely to tighten the flow of money coming into India on garb of social work and being used for funding conversions and separatist movement in NE .
<b>The funding of Narmada Bachao Andolan is under scrutiny, understand, a multinational involved in selling Nuclear power plants, is funding it through itâs endowment</b>. Similarly <b>there was a guy by name Dr Iswar Gilada in Mumbai, who came in for scrutiny for operating a NGO Indian Health Organisation(IHO). His modus operandi would be to magnify the AIDs epidemic in India , by getting the high & mighty from the west, especially Hollywood stars to Faraâs road, a red light area of Mumbai and make good money out of the donations received towards AIDâs awareness program. He came up for scrutiny when he convinced the western world that India has the worldâs largest HIV /AIDâs infected people. Subsequently World Health Organization & Union Heath ministry stepped in to do a correct estimation, in the year 2005 the numbers were put at 5.1 million, not as much, he claimed in excess of 10s of millions, way back in late 90âs</b>.
Some of the NGOâs offer very good salary and perks, I had one offer to head a program, it carried handsome salary and perks, which, I never could imagine while serving the Govt.<b> Those NGOâs, who depend on Govt funds, are as corrupt as Govt functionaries, in reality, these NGOs are used for siphoning the funds under various welfare programs. The most notorious ministries are Women & Child welfare, Health, HRD & Environment ministries, one can form a bogus NGO and prepare a good project report and share the booty with the Govt officials</b>.
Interestingly the left Parivar of social activists are now funded by endowments of Multinationals, earlier the left frontal organizations were paid by the money siphoned from Indo-Russia trade. The so called tobacco & tea barons regularly paid a percentage to left frontal organizations & Congress party. The Russians also used its cultural wings to support the Left organizations logistically.
The demise of Soviet Union , made these frontal organizations adopt to the change, now they do not hesitate in taking funds from the West.
...............
Yesterday, the CPI students union AISF was on the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium grounds waving its organizational flags and was celebrating the victory of democrats in US election to Senate and Congress. It was a hilarious sight to watch them celebrating democrats win. Perhaps gladdening the hearts of the endowments in US closer to democrats to fund their future activities.
The opening ceremony was addressed by Hannan Ashrawi (from Palestine ), Medha Patekar, Ruth Manorama, Subhashini Ali, Tulsi Mai Munda, Radhika Kumaraswamy (from Sri Lanka ) and Shubha Mudgal. Participants include Aruna Roy, Subhasini Ali, V P Singh, Medha Patkar, Jean Dreze, Aijaz Ahmed, Chiko Whitaker, Imtiaz Ahmed, Swami Agnivesh Vivan Sundaram, Gita Hariharan, Ratan Thiyam, Girish Karnad and Dr Vandana Shiva. Apart from hundreds of other specialists, so called social scientists, academicians, and activists belonging to left will pass on sermons of there relevance in 21st century. <b>The above named luminaries are well know to us as pseudo secularists, hell bent on their agenda of divisive politics and balkanizing India</b>
<b>Conclusion </b>
The left Parivar has found ways and means of being relevant in the modern times, by hijacking the NGO movement through. organizing Undri & Sundry under one umbrella.
The Need of the hour is to starve them of funds and make them irrelevant, simultaneously, highlighting the sincere NGOâs having core social purpose, who unfortunately account for only 10% of the present NGO corps.
I wonder how much New Delhi Municipal Corporation is going to spend in clearing the muck left behind by the free brigade, as it was evident at Mumbai meet of 2003.
Letâs see whatâs their new agenda, they have already equated Dr ManMohan Singh with Mr George Bush and are hailing American people of voting out Republicans â¦..as their own victory
As far as I am concern, I am enjoying the TamashaÂ
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->and it was equally sad that ``we had to live with this generation of voters.''<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While "some" muslims "might" be terrorists misguided - the jokers have no qualms in blanketing an entire Hindu population as one. You know people might actually listen to them if they were equal-oppurtunity insulters like say Borat.
Posted online: Thursday, November 09, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST
New Delhi, November 8
As the Cabinet tomorrow considers a proposal to repeal the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA), 1976, and replace it with a new law to regulate alleged diversion and misuse of foreign funds received by NGOs, the cleaning up has begun.
<b>Figures reveal that some 32,000 organisations receive foreign funds to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore with the current yearâs FCRA receipts showing a Rs 1,000-crore jump over the previous year.</b>
Last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs put 8,673 organisations on the âprior permissionâ list since they had neither completed their paperwork nor turned in the required returns.
This list had been put up on the MHA website and since then, only 300-odd organisations been taken off the watchlist.
In some cases, criminal prosecution is now underway since several recipients were found to have used the FCRA allegedly for illegal purposes. A shortlist of such FCRA cases has been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation and 59 more organisations have been put on a blacklist.
Yet another list of 11 organisations has been prepared to restrain them from utilising or transferring the foreign funds received via the FCRA route. <b>The lists reveal a majority of the recipients are located in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh.
</b>
FCRA officials said that of the bunch of cases referred to the CBI, two have already resulted in Regular Cases (RCs). The first case, registered last year involves the Abdul Kalam Azad Islamic Awakening Centre located in New Delhi. The organisation was found to have received FCRA funds in accounts in Saudi Arabia for which it faced penal action from the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
<b>The CBI found that one of the donors in Saudi Arabia was using funds for converting non-Muslims to Islam and another was non-existent as a result of a crackdown imposed by the Saudi Government. </b>A chargesheet has also been filed and the case is pending trial.
<b>The other religious organisation facing the CBI heat for FCRA violations is the Kolkata-based Central Kolkata Lord Jesus Medical and Welfare Society, which is alleged to have received funds to the tune of Rs 1.2 crore without FCRA permission.
</b>
The chief functionary of the organisation was found to have routed the funds for his personal use and under-declared the quantum of foreign contributions. The CBI is waiting the notification of the West Bengal Government to proceed with prosecution in the case.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Fund-raiser hell awaits Patkar </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Medha Patkar has lost the fight to stop the Sardar Sarovar Project, but her troubles are far from over. The high-profile leader of Narmada Bachao Andolan could land in trouble for misleading the court that she never accepted any foreign funds. Â
<b>In a December 15, 2000 affidavit to the Metropolitan Court, New Delhi, Patkar had stated that "NBA never received foreign funding in 16 years of its existence. The money associated with various national or international prizes had either been declined or donated for public purposes/causes". </b>
<b>Six years later, Patkar has now admitted in Supreme Court that she did receive funds from Sweden. "Rs 17.27 lakh were remitted to us by the Right Livelihood Award, Sweden."</b>
The amount, conferred on Baba Amte and Medha Patkar representing the Narmada Bachao Andolan, was deposited in Jan Sahyog Trust in which both are trustees.
The acceptance of this fact could open a can of worms since the vigilance report of the Madhya Pradesh Government and a report of Devas Police has also claimed that the NBA and its associates took foreign funding to run their anti-dam movement.
Patkar's admission is part of an affidavit filed by her on a PIL of the National Council of Civil Liberties (NCCL) in Supreme Court on January 6.
<b>In the PIL, NCCL highlighted the alleged criminal activities and foreign funding of NBA and pointed out that more than 200 FIRs were filed by Government officials against NBA. The NCCL chairman VK Saxena has been running a sustained campaign against Patkar and her outfit.</b>
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>NCCL's PIL had charged NBA and its activists with passing on confidential reports of important projects to foreigners, lobbying against big projects in international fora, abusing and accusing the Supreme Court, misinformation campaign on projects of national importance and preventing Government to rehabilitate Project Affected People, destroying Government properties, criminal assault on officials engaged in rehabilitation work and firearms training to adivasis through its militant wing, the adivasi Mukti Morcha.</span>
The Supreme Court admitted the PIL July 7 and issued notices to the respondents including NBA.
<b>As per the guidelines of the Right Livelihood Award "normally the foundation makes three cash awards and one honorary award each year. They are given to individuals or organisation. The cash awards are intended for work in progress or the extension of existing activities. They are never given for personal use". Depositing of award money in a personal trust instead of NBA account is again a violation of this prestigious award.</b>
<b>The fact that NBA received foreign funds from Right Livelihood Foundation and Goldman Foundation was mentioned in the vigilance report of MP Government. The report flowed the arrest of one Rahul Banerjee of adivasi Mukti Morcha Sangatthan, which is reportedly linked to the NBA. Medha Patkar denied any link with Rahul Banarjee and even refuted vigilance report that she received foreign fund.</b>
<b>then
NBA never received foreign funding in 16 years of its existence. The money associated with prizes was either declined or donated to the public
- Medha in Dec 15, 2000 affidavit to a Delhi court
and now
An amount of Rs 17.27 lakh were remitted to us (Amte and Patkar) by the Right Livelihood Award, Sweden
- Medha in a recent affidavit to the Supreme Court </b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
She is not only liar, traitor but also low level crook.
Magsaysay winner faces fraud slur http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.as...442117148d06162
Hyderabad: M V Foundation, a non-governmental organisation headed by Magsaysay award-winner Shanta Sinha, has been charged with misappropriation of funds and giving a false report of its achievements.
The allegations have been made in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, which was tabled in the Assembly on Thursday.
The report targets some NGOs, especially M V Foundation that is known for its work in enrolling child workers in schools, and Shanta Sinha won the coveted award for her work in this field.
In the chapter on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), the report notes that an amount of Rs 33.95 lakh was paid to the foundation towards 'identification and mainstreaming' of out-of-school children in East Godavari district.
âAs against 18,379 out-of-school children identified and to be mainstreamed to regular schools, only 7,375 children were found to be mainstreamed,'' it states.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Looks like lot of NGO types will be out of job now.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Singur is not very attractive for them, Modi bashing is no more a fashion, they can't go against Italian, Now what. Time had come they should adopt Army tactics, dig a hole and fill it again.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Apart from educational institutes, NGOs and International NGOs like Ashoka International, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Unlimited Ventures, Social-Impact International, Future Generation, GKP Youth Fellowship Programme and many others are also training and helping young entrepreneurs <b>procure funds for starting social ventures</b>.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Setback to Patkar</b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
SC seeks Gujarat, MP response on NBA foreign funding issue
<b>Finding its involvement in alleged anti-national activities, NGO Narmada Bachao Andolan led by social activist Medha Patkar failed to convince the Supreme Court on Monday that the allegations have no substance whatsoever to be entertained in the court.</b>
The Bench of Justices CK Thakker and LS Panta instead sought replies from the <b>State Governments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, who sought four weeks' time to respond to serious allegations of sedition and anti-national activities funded by NBA through foreign funds.</b>
NBA strongly opposed the maintainability of the PIL filed by a Gujarat-based NGO National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) claiming that "the court was being used as a forum to fight out personal battles".
Senior advocate Indra Jaising appearing for the NBA alleged that NCCL has filed the PIL by suppressing some crucial facts and as such the petition was not maintainable. The counsel alleged that NCCL's identical petition was dismissed by the Gujarat High Court in December 2001, of which there is not even a whisper.
A similar petition by the NGO was withdrawn from the apex court in 2005, Jaising submitted. She further relied on the fact that the delay by State Governments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh indicated they had nothing substantial to comment on the issue and thus the petition must be dismissed on this single account. This was opposed by the State counsels who stated that within four weeks, their response in this regard will be tabled before the court.
During arguments, Jaising pointed out that though notice was issued to NBA and not to Patkar, the damage was "tangentially" being caused to the latter as "the real substance of allegation was against her." The allegations pertained to foreign funding received by NBA, which was used to train persons to engage in anti-national activities. In this regard, cases were lodged in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and investigation reports by intelligence agencies and local police confirmed to the role of NBA in the alleged activities.
The Bench said till it goes into the response of the contesting parties, the issue of maintainability of the PIL would remain open.
The court on July 7 last year had issued notices to the Centre, NBA and one of its activists Rahul Banerjee on the NCCL plea seeking CBI probe into the alleged illegal activities of NBA. The court had not issued notices to Patkar and the CBI.
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<b>Tribal project takes Andhra Pradesh one step higher</b>
Too many commie operative words and groups?? Or is it legit?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By IANS
Tuesday February 27, 04:23 PM
New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS) Aiming to achieve <b>sustainable livelihoods </b>for tribal people in northern Andhra Pradesh, a multi-sectoral project has raised the enrolment ratio in schools among the state's <b>tribal children, besides empowering the women folk</b>.
<b>The report of CARE's Sustainable Tribal Empowerment Project (STEP) </b>was released here Tuesday.
CARE and its partner non-government organisations (NGOs) like Nature, has been running the STEP project in conjunction with the Department of Tribal Development of Andhra Pradesh in four of its districts- East Godavari, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram- since November 2001.
The seven-year-old project, called <b>Social Mobilisation, Empowerment and Capabilities: Enhancing Development Outcomes, is aimed at bridging the gap between India's economic growth and human development and empowerment</b>.
'STEP aims at helping the individual and the community to access facilities and rights which are provided for it under the administrative and public development system. So this would include demanding schools for the community's children from the education bureaucracy to accessing bank loans for setting up small businesses through the mechanism of self help groups,' said Basant Mohanty, project director of STEP.
<b>STEP, also supported by the European Union</b>, has served 235,000 people from the marginalized sections of the society across 6,000 habitations and 778 village panchayats. Among its achievements, the project has pushed the enrolment ratio in schools from 80 percent in 2001 to 95 percent in 2006 and the drop out rate has plummeted from 70 percent to 40 percent.
Welcoming the initiative, S.Y. Quraishi, member of the election commission of India, said <b>that the project is a valuable contribution to the study of political, economic and social empowerment. Francisco da Camara Gomes, Ambassador of the European Union</b> for India, Bhutan and Nepal, was also present on the occasion. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â
Global Empire
The NED, NGOs and the Imperial Uses of Philanthropy
By Joan Roelofs
May 14, 2006, 01:09
Email this article Printer friendly page
In recent years, nations have challenged the activities and very existence of non-governmental organizations. Russia, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea have enacted new measures requiring registration; "Open Society Institute" affiliates have been shut down in Eastern Europe; and Venezuela has charged the Súmate NGO leaders with treason. In Iraq and Afghanistan, staff of Western charitable NGOs (CARE and Doctors Without Borders) have been assassinated.
What are these organizations, and who or what is behind them?
They are heirs of the missionaries, who did many good deeds, bringing sewing machines to Bulgaria, ideas of women's liberation to Chinese footbinders, and life-saving medicines to the less industrialized world. Yet the missionaries also served as scouts for corporations and colonizers, tying knots with the most ambitious local people, especially those adept at bilingualism.
Missionaries are still operating today, but the field has become more intensely populated and diverse. Today's NGOs are elephantine, serpentine, and Byzantine. They may be international organizations, their local affiliates, or seemingly spontaneous grassroots groups.
Most funding and direction come from the wealthy nations. Often the donors form a conglomerate creating mutual responsibility and considerable ambiguity. CIVICUS, a partnership to promote "civil society" worldwide, is funded by, among others, American Express Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Canadian International Development Agency, Ford Foundation, Harvard University, Oxfam, and United Nations Development Programme.
If the source is confusing, the message is usually clear: "democratization" strives for civil rights and elections, but it also must include an open door to foreign capital, labor contracts, resource extraction, and military training. These networks also define "civil society" to include rock concerts and street mobs, but not government-provided maternal health clinics, child care, or senior services.
Affluent nations' government agencies are important NGO funders. The most notorious is the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED; ostensibly a nonÂgovernmental foundation), created by Congress in 1983 to do openly what had been CIA cold war covert activities. When these operations were revealed in 1967, there was shock, not so much because the US was covertly funding foreign political and labor groups, but because organizations such as the National Education Association, American Newspaper Guild, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the National Student Association were secretly used as pass-throughs, and all but the top officers were unwitting. Actual and phony foundations also distributed CIA funds.
NED changed this-but not very much. It distributes grants both directly and through other organizations, now overtly. Its "core grantees" are the Center for International Private Enterprise (of the US Chamber of Commerce), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (of the AFL-CIO), and, affiliated with the parties, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the International Republican Institute. Some private foundations chip in, for example, Smith Richardson and Mellon-Scaife. The Mott Foundation gave the NDI $150,000 in 1998 "to increase public confidence in democratization and the transition to a market economy in Ukraine." Foundations also directly co-fund NED's ultimate grantees. Thus, the Lilly Endowment supports the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru, headed by Hernando de Soto, which offers free-market remedies for poverty.
Other capitalist democracies now have government foundations similar to NED, and they work collaboratively, e.g., the Canadian Rights and Democracy and the British Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Additional US agencies have joined NED and the CIA in this work, notably, the Agency for International Development (USAID) and United States Information Agency (USIA), which support and create foreign NGOs and media.
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, and Sweden fund their political parties' foundations. The European members of the Socialist International's fund, the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity, distributes "democratization" aid.
The European Union has worldwide grant programs for sustainable development and democratization. NATO grant programs support environmental organizations, among others. United Nations agencies such as UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNDP, and FAO have long operated this way, and the World Bank funds, sponsors, guides, and coordinates grassroots poor people's organizations.
NGOs in prosperous nations have extensive grant programs overseas. These include not only the obviously international ones, e.g., Rotary, American Friends Service Committee, and Oxfam; but also labor organizations such as the American Federation of Teachers Educational Foundation. Corporate foundations are active throughout the world, and sometimes have separate funds directed by employees, for example, the Boeing Employees Fund, which supports charities in Japan and England.
Why would these philanthropic efforts offend anyone? Why do they hate our kind hearts?
In the first place, these public-private philanthropies have worked together to fund and direct overthrow movements. We had a "Subversive Activities Control Board" here, but export was encouraged. The grantees' activities included destabilization, the creation of mobs preventing elected governments from ruling, chaos, and violence. Among those funded were the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland, Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria, Otpor in Serbia, and, more recently, similar groups in the succession states of the USSR. Sometimes mobs (especially of young people) have been moved around from one country to another to give the impression of vast popular opposition. The NED, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and the Soros philanthropies have been particularly active in these operations. Human Rights Watch (formerly Helsinki Watch) has nurtured opposition groups. Reformers seeking social democracy or democratic socialism were excluded; such systems might oppress the "vulture capitalists."
It is hard to know how much native support existed for the Western-funded revolutions, as media and information (especially if we can't read Mongolian, Bulgarian, or Uzbeki) are produced by the same conglomerates. Of course, all revolutions are made by minorities, often with assistance of foreign allies. However, by today's standards as embodied in the UN Charter, subverting with the intention of overthrowing foreign governments is a grave violation of international law. Many were shocked by the NED activities complementing other instruments of intervention that helped to destroy the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. Yet the 1990 election was judged by the NGO observers to be a free one; neither threats of physical annihilation nor millions of foreign dollars violated the purity of that process. "Cold-war liberal" policymakers have advocated covert actions as a peaceful alternative to invasion, but it isn't as if military action has faded away; they work together.
Such attempts are ongoing. The Venezuelan indictment is just one indication of a larger NED-NGO operation. Plans for annihilating the Cuban revolution, via "independent libraries," "Red Feminista Cubana," and other created organizations, are clearly spelled out on the NED web site.
NGOs are also used to disrupt revolutionary or even reformist movements that might interfere with neo-liberal goals, hampering the ability of corporations to go anywhere and do anything. Thus, as James Petras has reported, radical social groups and their leaders are co-opted into NGOs dedicated to worthy, ameliorative projects that are no threat to Western interests. Instead of broad movements challenging systemic causes of oppression, activists are recruited into discrete, well-funded "identity" politics and single-issue organizations, and poverty is just another minority status.
In India and South Africa, the very poor have been organized into Slum Dwellers and Shack Dwellers Associations, which meet with the World Bank people to discuss what is to be done. Protesters against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were channeled into groups that were invited and funded to attend the meetings preparing this treaty. Those concerned with the devastation of oil, lumber, and mineral extraction throughout the world can utilize the "participatory mechanisms" of the Earth Council, one of whose board members is Klaus Schwab, director of the World Economic Forum. Conferences for the protesters "parallel" to the globalization elite's are supported by that same elite. These do create fruitful interaction among dissidents; yet they may also function as a diversionary tactic. We won't know unless these possibilities are investigated.
Amelioration is important to keep those societies newly "marketized" on a steady course despite crushing poverty. In Mongolia (as elsewhere), "shock therapy," decimating both employment and social services, has resulted in street children, child prostitution, and increasing maternal mortality, none of which occurred in its "undeveloped" or communist phases. However, the rock concerts and street mobs have attained freedom. Enter PACT (originally, Private Agencies Collaborating Together; funders now include the Ford Foundation, US AID, Mercy Corps International, the Nature Conservancy, the World Bank, Citigroup, Chevron, Levi Strauss, and Microsoft), which provides some substitutes for the former socialist institutions, while desperation drives Mongolia's leaders to welcome foreign garment industries and copper and gold extraction.
For many nations far from the North Atlantic, NATO seems to promise economic security. This inclination has been abetted by the creation, through NATO's grant programs, of NGOs to foster the NATO spirit, and in Bulgaria, a charitable NGO to provide employment for their former military officers, who wouldn't fit in. NATO also supplies research funds for universities in Eastern Europe, which now have little government funding, and is attempting to expand its charities throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
Prominent insiders, who sit high in the democracy-promotion turrets of the foundation-NGO international world, have problems with the system, although they may ignore or applaud the overthrow operations. What concerns them is the feudal relationship existing between the wealthy Western institutional patrons and the clients in poorer lands, and the NGOs lack of a genuine local constituency. Thomas Carothers, of the Carnegie Endowment, has written: "Transnational civil society is . . . very much part of the same projection of Western political and economic power that civil society activists decry in other venues."
Others are concerned about the "brain drain" drawing the scarce educated people away from government service or authentic grassroots organizations, neither of which can offer comparable pay or perks. They protest the imposition of a foreign culture that denigrates indigenous knowledge, and paradoxically, programs such as microcredit in South Asia that reinforce the more oppressive patriarchical aspects of traditional cultures.
NGO staff members have been accused of being spies. Whether or not this is the case, the system allows access to remote native cultures, where the lay of the land and sociograms of local influentials can be charted for any purpose. This type of missionary penetration, attained through Bible translation in the Amazon River basin, has been recounted in Thy Will Be Done, by Colby and Dennett.
NGOs are now extensively occupied in the relief of disasters, whether natural or man-made, and the US military (with its "coalition") is deeply involved in both the comforting and the afflicting. To receive US funds, humanitarian organizations must support US foreign policy. Consequently, some, such as Oxfam UK, have withdrawn their workers from Iraq. Those remaining are often regarded as collaborators, which is not surprising, as many international NGOs have been handmaids to subversion, overthrow, and occupation. Some have even supported "humanitarian" bombing, especially in the case of Yugoslavia.
It is hard to assess accurately NGOs' complicity because there are few incentives for critical studies by journalists or academics, and anti-capitalist activists are often knotted up in some way. Information about NGOs mostly comes from the same funding sources, such as "Transitions on Line" of the Soros enterprises, or OneWorld.net, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and others. A networking resource, Ngo.net, is administered by Freedom House and funded by the USAID.
The peak of international NGOs, the World Social Forum, meets at the same time as the World Economic Forum, only far away. The WSF's general funding is rarely scrutinized by the participants, whose travel expenses come from similar sources. <b>An exception is a report by the Research Unit on Political Economy-India, which explains why foundation funding was refused for the 2004 WSF in Mumbai, and discusses critically the activities of the Ford Foundation in India.</b>
It is news when any NGO nibbles at the hand that feeds it, as did a Pakistani theater group last November. Invited to a women's theater festival in India, they were sent home because the organizers deemed their contribution too anti-US for a Ford Foundation-sponsored event.
As all generalizations have exceptions, let it be noted that some NGOs are impeccable, and even peccable ones often have humanitarian staff and directors. A recent attempt by dissidents seeking international donors to "democracy promotion" in the US, the International Endowment for Democracy, could give an effective jolt. Yet it may be that democracy, justice, or equality are not readily attainable by such means. For several centuries NGOs have been providing "disaster aid" for societies being "marketized." What can we learn from this history?
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