Of Winners, Wave Rats and Whinos

[narayanan]

Here comes the convoluted "complaint":



<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> narayanan@XXXXXXX
Cc: XXXXXXXXXX@yahoo.com
Subject: Clarifications
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:41:09 +0000 [View Source]


Prof. Narayanan,

Thanks for your email. Your article states that

'The DYFI and the SFI, listed as �principal mass organizations� of the Communist Party (Marxist) of India, profusely thanked AID-India for the free flow of funds to them'

'In a seamless integration of dishonesty and poor taste, AID baldly denied that any funds were going to the DYFI'

The author of the article (linked by you in your post) on Rediff.com, Mr. Amit Varma has never mentioned any such thing. This is pure distortion of statements. Mr. Varma has not explicitly mentioned that AID funds DYFI. The ambiguity in Mr. Varma's article has been clarified by himself.

AID has never been dishonest to anyone, be it our donors or the organizations we work with for providing relief and rehabilitation.

The AID Rebuttal link was sent to IndiaCause.com editor because it clearly states that AID has never sent any funds to DYFI and also contains Mr. Amit Varma's blog link where he has provided clarification of his article.

I have quoted his clarification below :

"I had written: 'DYFI suffers from the drawback of not having a high profile and, consequently, having rather low funds. But AID India takes care of that.' This was taken by many people to indicate that AID India funds DYFI, which is not true. AID India does not fund and has never funded DYFI, which was something that A Ravishankar, one of their key functionaries in Chennai, had told me during my trip. Instead, by including DYFI volunteers in their relief umbrella, AID India enables DYFI to play a more productive role in the relief work than they otherwise would have been able to. I felt the need to clarify this because there's been too much controversy recently about AID India's relationship with DYFI. Frankly, I think it is all a fuss about nothing. AID India have set certain objectives for themselves in terms of socal work, and using DYFI's manpower can help their achieve those goals. I am strongly opposed to communist parties like DYFI in the political and economic spheres, where I believe their naive and misguided ideas can cause a lot of damage. But in terms of social work, they do a fantastic job. That is the only sphere in which AID India associate with them."

http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/2005/02/pol...ocial-work.html

Here is AID's answer to your question of removing DYFI references from AID website.

http://www.aidindia.org/AIDRebuttal/#_&#65...533;:_Borrowing

Hope I have clarified what was wrong in your article. I would appreciate if you could post a clarification in the IndiaCause.com website retracting your negative comments about AID. While I completely laud your efforts to acknowledge the good work done by various groups for the tsunami relief, I strongly urge you to verify and research facts before slandering AID, or for that matter any credible organization. As people engaged in higher education and research, you as well as I know the power of knowledge and the associated social responsibilty.

The years and years of hardwork and dedication of hundreds of AID volunteers in US and in India has given AID a position of trust and credibility with our patrons. We would never let a few misguided individuals derail our efforts. I request you to not encourage such people by spreading their slander about AID.

I thank you for writing about many many selfless volunteers and organizations doing relief work.

Together we can make a difference !

Regards

Jayaram Venkatesan <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->