India bans foreign donations to leading think tank

Published On: January 18, 2024 10:05 AM NPT By: AFP/RSS

NEW DELHI, Jan. 18: India has blocked foreign funding to a leading think tank, the latest among several foreign charities, rights watchdogs and other civil society groups similarly targeted after commentary critical of government decisions.

The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is one of the country's most highly regarded public policy forums.

Its staffers are prominent talking heads and columnists who have been rare dissenting voices in the media on sensitive political issues, including national security policy and governance in the restive territory of Kashmir.

The home ministry had already provisionally suspended the CPR's licence to receive foreign donations after raids in 2022 by the tax department, severely curtailing its operations.

Local broadsheet The Hindu reported Thursday that authorities had resolved to cancel the licence because it had published reports on "current affairs programmes".

An undated home ministry gazette confirmed the licence was cancelled "on violation" of foreign funding rules.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US State Department were among the think-tank's prominent international donors.

CPR president Yamini Aiyar could not be reached for comment by AFP. Last year she wrote that the tax raids and suspension of foreign donations had left the CPR in a "precarious financial position".

Local media outlet Newslaundry also reported last year that the blocking of foreign donations had forced the CPR to cut its headcount by 75 percent and significantly scale down its operations.

The CPR is the latest of several independent civic organisations accused of falling afoul of India's strict foreign funding rules.

Authorities similarly raided Oxfam's India offices in 2022 in what Amnesty International said was the weaponisation of investigative agencies "to harass, intimidate, silence, and criminalise independent critical voices".

Amnesty saw its own local offices raided in 2019 in a foreign funding investigation and announced it was halting operations in India the following year after the government froze its bank accounts.

Rights groups say freedom of speech in India has suffered since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014.

The country has fallen 21 spots to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, in the decade since.