Leaked IB report on NGOs in India

The document claimed INSAF used foreign funds during 2009-12 to pay “at least 15 non-FCRA and 26 FCRA organisations.

Six non-governmental organisations, which figure in an Intelligence Bureau report on NGOs stalling development projects, operate out of a single building in Katwaria Sarai in South Delhi.

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The IB report on the ‘Impact of NGOs on Development’ said inquiries into “pattern, design and funding of protests at nuclear plants and uranium mines” revealed a “superior network” of pan-India

organisations closely linked to territorial outfits that were also indulging in agitation against GM foods and the POSCO steel plant in Orissa.

“The manner of free-funding for these NGOs is observed from the fact that ASHA and its IFSF campaign are headquartered with four prominent anti-nuclear NGOs at a single address — A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi — which is an unmarked, small, two-room flat,” the report stated.

“These four NGOs are Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament & Peace (CNDP), Popular Education & Action Centre (PEACE) and Jan Sangharsh Samanvaya Samiti, the latter being the focal point for anti-Fatehabad nuclear power plant,” it added.

Its section on anti-nuclear activism said CNDP, INSAF and PEACE were at the forefront of protests against building of nuclear energy plants in India and accused them of coordinating radiation leak studies and instigating protests to stall construction work at nuclear sites.

ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture) and IFSF (India For Safe Food) have been identified in the IB report as among the four NGOs — the other two being Navdanya and Gene Campaign — which have been leading anti-GM food activism in India.

“The above NGOs were active facilitators of news articles, liaison with other activists and social media activism which contributed to the four-year old moratorium on Bt Brinjal and the ban regimes recommended by parliamentary standing committee (August 2012), Technical Expert Committee appointed by the Supreme Court in October 2012,” the IB said.

INSAF, involved in the anti-Jaitapur nuclear plant activism, was accused of organising and paying for anti-POSCO events “with active participation of most NGOs headquartered with it at Katwaria Sarai”.

The IB cautioned that INSAF was now opposing the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, asking activists to warn farmers that they would become landless owing to government acquisition of land for the project. The document claimed INSAF used foreign funds during 2009-12 to pay “at least 15 non-FCRA and 26 FCRA organisations”, including an individual to protest against the extra-judicial executions in Manipur. Its FCRA registration was frozen in 2013 as transfers by an FCRA NGO to non-FCRA NGOs violated Section 7 of FCRA 2010.