Made consistent efforts to exclude India from UN report on children in armed conflict, says govt
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New Delhi: The government was consistently making efforts to exclude India from the UN's annual report on the impact of armed conflict on children, the Women and Child Development Ministry has said after the country did not feature in the report for the first time since 2010.
The United Nations has removed India from its annual report on the impact of armed conflict on children, citing "measures taken by the government to better protect" them.
In a statement, the Women and Child Development Ministry said, "The ongoing engagement of the Government of India with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General sped up after an inter-ministerial meeting in November 2021."
The meeting was attended by Secretary of the Ministry of Women and Child Development Indevar Pandey, Ministry of External Affairs, Permanent Mission of India at New York, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Virginia Gamba, the special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and the UN officials in New Delhi.
The move led to an agreement to appoint a national focal point to identify priority national interventions to enhance the protection of children, a joint technical mission to hold inter-ministerial technical-level meetings with the UN to identify areas of enhanced cooperation for child protection, the statement said.
"A roadmap for cooperation and collaboration on child protection issues was developed by the ministry," it said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his report last year that he had welcomed the engagement of the Indian government with his special representative and noted that it might lead to the removal of India as a situation of concern.
In his 2023 report on Children and Armed Conflict, the UN chief said, "In view of the measures taken by the government to better protect children, India has been removed from the report in 2023."
Guterres highlighted the technical mission of the office of his special representative in July 2022 to identify areas of cooperation for child protection and the workshop on strengthening child protection held in Jammu and Kashmir last November by the government with the United Nations' participation.
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Centre spent Rs 76.13 lakh on print media ads for RSS centenary, reveals RTI
New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Culture allegedly spent Rs 76.13 lakh on print advertisements marking the 100-year celebrations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), according to a Right to Information (RTI) reply.
The information was sought by RTI activist Ajay Basudev Bose, who filed an application seeking details on expenditure incurred by the ministry for advertisements commemorating the RSS centenary.
Bose shared a picture of the reply from the ministry on his official ‘X’ handle.
“It is informed that an amount of Rs 76,13,129 has been spent on advertisement given in various print media by the Ministry of Culture on the occasion of the completion of 100 years of RSS,” the government’s reply stated.
RTI reply shows Min of Culture Govt of India spent a Whopping Rs 76L,13K,129 on Advertisement in Print Media on occasion of 100 yrs of #RSS
— AJAY Basudev Bose (@AjayBos93388306) April 16, 2026
When Everyone knows RSS is Not Registered & Does not Pay any Tax is it justified to spend Tax Payers Money on such Private event??@RSSorg… pic.twitter.com/dW4IUtdNCg
Bose questioned the expenditure in the post X, “when Everyone knows RSS is Not Registered & Does not Pay any Tax is it justified to spend Tax Payers Money on such Private event??”
Reacting to the development, Karnataka’s IT-BT and Panchayat Raj Minister Priyank Kharge also criticised the spending.
In a post on X, he asked why public money was being used for what he described as a “private ideological project.”
"Modi Sarkar spent Rs 76,13,129 of public money on newspaper advertisements to celebrate 100 years of the RSS. Why is Government spending taxpayers money on an unregistered, non-tax-paying organisation to celebrate their centenary?," he added.
Why is public money being used to serve a private ideological project?
— Priyank Kharge / ಪ್ರಿಯಾಂಕ್ ಖರ್ಗೆ (@PriyankKharge) April 16, 2026
Modi Sarkar spent ₹76,13,129 of public money on newspaper advertisements to celebrate 100 years of the RSS.
Why is Government spending taxpayers money on an unregistered, non-tax-paying organisation to… pic.twitter.com/EoZ6Pim3IM
According to reports, the RSS describes itself as a volunteer-based organisation and has stated that it functions as a body of individuals rather than a registered entity.
Founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in 1925, the organisation is marking its centenary year beginning from Vijaydashami in 2025, with the milestone observed on October 2.
