MHA cancels FCRA licence of NGOs CHRI, AAWW
New Delhi(PTI): The Union Home Ministry has cancelled the FCRA licence of two NGOs -- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and Apne Aap Women Worldwide (AAWW) -- for allegedly violating laws and diverting funds received from abroad, officials said on Tuesday.
The NGOs allegedly failed to file annual financial returns mandated under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act 2010, they said.
The Home Ministry has also found that the NGOs allegedly diverted funds received as foreign donations, the officials said.
The CHRI works in the field of realisation of people's basic human right to access information from government and other public bodies in Commonwealth countries, according to its website.
The CHRI's also works on police reforms programme that aims to realise increased demand for rights-based police reform and the strengthening of police accountability in the Commonwealth, it said.
The AAWW was co-founded by 22 women from a red-light district in Mumbai, with a shared vision of a world where no woman would be bought or sold and end sex trafficking, the NGO's website said.
The government has cancelled the FCRA registration of nearly 1,900 NGOs for violating various provisions of law in the last five years --between 2017 and 2021.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
