Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Vrindavan today to attend the occasion of the Akshaya Patra Foundation serving its 3 billionth meal. He unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion at Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir and served the organisation’s 3 billionth meal to underprivileged children.
In a tweet earlier in the day, Modi had congratulated the organisation on the momentous occasion. The Akshaya Patra Foundation serves food to millions of underprivileged children as an implementing partner of the Mid-Day meal scheme.
I will be in Vrindavan today for a unique programme- to mark the serving of the 3rd billionth meal by the Akshaya Patra Foundation.
Congratulations to all those associated with this mission. Their efforts towards eradicating hunger are exemplary. https://t.co/h1TiwG0PF9
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 11, 2019
The Prime Minister’s warm endorsement of Akshaya Patra will further antagonise the ‘civil society’. As we had reported earlier, Civil society has been up in arms against the ISKON affiliated organisation and have been demanding that its Mid-Day meal contracts be scrapped.
The Right to Food Campaign which has been spearheading the protests against Akshaya Patra has among its constituent members NGOs that receive huge amounts of funds from Christian organisations abroad and some which have intrinsic links to Naxals. The same Christian organisations also donate to organisations that fight for Rohingyas in the Court. The report that demonised the Amarnath Yatra was published by an organisation that received funds from the same Christian organisation. We had also reported on the deplorable anti-Brahmin bigotry of one of the leading activists associated with the campaign.
Narendra Modi endorsing Akshaya Patra despite vehement opposition by ‘civil society’ is a stark contrast from the time during the UPA regime when the National Advisory Council (NAC) was entirely made up of people from foreign-funded NGOs. We had reported earlier that such people drafted the heavily biased anti-Hindu Communal Violence Bill which assumed that the majority community is always to blame for communal violence while the minority community is always the victim.
Unlike the Congress party, the NDA government has been sceptical of foreign-funded NGOs. Recently, in his address in the Lok Sabha, Narendra Modi declared that his government had cancelled the registrations of 20,000 NGOs for violating norms. Attacking the Congress party for not tackling such institutions effectively, he hinted that the number could very well increase in the future.
Narendra Modi, through his actions on foreign-funded NGOs and endorsement of Akshaya Patra, has made it clear that clipping the wings of ‘civil society’ is among its long list of priorities.
