As the coronavirus crisis in Maharashtra deteriorates, exposing the Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s inherent failure in curbing the spread of the contagion, the principal opposition party BJP had demanded that the President rule be imposed in the state citing the state machinery’s utter failure in handling the outbreak.
Concerning this demand, Loksatta, a Marathi news outlet, ran a Twitter poll on its official Twitter page, to gauge the pulse of the state in determining if the BJP’s demand to impose President’s rule in the state of Maharashtra was justified. “Does BJP’s demand for imposition of President’s rule in Maharashtra seem justified?” the poll was floated by Loksatta with the options “Yes” and “No”.
However, soon after the poll titled in the favour of those agreeing with the BJP’s demand of having President rule in the state, the tweet was deleted by Loksatta. The poll, whose lifespan was 24 hours, was pulled down merely within 5 hours after it was posted as 51 per cent of the respondents concurred with the BJP’s demand to dismiss the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra and instead impose the President rule. Over 8000 votes had been cast within 5 hours.
Author starts her own poll on Twitter
Loksatta’s deleted poll was noticed by popular author Shefali Vaidya, who ran the same poll on her Twitter page to determine the current mood of people in the country with regards to the President rule in Maharashtra. As of now, a total of 8,373 had already responded to her poll and a staggering 85 per cent of them have voted in favour of the BJP’s demand of imposing President’s rule in the state.
BJP demands President rule in Maharashtra
With the coronavirus crisis in Maharashtra slipping out of hand, BJP leader Narayan Rane yesterday asked the State Governor- Bhagat Singh Koshyari, to consider recommending President’s rule in the state. Rane called on Koshyari on Monday to raise his concerns over the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra.
“The state government has completely failed in handling the crisis, be it testing, hospital management, food grain distribution…the bureaucracy has failed in following the orders of the government. The situation is out of control and is only worsening,” Rane said.
The BJP leader said that if the Governor cannot recommend President’s rule, then the Army should be handed over the entire control of the civic hospitals in the city so that there is better coordination and management.
Maharashtra has emerged as the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in India, with state capital Mumbai becoming the worst affected coronavirus hotspot in the country. The total number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra has crossed the 50,000-mark with more than 1600 fatalities. Mumbai and its suburbs have reported approximately 40,000 of the total cases in Maharashtra.
The World Health Organization has warned the countries which are reporting a decline in the number of Wuhan coronavirus cases that they can witness a ‘second peak’ of the infection. The international health body has suggested the governments not to slow doen on the measures containing the virus.
Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Mike Ryan said in a press briefing, “We are right in the middle of the first wave globally. We’re still very much in a phase where the disease is actually on the way up.”
He asserted that epidemics come in waves which literally means that outbreak may come back later this year in the places where the first wave has subsided. He warned that the chances of infection rates can rise if the measures to halt the spread is lifted too soon.
“Get ready for the second wave”- Mike Ryan
Mike Ryan stated, “We need to be also cognizant of the fact that the disease can jump up anytime. We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now that it’s going to keep going down, and the way to get a number of months to get ready for a second wave- we may get a second peak in this way.”
Ryan said that the ‘second peak’ can come probably during normal influenza season that is between December to February which may complicate things for disease control. He suggested the countries in Europe and North America “continue to put in place the public health and social measures, the surveillance measures, the testing measures and a comprehensive strategy to ensure that we continue on a downwards trajectory and we don’t have an immediate second peak.”
As per reports, many countries including Europe and the US has been applying measures to lift the lockdown which was imposed to contain the spread of Wuhan coronavirus and caused severe harm to the world economy.
A WHO epidemiologist, Maria Van Kerkhove asserted, “all the countries need to be on high alert here. All countries need to be ready to rapidly detect cases, even countries that have had success in suppression… Even countries that have seen a decline in cases must remain ready”.
The global Coronavirus cases have crossed 5.5 million, with more than 3.48 lakh deaths. United States alone has more than 1.7 million positive cases till now.
Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the farmers of the country, especially in Western and Northern parts of the country, are facing a locust attack. According to the reports, crops and vegetation are some of the states are now threatened with locust, considered to be one of the most dangerous migratory pests in the world.
The swarms of locust, which entered the country from Pakistan have now become a headache to farmers as the pests are spreading like wildfire in states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, an alert has been issued in the national capital Delhi too.
The videos shared on social media are terrifying to say the least.
— Srinivas M.D(AIIMS) ? (@srinivasaiims) May 25, 2020
Swarms of Locusts enter Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh.
Environment Ministry yesterday said, Locust Swarm from Pakistan have entered Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh threatening major damage to crops.
On Monday, locusts entered other states. According to the World Bank, these pests have infested more than 23 countries across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia in 2020, the biggest outbreak in 70 years.
These pests considered to be dangerous to crops, vegetations, feed on nearly all green vegetation – leaves, flowers, bark, stems, fruit, seeds including millet, rice, maize, sorghum, sugarcane, barley, cotton, fruit trees, date palm, vegetables, rangeland grasses, acacia, pines and banana.
States issues alert for locust attack
The Union environment ministry had already issued an alert last week that locust swarms have entered Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Department on Sunday also issued a warning and also informed Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and bordering districts of the state regarding the locust attack and asked them to take preventive steps accordingly.
To prevent the possible locust attack, the agriculture department authorities in Maharashtra has begun spraying of chemicals on crops and vegetation to save them from the migratory pests. In Rajasthan, sensing the scale of the problem, the Locust Warning Organisation has ordered drones for sprinkling chemicals in order to kill the locust. So far, the sprinkling was being done from fire brigade bus, tractors and gipsies.
Hours after Congress senior leader Rahul Gandhi in a press interaction today distanced his party from the Coronavirus mess created in the alliance government ruled state, Maharashtra Congress chief, Balasaheb Thorat has jumped into the rescue mode. News agency ANI has quoted Thorat as saying: “Congress is not unhappy. All three parties hold meetings every week where decisions are taken. All parties are working together”.
The Maharashtra Congress chief was responding to the question on whether the party was disgruntled with the fact that its other two alliance partners- Shiv Sena’s chief, Uddhav Thackeray and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar had met today to discuss the COVID-19 mess in Maharashtra.
Congress is not unhappy. All the three parties hold meetings every week where decisions are taken. All parties are working together: Balasaheb Thorat,Maharashtra Congress chief&Minister on being asked ‘if Congress is unhappy with Sharad Pawar’s meeting with CM Uddhav Thackeray’ pic.twitter.com/JHS6kB9p53
Maharashtra has spiralled into a Coronavirus hotspot state rather quickly with the number of positive cases crossing the 52,000-mark. The state now contributes over a third of the Coronavirus cases in the entire country, with Mumbai being most severely affected. While Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has drawn sharp criticism for his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, Rahul Gandhi, during a press interaction today distanced Congress from the mess being created in the alliance government ruled state.
Responding to the question, Rahul Gandhi said that since Maharashtra is the most connected and owing to the nature of the state, the spread of the virus in the state was inevitable. However, shielding Congress from sharing any of the governance blame, Rahul Gandhi also said that Congress is not in a decision making role in Maharashtra.
Rahul Gandhi said that there is a difference between running the government and supporting the government in the state. He said that Congress can be considered to be in a decision making role in states like Punjab and Rajasthan, but not in Maharashtra.
Effectively, what Rahul Gandhi seems to have done is put the entire onus of the mess on Shiv Sena and distance his own party, Congress, from the misgovernance the state has seen so far. In addition to that, Congress leaders like Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam are highlighting the bad state of government-run hospitals in Mumbai.
Recently, Prithviraj Chavan, the veteran Congress leader had remarked that the Maharashtra government is one which is not run by the Maha Vikas Aghadi but one run only by Shiv Sena.
Just two days after Railway Minister exposed the Maharashtra government over the issue of trains for movement of migrants, the Railways again had to cancel several trains from Maharashtra today due to lack of passengers. Even though Railways is arranging adequate number of trains as per request of the nodal officers in Maharashtra, the state govt has not been able to provide the required list of passengers and their destinations, which had led to large scale cancellation of trains.
After only 39 trains were run yesterday although the Railways had planned to run 125 trains, the same thing seems to be repeating today. According to Railway Ministry, the Central Railways was prepared to run 145 trains from Maharashtra today as demanded by the state govt, but several trains had to be cancelled as the state government failed to give the list of passengers and their destinations. The Railways had planned to run 25 trains by 12 noon today, but not a single train could be run by that time. As many as 18 trains were scheduled to run from Mumbai up to 12 noon, but none of them ran. The boarding for the first train took place only at 12.30 PM, which means again today a large number of trains scheduled to run from Maharashtra will have to be cancelled.
On request of Maharashtra Govt, we arranged 145 Shramik Special Trains today. These trains are ready since morning. 50 trains were to leave till 3 pm but only 13 trains have due to lack of passengers.
At 4:10 PM today, Union Rail Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted to inform that 50 trains were to leave Maharashtra till 3 PM, but only 13 trains could be run due to lack of passengers. “I request Maharashtra Government to fully cooperate in ensuring that the distressed migrants are able to reach their homes and bring passengers to Stations in time, and not cause further delays. It will affect the entire network and planning”, he said.
Central Railway letter to Maharashtra govt
Central Railway wrote to the state govt to organise the dispatch of migrants, as huge resources in terms of trains, crew and other Railway staff deployed this this operation will be wasted if the state govt fails to give the required lists and bring the passengers to the designated stations.
The state government had also requested for a large number of trains to West Bengal, which had put a temporary halt on receiving migrants from outside the state due to the cyclone Amphan. Of the 145 trains that the Maharashtra govt had requested, 68 were for UP, 41 for West Bengal, 27 Bihar, 2 each for Odisha and Tamil Nadu, and 1 each for Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Kerala.
West Bengal and Odisha requested not to send trains
As West Bengal and Odisha faced large scale devastation due to the super cyclone Amphan, both the states have requested not to send trains to their states. The entire state machinery in these two states are engaged in rehabilitation efforts after the devastation, and they are unable to spare their resources to quarantine the incoming people. It may be noted that a large number of people returning from states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat etc have been found coronavirus positive, therefore it will be difficult for these two states to handle more Coronavirus cases due to the cyclone.
Even though West Bengal and Odisha have requested not to send trains to their states for the time being, surprisingly the Maharashtra govt is still requesting trains to these two states. And when Railways arrange the trains as per their request, they are failing to provide the list of passengers, and even failing to transport the passengers to the Railway stations, which has resulted in the cancellation of trains.
Railway minister had exposed Maharashtra govt
The Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra have been claiming that they are not getting adequate trains to send migrants back despite being requested. But on the night of 24 May, Piyush Goyal posted a series of tweets revealing that while the Railways had planed to run 125 trains from the state the next day on 25th May, the state govt was yet to give the list of passengers and their destinations, which are required to prepare detail plan of trains to be run. The Railway minister had asked the govt to submit the list with the Central Railway GM withing one hour, but later he had tweeted that they were yet to receive any list.
Where is the list for 125 trains from Maharashtra? As of 2am, received list of only 46 trains of which 5 are to West Bengal and Odisha which cannot operate due to cyclone Amphan.
We are notifying only 41 trains for today despite being prepared for 125 !!!
Later past the midnight, Goyal had informed that against 125 trains, Maharashtra govt had given a list of only 46 trains. And this also included 5 for West Bengal and Odisha, two states which have requested not to send trains for the time being due to the Cyclone Amphan. As a result, the Railways had notified only 41 trains against 125. Even in these 41 trains, two trains had to be cancelled as the local administration failed to bring passengers to the stations.
The Delhi Police Crime Branch filed 20 charge sheets against Tablighi Jamaat members including foreign nationals who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz event. As per Republic, as many as 2,000 members who had attended the markaz event including 83 foreign nationals are expected to be named in them. Delhi’s Saket Court has listed the matter for further hearing on June 12.
Reports suggest that the charge sheet will be filed in batches. The first lot was filed on Tuesday which will include charges against 83 foreign nationals who purposedly came from Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia to be a part of the Jamaat event.
Earlier on May 6, in a major relief to over 4000 Jamaat members, a Delhi government order had released the quarantined persons. The Jamaat members who were named in investigation were sent to police custody and remaining were sent back to their homes. The institutional quarantine period was increased from 14 to 28 days due to highly suspected and contact cases. The increased quarantine measures were imposed after it was found that members in hot-spots were still getting contact infection even after a 20-day quarantine period.
Passports and documents of Tablighi Jamaat members seized
The Delhi Police Crime Branch seized passports and important documents of around 700 Jamaat members. They were also interrogated over their involvement in the case. The Crime Branch tried to find out that on what basis they have got the visa and who helped them in getting such a visa.
Tablighi Jamaat event that turned out being a super-spreader.
The Tablighi jamaat event in Delhi was held in the month of march that wreaked havoc in the country. The event produced more than 30 percent of the total coronavirus cases in the country. The Markaz event was not only attended by Indian Muslims but also foreign nationals. The alarm bells should have started ringing when seven Indonesian nationals associated with the organization tested positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus in Telangana after traveling from Delhi to Karimnagar for an Ijtema. However, it was only later that the full scope of the Tablighi Jamaat’s contribution to the spreading of the virus became prominent when nearly 300 Jamaatis in the Delhi’s Banglewali Masjid had to be taken to hospital for suspected coronavirus symptoms, many testing positive eventually.
Delhi police booked Tablighi Chief
After the religious mass gathering of the Nizamuddin Markaz event came into light, the Delhi Police Crime Branch registered an FIR against the Chief of Tablighi Jamaat Maulana Saad Khandalvi under Epidemics Act 1897 for allowing a religious congregation despite the repeated warnings from the center and the state government. Later the Crime Branch booked Maulana Saad under section 304, Culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The Enforcement Directorate also booked Maulana Saad and nine others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on predicate offense that was registered by Delhi police. The bank accounts related to the orthodox sect and relatives of Maulana saad are under scanned of ED.
Maulana Saad still absconding
The Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad is still absconding. The Delhi Police crime branch had sent two notices to Saad under Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The police have asked Maulana Saad to provide the documents mentioned in the notice. The first notice was found “unsatisfactory”.
The Delhi police slammed second notice after Saad remained untraceable with 36 questions at his farmhouse near Shamli nagar near Delhi.
On Tuesday, the Solicitor General of India (SG) Tushar Mehta had reportedly sought more time during the hearing of a petition filed by radical Islamist and sedition-accused Sharjeel Imam before the Supreme Court of India. Imam had moved the apex court seeking the amalgamation of all FIRs filed against him in different states of India.
The petition came up before a 3-Judge Bench comprising of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and MR Shah. Tushar Mehta informed that a reply would be filed, regarding the petition, on Wednesday. Counsel appearing for the accused, Siddhartha Dave, reportedly cited the case of Arnab Goswami and the Aligarh Muslim University case to club all FIRs filed against Imam into one single case. Disagreeing to the prayer, the Solicitor General said that Imam’s case was different from the ones he had mentioned.
He added that all other States, including NCT of Delhi, where cases have been filed against the accused needed to be made a party in the said case. Solicitor General Mehta also stated that the apex court should issues notices to the States of Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh, all the states that have cases pending against Imam and emphasised that merely issuing notice to the NCT of Delhi won’t be enough.
Threats by Sharjeel Imam to ‘cut off’ Assam
Earlier, a series of videos had gone viral on social media in which Sharjeel Imam, the chief co-ordinator of Shaheen Bagh protest and a The Wire columnist was seen instigating Muslims of the country to break India by cutting of North-east from the rest of the country. While speaking to Muslim mobs, he said, “Our aim is to cut Assam and North-east India from rest of India”.
Arrested for Sedition
In January this year, Sharjeel Imam was arrested by the Police from Bihar’s Jehanabad. Sedition charges were filed against him in multiple states for his remarks urging Muslims to cut off North East India from the rest of the country by blocking the Chicken’s neck. The arrest was made by the Delhi Police Crime Branch after he was absconding for four days. A manhunt was launched after the video of his seditious speech went viral on social media.
Several states like Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh had filed FIRs against him under charges of sedition and other offences for his secessionist statements.
According to the reports, Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF) has flagged a web of illegal activities of Christian organisation ‘Serve India Ministries’, including nefarious activities of illegal conversions of poor Hindus using deceit, hate speech, enticements and FCRA violations. Ebenezer Samuel is the head of Serve India Ministries and it is based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.
This comes just weeks after a complaint was filed against Christian organisation ‘Gospel for Tribals Social Service Society’ for indulging in illegal conversions, hate speech against Hindus and FCRA fraud.
In a complaint letter to MHA, the LRPF has accused Ebenezer Samuel, the head of Serve India Ministries and his NGO of being inimical to communal harmony, a multi-religious, multi-ethnic society of India. The evangelist Samuel is also accused of indulging in large scale conversions using inducements, allurements, magic remedies, the threat of incurring divine displeasure.
Meet Mr. Ebnezer Samuel, Chief Functionary, Serve India Ministries (FCRA: 75850282), Coimbatore,TN.
Filed complaint with Union Home Affairs for violating FCRA Rules, Hate Speech against Hindus and Christian Conversions targeting Hindu Children, Women & innocent Tribal people. pic.twitter.com/jYcnZk0HGZ
— Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) May 25, 2020
Financial irregularities including FCRA violations
In its complaint to the MHA, the LRPF has stated that the organisation has filed different tax returns in India and USA, raising suspicion regarding its expenditure. According to the LRPF, this is a deliberate attempt by the Serve India Ministries to hide the evangelist activities, church planting and conversion activities carried out by them.
For example, the NGO has claimed tax exemption in its USA IRS Tax Return Form 990 of 2007, citing activities like church planting, spreading of Gospel, child sponsorship programs, training, educational programs, etc. The Christian NGO has also filed similar tax returns in its 2018 USA tax returns and has mentioned similar reasons as its programme accomplishments.
The LRPF documents revealed that the NGO has filed no FCRA returns in India since 2010-11, however, it has been filing tax returns in the USA from the year 2007 onwards. Interestingly, the NGO has also received an amount of Rs 2.76 crores in 2012-13 towards the celebration of National Festivals.
Further, the documents showed that for the last 4 years the NGO was investing substantial part of FCRA proceeds in fixed deposits and deriving interest from the same. To attract prospective donors, Serve India Ministries has produced 8 videos in a DVD and a book with 30 stories from India – “Journey Through India: A 30 Day Spiritual Adventure”. These were distributed for free abroad but not available to India, says the LRPF letter.
Image Source:: Organiser
Hate speech and Church planting
In a speech delivered, the evangelist Ebenezer Samuel openly confesses of being involved in planting churches among the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and various other religious groups.
Similarly, in various other evangelical speeches, Ebenezer Samuel has made numerous references to church planting in Hindu villages. He has also bragged about how successful he has been in converting Hindus into Christianity.
As per the Organiser report, in a video, Ebenezer was introduced as “80 % of India is Hindu and only 3.2 % are Christians. However, one man is determined to change that statistic forever”. The NGO spread propaganda to Hindus regarding miracle cures with the power of Jesus. And the gullible Hindus, especially in rural areas who are suffering from health, family or financial problems fall into Ebenezer Samuel’s trap.
Shockingly, the Hindus are referred to as being in “Bondage of Satan for Millenniums”, “Unsaved People”, “Unreached People”. The NGO also pushes narratives such as Hindu gods are “dead gods”, “far way gods”, who are constantly referred to as ‘cruel, revengeful, constantly looking out to pour out their wrath’ on their followers.
“Whenever a Hindu faces a problem, he has to figure out which of the 33 million gods he or she worships has become angry and then do Pooja to appease that angry Hindu god. Hindus are oppressed by their own Gods!” reads NGO’s anti-Hindu agenda as per the report.
According to the complainant, the above anti-Hindu narrative is a clear offence under section 508 of IPC which covers “Act caused by inducing person to believe that he will be rendered an object of the Divine displeasure”.
NGO uses young children to illegal conversions
The LRPF complaint further accused the NGO of committing violations by employing minor children to push for illegal conversions. Under the garb of conducting after school free tuitions, children are forced to go through Christian prayers, Gospel preaching, praying for Jesus etc., the NGO has carried out projects such as “Stepping Stones” and “The Egg Project”.
Reportedly, the “Stepping Stones” has four steps – Education, Hygiene, Prayer, Bible Stories and Gospel. This programme is one of the most important contributors of funds to the NGO from abroad.
The Christian NGO solicits funds from their prospective donors in the USA and elsewhere by marketing these programmes. In most of the speeches of Ebenezer Samuel and the videos of the NGO, reportedly, there are constant references to this method of converting Hindus.
The NGO, to attract young children, provides eggs for free. The NGO even have a special programme to convert to Christianity families of farmers who have committed suicide.
Through another programme, Vacation Bible School, the NGO tries to prey on non-Christian children to convert them to Christianity. According to the NGO, they are conducting VBS for 20,000 children each year with the explicit purpose of exposing such children to Christianity.
In videos and speeches of the NGO, Ebenezer Samuel has shared numerous testimonies of children “Accepting Jesus” and has claimed that their parents are doing well following their conversion to Christianity.
NGO has committed various illegal activities
In addition to illegal conversion, FCRA violations, the NGO – Serve India Ministries is also accused of many other illegal activities. According to LRPF, the NGO is using Dalits in the country as a bait for their conversion activities. In almost all the speeches of the NGO Serve India Ministries, there are references to “Dalits” and “atrocities on Dalits” by other caste Hindus. The NGO also repeatedly claims the government of India as being anti-Christian and pro-Hindu.
The NGO has also continued to conduct its conversion activities even in states that have passed the Freedom of Religion Act, which bans such illegal conversions. However, Ebenezer Samuel has been on record to confess that he has been doing evangelism, church planting and conversion in such states.
Further, the NGO is also accused of violation of Visa norms as many of its foreign preachers arrive in India on tourist Visas and indulge in conversion activities.
Given such illegal activities and FCRA violations of Serve India Ministries, the LRPF has requested to Home Ministry to immediately freeze all FCRA revenues and also the designated bank account. The complainant has also demanded a detailed enquiry into the evangelism, illegal conversion, miracle healing activities of the NGO.
The LRPF has also demanded an enquiry into the assets of Serve India Ministries and personal assets of Ebenezer Samuel.
A similar complaint against another NGO by the LRPF
The Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF) had also filed a similar complaint against Christian organisation ‘Gospel for Tribals Social Service Society’ headed by Bishop Jacob Marineni recently for violating the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and also for indulging in religious conversions through allurement among tribals in Telangana.
The complaint was filed with the Ministry of Home Affairs against the organisation for actively involved in religious conversions of innocent Janjatis (tribals) in agency areas of Khammam District in Telangana.
An investigation carried out by the LRPF has found that the Christian organisation has violated the FCRA by establishing a poultry farm using foreign funds. The accused Evangelical organisation’s preachers have also been allegedly involved in communal speeches against Hindus and Hindu customs at several international platforms.
The onset of the coronavirus outbreak in the country has reportedly spelt doom for many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as they are witnessing a steady plunge in their already dwindling donations, ss per a report in The Hindu Businessline. While a calamity, especially of the magnitude of coronavirus would have generally garnered outsize monetary contributions for the NGOs, however, the benefits of donating to PM CARES Fund has driven a huge chunk of contributions away from these non-profit organisations.
PM CARES favoured over traditional NGOs
The report states that the NGOs in India are struggling under the long economic shadow of coronavirus. They are facing stiff headwinds from the PM CARES Fund whose inherent advantages are providing donators with enough motives to side with it. Almost all big donations for meeting the emergency have gone to the PM CARES Fund, partly because of its wide publicity and largely because of the 100 per cent tax exemptions allowed for the donations. Those donating to the NGOs stand eligible only for 50 per cent of tax deduction. This has been a powerful reason for many, small and big donators, to contribute solely to the PM CARES Fund.
The launch of the PM CARES Fund has posed a serious challenge to the existing NGOs. The NGOs believe that the ace business magnates in the country would be more inclined to donate towards the PM CARES Fund, considering the appeal made by the Prime Minister and the extensive publicity of the PM CARES Fund. In such a scenario, the NGOs fear that the business leaders would increase their share of donations towards the Prime Minister’s Fund and cut back on the contributions made to the NGOs.
The Bisinessline report also states that the contributions received by the NGOs as a part of CSR activities of organisations have also drastically reduced after the government amended the CSR guidelines, allowing the organisations to treat their donations to PM CARES Fund as a part of their mandatory 2 per cent CSR contribution under the Companies Act. Funds worth Rs 7000 crore which would have otherwise gone to NGOs have been donated to the PM CARES Fund as CSR contribution.
Crackdown on foreign funding
Ever since the Modi government came into power in 2014, there has been a focused attempt to turn off the foreign aid tap to the NGOs owing to the dubious source of the funding and their underlying agenda for pumping money into the country to achieve political goals.
The Narendra Modi government, soon after coming to power, began a process of scrutinizing foreign-funded NGOs in the country. The government has followed a meticulous process when it comes to FCRA rules compliance. A report by CBI in 2015, had revealed that there are more than 31 lakh NGOs operating in the country which received their funds either from the government or from abroad, only a paltry 10% had filed their balance sheet.
Since coming to power in 2014, the Modi government has come down hard against the shady NGOs who have been receiving illicit foreign funding to carry out their nefarious designs in India. Under the Modi government, nearly 18,000 NGOs which were found to be violating the various clauses of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act were stripped of their permission to receive foreign funding.
An analysis of the FCRA data indicates that as on 1st April 2017 the total amount brought forward by the FCRA-NGOs as unspent money from past foreign ‘donations’ is a whopping Rs. 15,907 Crores, more than 50% of which is lying with about 2% of the FCRA-NGOs. As a result of the clampdown by the Modi government against the NGOs, a staggering 40 per cent decline was witnessed in funding from foreign sources in the year 2017-2018 from the levels of external funding recorded in 2014.
Hundreds of nurses and contractual health workers have gone on a strike in Mumbai’s state-run King Edward Memorial Hospital. The paramedics and doctors have been protesting outside the hospital in masks and protective gears.
As per reports, the protest broke out after a contractual employee working in the Covid-19 ward died on Sunday night. According to reports, he was reportedly unwell and wanted leave, which he was allegedly denied. He was not provided with any sort of facility or help from the administration. His subsequent death has sparked a huge protest outside the state-run hospital.
Protesting employees have demanded that his family should be compensated with a job and financial aid.
#Breaking | Contractual health workers go on strike in Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. Health workers protest shoddy infrastructure in hospitals.
Allegations made by protesting employees of the state-run KEM hospital in Mumbai
The protesting contractual workers have alleged that their supervisor has been making extremely derogatory and mean comments and has been threatening to sack them if they do not turn up to work or work according to the liking of the superiors.
The protesting staff have also highlighted the apathy of the state-run KEM hospital by sharing disturbing images of body bags on stretchers lying unattended in the corridors of the hospital.
BJP MLA Nitesh Rane took to Twitter to share one such image where dead bodies are seen lying in a corridor. He captioned his tweet as: “This is KEM hospital Mumbai!”
Corona infected corpse seen lying with patients undergoing treatment in KEM hospital
The KEM hospital is a dedicated coronavirus facility in Mumbai. Earlier in the month, Nitesh Rane had shared few videos from the same hospital showing dead bodies of coronavirus patients lying in unattended along with those undergoing treatment.
The video shared on May 11 showed at least three bodies wrapped in blue polythene lying next to patients undergoing treatment.
KEM hospital today at 7 am ! I think the @mybmc wants us to get used to seeing dead bodies around us while taking treatment bcz they just don’t want to improve! Feel bad for the health workers too who hv to work in such conditions!! Is there any hope ? pic.twitter.com/E1VsmAveou
Similar images had also emerged from Sion Hospital in Mumbai, which throws light on the apathy of the state-run hospitals in Maharashtra. Political leader, like BJP’s Nitesh Rane and Congress’ Milind Deora, had tweeted about this incident and expressed shock at the state-run hospital’s blatant lapse in managing the coronavirus crisis.
Earlier, a similar incident was reported from the Cooper hospital where a patient was allegedly left unattended and had to spend the night with two corpses around him.
Maharashtra remains the worst-hit state with the total number of coronavirus cases crossing 52,000-mark with 31,000 in Mumbai alone.
