THE TIMES OF INDIA, BENGALURU *TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 7TIMES NATION

New Delhi: The home mini-stry has suspended the foreignfunding licence of 13 NGOs andassociations for allegedly in-dulging in religious conver-sion in tribal-dominated areasin violation of provisions ofthe Foreign Contributions Re-gulation Act, 2010.

The FCRA licences of the 13NGOs, granted registration toreceive foreign donations for“religious” purposes, were su-spended and their bank acco-unts frozen after intelligencereports pointed to their activi-ties in tribal areas of some sta-tes, particularly Jharkhand, ai-med at religious conversion ofthe locals to Christian faith.

Section 12(4) empowersFCRA authorities to suspendlicence of an NGO/associationthat has indulged in activities

aimed at conversion throughinducement or force, either di-rectly or indirectly, from one re-ligious faith to another. The in-telligence agencies are said tohave pointed out the past re-cord of these NGOs using fore-ign funds for religious conver-sion of tribals.

A home ministry officialsaid the 13 NGOs were served ashow-cause notice pointing tothe FCRA violations and as-ked to respond to the charges.However, they did not replywithin the prescribed time-li-mit. One of the NGOs gave alate response and the explana-tion was found unsatisfactory,said sources.

Accordingly, a decisionwas taken to suspend the li-cences of all the 13 entities un-der review. The MHA’s FCRAwebsite, however, lists onlysix NGOs whose FCRA licen-ces were suspended in Febru-ary this year. Four of these ha-ve an evangelical backgro-und, -- Northern EvangelicalLutheran Church, Ecreosocu-lis North Western GossnerEvangelical, New Life Fellow-ship Association and Evange-lical Churches Association.

The 13 NGOs have been gi-ven six months to respond tothe suspension notice and de-pending on their response, theFCRA licence will be cancelledor reinstated. In the past few ye-ars, some of the biggest foreignevangelical NGOs have seen ac-tion under FCRA. CompassionInternational was put on priorpermission list, effectively free-zing its donations to IndianNGOs. Its annual contributionsin India at the time totalled se-veral hundred crores. Also, ma-ny Indian NGOs receiving fun-ding from Believers’ Church,which was contributing 400crore a year, were banned.

‘AllegedlyConverted

Tribals’

Centre strips 13 NGOs offoreign funding licence

Bharti.Jain@timesgroup.com

In the Indian test on Monday, thehypersonic ‘cruise vehicle sus-tained its scramjet-powered

flight path at a velocity of six timesthe speed of sound (Mach 6, or near-ly 2km per second) for 22-24 sec-onds. It auto-ignited to fly on itsown after separating from the‘launch vehicle’, which took it to analtitude of 30km. The launch vehi-cle, in turn, was powered by theproven solid-propellant rocket mo-tor of an Agni ballistic missile.

“It’s a major technological break-through. The air-breathing scramjetengine was successfully flight-testedat hypersonic speed within the atmo-sphere, meeting all technical param-eters. The test paves the way for de-velopment of many more criticaltechnologies, materials and hyper-sonic vehicles,” DRDO chairman DrGSatheesh Reddy told TOI.

PM Narendra Modi tweeted,“The scramjet engine developed byour scientists helped achieve aspeed of six times the speed ofsound. Very few countries havesuch capability today.” Defenceminister Rajnath Singh said it wasa “landmark achievement” to-wards ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. It

was now time to progress to thenext phase with all “critical tech-nologies” being established by thesuccessful HSTDV flight test, usingthe indigenously developed scram-jet propulsion system, he added.

The next phase will be to developlong-range hypersonic cruise mis-siles, which DRDO scientists saidwould be possible in five to six years.The complex technology behind theHSTDV, the maiden launch of whichhad failed in June last year, also hascivilian applications like low costlaunch of small satellites.

India still has to achieve sus-tained scramjet-powered hypersonicflight for a few minutes, which hasbeen repeatedly demonstrated by theUS, Russia and China. India has theramjet-powered BrahMos superson-ic cruise missiles, which fly at Mach2.8 speed, developed jointly with Rus-sia. Their strike range is being en-hanced from the original 290km towell over 400km. A scramjet engine isan improvement over the ramjet en-gine because the former operates ef-ficiently at hypersonic speeds and al-lows supersonic combustion usinghydrogen fuel. Ramjets, in contrast,operate well at supersonic speedsaround Mach 3 but their efficiencydrops at hypersonic speeds.

A major technologicalbreakthrough: DRDO

�Continued from page 1In January, the ED attached assets of the Koch-

hars worth Rs 78 crore as “proceeds of crime”.In its provisional attachment order, the ED ac-cused the banker and her husband of receiving Rs64 crore from Videocon in NuPower RenewablesLtd, owned by Deepak Kochhar. The amount wastransferred into the account of NuPower Renew-ables in Sept 2009, a day after Chanda Kochhar-ledICICI Bank sanctioned a loan of Rs 300 crore toVideocon International Electronics Limited.

Chanda Kochhar is accused of “illegal sanc-tioning loans” worth Rs 1,875 crore to Videocongroup of companies. It was the CBI which filedan FIR against the former ICICI Bank CEO andher husband on January 22, 2019. Based on CBI’sFIR, the ED initiated an investigation under thePrevention of Money Laundering Act trailing Rs325 crore Deepak Kochhar allegedly received inhis Nupower Renewables from two Mauritius-based entities. Chanda Kochhar was instrumen-tal in ICICI Bank refinancing huge loans to theVideocon group which later turned into non-per-forming assets for the bank.

Kochhars got ̀̀ 64crfrom Videocon: ED

�Continued from page 1

A home ministry officialsaid the 13 NGOs wereserved a show-causenotice pointing to theFCRA violations andasked to respond to thecharges. But they did notreply within the prescribed time-limit

New Delhi: The Centre onMonday asserted that the en-tire shortfall in compensa-tion to states, irrespective ofwhether on account of GSTimplementation or the Covidpandemic, will be compensa-ted and refuted the chargethat it is reneging on its sove-reign obligations.

Finance ministry sourcesclarified the Centre in its noteon borrowing options circu-lated to all states had clearlysaid the same. “It has neverbeen the stand of Finance Mi-nister Nirmala Sitharamanthat the loss of revenue due toCovid would not be compen-sated,” an official said.

The explanation camein the context of some political parties interpre-ting Sitharaman’s referen-ce to the pandemic as an“act of God” in the last mee-ting of the GST Council asreneging on commitments.

The official said that theCentre has time and again,committed that the stateswould be entitled to “fullcompensation”.

Full deficit of GSTcompensation

to states will bepaid: SourcesTIMES NEWS NETWORK

CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIBangaloreBS PubDate: 08-09-2020 Zone: BangaloreCity Edition: 2 Page: TOIBGCR User: habeeba.salim Time: 09-08-2020 01:57 Color: CMYK