In my earlier post Great Derangement Syndrome: The new bogey – Diwali and sexual abuse of children (published Nov 1, 2016) I looked at the statement allegedly made by The National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (@NCPCR_) that sought to associate the Hindu festival of Diwali with a rise in child sexual abuse. As per the website of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD), the NCPCR is an “associated organization” of the WCD.
I then wanted to dig a little deeper into the antecedents of the players involved – primarily the organizations involved here. There are primarily two that I looked at – Center for Advocacy and Research, and World Vision.
Center for Advocacy and Research
Before getting into World Vision, a detour into the Center for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) is called for, for reasons that should become clearer later in this post.
As per the minutes of the 29th Statutory meeting of the NCPCR , held on Feb 10th, 2016 (the date is also somewhat pertinent), Agenda Item No. 3 was a proposal stated by Ms Rupa Kapoor, Member, NCPCR, on “Child Participation with an e-initiative” titled as “AskMantri.in” in collaboration with World Vision India Foundation.” The proposal was accepted, and the minutes tell us that a “meeting will soon be held with World Vision India Foundation to finalize the proposal.” Here is a screenshot of the Agenda Item:
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| Agenda 3 NCPCR Meeting Minutes |
Do note that the minutes that have been uploaded are an optical scan of a printout of the document. The document itself would have been prepared not on a typewriter but a document processing application software like Microsoft Word. This digital document was not uploaded, or a read-only PDF version. What was uploaded is an image-based document that cannot be searched. Furthermore, the quality of the scanned document is such that even automatic OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software programs would find it difficult to accurately scan the document. Does the NCPCR not know how to upload text PDF documents? Or was the intent to deliberately obstruct easy searching of the minutes? One can only speculate, unless the NCPCR chooses to clarify.
Ms Rupa Kapoor, the Member of the NCPCR that suggested this collaboration with World Vision, was appointed in November 2015 (link). She was earlier a consultant with the Centre for Advocacy and Research (@delhicfar). Therefore, my detour on CFAR? What is CFAR?
- For the year ending Mar 31, 2016, I was able to glean the following information from the CFAR website regarding the foreign contributions it received: (link): it received a total ₹7,76,05,923.73 (more then seven crore rupees)
- According to Form FC-4 available for CFAR for the year ending Mar 31, 2015, from the FCRA site, CFAR had “Total Foreign Contributions” of ₹12,31,15,232.65 (more than twelve crore rupees).
- For the year ending Mar 31, 2014, CFAR received a total of ₹7,22,61,679.42 as foreign contributions. (more than seven crore rupees)
- For the year ending Mar 31, 2013, it received a total ₹11,07,36,619.72 (more then eleven crore rupees.
The striking factoid from CFAR’s FCRA receipts is how much it is reliant on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Consider the BMGF’s percentage of all foreign funding the FCRA received:
- The BGMF provided 87% (₹6.4 crores) of all foreign funding to the CFAR in 2015-16
- 30% (₹3.4 crores) in 2014-15 – an anomaly that is worthy of a deeper investigation, in my opinion.
- 91% (over ₹10 crores) in 2013-14
- 85% (₹6.1 crores) in 2012-13
For an advocacy group that is so overwhelming reliant on one single foreign donor for its operations, it would be difficult for anyone to make the claim that CFAR is not overwhelming beholden to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. According to its Annual Report for the year ended (sic) 31st March, 2015 (link to pdf), its total receipts were ₹150,579,929.80 (fifteen crore rupees). In many ways, one could say that CFAR would probably not exist were it not for funding from the BMGF. To what extent BMGF directs the agenda of the CFAR is something we can only speculate on.
Other foreign donors to the CFAR include the Ford Foundation, Population Services International, and others. The Ford Foundation has a very disturbing past to it, where for several years it was at the forefront of funding research into fetal sex determination and then aggressively advocating sex-selective abortions in India – leading to millions of aborted female foetuses and the skewed gender ratio one sees today. I wrote about it earlier in 2016 on IndiaFacts, Was Ford Foundation Culpable In Aborting Female Foetuses In India?
As for Population Services International, (@PSIimpact), it is described as a “a $670 million organization that markets abortion drugs in the developing world.” (link)
Coming to the NCPCR and its connection with CFAR, in Nov 2015, Ms Rupa Kapoor, a consultant with the CFAR, was appointed Member of the NCPCR. Less than three months later, in Feb 2016, Ms Rupa Kapoor brought out a proposal to collaborate with World Vision to provide multi-platform access to children. The proposal was accepted. The multi-platform access looks more like a very efficient means to track children across offline and online media. The potential violation of the privacy of children has not been addressed or even hinted at in the minutes. The same cabal of self-proclaimed defenders and champions of children have kept strangely quiet on this possible violation of one of the most basic rights of children – of privacy. Strange indeed are the ways of these self-proclaimed champions.
Now let us turn to World Vision.
The World Vision Connection
World Vision is a $2.8 billion global “humanitarian” organization engaged in relief, development, and child welfare work. This is the organization that the NCPCR is collaborating with. For more information on World Vision, do give this blog post a read – World Vision India: A Quick Intro – on the India Happenings blog.
- World Vision India “is part of the Planning Commission Working Group on Women’s Empowerment and Child Development. This group provides input to the Planning Commission on issues of children and women, to be incorporated into the 11th five-year plan.”
- World Vision India “is also part of the NGO steering committee of the National Disaster Management Authority, the premier agency dealing with disaster relief and preparedness in India.” [both references can be found on World Vision’s India website: https://www.worldvision.in/Advocacy]
So what exactly is World Vision? Let us see and read, in World Vision’s own words (bold-emphasis mine, all World Vision links accessed Oct 29th, 2016):
- “World Vision India is a Christian grassroots humanitarian organisation” [https://www.worldvision.in/About_Us]
- “Our faith in Jesus is central to who we are” [https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action]
- “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” [https://www.worldvision.org/statement-of-faith]
- “We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.“
- “We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.”
- “World Vision works in partnership with local churches” [http://www.wvi.org/faqs]
- “Educational activities based on Christian values may occasionally be included in World Vision projects” [http://www.wvi.org/faqs]
- “Our commitment is that when World Vision leaves communities, there will be thriving, engaged churches for sustained spiritual and physical transformation.” [https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action#1470869887604-2b2a7064-3ed2]
- On its website (https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action), World Vision suggests donating $18 to provide one Bible that would help “Share the story of Jesus and the glory of God’s work.” It suggests donating $20 or more on a monthly basis to “Help Christian Commitment“
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| Statement of Faith | World Vision |
- “World Vision is an expression of the Church in mission on behalf of the poor and oppressed.“
- “World Vision shares the Church’s commitment to disciple followers of Jesus Christ who bear witness to the Gospel by life, deed, word and sign, with the goal of encouraging people to respond to the Gospel.”
The article, Many Don’t Know of World Vision’s Evangelical Mission | Huffington Post, references a page from the Singapore website of World Vision – http://www.worldvision.org.sg/st_ourchristainfaith.php. Clicking the link takes you to the home page of the World Vision’s Singapore website, there is a HTTP 301. [permanent URL redirection]
Even more disturbingly, World Vision seems to be a fanatical organization with a deeply bigoted and intolerant streak running through it. World Vision’s U.S. operations are headquartered in Federal Way (a city in the King County, sandwiched between Seattle and Tacoma), and which employ more than 1,200 people. All employees are required to sign a statement of faith affirming their belief in Jesus and the Trinity. In 2011, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of three former employees of World Vision, thereby letting the ruling of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stand. World Vision won its right to fire workers who it suspected did not believe completely in Jesus or the Trinity. (see Supreme Court Won’t Hear World Vision Hiring Case | Gleanings | ChristianityToday.com and High court refuses World Vision hiring case | The Seattle Times).
Sterns had said that World Vision’s hiring policy is “vital to the integrity of our mission to serve the poor as followers of Jesus Christ.” [link] World Vision’s U.S. president, Richard Stearns, in a statement had this to say – “After four years of litigation, we at World Vision U.S. may now put this matter behind us, and continue our policy of hiring only Christians.“[link]
In recent years, it emerged that 60 percent of World Vision’s funding for the Gaza Strip was diverted to the Hamas, a terrorist organization (see World Vision’s Christian Donations Funded Hamas – Israel Today | Israel News, World Vision funds $7.2 million per year to terrorist group allied to ISIS., ) Closer home, there were investigations and allegations that World Vision was involved in the gruesome murder of 80-year old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. See Laxmanananda Saraswati unmourned yet again for disturbing details of the case.
Such an organization has spread its tentacles into the government of India, and is advising the government on issues related to women and children. Its interference continues unabated, unquestioned, uninvestigated, even under a supposedly right-wing government.
Pause and ponder this point.
World Vision’s statements and the facts collated above should put to rest any doubt that might exist that World Vision is first and foremost – and primarily – a powerful, very well-funded, and aggressive evangelical organization that uses its financial clout to promote its evangelical agenda in countries. What is also not in doubt is that this organization’s India arm continues to receive hundreds of crores of rupees every year via the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) route. This money is deployed across more than one hundred districts in the country, and World Vision’s employees use this money to infiltrate almost every branch of the government.
From an evangelical perspective, missionary organizations target the poor, the vulnerable, the young, and the women for their soul-harvesting activities. These are the demographics that yield the greatest dividends. To that end, natural disasters present one of the best opportunities for evangelical organizations to spread the gospel and harvest millions of souls. The catastrophic earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, and the devastating tsunami in South Asia in 2004 are but just two such examples where natural disasters have been used for rampant conversion activities.
Therefore, it is but natural that such evangelical organizations infiltrate those departments of the government that focus on child and women welfare. The NCPCR and the Women and Child Development Ministry are prime targets.
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| Locations of FCRA Utilization Bank Accounts of World Vision India. (via https://indiahap.wordpress.com/ – interactive map here) |
In any case, the questions to be asked here are:
- Did the CFAR play any role in advocating the development of this privacy-invading platform targeted at children?
- Was there any collaboration, consultation – formal or informal – between the CFAR, World Vision, the NCPCR, and Ms Rupa Kapoor?
- Has any group looked into the privacy implications of this proposed initiative?
The role of Ms Rupa Kapoor in any case warrants a closer and thorough investigation – especially any links she may have with World Vision or other advocacy or evangelical groups. It would appear, prima-facie, that there are enough grounds for suspicion that she has been compromised and is more than willing to do the bidding of World Vision.
As of completing this second, and concluding, post, I had still not got any clarification – confirmation or denial – from either the NCPCR or the Hon’bl Minister, Ms Maneka Gandhi.
Disclaimer: views expressed are personal
