CORE Manipur demands clarification from IB

IMPHAL: The Centre for Organisation Research and Education (CORE), an Imphal based research body, has demanded immediate clarification from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) or it shall be constrained to seek legal opinion. It expressed outrage regarding the recent news of an IB classified report 'Impact of NGOs on Development' allegedly leaked to select national newspapers by dragging CORE’s name into an unknown entity by the name ‘Manipur Coalition on Extractives’ while fallaciously alleging the organisation as routing funds through NGOs Chindu and Swadhikar for activism against oil drilling in Manipur and contributing to a negative impact on India’s GDP growth.

CORE, in a statement, stated, "We dismiss this reported classified document mentioned in the media, and its alleged contents as a leveling of charges without any evidence to support its claims and an obvious attempt to muzzle the fundamental freedoms of speech and association, the right to information that are guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. We are acutely aware that the leaking of such a classified document is designed to whip up public sentiment and its fictitious allegations made against the organisation may be amounting to outright libel, slander and defamation."

According to the CORE statement, it received a small amount last year from Rural Women Upliftment Society (RWUS) as a local resource centre under its time-bound project funded by CORDAID, that ended this June, for community based advocacy on conservation of environment and documentation of natural resources including the setting up of two model green villages in Manipur where many stake holders including village authority, church leaders, students leaders, national security forces stationed locally such as the Assam Rifles, etc., jointly participated to promote environmental awareness and promote green villages for the welfare of communities, their natural environment and ecological sustainability. CORE has no formal or official links with Chindu, Swadikar or CORDAID, as alleged in the media reports, in the past or presently.

CORE is an indigenous peoples’ organization, founded in 1987 as a non-profit registered NGO (Government of Manipur Societies Registration Act, 1860 bearing the Registration No. 98 of 24th March, 1987), focusing its activities on the civil, political, cultural, economic and social rights of indigenous peoples of North East India.

The statement said that CORE is in Special Consultative Relations with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations for the past 9 years. CORE's application and status in the UN is examined regularly by the Committee on NGOs of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the UN General Assembly, of which the Government of India is a member.

It then said the organisation is certified by the Department of Social Welfare, Government of Manipur as an NGO working in the social welfare sector after fulfilment of prescribed terms and conditions since July 1998. It was registered under the Section 6(1) of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act of 1976 since 1997. And the organisation is also exempted from paying income tax under the laws of India. CORE is also the recipient of prestigious global awards. “We work as a human rights defender organisation and all our activities are human rights based, committed to the principles and purposes contained in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).”

“As a registered non-profit Non-government organisation, we have been regularly submitting our annual reports and audited annual financial reports to the Income Tax Department of India, Registrar of Societies, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, and Intelligence Bureau as required for the past many years. And, we submit quadrennial reports to the UN as mandatory for all the ECOSOC status NGOs. All our activities and other representation to both national and international are in place with all concerned authorities and most are available in the public domain.”

"Promoting sustainable and wise use of our natural national heritage and empowering the marginalized communities are clearly contributing substantively towards sustainable national growth. Having nothing to say further after gathering all sorts of freely and publicly available tidbits of information on NGOs and funders in India, the IB made a wild claim that Indian GDP had been negatively impacted to the tune of a guesstimated 2% -3% by some NGOs' development, awareness and advocacy activities! So this report seems to be an "economically” or ideologically slanted allegation for never in India's history before has this agency made an economic report, usually the domain of experts in this field.

The questions remain, just how and why this civilian agency, without any statutory status or accountability to Parliament, came to make a complex econometric outcome conclusion from such summary information it claims to have gathered for this ‘classified’ report, ‘Impact of NGOs on Development’, and whose purposes and interests it (the conclusion) may serve by presenting a highly conjectural and biased view," the statement read.