India bans foreign donations to leading think tank

A leading Indian think tank confirmed Wednesday it had been banned from taking foreign funding, the latest organisation among foreign charities, rights watchdogs and others similarly targeted after criticising the government.

The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is one of the country's most highly regarded public policy forums.

Its staffers are prominent talking heads and columnists who have been rare dissenting voices in the media on sensitive political issues, including national security policy and governance in the restive territory of Kashmir.

The home ministry had already provisionally suspended the CPR's licence to receive foreign donations after raids in 2022 by the tax department, severely curtailing its operations.

Local broadsheet The Hindu reported that authorities had resolved to cancel the licence because it had published reports on "current affairs programmes".

"The basis of this decision is incomprehensible and disproportionate," CPR president Yamini Aiyar said in a statement on social media.

"Some of the reasons given challenge the very basis of the functioning of a research institution".

An undated home ministry gazette confirmed the licence was cancelled "on violation" of foreign funding rules without giving further details.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US State Department were among the organisation's prominent international donors.

Last year Aiyar wrote that the tax raids and suspension of foreign donations had left the think tank in a "precarious financial position".

Local media outlet Newslaundry also reported last year that the blocking of foreign donations had forced the CPR to cut its headcount by 75 percent and significantly scale down its operations.

The CPR is the latest of several independent civic organisations accused of falling afoul of India's strict foreign funding rules.

Authorities similarly raided Oxfam's India offices in 2022 in what Amnesty International said was the weaponisation of investigative agencies "to harass, intimidate, silence, and criminalise independent critical voices".

Amnesty saw its own local offices raided in 2019 in a foreign funding investigation and announced it was halting operations in India the following year after the government froze its bank accounts.

Rights groups say freedom of speech in India has suffered since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014.

The country has fallen 21 spots to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, in the decade since.