NGO Forum

New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) published an article titled “NGOs To Be Treated As ‘Public Servants’, Have To Declare Assets.” The article reads in part as follows:

“NEW DELHI – NGOs or non-profit organisations, that receive more than one crore rupees in government funds or more than 10 lakhs as donation from abroad and their office-bearers will now be considered public servants and will have to declare details of their assets and liabilities and those of their spouses and dependent children by July 31 this year, the Centre has said.

Despite being legally bound to submit their annual tax returns by a set deadline in a bid to improve accountability, a significant number of organisations are still missing this target, the NGO watchdog has said.

The issue was flagged in the 2015 annual report of the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations and debated yesterday by the Social Affairs Parliamentary Committee.

In the year under review, a total of 645 annual returns were submitted, of which 404 satisfied the criteria of the Voluntary Organisations Act. In the remaining 241 reports, the respective administrators were contacted in order to provide missing documentation or make corrections.

A German parliamentary committee report, seen by news agency DPA, found that the country’s foreign intelligence service (BND) has spied on EU and Nato governments and members of their offices and military institutions. The BND also spied on NGOs and a German citizen. The spying stopped in October 2013. That same year, chancellor Angela Merkel had rebuffed US espionage, saying that spying on friends was “not done.”

Click here to access the article.

Germany and China have agreed to set up an “early warning system” to avoid problems for German non-governmental organizations from a new Chinese law that restricts such groups, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.

Merkel told reporters that she and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang had agreed to stay in close touch about potential issues once the new law goes into effect on Jan. 1.

The law grants broad powers to Chinese police to question NGO workers, monitor their finances, regulate their work and shut down offices. German rights groups and political foundations have said they fear that the law will hamper their work.