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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. Does the Indian government have a legitimate complaint?

There is a very wide spectrum of possibilities here. They range from the Indian government being horrible, through localised corruption, through the government having very legitimate concerns about foreign interference, through to AI India being corrupt and/or in league with western intelligence agencies.

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Previous govt had huge concerns as well. PM Singh said "The atomic energy programme has gone into difficulties because these NGOs [non-governmental organisations], mostly I think based in the United States, don't appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17150953

Also, Important to note that some of the changes to laws for NGOs were done during congress led UPA govt as well. It is just that changes to laws have now been highlighted more by mainstream media.

The government's perspective. Apparently, the bank account that was frozen violated money laundering laws and was upheld by a court. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/...

The govt has been tackling entities that do not conform with their views. Conformance is their objective.

The government has been tracking foreign funding, as it should. There is no shortage of examples where external government agencies (mostly western) have tried to influence internal politics or topple governments (mostly 3rd world).

Government needs to ensure whether NGOs are working as per there declared mandate and need to ensure their mandatory legal compliance requirements. And it isn't "Conformance to their objective" is mandatory legal compliance in a democracy.

It's not a question of legitimate complaint. They didn't complain, they froze assets and halted the organisation's activity.

The question is whether or not the Indian government's actions are legitimate, and whether or not their stated reasons are true. On the later, it seems to be a clear no.

In this particular case it is money laundering. These NGOs receive foreign funds without Govt. approvals and the state is slapping the law on them.

Government agencies have filed official complaints against them in recent years. But it's not clear what came out of it.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/amnesty-received-rs-46...

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