Open letter to Ford Foundation and Arvind Kejriwal on charge of US bankrolling anti-corruption agitation

Business Standard published this morning an interview with Arvind Kejriwal and Steven Solnick, India country Rep of Ford Foundation in an article titled Claims that Hazare's movement is US-funded baseless: Arvind.   

They confirmed Arundhati Roy's charge that Kabir, a Kerjiwal NGO received $ 400,000 during the last 3 years as funding from Ford Foundation. On the broader allegations whether the US steamrolled the Anna Hazare anti-corruption agitation, they drove themselves further to a corner. This is why? Note :extracts from Business Standard:

RTI activist, Arvind Kejriwal today dubbed as “baseless” the questions being raised about interests of US bankrolling the nation-wide anti-corruption agitation under his Gandhian leader Anna Hazare.

 How can you linked that to what is being done now?” he asked, referring to allegations against the popular movement seeking early passage of a strong Lok Jan Pal Bill, including one by author Arundhati Roy.

“If Ford Foundation is bad, then ban it,” he said  

You ask why, Kejriwal? Why??? Is it a mere coincidence that a clutch of Ford Foundation supported (past or current) NGOs steamrolled this agitation? 

Suppose Indian supported NGOs in the US had carried out such a campaign, can you imagine what's Washington's reaction? The likes of you even for mere suspicion of such brazenness  would have been immediately whisked away to Guantanamo Bay to be never be seen live thereafter. 

Michael Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International condemned this detention centre as raising serious and credible allegations of torture. Bochenek was putting it mildly. The New York Times put it more graphically in a testimony to Congress:

 * Urinating on detainees
 * Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly
 * Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton
 * Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees
 * Sodomization of detainees with a baton
 * Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.
 * A prison guard said that prisoners were shot for minor misbehaviour, and claimed to have had venomous snakes bite prisoners, sometimes resulting in their deaths. 

US reactions won't stop there. They will bomb the nation to Stone Age for their brazenness to attempt a "regime change" in their country. Like Sadam Husein, the Prime Minister of India could in all probability be tried in a fake court and then hanged - all televised to rub in the humiliation!

You said further Mr Kejriwal, if Ford Foundation is bad, ban it. Yes. I totally agree. Ford Foundation by a failed attempt to a regime change in India has over stayed its welcome in India. It is better for them to realize this on their own rather than leaving them red-faced if the government of India decides to tell them impolitely to leave. 

The Home Ministry must temporarily revoke FCRA clearance of all Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation supported NGOs in the country, past or current. In fact it would be a great idea, if the scope of investigation is widened to encompass all US funded NGOs, whether World Vision; CRS; CARE etc., just to confirm whether there was a wider conspiracy. Raid them and verify their fund utilization and if violations have been found, also book their chartered accountants for fraud and professional misconduct!

Magsaysay Awardees

(Kejriwal)  It was “preposterous” to say Magsaysay awardees will further any American agenda just because the Magsaysay Foundation has US funding. “I don’t know who funds Magsaysay. If every beneficiary of the Ford Foundation fund was furthering a US interest, then IIM Bangalore dean Trilochan Shastri who started Association for Democratic Reforms with IIM alumni “too must be doing that”, he added, cynically.

(Steven Solnick) "It was not correct to say that Ford Foundation was trying to influence Magsaysay awardees even indirectly. “Our grant to Magsaysay Foundation was as early as 15 years ago. It was for a specific purpose. That both Kiran Bedi (of Team Anna) and Kejriwal are awardees is a coincidence.”

The Jan Lok Pal Bill originally stipulated a condition that two of the last Magsaysay awardees were to be eligible for the Lok Pal post. Just who were these last two? Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi! And just who were these two personalities? The same that led the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, another Magsaysay awardee! And if the Jan Lok Pal by a quirk of fate was passed into law, presto - we have Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi as part of the Lok Pal. This is one hell of coincidence, Mr. Solnick isn't it?

While it is factual that Ford Foundation's last grant to Magsaysay was 15 years ago, you left out the details. The grant went to an emerging leadership fund, where Ford Foundation still controls the key decision making powers in selection. In 2005, Kabir received founding from Ford Foundation and the very next year he receives the Magsaysay emerging leadership award. Quite a coincidence, Mr. Solnick, don't you say?? 

The Magsaysay Award was besides established by your other CIA twin, the Rockerfeller Foundation. Magsaysay is given as reward to those who stand for American interests. Now if Arvind Kejriwal feigns ignorance of the organization's background from whom he accepted an award, a title he openly flaunts as his credentials, let this expose of Dr S Faizi in www.vijayvaani.com, be his enlightenment. Dr Faizi is an ecologist specialising in international environmental policy:

"Late Ramon Magsaysay was a former president of The Philippines. But the award, though in his name and in his honour, is not an official award of The Philippines government, but one that is funded and run by the Rockefeller Foundation, out of Manila to be sure, with some local faces accommodated on the Board. And its youth award (given to Kejriwal) is funded by a bird of the same feather - the Ford Foundation.

Cultivating and promoting ‘society leaders’ who one way or the other stand up for American ‘values’ and help remove the social space for those who challenge American hegemony that is at the root of a multitude of world problems, is the long term purpose of the award. It can also be used for short term goals, such as precipitating a domestic crisis. [The current face-off at Ramlila Maidan could be said to represent such a manufactured crisis].

Magsaysay is also given as reward to those who stand for American interests. As an example, consider the invaluable collection of India’s rice germ-plasm assiduously built at the Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, which was taken away by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) located on the banks of the beautiful Laguna lake about two hours drive from Manila.

The Rockefeller Foundation was instrumental in establishing the IRRI for the western agri-business corporations, to have a firm grip on rice cultivation in Asia. And the man who helped IRRI deprive India of its precious rice germ-plasm collection was later made the head of IRRI and rewarded with the Magsaysay [a rich purse], and subsequently made chairman of the award committee.

The name Ramon Magsaysay did not come to the Ford Foundation by accident. If it was to honour the values of freedom and commitment to the people, they should have gone for the name of Jose Rizal, the most revered Philipino leader, but they did not do that. Ramon Magsaysay steadfastly stood for American interests both in The Philippines and the southeast Asia region. The 1953 presidential election that Magsaysay won was entirely manipulated by the CIA to put him in that position. Nick Cullather of Stanford University says in his book Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippines Relations, 1942-1960, ‘The US flagrantly intervened in the 1953 election. The list of CIA dirty tricks, by one account, included money laundering, arson, and blackmail, but ironically these depredations fail to convey the scope of the interference. The election was all about the United States’. 

Magsaysay was considered a great asset by America in fighting communist movements. He happily worked for America to set up the dangerous SEATO (Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty) military alliance, although it had hardly any takers within the region (only the kingdom of Thailand and the vassal state of Pakistan).

America unsuccessfully used him to spoil the 1955 Bandung Conference that led to the birth of the Non-Alignment Movement. He refused to go Bandung (like his mentor John Dulles, the US Secretary of State) in deference to American interests, but sent a representative who argued for American interests, giving lone company to the US envoy there. I wonder how many of our civil society groups and journalists who get excited at the very mention of the Magsaysay Award know how Ramon had attempted to malign the image of Jawaharlal Nehru (and NAM) by describing the Non Aligned Movement as a springboard of communism, because they were angered by Nehru’s criticism of SEATO.

Ramon Magsaysay is honoured by the US for nothing but his ‘courageous stand against communism in the Far East’. And the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations’ award in his name is meant to promote that old purpose in a sustained and discrete manner. 

The three Magsaysay awardees, owning multiple well-funded NGOs, live up to the expectations of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations; and now the US government has officially chipped in, though it is simultaneously trying to distance itself belatedly in the face of a strong official reaction from New Delhi."

Now that you know all what the Magsaysay award is about, Mr Kejriwal, would you return the award as a true "patriot" of this country. To your credit Mr. Kejriwal, you succeeded in generating a frenzied outpouring of people waving Indian  flags and singing Vande Mantram when they should have really be waving the US flag and singing the Star-Spangled Banner!

And as for the query whether the charge of US stooge applies to IIM Bangalore dean Trilochan Shastri, another Magsaysay awardee, who started Association for Democratic Reforms with IIM alumni, the answer is in the affirmative He was fomenting support for your Jan Lok Pal bill in Bangalore by organizing rallies.

Ford Foundation Funding

(Kejriwal) In a talk with Business Standard, the Ramon Magsaysay awardee said the NGO, Kabir, he runs along with social activist Manish Sisodia, did receive funding from the New York-based Ford Foundation, but pointed out that it had stopped about two years ago. 

(Solnick) Ford Foundation India too denied allegations that it was propping the anti-graft movement. Its representative, Steven Solnick, said the Foundation’s last instalment to Kabir was in 2010.

“Our first grant to the NGO was of $1,72,000 in 2005 ; the second was in 2008 of $1,97,000,” he told Business Standard. "Both were exclusively for work on Right to Information Act and on training people how to use it,” he said. The Foundation had agreed to give the NGO a grant this year. “But they told us that they have not been able to begin any work. Hence, the money was not given.”

So how do you explain this snapshot of grant allotment to Kabir in the Ford Foundation's website, Mr Kejriwal, Mr. Solnick? This clearly disclosures that the grant was for the current year!

Yet again, another unkept promise: Anna Team fail to declare personal assets

Hazare, 4 others on Lokpal panel to declare assets
Courtesy: MSN

"A spokesperson for the civil society said Anna, Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal will release personal statement of their assets and liabilities tomorrow.

"They will be meeting with fellow campaigners to discuss issues pertaining to the Joint Draft Committee of Jan Lokpal bill," the spokesperson for the 'India Against Corruption', which spearheaded the campaign, said."

This news item was dated 15/04/2011. Todate Anna, Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal have not declared their personal assets. Yet again, another unkempt promise reflecting on the integrity of these personalities.

Arundhati Roy: Jan Lokpal bill regressive, Anna used as prop

Courtesy: Deccan Herald

The Jan Lokpal bill is a ''regressive piece of legislation'' and Anna Hazare has been ''used as a prop by foreign-funded NGOs'' to lead the anti-corruption movement, writer and activist Arundhati Roy has said.

In an interview to CNN IBN, Roy said she is glad that the civil society's Jan Lokpal bill did not go through in parliament. "I am extremely glad that the Jan Lokpal bill did not go through parliament in its current form," Roy said.
"I think the legislation is a dangerous piece of work. You used the real and legitimate anger of the people against corruption to push through this specific piece of legislation, which is very regressive according to me," she added.

Alleging that activist Anna Hazare, who spearheaded the anti-corruption movement, was used just as a prop, Roy said: "It was an NGO-driven movement by Kiran Bedi, (Arvind) Kejriwal and (Manish) Sisodia. Three of them run NGOs."

"I wanted to indicate why these NGOs are participating to mediate in what the public policy should be. World Bank and Ford Foundation fund the anti-corruption campaigns. Anna Hazare was picked up and propped up as the saint for the masses. He was not the brain behind the movement," she added.

Talking about the Jan Lokpal bill, Roy said that it attempts to create a form of "parallel oligarchy".  "The Jan Lokpal team, including the chairman, is to be selected by a pool of elite people and they are a pool of elite people. You have a bureaucracy which will  have the policing power, the power to tap phones, prosecute, charge and judge from the prime minister to the bottom," she said.

Roy also questioned the media for its 24X7 coverage of Hazare's 12-day fast. "For a nation of one billion people, the media did not find anything else to report," she said, adding that "certain major TV channels campaigned for" the movement. "That's a kind of corruption for me at first place".

Breaking: After collecting crores from the public, why the Anna Team still fight shy to publish their accounts

According to their own declaration, the Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) acts as the secretariat of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, which is a shell organization without any legal status. Consequently all funds received and spent are supposedly to be accounted by PCRF, a NGO controlled by Arvind Kejriwal, a key member of the Anna team. Under pressure from the media to declare their sources of funds, Kejriwal  promised the nation on national TV that the accounts of the IAC would be published within 24 hours. That was almost three weeks ago.

The above is the snapshot as of 10 am today of the accounts page of the website of the Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF). Leave alone accounts of the just concluded fast, as seen from the snapshot, the PCRF shies from publishing their last two years accounts viz 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Now from the 3 years PCRF declared "accounts" nowhere you will find their sources of funding disclosed, which is extremely surprising for a "movement' pivoting an anti-corruption movement, advocating more accountability and transparency from the government.

               Corpus               Investments                C+I                  Change +/-

2006-07    1,301,000                                            1,301,000                  Base
2007-08       811,000                                               811,000           -   4,90,000
2008-09    3,151,416           2,311, 052                 5,462,468            + 46,51,468

As observed from the data compiled, corpus + investments (CI) fluctuates rather wildly . From  Rs  811,000  in 2007-08 where corpus dipped to offset excess expenditure over revenue, CI spiked to Rs 5,462,468 in 2008-09. We can deduce that by 2008-09, PCRF had come of age and was receiving fairly big funding by Indian NGO standards . PCRF should be by now receiving at least a crore as revenue  annually. The question is, who is/are the donor(s). It is highly possible, they are the same as the ones who funded the IAC movement. It is not to hard to suspect that one of the reasons why PCRF fights shy to publish their 2009-10 and 2010-11 "accounts" is that to hide their spectacular revenue growth story from 2008-09 as it would have raised many an eyebrow.

                    Monthly Rent

2006-07     Rs.   867 per month
2007-08     Rs. 1467 per month
2008-09     Rs. 6000 per month

The registered office of PCRF is in the posh area of Sarvapriya Vihar (opp. IIT-Delhi) in Delhi. And yet, they paid, only Rs 867 monthly in rent in 2006-07, ups slightly the next year and by 2008-09 paying somewhat believable rentals. There maybe many rationale explanations for such a puzzlement. It is possible that the PCRF rentals are subsidized by a well wisher or benefactor. Then the logical question, just who is this mysterious benefactor? The second possibility is that this only the white part of the rentals, that PCRF paid black money for the rest of the amount. But then, these are anti-corruption stalwarts of the country, we wish this was not true. It can be only true if the anti-corruption image they wear is only a mask for a more nefarious agenda. The third explanation is that PCRF met only a small portion of their rentals and their other NGOs like Kabir picked most of the rental tab. But Kabir is a Ford Foundation partner. Ohh.. If true, this is gonna hurt bad and throw up an international diplomatic row!

            Total Salary Payout

2006-07       Rs.     13,000
2007-08       Rs.   3,26,600
2008-09       Rs.   2,51,912

Yes, you are seeing right. This is the total salary for not one individual in a year but for 10 professionals their website claims work for their organization. This works out Rs 2,099 average per staff. Leave alone rent, this will not even meet their food bill. Only Anna fasts. None of these characters will try to emulate this example! The first explanation is that this is only white component of their salaries. PCRF raises alot of public money as donations, so they  can be easily paid by black and still maintain a saintly austere image! The second explanation is that other NGOs by the Anna team is also meeting the salary costs of PCRF in a big way. If this includes Kabir, a Ford Foundation partner, this is again gonna hurt bad and throw up an international diplomatic row!

Are there transactions to and fro among the Anna NGOs? A hint is provided in the schedule C above. They do. Inadvertently PCRF have disclosed loan transactions to Kabir and Parivarthan, NGOs of the Anna Team.

If hundrends of thousands as claimed by the media turned up for the Anna fast, surely hundreds of crores were raised by India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. As Ceaser's wife should be above suspucion, the IAC will do well to publish their accounts with full disclosures before asking the government, judiciary and bureaucracy to do so!

Say yes to the provision of bringing NGOs under the Lokpal.

Read also:  Ford Foundation website confirms grants to member NGO of Anna Team

‘The largeness of structure in the Jan Lokpal by itself becomes an issue of corruption’

Courtesy: Indian Express

In this Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7 with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, member of the National Advisory Council and RTI activist Aruna Roy talks about corruption, civil society and the need to widen the Lokpal debate.

My guest this week is someone who has been the leading light of the civil society for decades now and who has given us the most potent gift or weapon we have had so far in the fight against corruption, the Right to Information. Are you feeling a little bit bemused by what is going on?

It is a very interesting period in the history of India, because it is a challenge to our ideas, it is a challenge to what we thought, it is a challenge to the future of democracy, it is a challenge to people’s voices, it is a challenge to legislative processes. And I think it is a very learning period for all of us on what to do and also what not to do.

You say ‘interesting times’ almost as communistly as the Chinese do. Can you elaborate a bit more on this?

Well, actually, the fight against corruption has never left the social-political scene in this country. We have been fighting corruption in this country—small and big—forever as far as I can remember. When I was in the IAS, when I left the IAS, when I went to an NGO, then when I went to a movement, it has always been an issue. It is extremely interesting and relevant to this country.

You were in the IAS in a very illustrious batch. Many of you have become famous since—you, Wajahat Habibullah, who became the first RTI commissioner, Gopal Gandhi...

Yes. He is also a batchmate. The issue that interests me now is, we have come together and it is a great coming together. The angst has found a kind of expression, but while we say that we don’t want corruption—we are all united because it is something none of us wants—the whole issue is the remedy. For Anna saab Hazare to become a point at which we all congregate to express our angst against corruption is a wonderful thing. But how do we see the process of ending corruption is where the debate begins.

Is a debate possible in this environment?

I think the debate should be possible in any environment, and I really go back to Mahatma Gandhi and to a much more tumultuous period which they all lived through, in which there was a foreign government. And even at that time, there was a debate and documents were published which we read now in the archives. Debate, I think, is essential, in political issues.

One of the most fascinating debates I have read is on the Constituent Assembly. You read that and it makes you wonder what a smart group of people we had and how libertarian and how prescient they were and how much they disagreed with each other.

Actually, they disagreed a lot. But, everything was recorded and done within the ambit of a very mature recognition of dissent. Because if I have the right to dissent, I have the obligation to listen. Unfortunately, in some of our public debates on the Lokpal Bill and also on corruption, we say we have the right to dissent but we don’t have the obligation to listen. Whether it is the government which doesn’t want to listen or a campaign which doesn’t want to listen or any of us who don’t want to listen. I think an important part of growth is the listening. I always think of Mahatma Gandhi. He travelled the length and breadth of India just to listen to people, to fashion a political discourse.

Has Anna Hazare done that, since there is a comparison with Gandhi made all the time?

Most of the discourse has been not only set by Anna, the discourse has also limited itself largely to the Lokpal Bill, which is an instrumentality and perhaps, can repair to some degree some kinds of corruption.

Or plug some holes.

Yes. But corruption for me is also arbitrary use of power. It’s inequality that persists in the country—economic, social, political lack of access. They are all part of a larger system of corruption.

But one area where we might agree with the Anna group is that so far law-making in this country had not been participatory. Elected people and bureaucrats made most of the laws in the past.

Actually for me, the participatory process began in 1992-93 with the Right to Information Act because then we just fashioned a very small discourse in a panchayat, amongst our jan sunvaaiyi. Thereafter the discourse grew and the basic draft of the Act was made by Justice P B Sawant when he was the chair of the Press Council of India. In a way, he did fashion the law and his law went around and was received by legislators, sent to Parliament, to all the Chief Ministers, to the Prime Minister. But there was a huge gestation period because it went through the H D Shourie Committee and it went through various committees. It was debated on by journalists, by the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in Chennai. In Bombay, Anna himself was party to a big debate on the Maharashtra law. So there were various laws made and through that process, the best practice evolved where I think everybody was involved.

What was your experience with parliamentary processes—Standing Committee, Parliament or MPs?

We were a part of the pre-legislative process when we made the law. Once it (RTI) went to the government, we were out. The Right to Information Act, 2005 came out of a political process. The National Common Minimum Programme brought out by UPA-I made a promise of a better RTI Act. That’s how the older law passed by the NDA government was set aside and this law went and got made in a different way by the government. They revised various things that we had said and a weak law was placed in Parliament. But in the Standing Committee, we got 153 amendments made to the law.

Were these 153 amendments made by the MPs to weaken the law or were these mostly amendments made by you and others to strengthen the law? In the end, did we have a stronger law or a weaker law?

A stronger law than what was sent to Parliament and which kind of approximated the law that we had made. Though compared to our draft, there were many things that were not there. We had wanted NGOs included, political parties included, we had wanted everybody included. The government only kept itself and took us all out. That was the first weakness of the government law.

So did you get 90 per cent of your draft, 80 per cent of your draft?

I would say around 90 per cent of our draft. That’s not at all bad because it went through due process.

So from where does this complete distrust and impatience of the parliamentary process come now—that the Standing Committee is nothing, Parliament is nothing, just pass this Bill?

The dissatisfaction with all processes of governance is paramount in this country. All of us are disgusted at periods of time. The question is, can we keep democracy intact without a parliamentary process? A democratic institution should be called to book to be accountable. But certain processes, I think, should remain. We should battle with those processes, make them transparent and accountable and make them people-friendly.

But do you have some sympathy for this impatience with the parliamentary process and the government? The impatience that says: ‘They only intend to cheat us. Now, we have a bhramastraa in Anna Hazare. Be reasonable, do it his way’.

I completely understand the impatience. All of us sympathise with it. All of us get possessed by impatience but there are certain things we have to be cautious about. One is, how many of us have read the law that has been set up as the Jan Lokpal Bill? What is it in the Jan Lokpal Bill which will perpetuate the system we are fighting and how much of it will combat the system we are fighting are things which must be seriously considered. And there, if differences occur, they must be patiently heard. We can’t become offensive and completely dismissive of other opinions.

So if you are not with me, you are with the corrupt or with the corporates...

Or with somebody else but actually it has been very funny. The government tells the campaign that if they oppose the law it’s because they are with the Americans or for foreign money or whatever. The campaign tells us if we do not agree with the formulation they make, then we are with the government or with corruption or we are traitors or whatever else it may be.

In the very beginning you said these were ‘interesting times’. So a lot of what we take for granted is currently on test or under pressure?

Some of the things we take for granted is on test. One is that I always believed that civil society formations would be very liberal formations. That it would allow for differences, negotiating spaces, a genuine desire to listen and change. Because if you don’t change, then that listening becomes a formal exercise just as the government does very often. Calls us to various hearings, just listens to us, does precisely what it wants.

Do you find this under some stress now—this whole openness about the debate, flexibility about moving back and forth or front and back?

Two red herrings have come out of this debate. One is that if you are part of civil society, then you have no right to a different opinion because you break ranks. But we feel that civil society is a very large area. So from Mr Ambani to the peasant, we are all civil society.

Civil society is not one ideological army?

It cannot be.

Because civil society ranges from pro-Naxalite groups to pro-RSS groups.

True. That’s where this Lokpal is seen by many of us as also a big debate on centralisation versus de-centralisation. The Jan Lokpal Bill is a very centralised bill.

Also explain the concept of five Lokpals—the baskets.

What we did think was, first of all, if it is a very large formation, we are fighting against bureaucratic diseases of corruption, delay, of various other things. Just those seven years in the IAS have led me to believe that if in fact we do have a large bureaucratic structure, the largeness of it by itself becomes an issue of corruption and accountability becomes a problem. It will carry the same diseases of the large government structure.

Since I studied biology, I can say because it will be cloned from the same tissue.

Yes, because where are we getting it from otherwise? We don’t have any other tissue in India. The same kind of people, same kind of system will come. So, we are saying divide it into four plus one. We are saying separate corruption—high-level corruption, including the PM, the Cabinet is one.

But not judiciary in your case?

Yes, including judiciary. We bring them also under scrutiny. But we are saying keep them separate because, many of the senior judges like Justice Venkatachaliah, Justice Verma and many other honest judges have argued and we are somewhat convinced by their arguments.

And these judges are the ones who made the Supreme Court what it is, made the Election Commission what it is?

That is right. They say that independence is of absolute importance to the health of Indian democracy. So the independence of judiciary is absolutely crucial. If the makers of the Constitution felt that there should be separation, I believe that they really toiled hard to look at systems all over the world. Some of these systems don’t change with modernisation or whatever else. So just as audits and accounts are always separated, you have to have separate systems for all this. You have to have oversight. The circularity of oversight—like the Jan Lokpal Bill will look at the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will look at the Jan Lokpal Bill—might lead to a collusion. So we suggested that there must be a special judicial accountability.

So it’s like you scratch my back, I scratch yours or you guard my back, I guard yours.

So with that in mind, we suggested that the Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill, which is already there in Parliament, should be strengthened. All of us are unhappy with it. We are unhappy with the Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill, so the government will have to revisit the Bill, which is already in Parliament, revisit also the CVC Bill which will look at bureaucratic corruption. Remove certain things but these are existing institutions and the Lokpal will be a high-level Lokpal. You know, none of us can comprehend virtual corruption, treaties across the world, pay-off systems, external banks. Everything is in a different world. For that you need a very sharp, focused, special set of people who will catch that. Grievances must be separate. (There are) million grievances in our country. Even today if I go and sit in a meeting anywhere, the first thing is “hamari arzii le lijiye”, Toh arzii toh bahut hoti hain. Grievances must be separate.

If I understand you correctly, you see the danger that the fight against corruption will get overwhelmed by grievances?

Grievances will just bring it down...and it is also a bottom-up process because grievances have to be settled where people are.

Before I let you go, tell me a couple of things that you will say to your friends from civil society. And what will you tell the government which has taken many mis-steps?

I would say to the government that think before you act. I haven’t seen a set of more thoughtless acts than what the government has done—absolutely thoughtless, mindless acts. Having said that, I would say to my civil society friends that we always quote the Buddha, we quote Gandhiji that compassion and tolerance have been the ideals of India. We really need to understand that difference has to be tolerated. If I want dissent, I must listen to dissent.

You have been called many things, starting with jholawallah but one thing you were called was traitor.

It is a new apparatus. It’s interesting again to recall the traitor. I’ll have to go see the dictionary to see what is a traitor. Traitor to an ideology, traitor to the country? I have never been a traitor to my own principles.

If I may so, our paper is one of the strongest critics of the NAC in so many things. At the same time, we have communicated with you all the time and so have you.

But, the interesting thing is that I believe I have multiple roles and multiple labels. The NAC is two days in a month. Rest of the time, I am a citizen of India, an activist. I am so many things and even in the NAC, I agree with some of the issues that you have raised. The NAC needs to be put into theoretical framework. Today, it is a part of the pre-legislative process but it has never claimed to be a part of it.

Even if we disagree with you on many things, we know that you are amongst people who guarantee our freedom, safeguard our freedoms along with so many millions of others. It has been such privilege that you found time for us. Thank you very much.

Karan Thapar: Ten Questions for Kiran Bedi

 Read also: Breaking: Indian Express exposes backdoor funding to Kiran Bedi via over invoicing

                   Meet the Kiran Bedi Mainstream Media Rarely Covers   

Courtesy: Karan Tapar, Beyond Headlines

This article was published on August 4, 2007 in Karan Thapar’s column Sunday Sentiments in Hindustan Times

Has an injustice been done to Kiran Bedi? That’s the question I had hoped to explore in an interview with her this evening. Alas, after accepting and reconfirming, she pulled out without giving a convincing explanation! So now I shall share with you what I would have asked and let you decide for yourself.

The key issue is the claim she made to this newspaper on the 26th of July: “Merit has been compromised … I have an outstanding record”. Is she correct? It all turns on her record. If it is outstanding then, indisputably, she should have been made Delhi’s Commissioner of Police and by denying her the job the Government has acted unjustly. But if her record is not outstanding or, in fact, is questionable, the answer could be very different.

So here are the questions I would have put had she not wriggled out of the interview:-

1.  To begin with, you’ve received neither the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service nor the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service. Given that these are routinely awarded after completing a certain number of years of service, isn’t your not getting them proof that your record is neither meritorious nor distinguished?

2.    Secondly, is it true that on 4 separate occasions you failed to complete your tenure and at least twice left your post without permission which is tantamount to desertion of duty?

(She didn’t complete her tenure as Superintendent of Police in Goa, DIG (Range) in Mizoram, Inspector General (Prisons) Tihar Jail and Inspector General of Police in Chandigarh. The posts that she left without permission were Goa, in 1983, and Mizoram, in 1992.  Speaking to the Sunday Observer on the 27th September 1992, she said of Mizoram: “I left without asking”. Her letter of 25th January 1984 to the Inspector General of Police in Goa, Mr. Rajendra Mohan, establishes that she left on leave that had not been sanctioned.)

3.    Let’s examine your conduct in some of the critical posts you’ve held. Is it not a fact that as DIG (Range) in Mizoram the Governor issued a formal note of displeasure against you for leaking information to the press?

4.   Is it true that when President Venkatraman visited Mizoram the Governor became aware of your plans to disrupt the visit and informed the Intelligence Bureau that you could not be trusted with classified information and security? Again, this is said to be part of your service record.

5. Now let’s come to Chandigarh, where you were Inspector General for 41 days. Is it not true that the Adviser to the Administrator wrote to the Home Ministry to ask for your removal on the grounds that your presence in Chandigarh was “not in public interest”?

(In her authorized biography ‘I Dare!’, its claimed Mrs. Bedi asked to be posted out of the city. However, UNI, on the 18th May 1999 claims: “In a sudden move, the Union Home Ministry today transferred Chandigarh Inspector General of Police Kiran Bedi with immediate effect.” I’ve been told the Administrator, after obtaining orders for Mrs. Bedi’s removal, permitted her to request a transfer on personal grounds to save face.)

6.   You were accused of instigating junior police officers to defy the administration because you disagreed with certain suspension orders issued at the time. The press said you were “sowing seeds of rebellion”.

7.  In 1988 you were a central figure during the lawyers strike of that year. Even your authorized biography admits that the Wadhwa Commission, which investigated the matter, “found fault with Kiran”. The press has claimed he called you “a chronic liar”.

8.    I put it to you, Mrs. Bedi, that far from “an outstanding record”, your service record is good reason why you don’t deserve to be Police Commissioner?

9.   In fact, if your service record was so good, wouldn’t the Lt. Governor, Tejinder Khanna, whose Special Secretary you were during his first tenure, have insisted on your appointment as Police Comssioner? The fact that he didn’t shows that he too thinks you are not fit for the job.

10. Finally, you’ve said Dadwal’s appointment was wrong not just because your merit was overlooked but also your seniority. But if you don’t deserve the job on merit should you get it because of seniority?

Of course, Kiran Bedi does have considerable strengths. She’s brave, she leads from the front, her constables are fond of her and she’s outspoken. And I’m sure there’s more. So, as far I’m concerned, it’s an even greater pity I could not ask her these questions about her service record. Her answers would have established if her record is outstanding or if we’ve been misled into believing it is. Her silence means we don’t know. But what should we make of her decision to cancel her 3 month protest leave and resume office?

Exposed: Thailand Indy "Newspaper" Funded by US Government

Courtesy: www.mantaba.net

Prachatai director Chiranuch Premchaiporn plays the part of a politically persecuted independent journalist; in reality she is funded millions of baht a year by the US government and globalist Hungarian Jew George Soros

After initially trying to downplay, obfuscate, and deny accusations that the Thai "independent, non-profit, daily web newspaper" Prachatai was in fact a US-funded propaganda front, a series of reports from Land Destroyer provided irrefutable evidence taken directly from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy website. Additional backpedaling, lying, and obfuscating prompted a follow-up report on Prachatai featuring several unlisted funding sources the duplicitous organization most likely thought were well buried.

Perhaps fearing a third onslaught, or in a desperate attempt to salvage its sagging legitimacy, just this week Prachatai has made a seemingly complete disclosure of their US government and US corporate foundation funding laying to rest its own supporter's erroneous assumptions and defense that the organization was "just barely getting by." In fact, they are doing quite well and receive millions of baht consistently year to year from the US National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros' Open Society Institute, and more recently USAID. In fact, an overwhelming 77% of Prachatai's nearly 8 million baht in funding during 2011 has come directly from Uncle Sam - overt funding that would cut the legs of legitimacy out from under any alleged "news organization."

Still, Prachatai's utter contempt for both journalism and their readerships' intelligence is best encapsulated in a cautionary reminder posted directly before their full financial disclosure which claims, "it is important to state here that none of our foreign donors has ever put up any demands connected to the funds they provided, nor did they ever interfere with our reporting." One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at such overt duplicity from an organization that has just spent the last 2 months trying to laugh-off, ignore, or otherwise belittle very legitimate concerns regarding its lack of transparency.

The nature of Prachatai's political narrative is confrontational, directed at Thailand's establishment, especially Thailand's traditional institutions which exist independently of the Soros-funded networks of which Prachatai is now irrefutably exposed to be a part. Prachatai's goal is to undermine the Thai establishment's legitimacy while concurrently building up the legitimacy of the "international community," global "civil society," and to promote globalist talking points. A visit to Prachatai's homepage reveals links running off to Soros-funded "Open Democracy," Soros and Ford Foundation funded "Global Voices," the Globalist International Institute for Strategic Studies (which includes Robert Blackwill, former lobbyist of Thailand's globalist-backed stooge Thaksin Shinawatra), as well as a myriad of pro-Thaksin, pro-globalist, pro-color revolution websites that form the nucleus of Thailand's foreign-funded "civil society" movement both in and out of the country.

This is analogous to other US-funded organizations, opposition groups, and NGOs around the world including those of the recent US-funded "Arab Spring" which were all admittedly organized, trained, funded, and equipped (in some cases armed) years in advance by the United States government for the expressed purpose of initiating regime change throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. In fact, the New York Times itself would confirm this, stating that, "a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The New York Times would go on to explain that "the Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department."

The Funding

Digging into Prachatai's globalist funding exposes further the inner workings of the Wall Street-London global corporatocracy and how they disingenuously promote their agenda through NGOs, "civil society," and by perverting the noble ideals of human rights, freedom, and democracy. Prachatai, like its counterparts throughout the world, is a disingenuous and complicit helping hand, pleading ignorance and literally saying "so what?" when the subject of just who funds them is brought up.

Prachatai, in their latest disclosure, breaks their funding down year-to-year. One name that is ubiquitous is George Soros and his Open Society Institute which has funded Prachatai millions of baht over the years, beginning in 2005 and continuing until today under the Soros-connected Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF). HBF is a shameless promoter of supranational governance, pushing the verified fraud that is the "climate change agenda", and even helped Soros' Global Voices in networking and training Arab bloggers in 2009 to prepare them for the upcoming "Arab Spring." HBF's 32 page 2009 annual report (PDF) is a globalist progress report that includes funding and supporting fake progressive-liberal projects and outright worldwide sedition.

Prachatai's 2009-2010 funding included 1.79 million baht from the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF), yet another Soros-funded globalist organization which also includes the US State Department and Soros-infested International Media Support (IMS) (PDF) as donors. IMS literally trains foreigners to report the news according to Western standards & values, or in other words, according to the Western narrative. It is not surprising to see IMS active in every nation the US State Department is feverishly attempting to create unrest via its National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House organizations, including Belarus, China, Iran, Ukraine, and across the Middle East. In one truly surreal scene taken from IMS's 2010 annual report, Wikileaks fraud Julian Assange appears via video link on a stage littered with the logos of IMS, George Soros' Open Society Institute, and the Fortune 500 corporate-fascist infested "International Center for Journalists" which suspiciously includes Bank of America's marketing officer and PR firm representatives from McKinsey & Co. and Edelman (a proud corporate sponsor of the Egyptian revolutions) on its board of directors.

Another name that seems quite active throughout Prachatai's 8 year existence is the Rockefeller Foundation which initially bought the organization its computers and whose partner, the "Community Organization Development Institute (CODI)," funded Prachatai 1.89 million baht in 2004. CODI also boasts UN support as well as a partnership with the eugenicists at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There is also the Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR) which has funded Prachatai over half a million baht over the course of two consecutive years. FGHR is nothing more than a funding arm for the Sigrid Trust who also funds the International Crisis Group Mohammed ElBaradei literally led the US-funded Egyptian revolution, a true testament to the disingenuous nature of both these "democratic awakenings" and the dubious personalities attempting to wrestle control away from embattled regimes around the world. (ICG), an unelected US think-tank that meddles directly in the internal affairs of other nations. In fact, ICG member.

We finally make our way to by far Prachatai's number one patron, certainly not its own readership - not by a long shot - but rather the US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), one of the most notorious, duplicitous organization in America, on par with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it literally works in tandem with the CIA's activities (along with USAID who is also funding Prachatai via their SAPAN project) in subverting governments and overthrowing entire nations for US corporate-financier interests.

NED has funded Prachatai 1.5 million baht 3 years consecutively, including this year, along with USAID who has funded Prachatai an additional 2 million baht under the guise of the SAPAN Project which presumes to teach Thais how to conduct local government.

And while Freedom House is not listed by Prachatai as a contributing, as it itself is also funded by NED, it is surely worthy of honorable mention. Freedom House contributes a steady stream of rhetorical support and nominations for various contrived awards like this years' "Deutsche Welle Blog Award" while Prachatai reciprocates by loyally copying and pasting any "helpful" Freedom House reports targeting Thailand or neighboring Asian nations.

The Most Revolutionary Act: The Ford Foundation and the CIA

Courtesy: Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

 

Attorney General Robert Kennedy was the first, in 1967, to investigate the use of the Ford Foundation and other foundations as “conduits,” “pass-throughs,” and “fronts” to disguise CIA funding for domestic operations (it’s technically illegal for the CIA to operate on US soil under federal law). The investigation ended with Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in 1968 but in 1976 was taken up by the Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee formed in the aftermath of Watergate. The Church Committee found that between 1963-1966, 164 foundations gave out 700 grants over $10,000. Of these, 108 involved partial or complete funding by the CIA (Frances Stoner Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?: the CIA and the Cultural Cold War)

Saunder’s work was the first, in an impressive body of research by progressive academics and investigative journalists:

• Who Paid the Piper?: the CIA and the Cultural Cold War (1999) by British historian and journalist Frances Stonor Saunders
• Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (2003) by New Hampshire political science professor Joan Roelof
• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (2007) by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
• The Shock Doctrine (2007) by Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein
• Towers of Deception: the Media Cover-up of 911 (2006) by Canadian journalist, documentary producer and political activist Barry Zwicker
• Barack H. Obama: the Unauthorized Biography (2008) by historian and journalist Webster Tarpley

CIA Funding of Alternative Media

Most of the research into left gatekeeping foundations involves the funding of so-called alternative media outlets, largely based on information derived from tax returns. The most prolific writer in this area is Massachusetts-based investigative journalist Bob Feldman. Feldman published the bulk of his research in a paper in Critical Sociology “Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest?” Although Critical Sociology charges a fee to download this paper, Feldman and others have republished excerpts elsewhere on the Internet. Edward Ulrich published a helpful digest of Feldman’s work in March 2011 at his blog “News of Interest” at http://www.newsofinterest.tv/politics/media_issues/demnow_npr_controlled.php

The History of CIA/Ford Foundation Collaboration

Feldman starts (http://www.questionsquestions.net/gatekeepers.html) by recapping the history Frances Sanders lays out in Who Paid the Piper?: the CIA and the Cultural Cold War).

The Ford Foundation was created in 1936 from the immense Ford family fortune. Historically its governance and mission has been conservative and pro-corporate, in line with its namesake Henry Ford, a rabid anti-Semite who admired Adolph Hitler and helped finance his rise to power.

he CIA-Ford Foundation collaboration began in 1953, when John McCloy, another Nazi sympathizer, because the director of the Ford Foundation. McCloy’s corporate credentials include serving as chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, Westinghouse, AT&T, Allied Chemical and United Fruit Company. As a lawyer, he served as chief counsel to Standard Oil of New Jersey, Mobil, Texaco and Gulf I.G. Farben (German chemical company that was Hitler’s primary German sponsor and which developed the nerve gas used in the mass executive of European Jews). Mcloy watched the 1936 Berlin Olympics from Hitler’s box seat and as the Assistant Secretary of War, blocked Jewish immigration to the US, as well as the bombing of railroads leading to Nazi concentration camps. As High Commissioner of Germany following the war, he pardoned a large majority of Nazi war criminals and assisted in their secret repatriation in the US and South America. Finally in 1963-64 he served on the Warren Commission, which like the 911 Commission, played a critical role covering up FBI, CIA and Pentagon involvement in the JFK assassination.

McCloy publicly advocated for the Ford Foundation to cooperate with the CIA. He argued that open collaboration was a better alternative than having the Agency secretly infiltrate the Foundation’s lower echelons and subvert their work. McCloy also chaired a three man committee that had to be consulted every time the CIA wanted to use the Foundation as a pass-through.

Ford Foundation archives reveal a raft of joint Foundation-CIA projects. The most prominent of these CIA fronts are the Eastern European Fund, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and International Rescue Committee (where William van den Heuvel, father of Nation editor and publisher Katrina van den Heuvel, was a long time board member). The Ford Foundation has also been the primary funder of two secret elite planning groups, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

Alternative Media Outlets Funded by the Ford Foundation

According to Feldman, the so-called alternative media outlets receiving Ford Foundation funding (based on their tax returns) include:

• Democracy Now!
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and their radio program Counterspin
• Working Assets Radio
• The Progressive
• Mother Jones
• South End Press (Z Magazine)
• Alternative Radio
• Ms. Magazine
• Political Research Associates (run by rabid anti-conspiracist Chip Berlet)

As Feldman points out, each of these outlets has systematically marginalized independent researchers who have systematically studied 9-11 and the JFK and other political assassinations. Feldman currently blogs at “Where’s the Change?” http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/

To be continued.