NEW DELHI: The Central Government has moved in its hard power—the intelligence and the security agencies—to crackdown on NGOs suspected of instigating the Koodankulam unrest. Twelve Tamil Nadu NGOs are under the scanner for possible FCRA violations. Topping the list of the dozen is Chennai-based World Vision, which got a whopping Rs 233,73,93,809.
Then there’s the People’s Education for Action & Community Empowerment, identified as P S Udayakumar’s group, which received `2,64,05,409. However, Udayakumar, one of the top anti-KKNPP leaders, has since denied he has received any foreign funds.
He also claimed to have filed a defamation suit against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, of which the PMO says it has “no knowledge’’. However, the PMO admitted that crackdown on the NGOs took place after the PM in an interview to an international magazine said that certain NGOs, funded by the US and Scandinavia, are derailing crucial development projects in India.
The MHA officials, however, insist that the NGOs are being scanned as part of a routine exercise undertaken by the ministry for “security reasons’’. There’s no denying though that the government is no less agitated, over the anti-nuclear power protests.
The commissioning of two Russian-made 1000 MW reactors in KKNPP had to be deferred thrice from October to December and then this March 2012—due to protests led by the local churches which are raising the fear of the environment impact of the project, the radio-active waste and Fukushima-like nuclear accident.