On Remittances, Media Houses and Covert Evangelism

Q: What is common to remittances, media houses and covert evangelism?

A: Grow India

Grow India World Vision

If you have never heard of “Grow India“, I don’t blame you. I was alerted to this combined effort” of Remit2India and WorldVision via two separate emails yesterday morning (Thanks to M Balaji and S Venkat).

A little bit of digging revealed that Grow India’s aim is

to bring sustainable development to the underdeveloped areas of India…The strategy is to have a sustainable development in…underdeveloped villages that will be monitored by the local governance community ensuring the well being of children and communities.

Sounds pretty harmless, right?

Except that “Remit2India” is the flagship brand of TimesofMoney (a part of the prestigious Times Group) and is the “most preferred online remittance channel for overseas Indians across the globe”. In short, it has tremendous reach and a very large customer base.

World Vision is in a league of its own. As I had mentioned in a recent post,

This is the same organisation one of whose employees is suspected of being involved in the murder of Swami Laxmanananda in Kandhamal…(This) Seattle-based Christian organization with strong evangelical roots…(is) also the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

It boasts of around 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

Officially, World Vision

…is a Christian humanitarian organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice.  World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, caste, race, ethnicity or gender.

Unofficially, it appears to have a different agenda:

We analyse every project, every programme we undertake, to make sure that within that programme evangelism is a significant component. We cannot feed individuals and then let them go to hell.

—Ted Engstrom (former president of World Vision International)

So what we have in Grow India is a partnership between a large online remittance platform and an apparently evangelical organisation, doing a lot of “noble work” supported – at least partly – by naive customers of Remit2India.

I find it odd that the only organisation TimesofMoney found worthy of partnering in the noble cause of uplifting the poor in India turns out to have an evangelical Christian streak. Imagine the ruckus had TimesofMoney partnered with a “Hindu” organisation to promote rural welfare schemes in India. But then I forget, we are a “secular” country.

Pl keep your eyes peeled for other such organisations and/or associations…and please share any information you may have on WorldVision’s activities on this thread.

Related Post: Should we ban foreign funding of religious institutions?

UPDATE: Apparently, Remit2India also enables you to make direct donations to other charitable organisations such as:

CRY World Vision, Childline Foundation, Shri Hari Ashram, Yogi Divine Society, Yogi Mahila Kendra, Udavum Karangal, Times Foundation(sic).

However, I am not sure if it has partnerships with any of these organisations (with the exception of World Vision)

B Shantanu

Political Activist, Blogger, Advisor to start-ups, Seed investor. One time VC and ex-Diplomat. Failed mushroom farmer; ex Radio Jockey. Currently involved in Reclaiming India - One Step at a Time.

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10 Responses

  1. Bharat says:

    You may have heard of “Doctors without borders”

    But, Have you heard of “MBAs without borders”??
    (http://mbaswithoutborders.org/)

    Their work in India (http://projects.mbaswithoutborders.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=704&jb=5475530)

    Read this.(http://mbaswithoutborders.org/about/people/)

    1.John Ko -Executive Vice-President

    John Ko is the Executive Vice President, responsible for ongoing business development efforts for MBAs Without Borders. John has worked extensively in international development including most recently at World Vision, where he was the National Manager. He was responsible for overseeing various marketing and advocacy programs in Canada, including youth engagement, volunteer management, and corporate partnerships.

    2.Tal Dehtiar- Co-Founder & President

    Tal Dehtiar received his MBA from DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University and has a BA in Communications from the University of Western Ontario. Tal has a diverse background which includes previous work in the Healthcare and Mining industry in Canada. He has worked on a number of international projects as well, prior to starting MBAs Without Borders, including launching an agri-business to support rural communities in Belize, creating a small-scale volunteer program in Costa Rica and starting-up and producing a radio show in Singapore. Tal has traveled, worked, studied or lived in over 50 countries and speaks English, Russian, Hebrew and Spanish. He is a recipient of the 2004 Ontario Global Trader Award, 2005 Arch Award, was nominated for the 2005 YMCA Peace Award and Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, was named one of the International Youth Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneurs and was selected a n Echoing Green Semi-Finalist in 2008.

    3.Catherine Awad Editor-in-Chief, M&D Magazine
    Catherine is Editor-in-Chief for MWB’s magazine Managing & Developing (M&D). Currently pursuing the MBA at McGill University, Catherine holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and her professional background is in B2B marketing in the telecommunications industry. At a start-up high-tech firm, Catherine held the roles of product manager and marketing communications specialist where she focused on branding, public relations and creating customer co-marketing programs.
    A passionate traveler, Catherine is fluent in English, French, Arabic and Spanish. She took part in McGill’s Canada-Brazil exchange program and also volunteered with the NGO Coptic Orphans in a high-poverty area of Egypt.

    4. Meaghan Plomp -Office Manager & Volunteer Coordinator
    Meaghan has recently graduated from McMaster University with a Combined Honours in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies and Political Science. Throughout her university career, Meaghan has dedicated her time to coordinating international volunteers with a Canadian organization that focuses on sending university students to developing countries.
    Meaghan has traveled to various developing countries including: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, El Salvador, Tanzania and will be traveling to India in May 2009. She has been involved in various social initiatives ranging from women empowerment to working with street youth. ”
    ===============

    Connection is like this: ( WORLD VISION + YMCA + IYF ( sis org of USAID) + Coptic orhpans)- (http://www.copticorphans.org/montreal-friendraiser.htm)

  2. Bharat says:

    http://mbaswithoutborders.org/about/partners/
    “India
    All India Artisans & Craftworkers Association is a membership-based apex body for the handloom and handicraft sectors. Similar to an industry association such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), AIACA seeks to represent a range of organizations in the handloom and handicrafts sector and to engage in policy advocacy activities aimed at increasing the domestic market for handloom and handicraft products and improving the standard of living of craftworkers”

    See
    http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/About/Community-Involvement/article/9e430b98fc001210VgnVCM100000ba42f00aRCRD.htm

  3. B Shantanu says:

    Thanks for the links Bharat. I was not aware of MBAs without borders. I shall check the links.

  4. Bharat says:

    Odanadi Seva Trust (odanadisevatrust.org)
    Odanadi UK (www.odanadi-uk.org)

  5. Govind says:

    There has to be something more that can be done here. If Hindus knew that they were being cheated out of their money to support Christian fundamentalist organizations engaged in a work of cultural genocide they would not part with their money. Furthermore, this is possibly the worst self-inflicted blow by the Times on it’s “secular” credentials. More than anything else, this move establishes the Times’ identity as a communal entity actively supporting Christian fundamentalist causes aimed at wiping out Hinduism from India.

  6. Sid says:

    Involvement of times group does not surprise me. They always disliked Indian culture and indigenous religions. In a changing times, those covert actions are harder to conceal, if this gets publicity then secular brigade would come to the rescue.

  7. Sid says:

    Some new info about Project Thessalonica. Here is the definition:

    Project Thessalonica is a sub-project of Joshua Project II. Joshua Project II set the scope and strategy for converting the “heathen” of the world in 10-40 window (regions that lie between the latitudes of 10 and 40 degrees north) whereas project Thessalonica (called PT) prioritizes the tasks to be taken. Joshua Project II strategized the methodology called ‘Adopt-a-peoples’ wherein every mission agency or church adopted a ‘people group’. Tribals were the first and easy missionary targets. Unfortunately the missionary activity didn’t weaken Hinduism as the church strategists had anticipated – many of the converts still celebrated and attended Hindu festivals and continued to follow Hindu traditions. As a counter measure Project Thessalonica was started in 2004.

    Here are the damages done by this project in India so far:

    Project Thessalonica aims to stop or limit Hindu activity by converting people who form the pillars of Hindu culture, festivals, traditions and activity. Traditionally missionaries hate any public expression or display of heathen religions in the form of festivals and temples. Missions want to ensure that no new temple construction activity starts. With this objective they are converting masons, craftsmen and others involved in temple construction activity. The First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee adopted towns where the annual Kumbh Mela takes place and has been actively converting the locals so that visitors face extreme hardship during their next visit trying to find services and supplies. Another mission group is adopting boatmen of Kasi where Hindus drop rice balls in river Ganges as an offering to their forefathers. The boatsmen are being trained in other fields so that they abandon this profession. They are making environmental groups raise the voice so that Ganesh processions, Kumbh Melas and Jagannath Rath Yatras are limited. One big worry seems to the extremely popular Hindu television programs. Christian agencies have decided on buying these prime slots at a premium and are actively working with programming sources. Over the past 20 years, missionaries also appear to have invested a lot in handling the political leadership, so much so that their activities appear to be almost immune to the ruling political party. It seems that a good section of media is also on their side to such an extent that any group opposing their activity finds itself identified as a militant or extremist group in the news media.

    Read more from Aelx Pomero’s expose in a Croatian newspaper. The article was translated in English here:
    http://www.crusadewatch.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=293

  8. Manish says:

    Shantanu and others who follow satyameva jayate

    Incase you have not seen this

    http://www.dailypioneer.com/310863/The-shaking-hand.html