{"id":66649,"date":"2020-10-16T14:56:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T09:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=66649"},"modified":"2021-07-29T21:29:12","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T15:59:12","slug":"foreign-contribution-regulation-act-fcra-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/foreign-contribution-regulation-act-fcra-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Contribution Regulation amendment Act (FCRA), 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-box-blue\">\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Introduced<\/strong>: Lok Sabha (20th Sept 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Passed<\/strong>: Lok Sabha (21st Sept 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Passed<\/strong>: Rajya Sabha (23rd Sept 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Present status<\/strong>: Received assent of the President on 28th Sept 2020 &amp; converted to Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Background of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was first brought in by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency in 1976.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Its aim was to protect the \u2018sovereignty\u2019 of India from \u2018foreign hands\u2019 at a time when global powers were engaged in a cold war.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The law prohibited political parties, electoral candidates and even cartoonists from accepting foreign contributions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">In 2010, the government made the renewal of registrations mandatory every five years and placed a 50% limit on administrative expenses.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>About Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment)Act, 2020<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Ministry<\/strong>: Finance<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Aim: <\/strong>The Act amended the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Key provisions of<\/strong><strong> Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment)Act, 2020<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Prohibition to accept foreign contribution<\/strong>: These include: election candidates, editor or publisher of a newspaper, judges, government servants, members of any legislature, and political parties.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Transfer of foreign contribution:<\/strong><\/span>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Under the Act, foreign contribution cannot be transferred to any other person unless such person is also registered to accept foreign contribution.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">FCRA registered organisations are barred from transferring foreign donations to smaller non-profits (a practice known as sub-granting) who often find it difficult to access donors on their own.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Aadhaar for registration<\/strong>: The Act states that a person may accept foreign contribution if they have obtained a certificate of registration from central government or obtained prior permission from the government to accept foreign contribution. The bill makes Aadhaar mandatory for registration.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Restriction in utilisation of foreign contribution<\/strong>: The Bill gives government powers to stop utilisation of foreign funds by an organisation through a \u201csummary enquiry\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Reduction in use of foreign contribution for administrative purposes<\/strong>: The bill decreases administrative expenses through foreign funds by an organisation to 20% from 50% earlier.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>More power to government<\/strong>: FCRA registration can be suspended now after a summary enquiry and the period of suspension can extend up to a year (from 180 days earlier).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduced: Lok Sabha (20th Sept 2020) Passed: Lok Sabha (21st Sept 2020) Passed: Rajya Sabha (23rd Sept 2020) Present status: Received assent of the President on 28th Sept 2020 &amp; converted to Act. Background of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)\u00a0 The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was first brought in by the Indira Gandhi government&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/foreign-contribution-regulation-act-fcra-2020\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Foreign Contribution Regulation amendment Act (FCRA), 2020<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act-and-schemes-new","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700196238},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}