The Indian government has allowed Mother Teresa’s charity to receive foreign funds weeks after rejecting it, weeks after blocking it saying the Catholic organization did not meet conditions under local laws, a lawmaker said.
On Christmas Day, the Narendra Modi government moved to suspend foreign funding to the Missionaries of Charity and refused to renew its licence under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
A statement issued following the decision said the reason was “not meeting the eligibility conditions” under the FCRA Act after “adverse inputs were noticed”, without giving further details.
Charities and non-profit firms need to register under FCRA to receive money from abroad.
“The FCRA application has now been renewed,” Sunita Kumar, a close aide to Mother Teresa said.
The charity, which Mother Teresa started in Kolkata in 1950, runs hundreds of shelters that care for some of the world’s neediest people. Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 1979, and Pope Francis declared her a saint in 2017, two decades after her death.