India’s proposed overhaul of its foreign funding law could put LGBTQ organizations that depend on overseas donations under new pressure. 

Introduced in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, on March 25, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, or FCRA, would give a government-designated authority control over foreign funds, and assets when an organization loses or surrenders its registration.

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill returned to the spotlight this month as the Indian government prepared to seek its passage during Parliament’s Monsoon Session; drawing fierce opposition from political parties, civil society groups and religious organizations.

The government says the bill is intended to address gaps in the management of foreign funds and assets when an organization’s FCRA registration is cancelled, surrendered, or expires. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, would create a Designated Authority to oversee the vesting, supervision, management, and disposal of foreign contributions and assets when an organization’s FCRA registration is cancelled, surrendered , or ceases. If a vested asset is a place of worship, the authority would be required to preserve its religious character. The FCRA would also reduce the maximum prison term for violating the law from five years to one year.

The changes could also make it difficult for organizations to leave the FCRA regime without surrendering assets created with foreign funds. Under the bill, an organization would have to keep renewing its FCRA certificate to retain those assets. FCRA rules also impose spending requirements on organizations seeking to maintain their certificates.

The bill may also create a distinction between assets created by organizations with FCRA registration and those created through the separate prior-permission route.

More significantly, neither the existing law nor the bill provides an appeal mechanism when the central government refuses to renew an FCRA certificate. They also do not expressly require the organization to be given an opportunity to be heard before renewal is denied. Under the proposed framework, such a denial could trigger the vesting of the organization’s foreign-funded assets in the Designated Authority.

The bill would also widen the circle of people who could face consequences for an organization’s FCRA violations. 

Its definition of “key functionary” extends beyond directors and office bearers to trustees, governing-body members, managing-committee members and others responsible for an organization’s affairs. Those functionaries could be held liable for offenses committed by the organization, unless they can show that they were unaware of the violation or had exercised due diligence to prevent it. The FCRA bill would also impose restrictions on dealing with foreign-funded assets during a suspension and leave several important operational details — including timelines and procedures for managing and returning assets — to rules that have yet to be prescribed.

Parliament on Aug 12 moved to refer the FCRA bill to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny and wider consultations. 

Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai moved the motion in the Lok Sabha, to refer the bill to a committee comprising 21 members of the lower house and 10 members of the Rajya Sabha, Parliament’s upper house. 

The Rajya Sabha subsequently approved the nomination of its 10 members to the committee. The panel is expected to submit its report by the last day of the first week of Parliament’s Winter Session.

The proposed changes could have significant implications for LGBTQ organizations that rely on the FCRA framework to receive foreign contributions. (The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration took office in 2025 has lost nearly $50 million in U.S. funding because of foreign aid cuts. One source with whom the Washington Blade spoke described the funding loss as a “catastrophe” for the global movement.)

While the government does not appear to have published an easily accessible, consolidated list of LGBTQ organizations receiving such funding, FCRA registration records and organizations’ financial disclosures indicate that foreign contributions have supported LGBTQ rights, healthcare, and community services in India.

K.C. Venugopal, general secretary of the opposition Indian National Congress, told reporters his party and other opposition parties would strongly protest the legislation if it were introduced in Parliament. He said the bill was aimed at targeting minorities and NGOs and vowed that the opposition would oppose its passage.

Venugopal called the proposed legislation “unconstitutional and anti-people.” 

“If the Central Government thinks they can cook up and introduce the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill within these two or three days, they should keep that wish to themselves,” he told reporters in Alappuzha, Kerala, on Aug. 9.

“Three provisions worry LGBTQ+ organizations like ours most directly,” said Souvik Saha, founder of People for Change and Jamshedpur Queer Circle. “First, the 2026 bill would let a government-appointed ‘Designated Authority’ take control of an organization’s foreign-funded assets— bank balances, equipments, sometimes even property— the moment its FCRA registration is cancelled, surrendered, or simply not renewed, and this happens through an administrative process, without prior judicial adjudication. For a small community organization, that means losing everything we have built — case files, shelter infrastructure, helpline equipment — almost overnight, with no court hearing first.”

Saha told the Blade the revised FCRA Rules announced in June introduced a minimum spending threshold: organizations must spend at least $10,449 in foreign contributions over two financial years or risk cancellation and non-renewal of their registration.

“This specifically penalizes small and grassroots groups that deliberately keep their foreign funding modest — which describes most LGBTQ organizations in India, including ours,” said Saha. “We are not running core-scale budgets; we are running helplines, safe spaces, and district-level outreach on modest grants.”

Saha told the Blade that the ban on sub-granting, carried over from the 2020 amendment, means larger, well-established rights organizations cannot pass foreign funds to smaller, unregistered LGBTQ collectives that could not obtain FCRA registration themselves. He said rights groups have long described the restriction as a near “death knell” for hundreds of small nongovernmental organizations that work collaboratively with larger organizations, adding that LGBTQ groups outside major metropolitan areas depend heavily on such funding arrangements.

“Domestic funding for LGBTQ work in India is still thin, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) money avoids us because we are seen as ‘controversial,’ and most Indian foundations would not touch gender-identity programming,” Saha said. “So foreign funding is not a convenience for organizations working with the transgender and LGBTQ community, it is often always funding.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key were on assignment in the Netherlands from July 28-Aug. 10.

AMSTERDAM — The first openly gay man elected to the Thai Senate says the law that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in Thailand has positively impacted his country’s global image.

“It totally changed how the world perceived Thailand,” Sen. Pornchai Witayalerdpan told the Washington Blade on Aug. 7 during an interview at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam.

Thailand on Jan. 23, 2025, became the first country in Southeast Asia to allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

The marriage equality bill received final legislative approval in June 2024 when the Senate approved it by a 152-130 vote margin. King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed it a few months later. Then-Prime Minister Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is among those who supported the law.

Witayalerdpan was a freelance interpreter before he took office in July 2024.

The independent senator noted Thailand’s marriage equality movement began to gain traction with a lawsuit that the Foundation for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights and Justice, a Thai advocacy group, filed.

The Constitutional Court in 2021 upheld a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. MP Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat of the Move Forward Party later introduced the marriage equality bill that became law.

“It was a coalition of efforts between the civil society organizations, the LGBTQ organizations, and also the Pride movement in Thailand,” Witayalerdpan told the Blade.

Taiwan in 2019 became the first country in Asia to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The Nepalese Supreme Court in June issued a landmark ruling that ordered the country’s government to guarantee full marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The Japanese Supreme Court in March said it will consider six marriage equality lawsuits that have been filed in the country. The Indian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled against marriage rights for same-sex couples. South Korea is among the other Asian countries in which marriage equality efforts are gaining momentum.

Witayalerdpan said Thailand’s marriage equality law could have a direct impact in Japan, which is the only G7 country that does not legally recognize same-sex couples.

“It’s been nothing but a positive effect (in Thailand) after the same-sex marriage law (took effect),” he said.

InterPride, the organization that coordinates World Pride events, has announced Bangkok and Barcelona, Spain, are the two finalists to host the biennial event in 2030. (World Pride took place in D.C. in 2025.)

Witayalerdpan told the Blade that World Pride in Bangkok would further improve Thailand’s global image. He also said his fellow lawmakers, in turn, should pass LGBTQ rights bills — including proposals that would allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender and enable same-sex couples to have children via surrogates from in vitro fertilization. Witayalerdpan noted the most important bill to him is one that would strengthen Thailand’s LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination law that took effect in 2015.

Impact of US funding cuts has ‘been very hard’

Witayalerdpan also offered advice to activists in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.

“Keep on pushing forward,” he told the Blade. “I know that it’s hard for activists in Thailand as well.”

Witayalerdpan acknowledged the loss of U.S. government funding since the Trump-Vance administration took office — which has forced advocacy groups in Asia and elsewhere around the world to close — has “been very hard.” Witayalerdpan noted the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement in response to these cuts has turned to the European Union, the U.K., Canada, and the Netherlands to help fill the gap.

“It’s very good that these countries are providing more funds to the activists in Asia than before because of the Trump situation,” he told the Blade. “It can increase their soft power as well.”

Witayalerdpan said American activists should “wish for a positive result in the mid-term elections.”

“Then there is some resistance,” he added.

Witayalerdpan specifically highlighted efforts to fight against the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming healthcare.

A federal court in Massachusetts on Aug. 15 struck down a key provision of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Service rule that would have limited access to gender-affirming care under the Affordable Care Act. Maryland and California are two of the 21 states that sued the Trump-Vance administration over the issue.

“You have to show more resistance … to show that we are still here and we will push back when we can,” said Witayalerdpan.

A Russian LGBTQ advocacy group on Monday announced it will shut down after a court declared it an “extremist” organization.

A St. Petersburg court in April in response to a Russian Justice Ministry lawsuit made the declaration against the Russian LGBT Network.

“For many years, Russian LGBT Network brought together initiatives and activists and supported queer people across the country,” said the advocacy group on its Facebook page. ” However, its ‘extremist’ status has made the previous public format of its work impossible: any connection to the organization may create additional risks for the people we seek to support and protect.”

The Russian LGBT Network formed in 2006.

The group on its Facebook page said it “made this decision” to close “after a thorough assessment of the risks.”

“Continuing our public activities could have put at risk those who took part in the organization’s work, supported it, or received assistance,” said the Russian LGBT Network. “We cannot control the repressive environment, but we can do everything possible to avoid creating additional risks for people. People’s safety comes first.”

The Kremlin over the last decade has faced global criticism over its crackdown on LGBTQ rights.

The Russian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled the “international LGBT movement” is an extremist organization and banned it.

Russia in January designated ILGA World, a global LGBTQ and intersex rights group, as an “undesirable” organization. ILGA World in response to the designation noted Russians who are found guilty of engaging with “undesirable” groups face up to six years in prison.

Human Rights Watch in May noted the Russian LGBT Network is one of nine LGBTQ groups that Russia this year has banned after authorities deemed them “extremist.”

“Russian LGBT Network may close; but dignity, solidarity, and people’s right to be themselves cannot be destroyed,” said the Russian LGBT Network in its statement. “Take care of yourselves.”