Gates Foundation urged not to give award to India’s Modi following repression in Kashmir, Assam

NEW YORK, Sep 07 (APP):Two prominent lawyers and activists of Indian origin have strongly urged the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation not to honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an award for his sanitation and toilet access project across India, citing his past month’s “repressive” actions in occupied Kashmir and the northeastern state of Assam.
“While public health is undoubtedly a priority in India and around the world, such an honour would come as his Hindu nationalist party has incited violence against minorities, silenced dissent and curtailed freedom of expression,” Suchitra Vijayan, a lawyer and executive director of the Polis Project, and Arjun Singh Sethi, a human rights lawyer and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, wrote in an article published in The Washington Post on Saturday.