A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental organizations, but some are semi-autonomous agencies within government, and some are associated with particular political parties, businesses or the military. Think tanks are often funded by individual donations, with many also accepting government grants.
The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was established on 21 June 1991. The foundation works on a range of issues including development of knowledge, health, disability, authorization of the destitute, livelihoods and natural resource management. Its current focus areas are community welfare, literacy, health and special programmes for children and women. All donations to the foundation are tax deductible to the extent of 50 percent under section 80G of the Income Tax Act.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is an Indian academic. He was the president of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank and was the Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University from July 2017 to July 2019.
Arvind Kejriwal is an Indian politician, activist and former bureaucrat, who is serving as the 7th and current Chief Minister of Delhi since 2015, after his first term in the post from 2013 to 2014. He is also the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party since 2012. He has represented the New Delhi constituency in the Delhi Legislative Assembly since 2015 and from 2013 to 2014.
The Indian Revenue Service, often abbreviated as IRS, is a civil service that is primarily responsible for collecting and administering direct and indirect taxes. As a central civil service under Group A of the executive branch of the Government of India, it functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance and is under the administrative direction of the Revenue Secretary and the ministerial command of the Minister of Finance.
The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi, is India's foremost think tank for advanced research in international relations, especially defence, strategic and security issues, and providing training to civilian, military and paramilitary officers of the Indian government. It is funded by the Indian Ministry of Defence but operates as a non-partisan and autonomous body. It aims to promote national and international security by carrying out research on defence and security-related issues and disseminating the knowledge among the policy-makers and wider public.
Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can be set up under various Indian laws.
The Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) is a not for profit public private initiative working towards a healthier India. A national consultation, convened by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in September 2004, recommended a foundation which could rapidly advance public health education, training, research and advocacy.
The National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) is the apex civil service training institution of the Indian Revenue Service and the Income Tax Department of the Government of India. Over the years, it has enhanced and embellished national interest by moulding human capital fortunes and functioning as a ‘best-interests’ think-tank in tax policy and administration. The Academy imparts proficiency in core competency areas, disseminates information about the best of academics and practices and provides an international perspective, high quality professional capabilities and cultural sensitivities to officers.
Yamini Aiyar was the president and chief executive of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, a public policy research think tank. She was appointed President of CPR in 2017. She was previously a senior research fellow and founder, in 2008, of the Accountability Initiative (AI) at the centre. Through Accountability Initiative, Yamini is credited with pioneering one of India's largest expenditure tracking surveys for elementary education. She is also regular columnist in newspapers, such as The Hindustan Times, LiveMint, and The Indian Express'.
The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) is an Indian public policy think-tank. It is considered to be aligned to right-of-centre in its policies.
Ashoka University is a private research university located in National Capital Region (India), providing a liberal education in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Ashoka University houses the Trivedi School of Biosciences, the Science Policy Initiative, the Koita Centre for Digital Health at Ashoka (KCDH-A) and other centres for interdisciplinary education. It was founded in 2014 and is based on the model of collective philanthropy, with 200+ founders across various industries.
The Income Tax Department is a government agency undertaking direct tax collection of the government of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance. The Income Tax Department is headed by the apex body Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The main responsibility of the Income Tax Department is to enforce various direct tax laws, most important among these being the Income-tax Act, 1961, to collect revenue for the government of India. It also enforces other economic laws such as the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, and the Black Money Act, 2015.
Bright Blue is an independent centre-right think tank and pressure group with a mission statement of defending and improving liberal society, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2014 by British thinker Ryan Shorthouse, Bright Blue aims to "defend and champion liberal, open, democratic and meritocratic values, institutions and policies." Bright Blue is a membership-based think tank, with membership open to anyone who identifies as a liberal conservative. It publishes political research, recommends and vets public policy, and hosts political events.
The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, commonly known as CEEW, is a Not-For profit Think Tank and policy institution based in New Delhi, India. CEEW was formed to provide independent research-based insights to policymakers for building a sustainable India. The Council also has an office in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It has multiple research projects running across 22 Indian states and other parts of the world.
Greenpeace India is the Indian branch of the global environmental group Greenpeace, a non-profit NGO, with a presence in 55 countries across Europe, the America, Asia. Greenpeace India has legally registered society in four locations with Bengaluru as its headquarters and other branches at Delhi, Chennai, Patna.
The Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 2010 is an act of the Parliament of India, by the 42nd Act of 2010. It is a consolidating act whose scope is to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by certain individuals or associations or companies and to prohibit acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality for any activities detrimental to the national interest and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. It is designed to correct shortfalls in the predecessor act of 1976. The bill received presidential assent on 26 September 2010.
Who Funds You? is a project that rates and promotes the transparency of funding sources for think tanks. The project scored think tanks according to four criteria, namely whether the organisation discloses its income, whether it publishes financial details online, whether individual donors and the amounts of each donation are published, and whether corporate donors are named and the amounts of each donation published. The project's first report into think tank transparency was published in June 2012. According to Martin Bright of The Spectator, the "exercise seems to demonstrate that left-leaning think tanks are more transparent than right-wing ones".
The Indian Revenue Service , often abbreviated to IRS or IRS , now called IRS(C&IT) is a part of central civil service of the Government of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance and is under the administrative direction of the Revenue Secretary and the ministerial command of the Minister of Finance. The IRS is primarily responsible for collecting and administering indirect taxes accruing to the Government of India. It is one of the largest civil service amongst the organised civil services in the Indian government and serves the nation through discharging sovereign functions of collection of revenue for development, security and governance.
