The Big Picture – NGOs in dock: Need for scrutiny? An intelligence report prepared for the PMO which found its way to the media has created a major controversy. The report which goes into the working of several NGOs has charged many of them which work in the areas like nuclear issues, human rights, genetically modified technologies, livelihood issues and so on, as being a threat to national economic security. The report has named many such NGOs and their foreign funding sources and how these funds are being used to destabilize the projects, influence and shape policy debates and so on. The activists and NGOs who have been the targets in these reports have reacted sharply and expressed concerns about this report being a precursor to an anti democratic and repressive. It is also being seen as the way of supporting the corporates led economic agenda. Our intelligence agencies have unique advantage of having been allowed to come to a judgement about a prospective threat to national security and have the freedom of starting to cover it without having to take anybody’s permission. It is essentially IBs responsibility to look at any threat to national security whether economic, political or any other. National security is inseparable from economic security. Foreign Contribution Regulation Act is aimed at consolidating the law to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by certain individuals or associations or companies. The report says that the issues related to genetically modified organisms, nuclear issues pose a threat to national security.