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| - Fact Check: No, PM Modi DID NOT rechristen Rajiv Gandhi Foundation as PM Cares fund
There is no relation between the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the PM Care fund. Both are completely different entities and are currently in operation.
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India Today Fact Check
The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the PM Cares fund are not related to each other. Both are completely different entities and both are currently in operation.
Over the years, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre has been accused of renaming and repackaging schemes launched by the Indian National Congress when it was the ruling party. The Congress website even lists such schemes.
Recently, an infographic went viral on social media, showcasing schemes, places, institutions, and awards that were rechristened by the Narendra Modi-led union government.
The post said, “Decades-old mistakes rectified with a change,” and listed some of these changes: Nehru Museum was changed to PM Museum, Indira Awas Yojana to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna to Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna, and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation to PM Cares.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the claim was misleading. There is no relation between the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the PM Care fund. Both are completely different entities and are currently in operation.
Archived versions of posts with similar claims can be seen here and here.
AFWA Probe
While investigating the claims, we found several media reports about the Centre renaming the Nehru Museum in New Delhi, the Indira Awas Yojana and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.
However, we did not find any reports suggesting that Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was renamed as the PM Care fund.
According to the official website of the PM Cares fund, the Public Charitable Trust was registered under the Registration Act, 1908, in New Delhi on March 27, 2020.
While the Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairman of this trust, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Home Affairs, and the Minister of Finance are its ex-officio trustees.
Per the trust deed of the PM Cares fund, the PM of India is the “Settlor” who executed the deed. And, in order to set up the trust, the “Settlor” transferred an initial sum of Rs 2,25,000 as initial corpus.
This meant that with the execution of the aforementioned deed, an entirely new trust was formed on March 27, 2020.
The website of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation stated that it was “set up on June 21, 1991, to realise the vision of Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India. From 1991 to 2009, the Foundation worked on a number of critical issues and in 2010, the Foundation decided to focus on the education sector.”
There’s no mention that the organisation stopped its operation or the name of the organisation was changed. The website stated that Sonia Gandhi was the chairman and several known faces of the Congress party, including Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, were its board members.
To further confirm the claim, we visited the verified Facebook page of the organisation. The page provided regular updates on the foundation’s activities, and the latest post (at the time of writing this) was shared on April 26, 2022 — photos of a training workshop organised by the foundation.
To further confirm this, India Today spoke to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office which said, “Rajiv Gandhi Foundation is still there and Manmohan Singh is one of the board members of that organisation. It has nothing to do with the PM Cares fund.”
Hence, we concluded that one of the claims in this post was false. The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was not rechristened as the PM Cares fund.
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