Re: Why Was Nepal Denied While Overlapping Grants Were Approved in India?

Hi all.

The same situation was with our attempt to organize Central Asian Wikicon 2026. While 2025 edition (first one) was a huge success for a developing Wikimedia region with several small communities, 2026 one was called an overlap with no real alternative (CEE doesn’t fully include Central Asian communities only doing a favour because they were part of the USSR in the past, ESEAP and South Asian events don’t include Central Asia at all). It’s a bit surprising to see that somewhere events are overlapping, not mentioning the scale of that overlap.

> 
> Вторник, 24 марта 2026, 21:07 +05:00 от Pankaj Sharma via Wikimedia-l <[email protected]
> >:
> The community proposal to host the regional SAARC Conference in 2026 in
> Nepal (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Conference_Fund/Wikimedia_SAARC_Conference_2026
> ) was declined. The reasons provided was the event would be redundant and
> an unnecessary expense because a similar conference is planned in India in
> the year of 2025. However in 2025 conference in India didn't happened and
> surprisingly our proposal was declined beacuse of that. But why.!!!
> 
> While Nepal’s proposal was viewed with skepticism regarding our capacity,
> the 2025 conference in India failed to materialize due to a failure in
> financial management and a lack of understanding regarding local FCRA
> regulations in India. This resulted in a substantial huge waste of
> Wikimedia Foundation resources. It is disheartening that the Conference
> Grant Program Officer applied Indian legal constraints as a blanket
> assumption for Nepal, hindering our community's growth based on a
> misunderstanding of our local context.
> 
> I have a question: How did the legal situation in India affect the
> decision on a proposal of Nepal?
> 
> Looking ahead to 2026 I was doubtful by the current grant applications
> from the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad. I
> see that a request for 207,000 USD has been submitted for WikiConference
> India 2026. Simultaneously, the same individual representing the same
> institution, has applied for an separate 87,554.81 USD for an Open
> Knowledge Conference within a gap of few months of the first event with
> same purpose and target participants.
> 
> As a Wikimedian this raises serious questions about the equitable
> distribution and potential misuse of community resources. While Nepal is
> told to scale down and gain experience with smaller events, a single
> institution is requesting nearly 300,000 USD for overlapping projects with
> same people in the organization role and same theme.
> 
> If the Wikimedia Foundation is concerned about redundancy and extra costs
> when it comes to Nepal, why is it being overlooked when a single
> institution in India applies for two major grants for nearly identical
> purposes? We need more accountability and a fairer distribution of
> resources to ensure that all communities not just one can grow. We urge
> the foundation and the community to investigate these for the benefit of
> the entire regional community and stop wasting the resources make the
> process more transparent and accountable.
> 
> Regards,
> Pankaj
> 
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--
С уважением, Николай.

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