United Nations: India has rejected comments by the UN's top human rights official on foreign influence laws, saying the principles of transparency and accountability cannot be applied selectively.

A worrying trend in the context of the civic sphere is the consideration or adoption of so-called "transparency" or "foreign influence" laws in more than 50 countries, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said this week at the 56th session of the Human Rights Council.

These countries include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, India, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Slovakia and Turkey. These laws threaten to have a serious negative impact on the work of civil society, freedom of expression and association.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Arindam Bagchi said that democratic countries around the world, including India, have had rules in place for decades to avoid legitimate concerns about misuse of foreign funds.

He said, "The principles of transparency and accountability cannot be applied selectively. Reflecting reliance on the crutches of opaque or illegal foreign funding is also detrimental to India's vibrant civil society." Bagchi said, "It is more important than ever for the High Commissioner's Office to focus on its core work."