Patna, Feb 19 (PTI) RJD MP Sudhakar Singh has urged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to snap ties with the Gates Foundation, headed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose name has cropped up in the Epstein files.
Singh, a former state minister, who now represents Buxar in the Lok Sabha, shared his two-page letter to the JD(U) supremo on his social media handles.
The name of Gates appeared in documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The MP has alleged in his letter, dated February 17, that he was “surprised to learn that the Gates Foundation was working with the Bihar government in policy matters and the collaborations are both authorised, and in some cases, unauthorised”.
Persons recruited by the Gates Foundation and drawing lakhs of rupees per month in salary have been appointed as assistants to many of the senior IAS officers in Bihar. Thus, they have easy access to information regarding schemes and policies run by the government, alleged Singh.
“Now that the Chairman himself is under scanner, with his name cropping up in Epstein files, it would be appropriate for the government to distance itself from Gates Foundation and launch an investigation into how its appointees were allowed to work in close association with the state’s bureaucracy,” the letter read.
According to information available on the website of the Gates Foundation, it has a decade-old “partnership with the Government of Bihar to improve health outcomes in the areas of maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, immunisation, and infectious disease elimination”. PTI NAC NN
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