India has not cleared its debt to the World bank, it just cleared its share of contribution to the United Nations (UN)

A post with a photo of a tweet shared by Syed Akabaruddin regarding India paying its dues to the United Nations (UN) is being shared widely on Facebook with a claim that for the first time in 70 years, during the regime of Modi, India has cleared it’s outstanding loans to the World bank. Let’s try to find the authenticity of the claim made in the post.

Claim: Indian Government under Modi has cleared its debt to world bank.

Fact: Akbaruddin’s tweet talks about India clearing its dues related to its contibution to the UN, not the loans availed from the World bank. On World bank’s website it can be seen that India has to pay a few billion dollars to the World bank. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.

From the tweet made by Syed Akbaruddin, India permanent representative to the UN, it can be understood that India has cleared its dues to the United Nations. Every country contributes a certain amount of money for the UN’s budget and India has paid its share to the UN. There is no relation between India’s contribution to the UN and India’s outstanding debt with the World bank. More information about India’s outstanding debt to the world bank can be found on the world bank’s website. For various projects, India has taken a few billion dollars of debt from different groups of world bank—IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), IDA (International Development Association), and IFC (International Finance Corporation). Project wise details can be found on world bank’s website. There is no truth in the information that these debts are all cleared by Modi.

To conclude, India cleared its contribution related dues to the UN and this is being shared as India clearing its outstanding debts to the world bank.

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