A group of civil society organisations, social activists and citizens in Telangana has called on the state government to suspend its technology and business partnership with Israel and put on hold a T-Hub meeting with Israeli companies scheduled for November 16. In a joint statement issued today, the signatories said the engagement risks enabling Israel's military operations, and they pointed to the contradiction with the Bharat Summit, which the state is hosting this week.
The statement, titled "Global Justice Cannot Be a Conference Theme Alone," expresses "serious concern" over the government's decision to facilitate engagements with Israeli companies that "reportedly have links to Israel's defence establishment, military operations and surveillance infrastructure." The signatories said that at a time when "the people of Gaza are facing genocide," commercial partnerships with such companies raise "serious ethical, human rights and accountability concerns."
The statement cites a Siasat Daily report of November 5 which said that T-Hub, the startup incubator set up by the Telangana government, will host a delegation of 20 Israeli technology companies on November 16. The programme is being organised with the state's Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department and the Israel Economic Mission to South India. The companies come from sectors including defence technology, robotics, cybersecurity, semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
The signatories also refer to a follow-up Siasat Daily investigation, published on November 10, which examined the companies' military contracts and records. According to the statement, the investigation reported that several participants have links to the Israeli military, and that five supply hardware, software or services reportedly used by Israeli forces in Gaza or the occupied Palestinian territories. These include technologies relating to attack drones, military artificial intelligence, tank sensors, robotics and surveillance. The investigation also identified the participation of the Israeli Ministry of Defence's Directorate of Defence Research and Development in the wider programme. The statement says these findings "demand serious scrutiny" and raise questions about whether Telangana's public institutions could be facilitating relationships with firms whose technologies are reportedly used against Palestinians.
The signatories also highlight what they call an "institutional dimension" to the engagement. They say Israel's Ministry of Defence announced on July 13, 2026 the launch of DRISHTI 2.0, described as a joint initiative with T-Hub to link Israeli defence technology innovation with the Indian market. According to the statement, the ministry's own announcement says the programme creates pathways for Israeli companies to expand into India and describes defence exports as a means of strengthening the Israeli Defence Forces and expanding Israel's international presence. "This is not merely an allegation made by activists or civil society organisations," the statement says. "It is the stated objective of the Israeli Ministry of Defence itself." The group wants the state government to explain the nature of this partnership and the safeguards meant to keep such technologies from contributing to human rights violations.
The statement also invokes the findings of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which on September 16, 2025 concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed and continued to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Commission identified four of the five acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention. Closer to home, the signatories point to the Pegasus spyware scandal, which is the subject of proceedings before the Supreme Court of India, and warn that surveillance tools supplied by Israeli companies can "undermine democratic institutions" and compromise the privacy and security of political leaders, activists, journalists and even sitting judges.
A central argument in the statement is the timing. The Congress government in Telangana is hosting the second edition of the Bharat Summit on November 13 and 14, with more than 1,000 delegates from over 70 countries. The summit has been presented as a platform to discuss democracy, peace, social and economic justice, international cooperation and the changing global order. The signatories welcome such discussions but say the principles "cannot remain confined to conference halls, speeches and declarations." They ask: "How can a government host an international summit on global justice, non-violence and peaceful coexistence while its own institutions facilitate commercial engagements with companies reportedly connected to the military and surveillance infrastructure used against Palestinians?" They add that "global justice cannot be selective."
The statement also addresses participants in the summit directly, saying national and international civil society representatives, progressive political leaders and human rights advocates attending "have a responsibility to raise these concerns." A summit on global justice, it says, must create space to question injustice wherever it occurs, "including when it involves the economic and technological interests of governments and institutions hosting such gatherings."
The signatories make four demands of the Telangana government. First, they want it to immediately suspend the Telangana-Israel technology and business partnership and put the November 16 T-Hub meet on hold until an independent and transparent human rights due diligence assessment of all participating companies is completed. Second, they want the government to align its institutional engagements with the principles of the Bharat Summit, and they say they expect the summit to adopt a resolution opposing engagements with Israel and entities that support or facilitate its violations of international law. Third, they demand full public disclosure of all proposed engagements with Israeli companies, including MoUs, investment proposals, technology transfers, joint research, procurement arrangements and access to the state's startup ecosystem, particularly in AI, defence and surveillance technologies, along with the safeguards against misuse. Fourth, they ask for a clear human rights due diligence framework for T-Hub and other government-supported institutions, so that public resources are not used to facilitate relationships that contribute to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The signatories stress that they are not against international cooperation or technological progress. "We are not opposed to international cooperation, technological development or legitimate investments," the statement says, adding that "economic growth cannot come at the cost of human dignity, international law and the lives of people facing occupation and military violence."
The statement also draws attention to the position of the Congress party. It says the engagement stands in "clear contradiction" to the stated position of the party's top leadership, noting that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have condemned Israel's military actions and expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Telangana government's facilitation of commercial and defence-related ties with Israeli entities, it says, "directly undermines this national leadership stance, sending a deeply conflicting message to citizens committed to global human rights."
Concluding, the signatories say: "Global justice cannot be a conference slogan. Peace cannot be selectively defended. And solidarity with Palestine must be reflected in action, not merely in words." They urged the government to reconsider the proposed engagement.
The signatories include S.Q. Masood, Mohammed Faraz Ahmed (president, SIO Telangana), Srinivas Kodali (independent researcher), Lalita Ramdas, Prof. Rama Melkote (retired professor, Osmania University), Rukmini Rao (Gramya Resource Centre for Women), A. Suneetha, Meera Sanghamitra (National Alliance of People's Movements, Telangana), Sowmya Kidambi, Sagari Ramdas (Food Sovereignty Alliance), Abdul Majeed Shoaib (state president, MPJ), Umar Faruq Quadri (state coordinator, APCR Telangana), representatives of the Human Rights Forum, Rythu Swarajya Vedika, ALIFA, NAJAR and Fridays for Future India, and other activists, researchers and citizens.
The state government had not responded to the statement at the time of writing. The claims about the participating companies' links to the Israeli military are those of the Siasat Daily reports as cited by the signatories, and have not been independently verified here.
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