This is an indication of how the world is changing as the West undergoes its most savage recession in decades.
India’s Finance Minister has said that his country “does not require” British aid, describing it as “peanuts”.India tells Britain: We don't want your aid - TelegraphPranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to terminate Britain’s aid to their booming country last year - but relented after the British begged them to keep taking the money, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
So what? Surely this is just another thread inviting all the rabid Brit haters that infest P.ie to come forth and spit their usual bile and hatred?
One of the moderators on here really wrecks my head with his/her power mad ego
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For those who are unaware, the word "peanut"is an insult in Indian culture. I know this because it's the same as the abbreviation of my name and I get titters from Indians when I tell them it.
Tempted as I am to gloat in yet another nail in British power, I am more concerned that the removal of aid will reduce foreign influence over a very corrupt country which has people literally starving in the streets but spends money on war toys and a space programme.
You could atleast allow one post relating to the topic.Originally Posted by Aindriu
FF,Tullow Oil,Uganda
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what I find amusing is if a company bribes someone its a crime, if the government do it its called "aid".
Well if the Indians dont want it Im sure Ireland will take it!
We could even buy some jet fighters of hrem as part of the deal in a long term finance deal.
How many more decades before Britain is looking for Indian aid?
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. - Mark Twain
Anyone who does that needs to grow up Aindriu. If it is possible and if India does refuse any further aid, I would suggest that GB finances NGOs, who work in India, directly. Mind you, if it genuinely is aid for weapons sales, I'm being more than a little naive.
Decades?
India's problem is how to grow in the right way and minimize corruption. At least it doesn't have to risk a possible rewrite its political system as China does down the line.
The article indicates that British aid is part of a process to convince the Indians to buy British arms. The government arms industry in India is controlled by a few ex-servicemen (ie. corrupt ex soldiers mostly) in cahoots with politicians and yes they do naughty deals. One of my erstwhile pals was caught trying to flog a missile to the cops, and he was plenty rich already. And he'd been to all the right schools abroad, and people who didn't know his past (which made this look like a robin Hood moment) swore he was a gentleman. Probably because he bought them drinks.
Anti-corruption in India, however, is catching on more and more, and Indians are very vocal about it, and it's a big part of broadcast and movie culture, an open sore. Indians abroad that are returning are not about to accept the culture that their families had to put up with post Independence when the economy was handed over to an elite to develop and a bureacracy to leech. In another decade the middle class in India will be gigantic (already almost as big as Europe in population on Indian terms, though earning less) and they have most to lose through corruption and least to gain. Whereas poor people can use a corrupt system, and rich people can benefit from it, a massive middle class means that the poor have to educate themselves and the rich cannot control them. And educate themselves they will! As someone put it to me recently, while your average European is well aware of whom the local football star is, in India, everyone knows who the local celebrity teacher is. Celebrity teacher. Absorb that. Something we don't have in Ireland because we don't worship the way the Indians do.
Education, in a land and culture defined by religion, is a religion itself. Tamil or Gujerati, Hindu, Singh or Muslim, every Indian aspires for an education equally and fervently.
And they owe a lot of that to the Brits, in a strange way. In fairness, while the Irish may have been crap at using the Empire for anything, the Indians got a taste for secular University through scholarships to England and while they may despise the British charity they love the British education system. Shame we Irish never moved with the times when the Brits were around. When I was in school, I heard about the brave hedge school teachers that taught you Greek up to the age of 12. For some reason, nobody lauds the Irish engineers and scientists who were educated in the UK and who changed the world. There were, in fact, many of them.
In India, before during and after their Independence, it has been a mark of distinction to receive a scholarship to Cambridge. Yet, in Ireland, you'd keep your mouth shut about it if you knew what was good for you.
Go India!
PS yes, I know there is crushing poverty there, poverty crushes the rights of women and children and I can tell you I hate spending time there because of that, but I tip my hat to the indomitable Indian spirit that won't be poor forever.
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