Why is India Still a Recipient of British Aid Money...

[Brendan]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> Tbf ?50million is a drop in the ocean compared to

> most space programmes.

Small potatoes.

Small potatoes on the mooon...

[BrandNewGuy]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> India, as pointed out above, has huge problems

> with real poverty. But at the same time it is a

> country that is developing successfully.

Again I think that's debatable. The burgeoning Indian middle class loves to give that impression, but so did the British middle class in the mid-1800s, amidst grinding poverty in both countryside and town...

[Jeremy]

BrandNewGuy Wrote:

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> Enriching the Indian middle class is

> probably not useful to the poor.

I thought they had tax in India too. Is this not the case?

[BrandNewGuy]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> BrandNewGuy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Enriching the Indian middle class is

> > probably not useful to the poor.

>

> I thought they had tax in India too. Is this not

> the case?

Of course, but I bet they don't spend much of it on the poor - the infrastructure situation in India is so chronic that even the middle class won't get much richer until they spend serious money on it.

[Undisputedtruth]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> BrandNewGuy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Enriching the Indian middle class is

> > probably not useful to the poor.

>

> I thought they had tax in India too. Is this not

> the case?

As this country has shown, the gulf between rich and poor have got wider despite reforms to the taxation system since the days of Thatcher.

[Undisputedtruth]

Beer in The Evening? Wrote:

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> Er, so? Opium was a widely-sought commodity in the

> 19th century. Not forgetting that its trade was

> perfectly legal, and any profit made from it.

> Should we seek indemnity from the Wright brothers'

> descendents, seeing as their ancestors' creation

> has lead to so much pollution?

Next you'll be saying that slavery wasn't wrong because it was legal at the time. Sorry I don't accept your point.

[BrandNewGuy]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

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> Beer in The Evening? Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Er, so? Opium was a widely-sought commodity in

> the

> > 19th century. Not forgetting that its trade was

> > perfectly legal, and any profit made from it.

> > Should we seek indemnity from the Wright

> brothers'

> > descendents, seeing as their ancestors'

> creation

> > has lead to so much pollution?

>

> Next you'll be saying that slavery wasn't wrong

> because it was legal at the time. Sorry I don't

> accept your point.

No, the point is that we're no longer reponsible for that wrong

[El Pibe]

Not to mention it wasn't perfectly legal.

The Chinese authorities specifically banned us from selling it, so we killed lots of their folk, blew shit up and forced a one sided humiliating treaty on them allowing us to sell them opium and ravage their society with destructive addiction as long as we stopped killing them and blowing shit up.

I suppose you could call that technically legal, it I think a modern court might deem that coercion.

[El Pibe]

Anyway, the whole historical responsibility thing aside, surely the crux is that we generally alleviate want and poverty specifically where the government does neglect its responsibility.

I'm sure there were many BITE types in the mid 80s farting on about how it wasnt our responsibility to do anything when Ethiopia had among the highest military spend as a proportion of GDP in the world.

Technically they may well have been right but they'd have also been cunts.

Nothings different if you ask me.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Call me cynical, but ain't this just a trippy-trappy bod?

[El Pibe]

Ya think?

[Undisputedtruth]

It seems people like Bic Basher, BITE, and Fazer have a remarkable simplistic view of the world.

[BrandNewGuy]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> Anyway, the whole historical responsibility thing

> aside, surely the crux is that we generally

> alleviate want and poverty specifically where the

> government does neglect its responsibility.

>

> I'm sure there were many BITE types in the mid 80s

> farting on about how it wasnt our responsibility

> to do anything when Ethiopia had among the highest

> military spend as a proportion of GDP in the

> world.

>

> Technically they may well have been right but

> they'd have also been @#$%&.

> Nothings different if you ask me.

But aid to India today isn't equivalent to emergency relief to Ethiopia in the 80s. Aid is phenomenally complex in its effects - and appeals to people's kindness doesn't make it less complex.

[Huguenot]

I think a more cynical approach to Indian aid would be to describe it as enlightened self interest.

Sometimes we 'give' a little because we get so much more in return.

If you don't think that retaining political influence and trade relations in the second largest nation in the world is in Britain's best interest then you're a little bit dumb.

India is the UK's biggest export market outside of the EU (yes bigger than the US), with around $30 billion dollars a year. The aim is to make this $60 billion dollars a year within 3 years. India is the biggest external investor in the UK even compared with the EU.

UK aid to India is a piss in the ocean compared with this, and to be honest marketing costs at a fraction of 1% of the overall income would be celebrated by every CEO in the world.

The newspapers are simply trying to sell copies, and appealing to simplistic thickos is a pretty good way of doing this.

But small brained right wing pillocks don't get any of this. They just go 'space travellers don't need poverty reduction'. Mainly because they haven't thought it through.

There is a substantial number of Indian MPs who want British aid to India to stop. If it was just free money they wouldn't care. They care because with that cash comes influence and conditions.

If you don't understand that then go back to criticising your neighbours.

[nashoi]

Quite, which is why India is developing a fairly substantial overseas aid budget of its own.

[nashoi]

Let's not forget that today the biggest selling foreign author in India is Jeffrey Archer, is there no end to the cruelties of empire?