How much aid do we give to India?

[SimonMac]

Unless some people on Mars are waiting for a lamb jalfrezi, 10 puppodoms, peshrwari naan and some onion bhajees.

Too far?

[Mich the Tester]

From what I understand, the money goes to UK companies to purchase equipment/supplies that are shipped to India.

In some cases they are of no benfit to the aid project (Think Range Rover for the guy in charge) The project does not get money from other sources as they have already received aid from the the UK.

UK aid to other countries is a can of worms. Ask Sir Bob.

I think most aid is a can of worms; there's a lot of hit and miss, hoping that some of the money does some good. Sometimes, in some places, it genuinely helps people while often it makes local politicians and European businesspeople very wealthy indeed. Just take a look at some of the hotels in Addis Abeba, Kinshasa and Delhi to see what it can finance; decadence that few hotels in the west can approach, let alone match. Some of the aid is basically a way of trying to buy friendship in the hope that it'll lead to profitable business or important geo-political relations in the future. Some of it is basically a subsidy for western businesses, but then by a more respectable name.

A lot of this appears very unfair indeed. The trouble is, if you stop the aid, then the little bit of help that genuinely needy people get will come to an end and the people working at the bottom end in those luxury hotels will lose their jobs. Sure I think it's a strange set of priorities for the Indian government to run a Mars mission while there are tens of millions of Indians struggling for something to eat, put a roof over their heads and get basic healthcare, but foreign aid and the abuse of aid isn't such a black and white issue as some people in politics and the meejah would have you believe.

[Platypus]

Damn - Can't find the Indian Major Tom video on youtube, you know, where he radios the outsourced support desk?

Please someone do the needful while I'm away (next hour) and get the link.

ta.

[d000hg]

I had the exact same thought this morning. It's a flippin disgrace.

So no country should receive aid if they're spending any part of their economy on anything other than feeding the poor? Seems rather short-sighted... launching a decent space industry could create masses of jobs and wealth so that they don't need aid in future. If all they do with aid is divvy it up to the poor people, nothing changes.

[suityou01]

So no country should receive aid if they're spending any part of their economy on anything other than feeding the poor? Seems rather short-sighted... launching a decent space industry could create masses of jobs and wealth so that they don't need aid in future. If all they do with aid is divvy it up to the poor people, nothing changes.

So you lend your neighbour £500. The following day he rolls up in a jag and you say "good for him, should help him get to work in style so he will get better paid jobs. I'm glad I lent him that £500"?

[Mich the Tester]

During the potato famine in Ireland, which at the time was a part of the British Empire, the British government funded expeditions to the Northwest Passage and into the jungles of the Congo; meanwhile, British citizens were dying of starvation. Now OK, Britain was not recieving foreign aid AFAIK, but the Indians could quite reasonably claim that exploration is a part of development and may deliver economic benefits further down the line, just as Britain's explorations in the north and in Africa did.

Personally I think it's a bit of a spurious claim in this case, but the Indians could argue they're just following the example of countries which went through their technological development earlier.

[cailin maith]

So no country should receive aid if they're spending any part of their economy on anything other than feeding the poor? Seems rather short-sighted... launching a decent space industry could create masses of jobs and wealth so that they don't need aid in future. If all they do with aid is divvy it up to the poor people, nothing changes.

That isn't what I said.

[Mich the Tester]

So you lend your neighbour £500. The following day he rolls up in a jag and you say "good for him, should help him get to work in style so he will get better paid jobs. I'm glad I lent him that £500"?

Nobody who buys a Jag for 500 quid is likely to get to an interview on time.

[Churchill]

So as it's in India, who do they outsource the support to

Who does the needfull ?

With regards to military hardware, mostly Russia. All this because Russia were the first to provide aid when India was granted independence in 1947.

[d000hg]

So you lend your neighbour £500. The following day he rolls up in a jag and you say "good for him, should help him get to work in style so he will get better paid jobs. I'm glad I lent him that £500"?

I'd ask him where he got a Jag for £500.