Remind me why we give India billions each year...?

[Eric Mc]

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

MartG said:

esselte said:

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Especially when we can't afford a similar size space programme of our own

We COULD afford to have a space programme of our own. It's just that in a democracy of our kind, it is hard for politicians to justify such expenditure to the (often technically or disinterested ignorant) populace.

India is, technically speaking, a democracy, but Indian politicians feel that it is important to pursue high tech areas and will devote an element of their expenditure to it.

I wish our government had the same atitude.

Maybe they would if we got foreign aid from somewhere to pay for it..

Is this £825 million amount paid directly to the Indian government or is it spread amongst lots of different charities in India?

I womnder if Britain recives aid from overseas donors? I bet it does - especially if you include aid given to individual charities as opposed directly to government or government agencies.

[esselte]

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

MartG said:

esselte said:

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Especially when we can't afford a similar size space programme of our own

We COULD afford to have a space programme of our own. It's just that in a democracy of our kind, it is hard for politicians to justify such expenditure to the (often technically or disinterested ignorant) populace.

India is, technically speaking, a democracy, but Indian politicians feel that it is important to pursue high tech areas and will devote an element of their expenditure to it.

I wish our government had the same atitude.

Maybe they would if we got foreign aid from somewhere to pay for it..

Is this £825 million amount paid directly to the Indian government or is it spread amongst lots of different charities in India?

I womnder if Britain recives aid from overseas donors? I bet it does - especially if you include aid given to individual charities as opposed directly to government or government agencies.

I don't know the answers to those Eric.

[5unny]

Well we even give aid to China -


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7938786.stm

[emicen]

Isnt the aid we give to india by way of restitution for some of the resource raping we did in colonial times?

Thats not a statement of agreement by the way, I think they should be getting naff all off us, but I believe this is why it started.

[Eric Mc]

I am always a little bit sceptical of these banner headlines which are designed to wind us up. I think the "giving" of aid to foreign countries is actually quite a complex area with all sorts of trade-offs and expected benefits in return - especially when aid is givern directly to foreign governments or government agencies. Some of it amounts to glorified bribery.

So, getting all irate about some of these "deals" could result in a loss of Revenue to the UK.

As for private charities, churches etc working in foreign lands, they are private operations and any funding from the UK is a matter of choic for those UK residents who want to support such charities. That is their business and we have no right to critise those who want to donate to charity in this way.

[vrb]

This so called 'aid' goes to NGO's usually British charities which have some stake in the Labour party. None of it goes to the Indian government. For information the Indian space programme pays for itself. Yesterday it launched a fisheries and cyclone monitoring satellite which will enable conservation of fish stocks as well as enable cyclone warnings so fishermen (who are usually poor) don't get killed. Much of this satellite launch was paid for by launching 6 other foreign satellites as well. The commercial arm of the ISRO which is ANTRIX also sells a lot of the imagery that the satellites especially the remote sensing ones have. So it's not UK aid that is paying for this, despite what some people might claim that it pays for like Nuclear submarines, nuclear weapons, etc. Of course India has social problems but the space programme is not a waste of money. Satellites have enabled remote surgery as well as remote learning programmes. Villages which were once remote outposts now have access to e-learning and online medical information.

BTW the probe also carried a X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, so some of it's success was British but don't let that bother anyone...

[Zod]

We also give aid to China, believe it or not.

[glazbagun]

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

Who do you mean by "we"?

UK?

Not clear, is it.

If indeed, the OP means the UK, does he mean official aid given by the UK government (i.e. the UK taxpayer) or all the various aid projects funded by private businesses, individuals and charities?

Looks like the British taxpayer maybe

Not quite Billions though, is it (although a tidy sum - I admit).

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I've always thought that "development aid" and such were just a legal way of bribing governments to buy contracts from your defence companies, etc, hence there being little likelyhood of it ending.

[5unny]

glazbagun said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

Who do you mean by "we"?

UK?

Not clear, is it.

If indeed, the OP means the UK, does he mean official aid given by the UK government (i.e. the UK taxpayer) or all the various aid projects funded by private businesses, individuals and charities?

Looks like the British taxpayer maybe

Not quite Billions though, is it (although a tidy sum - I admit).

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I've always thought that "development aid" and such were just a legal way of bribing governments to buy contracts from your defence companies, etc, hence there being little likelyhood of it ending.

Well we are trying to flog them these -


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/tr...


126 aircrafts for £6.2 billion sounds good to me. If the so called 'aid' helps in deals like this then lets send them more.

[Eric Mc]

That was my point earlier.

Governments don't ALWAYS act stupidly.

[Yertis]

5unny said:

glazbagun said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

Who do you mean by "we"?

UK?

Not clear, is it.

If indeed, the OP means the UK, does he mean official aid given by the UK government (i.e. the UK taxpayer) or all the various aid projects funded by private businesses, individuals and charities?

Looks like the British taxpayer maybe

Not quite Billions though, is it (although a tidy sum - I admit).

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I've always thought that "development aid" and such were just a legal way of bribing governments to buy contracts from your defence companies, etc, hence there being little likelyhood of it ending.

Well we are trying to flog them these -


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/tr...


126 aircrafts for £6.2 billion sounds good to me. If the so called 'aid' helps in deals like this then lets send them more.

How come when we give it to India it's "aid", but if we give it to a Saudi it's a "bribe"?

I think the whole indian sub-continent should give us aid in the form of free curries.

[Funk]

Yertis said:

5unny said:

glazbagun said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

esselte said:

Eric Mc said:

Who do you mean by "we"?

UK?

Not clear, is it.

If indeed, the OP means the UK, does he mean official aid given by the UK government (i.e. the UK taxpayer) or all the various aid projects funded by private businesses, individuals and charities?

Looks like the British taxpayer maybe

Not quite Billions though, is it (although a tidy sum - I admit).

I suppose the same question arises,should we be giving aid to a country that can afford it's own nukes and space programme?

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I've always thought that "development aid" and such were just a legal way of bribing governments to buy contracts from your defence companies, etc, hence there being little likelyhood of it ending.

Well we are trying to flog them these -


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/tr...


126 aircrafts for £6.2 billion sounds good to me. If the so called 'aid' helps in deals like this then lets send them more.

How come when we give it to India it's "aid", but if we give it to a Saudi it's a "bribe"?

I think the whole indian sub-continent should give us aid in the form of free curries.

Probably because when we give Libya convicted terrorists in return for lots of oil, it pisses off the 'merkins too much.

[cymtriks]

The aid is used as a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" token in a much bigger game.

A lot of international trade and political deals are linked, this is one of those links.

[Le Pop]

Well, I was going to start a new thread given that India has announced today that they are now going to Mars, but surprise surprise there already is one.

I still don't get it.

[Eric Mc]

Why not?

India has a long history in developing space technology and this is just another area of that technology.

Do we give India "billions"?

[Happy82]

Bollywood does Total Recall

[2354519y]

I read this programme is employing 16000 scientists and engineers and 65% of the parts used are made in india. If you want to grow an economy this type of investment in hi tech and manufacturing industries would be pretty useful I guess.

Or you could just hand the money out to chavs to hang around street corners and drink lambrini. Besides, with a £100 billion deficit I doubt much taxpayers money goes toward anything. More like uk deficit money.

[Le Pop]

OK, not billions, I was mistaken... And apparently it will end after 2015.

However:-
UK aid in 2014/15: £280m
Total aid 2010-2015: £1.12bn

(ref http://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-to-end-aid-package-to-... )

[Eric Mc]

So what. It's coming to an end anyway.

India has the right to decide what it does with its own money. It's a democracy. If the people of India don't like it, they'll tell the politicians.

One interesting fact though.

In 1999 a cyclone struck India and killed 10,000 people.

Last month, a similar strength cyclone struck India - this time the death toll was less than 100. The difference - better advanced warning systems provided by Indian weather satellites.
So don't tell the Indians they should not be "wasting" money on space. There are at least 9,900 people who will disagree.

[Asterix]

Happy82 said:

Bollywood does Total Recall

You may laugh but one of my clients was a little Indian fella who was brought up in Austria. I could never get my head around the fact he looked not dissimilar to Ghandi and sounded exactly like Arnie.