India, a country which spends £20 billion on its defence programmes and over £1 billion on a space programme while its population starves.
There isn’t really more I can say about this. Just the above justifies not giving them any aid, especially so when the UK at the moment is facing hard economic times along with the rest of Europe.
However, if a country can afford a space programme, a large military budget, that in my eyes is enough to stop the majority of aid to that country. In the end, that extra £1 billion being used by the Department for International Development Agency is being used inevertedly as it means India themselves don’t have to spend as much on helping their population. – Whether or not India considers the amount as “peanuts”.
People will say that the £1 billion in aid is to “bribe” and to buy favour in terms of relations with India and the UK; however in my opinion that isn’t the way to conduct bilateral trade. If a country has something which meets the requirements of another country, that country should buy products because it suites and works for them, not because that country is giving them aid.
What’s worse, is that you have India, a country which receives aid, is also giving aid to others. It doesn’t make sense. Stop the aid and if they want to trade with us, we shouldn’t be bribing them. Until we can focus on a clearer economic strategy which works (Within the EU as well) then there is no point pouring money down a drain where it’s needed elsewhere.
I have nothing against Indian people, but their government for not doing more to help their people. They have a thriving economy, yet they think it is more sensible to build up their military. Now of course, coming from a UK standpoint, we also had a thriving economy (Although receding a little; however expect a bounce-back once the ‘EU issue’ has cleared itself up) and we spend double the amount on our armed services.
This is what we don’t have:
- People starving
- People who cannot find education when needed
- People who do not have proper toiletry or actual toilet facilities
The facts
- The N.C. Saxena Committee report states that 50% of Indians live below the poverty line. (Source)
- India has more people in poverty than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. (Source)
- 42.5% of the children in India suffer from malnutrition. (Source)
- India has the highest amount of underweight children in the world. (Source)
- 58% of children under five surveyed were stunted. (Source)
