India tells Britain: We don't want your aid

[FarCenter]

Pranab 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. The disclosure will fuel the rising controversy over Britain’s aid to India.

...
Last week India rejected the British-built Typhoon jet as preferred candidate for a £6.3 billion warplane deal, despite the Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, saying that Britain’s aid to Delhi was partly “about seeking to sell Typhoon.”


According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirumpama Rao, proposed “not to avail [of] any further DFID [British] assistance with effect from 1st April 2011,” because of the “negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID”.

But officials at DFID, Britain’s Department for International Development, told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause “grave political embarrassment” to Britain, according to sources in Delhi.

...
“They said that British ministers had spent political capital justifying the aid to their electorate,” one source told The Sunday Telegraph. “They said it would be highly embarrassing if the Centre [the government of India] then pulled the plug.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9061844/India-tells-Britain-We-dont-want-your-aid.html

[malaise]

1. Good

Western politicians these days believe they can use us as footballs with their racist rants during their campaigns and then want to continue business as usual.
Fugg em! Good for India!

[marmar]

2. Hell, at the rate things are going, Britain might need aid from India.

nt

[rocktivity]

3. I thought India told Britian that

back in 1947.


rocktivity