Britain's £12bn Overseas Aid Programme
pr00ne,
Seeing as we rescued India from the anarchy into which it had descended post our becoming trading partners with same, the same problem faced the French and Portugese, we all did our best to return some semblence of order and civilised behaviour despite the worst efforts of the Thuggees and all, and indeed it worked. But in a country that size and what was at stake, it soon boiled down to a conflict of interest between ourselves and the French, each leading our own Indians to supplement our own troops for ultimate governance. We won, at the Battle of Assaye, 1803!
Snce then, we built a rail network Villas to die for and put in place a realistic administration, which compared quite favourably with the best of whatever else was there to compare with at the time. I honestly do not know what you mean about two centuries of zero growth, the only growth industry in India, before British rule was Death, Disease, Anarchic Crime and Wildlife!
Not that there weren't good times, when we first started trading in the Far East, but the Mogul Dynasty like all good things, had to come to an end sometime!
FB
Seeing as we rescued India from the anarchy into which it had descended post our becoming trading partners with same, the same problem faced the French and Portugese, we all did our best to return some semblence of order and civilised behaviour despite the worst efforts of the Thuggees and all, and indeed it worked. But in a country that size and what was at stake, it soon boiled down to a conflict of interest between ourselves and the French, each leading our own Indians to supplement our own troops for ultimate governance. We won, at the Battle of Assaye, 1803!
Snce then, we built a rail network Villas to die for and put in place a realistic administration, which compared quite favourably with the best of whatever else was there to compare with at the time. I honestly do not know what you mean about two centuries of zero growth, the only growth industry in India, before British rule was Death, Disease, Anarchic Crime and Wildlife!
Not that there weren't good times, when we first started trading in the Far East, but the Mogul Dynasty like all good things, had to come to an end sometime!
FB
Last edited by Finningley Boy; 31st Jan 2012 at 15:25.
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Seeing as we left India as an impoverished continent with almost 2 centuries of zero growth
And France does not spend as much as the UK on foreign aid; with that gap due to widen over the next couple of years thanks to present Government policy.
Last edited by jindabyne; 31st Jan 2012 at 15:27.
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"France spends about the same on foreign aid as the UK does, India now gives more in foreign aid than it receives."
If the UK are giving foreign aid to India, why is India giving foreign aid to others ?
Probably deals within deals within deals !
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Not sure foreign aid is really cash.
Some time ago I know, but I worked on a project in India in early eighties for a UK company, we were paid from the UK foreign aid budget so it never really left the country.
Similarly, when working for a US company I was told to fund some projects in Israel because 'It won't cost us anything' .
I suspect that foreign aid is merely tax efficient foreign Trade!
Similarly, when working for a US company I was told to fund some projects in Israel because 'It won't cost us anything' .
I suspect that foreign aid is merely tax efficient foreign Trade!
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Now that Sir Fred has become plain old Fred for his disasterous handling of RBS, perhaps it is time Lord Prescott becomes just Prescott again over his equally disasterous part in the handling of the UK economy.
I am still trying to figure out how the UK so far in debt are being "steered" to lending more to the European monetary fund... How does that work?
Hello UK, we need more funds, so, can you borrow more money and run up more debt, so we can lend it to others..
I am still trying to figure out how the UK so far in debt are being "steered" to lending more to the European monetary fund... How does that work?
Hello UK, we need more funds, so, can you borrow more money and run up more debt, so we can lend it to others..
Enjoyed the article on the Live Aid corrosive effect idea, for all that it may be a bit slanted.
I hadn't appreciated how African musical artists had been left out of the mix so often. What a shame, and FFS, how despicable of the Geldorf and crew to be so callous.
Friend of mine in the US Army ended up in Somalia in 1992-1993, and then in Rwanda in 1994, as part of US military humanitarian missions. By the time he got to Bosnia in 1997, his cynicism leaked out of his pores.
He defended the hard work various people did, but pointed out to the macro economic problem that he saw in the works:
The creation of foreign aid junkies. ( This was particularly evident to him in the Western zones of Rwanda ... )
The altruism and desire to serve others, a sentiment found in so many decent people who work for and with NGO's, isn't centrally controlled nor planned, which is probably a good thing.
The problem is, in terms of getting the bulk of assets applied to actual assistance (versus all of the filters that slow the trickle down from donation to application), this sort of dispersion renders some of their efforts moot. But it sure does increase the dependence upon "foreign" aid at the expense of generating ans sustaining organic or home grown aid. While this is great for making a lot of foreigners feel good about themselves, it does little long term good for the society in question.
The aid is far too often a Band Aide slapped onto a symptom. The Live Aid sort is a low quality plaster. (Yes, there's a put snuck in there, I confess). That doesn't mean that No help ever arrives, but considering what's put in, the amount that arrives is unfortunately low.
As with the Ethopian structural problem, in article criticizing the Live Aid and such, it is far, far harder to fix the cause than to patch a symptom.
See Somalia 2012, trace back to 1992 and American/UN intervention; what's been going on in the Sudan for the last ten years, and Haiti since Aristide was chucked out the first time, as spectacular examples of how it plays out in the long term.
You can't cure the ailment if you do not find the root cause and address that.
I hadn't appreciated how African musical artists had been left out of the mix so often. What a shame, and FFS, how despicable of the Geldorf and crew to be so callous.
Friend of mine in the US Army ended up in Somalia in 1992-1993, and then in Rwanda in 1994, as part of US military humanitarian missions. By the time he got to Bosnia in 1997, his cynicism leaked out of his pores.
He defended the hard work various people did, but pointed out to the macro economic problem that he saw in the works:
The creation of foreign aid junkies. ( This was particularly evident to him in the Western zones of Rwanda ... )
The altruism and desire to serve others, a sentiment found in so many decent people who work for and with NGO's, isn't centrally controlled nor planned, which is probably a good thing.
The problem is, in terms of getting the bulk of assets applied to actual assistance (versus all of the filters that slow the trickle down from donation to application), this sort of dispersion renders some of their efforts moot. But it sure does increase the dependence upon "foreign" aid at the expense of generating ans sustaining organic or home grown aid. While this is great for making a lot of foreigners feel good about themselves, it does little long term good for the society in question.
The aid is far too often a Band Aide slapped onto a symptom. The Live Aid sort is a low quality plaster. (Yes, there's a put snuck in there, I confess). That doesn't mean that No help ever arrives, but considering what's put in, the amount that arrives is unfortunately low.
As with the Ethopian structural problem, in article criticizing the Live Aid and such, it is far, far harder to fix the cause than to patch a symptom.
See Somalia 2012, trace back to 1992 and American/UN intervention; what's been going on in the Sudan for the last ten years, and Haiti since Aristide was chucked out the first time, as spectacular examples of how it plays out in the long term.
You can't cure the ailment if you do not find the root cause and address that.
Sorry to drag up an old thread but I suspect some will be pleased by this:
BBC News - UK to end financial aid to India by 2015
Perhaps aid might come back in the other direction .....
BBC News - UK to end financial aid to India by 2015
Perhaps aid might come back in the other direction .....
It's probably peanuts - VJ Mallya in the Force India GP team spends that and more every fiscal. Tata Industries legal bill would exceed that amount as well. But - I agree, we should not have been paying it for a long time now and it makes the UK look more stupid than it actually is.
Dave M
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Dave M
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Makes cock all difference to the desperate state of our finances though. The recovered funds will simply be put back into the aid pot to be given to some other 3rd world Despot to buy gold taps with. The Government hasn't said it will reduce the aid budget, just that India won't get a share. 
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Oh please! Please stop giving us "aid," if you can call it that. The Indian Government has a yearly expenditure in the range of $350bn. The amount of whining that the Brits do for a little bit of money, that is just about 0.1% of our government expenditure, is shameful. What is a billion or two when compared to the massive wealth looted by the British from India?
So please ask the British government to end the aid before some Indians, irritated by the constant British whining, lodge a Public Interest Litigation with the Supreme Court of India asking for a judicial inquiry into the intent behind such "aid" and the leverage that the "aid" giver is trying to construct in our country to the detriment of Indian interests.
Anyways, it is going to take a lot more than just "aid" to right the wrongs committed by the British. No sooner does the aid end than we can start reminding Indian kids at school about what the British did to their country. Reminding them about why they do not have access to the fruits of prosperity that their fore-fathers once had.
So please ask the British government to end the aid before some Indians, irritated by the constant British whining, lodge a Public Interest Litigation with the Supreme Court of India asking for a judicial inquiry into the intent behind such "aid" and the leverage that the "aid" giver is trying to construct in our country to the detriment of Indian interests.
Anyways, it is going to take a lot more than just "aid" to right the wrongs committed by the British. No sooner does the aid end than we can start reminding Indian kids at school about what the British did to their country. Reminding them about why they do not have access to the fruits of prosperity that their fore-fathers once had.
- They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had. And not just from us! From our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.
- And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
- Yeah.
- And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
- And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
- Yeah.
- And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
- The aqueduct?
- What?
- The aqueduct.
- Oh. Yeah, they did give us that. That's true, yeah.
- And the sanitation.
- Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
- I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation.
- And the roads.
- Yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitaion, the aqueduct and the roads...
- Irrigation.
- Medicine.
- Education.
- Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.
- And the wine.
- That's something we'd really miss, Reg..
- Public baths.
- And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
- They certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
- All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have they ever done for us?
- Brought peace?
- Oh, peace. Shut up!
- What?
- The aqueduct.
- Oh. Yeah, they did give us that. That's true, yeah.
- And the sanitation.
- Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
- I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation.
- And the roads.
- Yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitaion, the aqueduct and the roads...
- Irrigation.
- Medicine.
- Education.
- Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.
- And the wine.
- That's something we'd really miss, Reg..
- Public baths.
- And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
- They certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
- All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have they ever done for us?
- Brought peace?
- Oh, peace. Shut up!
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I thought there was a "no child left behind" policy in U.K., isn't there? Oh, that must be the Americans because there seem to be some Britishers who seem to have never taken history lessons. Or maybe some people are confusing between pre-colonial Africa and India.
The British came to India when the world had just started to industrialize. To say that the British brought with them significant upgrades of technology is a lie. One of the reasons why the Indian rulers had allowed the British to trade in India was to better connect India with Europe. Had the British not interfered, India would have industrialized by her own self.
In any case, transfer of know-how is no excuse for looting a country.
It is not that the British brought resources from their motherland to build infrastructure in India. Things were built by Indians with Indian tax-payers' money. And the British got only those things built which were required for their own purpose. Telegraph lines were laid for the purpose of administration of The Raj(rule). Railways were built for transporting troops to exert The Raj(rule) and carry out the trade that benefited them.
As far as sanitation and town-planning sense in pre-colonial India is concerned, please read a little about Indus(from where the word "India" comes) Valley Civilization, the largest and perhaps the oldest ancient civilization. After you have finished reading about the sophisticated(for those times) town planning discovered in the excavations, do let me know how "civilized" the British were back then.
Not to write a school essay on the impact of British rule on India, i would like to squeeze it all in the following words:
"An estimate by Cambridge University historian Angus Maddison reveals that India's share of the world income fell from 22.6% in 1700, comparable to Europe's share of 23.3%, to a low of 3.8% in 1952."
Economy of India under the British Raj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The British came to India when the world had just started to industrialize. To say that the British brought with them significant upgrades of technology is a lie. One of the reasons why the Indian rulers had allowed the British to trade in India was to better connect India with Europe. Had the British not interfered, India would have industrialized by her own self.
In any case, transfer of know-how is no excuse for looting a country.
It is not that the British brought resources from their motherland to build infrastructure in India. Things were built by Indians with Indian tax-payers' money. And the British got only those things built which were required for their own purpose. Telegraph lines were laid for the purpose of administration of The Raj(rule). Railways were built for transporting troops to exert The Raj(rule) and carry out the trade that benefited them.
As far as sanitation and town-planning sense in pre-colonial India is concerned, please read a little about Indus(from where the word "India" comes) Valley Civilization, the largest and perhaps the oldest ancient civilization. After you have finished reading about the sophisticated(for those times) town planning discovered in the excavations, do let me know how "civilized" the British were back then.
Not to write a school essay on the impact of British rule on India, i would like to squeeze it all in the following words:
"An estimate by Cambridge University historian Angus Maddison reveals that India's share of the world income fell from 22.6% in 1700, comparable to Europe's share of 23.3%, to a low of 3.8% in 1952."
Economy of India under the British Raj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia