Comment: We shouldn't begrudge India aid

The government's decision to give �1 billion of aid to India over the next three years has sparked much controversy, but as Michael Hesseltine says, we need to ask ourselves: ?what sort of country do we want to be?'

By Richard Evans

Hesseltine asked that question in response to an angry audience member on ?Question Time' who demanded to know why the UK has pledged �280 million a year to a country with a ?WITH A SPACE PROGRAMME'. That bit has to be shouted, apparently.

It's an understandable line of questioning and if my only source of information on the subject was this article from the Daily Mail I'd be pretty angry about it too. On my journey into work on Tuesday I watched two commuters tutting almost in synch as they read that India has ?three times as many billionaires as we do'. (The instinctual reaction to 90% of Daily Mail articles is either to tut, pull your hair out, throw something at a foreigner or to stop eating whatever you're eating because you just found out it will probably give you cancer.)

India having three times as many billionaires as us is a nice sound-byte for the press to use but it becomes less impressive when you think that the population of India is more than nineteen times that of the UK and its 1.1 billion people equates to more than 17% of the world's total population. It becomes less impressive still when you take into account the mathematical skills of the Daily Mail staff who, in the same article, reveal that there are actually 69 billionaires in India and 29 in Britain. I was never great at maths in school but I understand 29 multiplied by three is actually 87, not 69. So in fact the amount of billionaires in India is closer to double than triple. Some interesting rounding-up. Do I spot an agenda perhaps?

India is a country of two extremes, that much is true. It is the world's eleventh largest economy, boasts a �1.25 billion SPACE PROGRAMME and is itself an aid donor to other countries. However, India is also host to a third of the world's poor. The Indian government undoubtedly has to take responsibility for the extremely high levels of poverty and for it to be focusing on aspirations such as launching into space while back on planet earth millions of its people are starving is a decision of catastrophic proportions. Thankfully it is now starting to realise this and is cutting budgets in areas such as defence to focus on issues closer to home - or at least on this planet.

Should erroneous government spending in the past mean that impoverished people in India continue to suffer? Shouldn't we be trying to help those people? Because that's exactly what the government is trying to do with this pledge. This money isn't going to the Indian government, it is being split up and sent to three of the poorest states - Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar - to help people out of poverty.

Andrew Mitchell, the UK secretary for international development says: "Some people - in both the UK and India - have been asking whether the time has come to end British aid to India. In my view, we are not there yet.

"The whole rationale for my department is, eventually, to work ourselves out of a job. But having discussed this with the government of India, I believe that, for the next few years, it is in both India's interest and in Britain's interest for us to continue our highly successful collaboration on development, not least so we can support the government of India's own successful programmes in the poorest priority areas.

"They do have a space programme, but on the other hand there are more poor people in India than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, and the average income of an Indian citizen is only one-third of that of a Chinese person."

There will be plenty of people who will disagree with this decision and I can understand those arguments. We are still in the midst of a recession and the cutbacks are hitting us hard, which is why aid to the likes of China and Russia has already been stopped, but the fact is, do we want to be the sort of country that doesn't share - albeit what little resources we have - with those in greater need?

While the UK is slipping down the global financial superpower rankings it is acts such as this one that show we are still a superpower when it comes to prestige, status and acting responsibly.

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Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blogs/editors_corner/comment-we-shouldnt-begrudge-india-aid-p78912.html

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