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February 6th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Last updated at 8:09 AM on 6th February 2012
This paper has long questioned the sanity of continuing to pour hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into aid for India, a country with more billionaires than Britain and money to spare for its own space programme. Now this profligacy has lost its last shred of credibility.
In a revelation that raises hugely awkward questions for the Coalition, it
emerges that senior figures in the Indian government have said repeatedly that they don’t want or need the money – dismissed as ‘a peanut’ by the country’s finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee.
Controversy: India’s Finance Minister referred to the financial aid given by Britain to his country as nothing more than ‘peanuts’
More significant still, a leaked memo reveals that India’s then foreign minister begged our Department for International Development to stop sending aid after April 1 last year, because of the ‘negative publicity of Indian poverty’ it promotes.
Meanwhile, sources in Delhi say the £280million-a-year aid programme went ahead only after British officials pleaded that cancelling it would cause ‘grave political embarrassment’ at home.
Could there be any more damning indictment of the Coalition’s priorities?
Even at the best of times, it would be all but impossible to justify assistance on this scale to a country (itself a net donor of aid) whose economy has been growing at 10 per cent a year and is set to overtake
ours within a decade.
True, huge numbers of the world’s poorest live in India. But the evidence
suggests that only a small fraction of foreign aid – former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi put it at 15 per cent – reaches the people it is supposed to help, while the rest is wasted or siphoned off by fraud.
Indeed, as the Mail’s Sue Reid has found, aid often serves only to fatten a corrupt bureaucracy and keep the poor in poverty.
As for the claim that our generosity would help us win India’s multi-billionpound contract for fighter jets, how hollow that looks now that Delhi has named France as its preferred bidder.
Yet in spite of voters’ mounting anger, Britain still contributes more than
three-quarters of India’s aid – 15 times more than France.
To Mr Mukherjee, the £1billion we’ve given to India over the past five years, with hundreds of millions more promised by 2015, may be ‘a peanut’. But to hardpressed families in a Britain crippled by debt, our ring-fenced aid budget is a massive and growing affront.
How much longer must taxpayers be made to suffer, simply to spare ministers the ‘grave political embarrassment’ of admitting they are wrong?
A nation’s thanks
Celebration: It is 60 years since 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne
In some ways, Britain and the Commonwealth have changed beyond recognition since February 6, 1952, when the 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne on the death of her beloved father.
But through every upheaval of the past 60 years, the character of the Queen herself has remained constant and true.
With her dignity, sense of duty and astonishing stamina, she remains a reassuring
beacon – a powerful unifying force in a nation whose respect and
affection she has never taken for granted, but has always striven to
earn.
In her Diamond
Jubilee message today, rededicating herself to her people’s service, the
Queen expresses her hope that we will all be reminded of the ‘convening
strength of family, friendship and good neighbourliness’. The Mail
joins her wholeheartedly in that wish.
Her Majesty also devotes much of her message to thanking the public for their support and encouragement. But it is not us she needs to thank.
On this, of all days, the thanks are due entirely from us to her. God save her – and long may she reign.
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The UK’s aid to India ought to be put towards improving the BBC’s ‘BBC World News’ TV channel and BBC World Service radio: both of which are receivable in India and around the world…
Rather than continuing to be receivable only in ‘Low Definition’, ‘letter box’ (square) format and without subtitles, the BBC World News TV channel should be keeping up with its main competitors- such as CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc- and be receivable in wide-screen and with subtitles (English AND the main local language) world-wide……
BBC World Service radio could be greatly improved if a few of the many programmes that have been cut over the last 3-years due to funding shortages, were reinstated…
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In life one of the hardest lessons to learn is when something fundamental has changed and the ideas you once held to be true are just history.
The UK is no more important than any other country – Great, so we don’t need to save the world and waste money doing it.
Europe is not worth worrying about, the far east is – Great, Europe is a basket case full of red tape and handouts that will bankrupt it.
Learning French in schools is a waste of time and we had better start learning Chinese before our competition does – Great, the East wants British products and at last they look like being able to afford them.
The “Commonwealth” is as about irrelevant and useless as a chocolate teapot – Great, we can stop all handouts and entry into the UK options and start looking after our own problems.
The future is great unless you want to drag it down by dreaming about a long gone pass.
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There is more aid (welfare) given to Indian nationals in this country than in India – fact
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