Why are we funding the Indian space programme?

We are giving a fair slice of the foreign aid cake to India, and I would have no objection at all if that money were being used properly. I do not believe it is. The authorities in India have just declared another successful section of a mission to Mars costing I understand some £45 Million. We give them a lot more than that, yet we cannot afford a space programme, while they can. Equally India are a nuclear power while we are not ours, are controlled by the US.

It isn't any argument to say the money comes from different budgets. The money all starts off as Income tax, V.A.T. (or the equivalent) etc.

The cost of this mission is also a bit of a puzzle. NASA have a satellite orbiting as well, which cost a lot more than £45 million - over £100 million I believe. Yet these two satellites are doing virtually the same job. What is it the Indian Space agency knows that NASA doesn't? A little co-operation might teach NASA a thing or two. That doesn't alter the fact that we are paying for it. The Indian PM said something of the sort not so very long ago. He told Cameron he didn't need our money. Quite clearly he is right in that.

I wrote exactly the same thing on another thread and I was told that it wasn't the Indian Government's fault, it was ours for giving them the aid in the first place!

Iris wrote:I wrote exactly the same thing on another thread and I was told that it wasn't the Indian Government's fault, it was ours for giving them the aid in the first place!

UK aid to India is at our insistence.

Iris wrote:I wrote exactly the same thing on another thread and I was told that it wasn't the Indian Government's fault, it was ours for giving them the aid in the first place!

Good morning Iris

Well that is one way of looking at it, that it's our own fault for giving it to them. Of course they could always flatly refuse to take it, that is until the next time they have a natural disaster, and start shouting for international aid. So yes, on balance we have to agree, that our politicians of all shades of the political spectrum, are unfit for purpose. Unfit because they are unable to see that, while the Indian government is simply laughing at us.

Where else could you find politicians who will merrily borrow money to be paid back at interest of course, only to give that money to someone who doesn't want it, but will take it as long as it is offered. I'll try that trick on my bank manager, but I already know what she'll say.

It's the same with Pakistan, they have nuclear weapons, the means of delivery, we don't, so by that yardstick makes us poorer than them. The answer just pops out of the slot. Of curse just as with India, the government seems either disinterested or incapable of using our; and their space programme money to improve the conditions the vast majority of their people still live in.

Iris wrote:I wrote exactly the same thing on another thread and I was told that it wasn't the Indian Government's fault, it was ours for giving them the aid in the first place!

I have just trawled through the internet to research this a little. I have to admit it was only a little because the deeper you dig, the more bewildering it becomes.

In 2012, India told us bluntly the money was peanuts, and to keep it. apparently they relented when what is laughingly called the British government "BEGGED" them to let us continue to give them money. The reason behind this particular brainwave seems to be that to stop or suspend aid would "EMBARRAS" certain minsters and ex ministers. So they are in effect chucking some £300,000,000 a year down the drain to save someone getting egg on his/her face.

Then there is the amount of aid. India is also a foreign aid donor in it's own right, and the figures seem to show that we give them, almost exactly what they hand out to others. So the money they give is a freebie however you look at it, and we are borrowing that money at interest. We give them £300 Million, France gives them £19 Million, and a grateful Indian government then buys fighter jets from La Belle France ( and Napoleon called US a nation of shopkeepers)

Finally we have the bleeding hearts coming out with the best of them all. there is no guarantee they say that if we stop aid, India will continue to make it up for the poorest people in the country. I can't see where there is any guarantee of that anyway. Be that as it may officially designated a middle class country with more Billionaires than we have, is it not India's solemn duty to improve the lot of it's people. Not bring out the begging bowl when an earthquake hits.

That they can well afford to do this, and even say our money is peanuts, shows that our politicians at Westminster are suffering from delusions of adequacy. Then they wonder at low voting turnouts.