MONEY TO BURN...
So, India have successfully seen its Mars Orbital Mission, launched in late 2013, now entered into orbit around the red planet. It`s a remarkable technical achievement and those in the Indian Space Programme are rightly being congratulated on joining a select band of nations who have achieved the same goal.The cost of the mission is put at $74 million - a small part of the £1 billion spent each year on the space programme by India. And it`s this expenditure that is giving rise to criticism that a country with about a third of the world`s poorest people, surviving on just $2 a day, might perhaps not quite have its priorities right.
As an interesting footnote, in 2012 Britain gave India £280 million in `foreign aid.` As a result of questions at that time and given India`s commitment to its space programme, the UK Government decided to phase out future aid to India and it will cease altogether in 2015.
I would just be interested to know which bit of the space programme has been financed by the UK`s generous contributions over the years and I suspect a good number of the world`s poorest people might be interested as well. But I guess on $2 a day, they may never know.......
1 comment:
I like the fact you put "foreign aid" in inverted commas. It's nothing of the sort of course. The countries that receive it are heavily into a bribe culture and our "aid" is simply an "official" bribe to smooth a few palms and ensure we continue to trade with those countries.
No doubt a similar amount will continue to find its way to the sub-continent after 2015 lost under some other heading in the countries account books.
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