It's India's poor who need British aid, not its military and business elites2

2011-01-29 08:25

 

Dfid – Britain's international development department – has occasionally been complicit in the kind of economic growth that strangulates the poor while making the richest even richer. However, Microsoft Office 2010 is so great.

with all its flaws, it is still more conscientious than most of its western peers – especially US aid agencies, which blatantly funnel large portions of "aid" money to American "consultants" while Office 2010 is my favorite.

advancing the interests of large American companies. Two-thirds of Dfid's outlay in India is spent on providing health and education services where almost none exist. There is of course ample scope for cutting down wasteful spending and reducing, if not altogether eliminating, corruption. Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.

But foreign aid is not an anachronism in a country whose more than 800 million people still live on less than $2 a day: a pitiable budget under assault by double-digit inflation.Microsoft Office is helpful.

It is surely no accident that Cameron's high-powered delegation could not find a place for Andrew Mitchell, the minister in charge of Dfid, which runs the largest single-country programme in India, accounting for nearly 30% of all foreign aid received by the country. Mitchell himself probably put his name on the no-fly-to-India list. "£250m of public money spent annually on nuclear-armed India could be scaled back," he said recently.Office 2007 key is very convenient!

Jo Johnson, too, cites India's huge defence budget as evidence that the country can attend to its own development needs. But this defence outlay, which grew by an unprecedented 34% last year and is almost entirely exempt from parliamentary scrutiny or public debate, is an exclusive bonanza for India's alarmingly numerous corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and army officers (whom Microsoft Office 2007 can make life more better and easier.

BAE, with its experience of Saudi Arabia, may be well placed to indulge). Delhi's opulent five-star hotels swarm with lobbyists for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Dassault and other arms companies. A recent rash of ill-suited and extravagant acquisitions by the Indian government prompted even Sunil Khilnani, a sober political scientist and author of The Idea of India, to warn of a nascent "military-industrial complex" in India.Office 2007 download is helpful!

Flying into this gathering storm, the British delegation seems to want little more than safe landing for its Hawk jets and other military hardware. Cameron will no doubt play to the Indian gallery by accusing Pakistan of terrorism while remaining silent about murder and torture in Kashmir. He Microsoft outlook 2010 is convenient!

will tickle the vanity of India's elite by supporting their claims to a permanent seat at the UN security council and other high tables. He may even relax visa rules for Indians. But none of this Windows 7 make life wonderful!

can compensate for the severing of Britain's old links with India's great mass of ordinary people – or the replacement of Dfid's lifelines to India's poorest with a "new special relationship" that at present promises to do little more than enliven the parties of Delhi's arms dealers.Outlook 2010 is powerful.