Indian atomic boffins draw up plans for 50,000 TONNE magnet Indian engineers are drawing up plans to build the world’s biggest magnet, four times the size of the one used at CERN, as part of a massive particle physics project to be housed in a 1,300 metre deep cave. The 50,000 tonne magnet is being designed at the country’s Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and will eventually be used in …
But if we send our money to India as aid it gets used for things and creates wealth.
If we don’t send it to India then we have to give it to the banks or some PFI where it instantly disappears abroad to the Caymans.
I'd rather poor Indians get a small percentage of my tax money than it all going to some reliable source of fiat money that devalues everything I've saved for over the years by more than I can bear to think about.
Very noble - but instead let's reduce the amount of tax filched from our pockets, look after our own elderly, look after our own servicemen and about a zillion other things which the mealy mouthed parasites of Westminster & Whitehall should be doing but which don't fit in with either their egotistical self-aggrandisement or their inveterate nest-feathering...
"Very noble - but instead let's reduce the amount of tax filched from our pockets, look after our own elderly, look after our own servicemen and about a zillion other things which the mealy mouthed parasites of Westminster & Whitehall should be doing but which don't fit in with either their egotistical self-aggrandisement or their inveterate nest-feathering..."
Or even just not borrow it in the first place. Either way. But I think it's pretty clear that Indian aid should go.
This is a really poor argument, and I'd suggest you have no idea of the scale of India and it's problems
The amount of aid that is given per person per year equated to roughly £10. The fact that they are also investing in international projects which will bring in, hopefully, large capital investment does not mean that the vast majority of the population don't need help.
Your statement is this same as saying, "Those bankers in London, they get paid a fortune. There must be no one poor in Europe"
No icon given, it's not a flippant matter
It's a difficult one - I guess what we'd hope for any country that we give aid to is that eventually they wouldn't need that aid any more, and if we cut back on our aid every time they try and build some expensive infrastructure we'll only succeed in keeping them in a position where they always need whatever aid we do give them.
So on balance I think I'd rather they did this sort of thing even though we're continuing to provide aid, though I may be being swayed somewhat by the fact that enormous magnets are just really fing cool.
This is a really poor argument....
Ok, how about this one then. British aid to India is significantly less than India's aid to elsewhere. If they really needed it, they probably wouldn't be giving it to someone else. Also I'd love to hear your justification for hosing aid cash on a country with a sodding space program.
I reckon it would be more constructive to stuff it in a bank in the Cayman's / piss it up the wall / pile it on the floor and burn it / whatever. At least with those alternatives you're not paying a load of civil servants to waste it for you.
"a legacy from the days of the Raj."
They've had control of their own affairs for sixty odd years, it no longer works to say "it was the previous guy's fault". India has perhaps the worlds most stultified bureaucracy for the simple reason that its current and recent politicians think that is a good thing.
I don't know if you remember this from a while back: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-05/uk/31026669_1_british-aid-international-development-secretary-end-aid
Basically, the Indians don't want our aid money anyway, but the government wants to be seen to be doing something for international aid in general, so they are reluctant to stop it.
They did agree to stop it in 2015: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20265583
This shows how little the so called "developed" world citizens actually understand the world outside their own periphery! In addition to the tech education push that the developed country's governments have embarked on, they should also now introduce subjects (minus propoganga) on "foreign culture, economy, geo-politics and geography" for the citizens and also their own history of economic development. That will just cease such comments and anxiety of the populi.
India is more than 13x the size of UK. With centuries of invasion and looting (guess who did that), it has almost broken the sub-continent's financial backbone and created a security hell! After more than 65 years, the country is what it is today because of it's "installed" dynastic socialist "democracy" - actually a failed exercise; where few people are "ruling" the country by proxy.
Now, to the argument that India should not progress in science and technology because it is poor and receiving "aid" just shows the mentality of the "aid givers". Look at the history of Britain, if Britain had not "marched the world for grabbing wealth" and then used that money for industrial innovation and world-wide business (mostly relying on ill-practices) the country would not have become the "developed" country.
And also, the so called "aid" does not come free. It is used as an arm-twisting means by the donor country to create pockets of "resistance and uprising" in the "poor" country. It is a diplomatic tool in disguise. Few recent examples shows how this works: There was and is still accusation that some constituents of "The India Against Corruption" agitation were/are funded by US and UK government supported/funded "charity" organisations. Recent "agitations" against a nuclear energy project in South India is unearthed to be funded by a "US charity". The construction of the nuclear energy project bid was won by a company from Russia. This realities on the ground in the "poor" country never come to light to the citizens of the "rich" country because the government is not going to tell their own citizens what the real use of this "aid" is.
Now, the obvious question is, why doesn't the Indian government stop this? Well, because this type of "diplomatic" gymnastics is a two-way street. Almost all governments across the world use "charities", "aids" etc as means of leverage with either the governments or directly with the country's citizens to influence that country. So the way the "poor" country's governments handle this is by keeping a tab of what is happening on ground and using behind-the-scene diplomacy to resolve it. And do you think India does not use these similar techniques to increase its leverage and influence on other "poorer" countries. I bet it does. India too has it's own "aid programs". This instrument of diplomacy works only on countries that are financially "poorer" than the country giving "aid". It's just the matter of where you are in this food-chain. The ones at the bottom suffer. There are ample examples of "aid workers" being used for spying, influencing or creating disturbances in the "poor" countries.
So sleep tight, don't worry. Your government is using the "aid" just to safeguard you and the country's interest and not to improve the life of some remote poor. The benefit of the "aid" to the poor people is the by-product not the main product and goal.
You could sit there with a truck load of things to accelerate through it's core... from ball bearings to acetylene cylinders....
LOL
People in knight suits, animals with an iron based blood... more ball bearings....
Engine blocks... dumb bells, live artillery shells, shot blasting grit, blow flies, the girl friends vibrator collection...
Rolls of barbed wire, new and used hard drives, hard drive disks, magnets, and parts...
Steel knitting needles, people who have titanium implants, tins of spray paint.
Truck axles..... cutlery, paper clips, circuit boards, flints, lit sky rockets, big capacitors, liquid iron,
The list goes on.
I dibs first go on the research.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
