Economic Aid

[puneets]

Here is an interesting email from a Dean at IIT Madras

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Dear Friends,

Here is a personal experience, as well as a moment of national pride,
which I want to share with you. Hope you find it worth the time you
put in reading it :

"In the middle of 1965 India-Pakistan war, US govt - then a close
friend of Pakistan - threatened India with stopping food-aid
(remember "PL-480"?). For a food deficient India this threat was
serious and humiliating. So much so that in the middle of war, Prime
Minister (Late) Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Ram Leela Grounds in
Delhi and appealed to each Indian to observe one-meal-fast every week
to answer the American threat. As a school boy, I joined those
millions who responded to Shastri ji's call. I continued the fast
even when the war was over and India became self sufficient in food.

Hurt deep by the national humiliation suffered at the hands of the US
govt, I had vowed to stop my weekly fast only when India starts
giving aid to USA.



It took just 40 years. Last week THE day arrived. When Indian
ambassador in Washington DC handed over a cheque of US$ 50 million to
the US govt, two plane loads of food, medical aid and other relief
materials were waiting to fly to the USA. Time to break the fast?
With no bad feeling about the USA, and good wishes for the Katrina
victims, this humble Indian feels proud of the distance India has
covered in 40 years. Let's celebrate a New India!"

- Vijay Kranti.

Dean - IIT Madras

[Sandeep]

Very nice mail.

[India1989]

That was simply fabolous. That is great. Take that americans. In their face.

How do they feel now? No offence. just joking.

Anyways India has progressed a lot.

[prasen9]

There is a very interesting article, actually an opinion piece, on the debacle in Sri Lanka and it being a harbinger of things to come. I have visited Africa several times and several of their countries are building things using a whole bunch of borrowed money. How are things going to shake out? Are the Chinese going to lose money or will they be pulling the strings? This is, of course, the U.S.+West led method via IMF. The West quickly blamed China for Sri Lanka whereas the west is the largest borrowers and are doing pretty much the same things they blame China for. See: Article

I quote:

Sri Lanka ... remains a colony with administration outsourced to the International Monetary Fund. We still export cheap labor and resources, and import expensive finished goods — the basic colonial model.

This is the colonial or neo-colonial model, of course. Are we susceptible to the same? I hope we are a bit more evolved than this but I feel for the smaller nations.