India's former foreign minister and leader of the opposition BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), Yashwant Sinha, called on the UK to withdraw its aid money stating that India did not need "that kind of assistance or advice".
Welcoming the Indian finance minister's comments that UK aid was "peanuts" relative to India's overall budget, Sinha said,
“You can tell the British public from our side that they can keep their money, use it for their own welfare, or divert it to some other country which is in greater need.”
“[Aid] gives an opportunity to those countries who are giving us small sums of money to be sanctimonious in their approach, ‘India should do this, India should do that’. We don’t need that kind of assistance or advice,”
“There are problems in the UK and US but we are not rushing there with our aid saying, ‘We will fix it for you’.”
“We have malnourished children, we have disease, we have poverty but these are our problems and we should fix them.”
“We are producing so much food that we have run short of hessian bags and storage. Malnutrition is not because we don’t have resources.”
We need your support
Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.
Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view
We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.
For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.
