London: Under pressure to slash its annual financial assistance to India, cash-strapped British government is likely to cut its one billion-pound aid bill to the country. Justine Greening, who took over as Development Secretary last month, said she wants to see Britain's links to richer developing nations become about business, rather than hand-outs.
Greening's comments came amid pressure on her to get better value for money from Britain's 12 billion-pound annual spending on countries like China and India, which have their own space programme. Signalling that India will be a target for cuts, she said, "We should recognise that as countries get richer, we need to be responsible about how we transition in our relationship with them from aid to trade."
"Those are the discussions that I am having with the Indian government at the moment," Greening said at the Tory Party conference in Birmingham. Greening also pledged to stop programmes that are not working because of corruption or inefficiency, amid criticism of many old schemes....
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03:35 AM, Oct 10, 2012
Chandigarh: The Punjab government on Thursday gave Rs five lakh as financial assistance to Surjeet Singh, who spent almost 30 years of his life in a Pakistan jail, and a government job to his son. A cheque of Rs five lakh was handed over to Singh by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as financial assistance when the former along with his son Kulwinder Singh, called on him at his...
02:19 PM, Jul 19, 2012
Islamabad: Cash-strapped Pakistan is expected to receive $2.5 billion as financial assistance from the US during the current fiscal following the end of a standoff between the two sides on NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The disbursements, especially reimbursements from the US Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for Pakistan's expenses on the war on terror, might relieve the government of pressure it is facing because of depleting foreign exchange reserves which...
12:49 PM, Jul 05, 2012
Kolkata: Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday assured that West Bengal would be provided all assistance to tide over its financial crisis. "Whatever short-term assistance is required will be provided and after discussions a long-term plan for the state's financial recovery will be taken," Mukherjee told newsmen after a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at his residence. Accepting that the situation was 'difficult', Mukherjee said in the presence...
08:13 PM, May 29, 2011
London: The UK will continue to provide India over 1 billion pounds until 2015 despite political pressure to reduce aid to the booming Asian giant, amidst deep cuts in public spending at home. British aid to India would remain at 280 million pounds a year until 2015, but will shift to more investment in private enterprise, UK's international development secretary Andrew Mitchell was quoted as saying by the Financial Times....
03:37 PM, Feb 14, 2011
