21 February 2017 12:00 am
(Daily Mail, London), 20.02.2017 - India never asked Britain for hundreds of millions of pounds in foreign aid and doesn’t even need it, the country’s new High Commissioner to the UK Y.K. Sinha told the ‘Sunday Express’.
Britain sent India £279 million in 2014 alone – despite the fact the country has its own space programme and is planning to spend £10 billion on a fleet of warships.Plans are in place to give India a further £130million in ‘technical assistance’ by 2018. But Y.K. Sinha said the foreign aid deal is becoming a thing of the past and that the future priority should be getting a good trade deal sorted out.
Mr Sinha added: ‘While I don’t want to prejudge British aid that has been given, or will be given, easier access to British markets, easier movement of people and the transfer of technology are more important he told the Sunday Express.
‘We are grateful for any assistance we received in the past or will get in the future. But if it suddenly stopped would it make a huge difference? No. Did anyone in the government of India ask for assistance? No.’