India offering aid for Katrina
Via Boing Boing, I got to know about India sending aid to the US for Katrina’s after effects. It is a small gesture, only about $5 million dollars and some medical teams being sent from India. When the tsunami struck last year India was initially hesitant to accept foreign aid because of the message it would send to its own people about not being self-reliant. Wisdom finally prevailed and the government changed its mind after a few days and many millions of dollars poured in. This current offer of aid from india is just a just a way of acknowledging the help it received earlier. It is important for the relationship between the two countries to be likened to that of a friendship between two people. As a gesture of friendship, both want to help each other when there are problems, however one of them is richer than the other and so helps out more. There is no need for the relationship to appear to be supplicant and there is no need to be incredulous about it.