UK to India: Please Take Our Money

From the too funny-to-be-true department, the how-the-might-have-fallen department, and the bathos department:

India tells Britain: We don't want your aid

India’s Finance Minister has said that his country “does not require” British aid, describing it as “peanuts”.

Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to terminate Britain’s aid to their booming country last year - but relented after the British begged them to keep taking the money, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Bathos because the mighty idealism of aid to fight poverty may be rooted in the pure quid pro quo of modern  government-mediated commerce.

Cameron leads the attack on Indian decision on Rafale

Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday led an attack on India for selecting French firm Dassault Rafale for a mega deal to supply fighter jets ignoring British claims as MPs and the media accused New Delhi of “ingratitude,” arguing that Britain gave millions of pounds in aid to India.

Margaret Thatcher's Funeral May Be Privatized

TAXPAYERS PETITION FOR PRIVATISATION OF THATCHER’S FUNERAL

WHICH investment bank will underwrite the ticket sales at Margaret Thatcher’s privatised funeral?

The Capitalist only asks because, as of last night, more than 14,000 people had signed up to the e-petition posted by Scott Morgan declaring that the Iron Lady’s state funeral should be funded and managed by the private sector.

After all, Baroness Thatcher privatised the railways, the water companies, the electricity providers and the telecoms firms – so she should surely approve of the online rally to offer the “best value and choice for end users and other stakeholders” on her passing.

As the petition on the government’s website reads: “The undersigned believe that the legacy of the former prime minister deserves nothing less and that offering this unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded.”

If the number of signatories hits 100,000 – as is looking pretty likely, since the petition runs until October next year – the Backbench Business Committee will present the idea as a motion in the House of Commons.

Time for City firms to start thinking of how to take a percentage of the profits, then – as Rothschild, which advised on the privatisation of British Gas, British Steel, British Coal and the regional electricity and water boards, demonstrated so admirably.

That's a mind-blowingly fitting tribute to the lady and her legacy.  No one can accuse the British of not doing the right thing by their leaders.  

Iraq, Libya... now Iran?

 UK softening up its population for a possible war with Iran

Many in the UK swore that it would never happen again. A hugely unpopular decision to go to war at the time, Tony Blair is still vilified to this day by large sections of the British public for his decision to support the Bush administration and illegally invade Iraq.

Fast forward eight years, and the now British prime minister David Cameron and foreign secretary William Hague are spewing out a similar brand of finger pointing bravado that we once heard from Blair towards Iraq, but this time in the direction of Iran. 

The ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran has served to ratchet up existing tensions between Britain and Iran a few notches more. 

Hague, the blood on his hands not yet dry from Libya, has used the embassy episode to exploit to the full what have become ‘common sense’ perceptions of a demonic Iran that have become prevalent among the British public. And the British media can always be relied on to fuel such beliefs and then cheer-lead the public into supporting aggressive actions and policies towards other states, as it did over Iraq and Libya. 

During the past few years, the British public has become used to media stories about  Ahmadinejad ‘the crazy man’ and the ‘mad mullas’ in Tehran, as well as the Iranian regime being hell bent on wanting to acquire a nuclear bomb that would only threaten the ‘peace and stability’ of the region.

We are all democracies in name only.  Otherwise these things wouldn't happen.  And what a topsy-turvy world we live in:

What peace and stability? Look what the meddling and carnage by the US has done to neighbouring states, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. And why single out Iran over the nuclear issue? Iran is a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory, and there appears to be no firm evidence that it is in breach of it. 

Nuclear armed Israel and India are not NPT signatories, yet it’s Iran that has been subject to economic sanctions and nuclear inspections for years, while India basks in the warm glow of US ‘favour’, if that’s what compliance with US hegemony can be termed.

Thousands march in student protest over university fees: BBC

Link.

Some 4,000 officers are on duty, as demonstrators march peacefully in a protest against higher tuition fees and "privatisation" in universities.
...
The student protest, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, is against the government's plans for a market-driven higher education system and the rising tuition fees. 

"We are being told by a cabinet of millionaires that we will have to pay triple tuition fees," said campaign leader Michael Chessum.
...
Protesters carried placards which read "Scrap Tuition Fees" and "Free Education" and chanted "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts" and slogans criticising the police over rubber bullets.
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Paul Clark, director of policy at Universities UK, which represents higher education institutions, says universities will not be damaged by increased competition. 

"I think that the level of private involvement in higher education at the moment is relatively small and is likely to remain that way for the forseeable future although we know there are plans to, to change this," he said.

So, where do we go with privatisation in India?