UK to end aid spending in India by 2015

November 12, 2012 - Britain will halt all aid spending in India in 2015 in a significant shift in relations between the emerging economic giant and its former colonial ruler, Prime Minister David Cameron's government announced on Friday. Acknowledging the country's rising wealth and status, International Development Secretary Justine Greening said Britain would change its entire relationship with India - seeking to boost trade as it ends its aid programme. Britain offered India about 280 million pounds (US$447 million) in assistance in 2011, focused heavily on education and health programs for impoverished children. However, many legislators in the U.K. had targeted the development spending for scorn, arguing that Britain, struggling to cut its own national debt, could no longer afford to help a booming nation that has its own space programme. ``Now is the time to move to a relationship focusing on skills-sharing rather than aid,'' Greening said in a statement. ``Our own bilateral relationship has to keep up with 21st-century India. It's time to recognize India's changing place in the world.'' However, some aid and advocacy groups warned that millions of Indians still require aid. “India still has major challenges. Millions of Indian people live in extreme poverty and a shocking number of children under 5 die each year,'' said Adrian Lovett, executive director of the poverty campaign group ONE.