I suspect there was some slight grumpyesque humor in their posts.
If we were unable to use the aforementioned satellites, then I think the gadget world wouldn't have evolved as it has, but it would have evolved just differently.
So somehow we might still have telly, phones, a form of gps etc...
Its a strange interpretation of why our money should be given to a country that you have confirmed has said it doesnt want it !!!
The prejudice is within our own arrogance that we should even consider giving it in the first instance, even having said they dont want it, we stuff their breast...
What part of the £200 million aid by the Department for International Development couldn't have been paid by Indians themselves, bearing in mind their current Space Project (£73 million) and a New Aircraft Carrier (£3 Billion) with their annual defence budget of £22 billion.
I fear the impact...
Aaah c'mon, I had hoped too that there would be some substance to the giveaway, but I do not think so.
Let the corporations market the UK and fly over a few top ranking politicians for sure, but to flippantly offer £200m under the heading of aid is just an indication of how feckless they are...
Not sure anyone has the answer to worldwide poverty, even you Creaky :)
One thing seems obvious though and that is in some of the emerging economy's there is widespread corruption which leads to non distribution of wealth.
There seems to be a morale blindspot to some super rich within India...
Its nearly impossible to quantify our impact in many countries, especially as the interpretation might differ so much from person to person and country to country, thats why for me I think it offers little.
Best to cringe at the wholly unjustifiable waste of our money :)
Personally I find this historical context where you wish to invalidate any debate on current affairs as tiresome.
I have no doubt that if you wish to quantify our history in terms of some moral profit and loss account we will be indebted to some whilst owed much by many.
I hope too, that this might be the case, but I have my doubts.
I suspect that politicians just keep spunking our money to India because ...... ermmm that's what we have always done.
Ending the payments would likely to be seen by some as callous and nasty politics something that all parties do...