India Shoring Up Ties With Russia and China

"India is clearly shoring up its relationships with old friends and would-be new friends in #Russia and #China," says Indian MP Dr. Shashi Tharoor.

Transcript

00:00The Taliban, as we mentioned, calling for foreign help here.

00:03Many countries cut the aid over women's rights and several other reasons as well.

00:07Aid and politics, should they be separated when a crisis like this occurs?

00:11Yes, of course they should be.

00:13We should try and get our kind of urge to lecture the Taliban about human rights and so on.

00:19We should try and put that aside if there are people who desperately need help.

00:23However, it's easier said than done to separate aid and politics.

00:27And that applies to the Taliban as well, who in the past have been very suspicious of Western aid

00:33because they regard it as sort of brainwashing or corrupting to the governance

00:39and the way of life they want to impose on Afghanistan.

00:44The question here becomes for Western countries looking to help.

00:49I think the UK has committed a million, which doesn't sound like very much in the grand scheme of international affairs,

00:54but I think it is on top of regular contributions from foreign office and from aid groups in Britain.

01:02I think it's about 100 million a year we give to Afghanistan still.

01:06But there has been a bit of concern about where does this money go?

01:10I mean, you can give it to the UN Population Fund.

01:12You can give it to the International Red Cross.

01:14And they will try and do the best they can.

01:17But it's a corrupt government in Afghanistan.

01:21I think that's fair to say.

01:23Do we think that the aid, money, resources will always go to the people who need them the most?

01:29The great concern is that they do not.