Topic: India First To Build a Supersonic Cruise Missile

[sam]

India successfully tested Sunday a 'maneuverable' version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile which it has jointly developed with Russia, news reports said. The vertical-launch version of the 290-kilometer range BrahMos was tested from a warship in the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast, the PTI news agency reported. 'The vertical-launch version of missile was launched at 11:30 (0600 GMT) hours today from Indian Navy ship INS Ranvir and it manoeuvred successfully hitting the target ship. It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission,' BrahMos aerospace chief A Sivathanu Pillai was quoted as saying. 'After today's test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory,' Pillai said

looking to the future eh...

[Simon]

I'm surprised they've got the money. 

[Sandra]

Moneys no problem to them Simon, we give them millions each year instead of spending it on our pensioners and health service. In fact we should really be using it to repay our national debt now, along with all the other money we pay out in foreign aid to countries that seem to have plenty of cash to buy arms with but dont look after their own people 

[sam]

Sandra have you been reading this s**t (http://bnp.org.uk/2009/06/scandal-british-foreign-aid-budget-seven-times-bigger-than-nhs-deficit/) by any chance???

Read: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Quick-guide-to-DFID/where-the-money-goes/  - sounds fairly reasonable to me. Maybe our overall spending should be less but hell I want our country doing good things. Also think about the trade benefits: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/asia-oceania/india/?profile=all    -- bilateral trade (£7.9 billion in 2005) not bad really.

Oh and you have to remember its cheap to manufacture there so it probably didn't cost much to make. Also technology develops economies. Ok this is military but still any tech development is good for their economy. Also I do wonder how much of the spending was private companies compared to government.

To be fair, what right do we have to tell them not to buy arms, look out our defence budget. Stupid. That's were to save the cash.

[Sandra]

Having read those 3 articles Sam I cant see why you say the BNP one is s**t yet you think that the other 2 reports saying the same thing are good
I think I first read about how much we throw away annually in foreign aid a few months back in the Daily Mail online and the figures were the same as teh BNP ones. The BNP figures would be scrutinised so carefully by unelected and undemocratic people and agencies that they darent publish anything that was incorrect.
I dont have any problem on any government spending its own money where it wants, I do however object to us giving them money to fund their military objectives and space projects. Our country is broke, if we were not in debt and had sorted out our own financial problems then we could afford to give money away. We still have homeless people living on the streets and pensioners choosing between heating and eating. We dont give our severely wounded and disabled military heroes returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq enough compensation and support. How much more could we do for our own people if we didnt throw countless billions at other countries and fighting wars for other countries.
I dont really see how we benefit in trade if we are sending all our jobs overseas and giving them money to buy the few goods and services that they actually do get from us.

[sam]

We don't give money to any nation for military purposes. Such a huge jump there  - especially given link 2 lists were we give money... (just in case you missed it.... http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Quick-guide-to-DFID/where-the-money-goes/)

I agree that the BNP article does quote accurate numbers. I take exception to most of the rest of it though. The Daily Mail is a scaremonger, that knows how to sell papers with sensationalism. I just wish people would take less stock in the media. Why do I believe those other pages are of more accuracy? Well they are the UK Government pages. By their nature they are more trustworthy - any other article is secondary information and the facts are manipulated to their own means.

[Sandra]

I agree we dont give it for miltary use Sam but isnt it a bit like when you see someone begging and say I will buy you a burger and a coffee but they decline as they only want money so that they can buy booze or drugs ?
If we didnt give these countries the money then they would have to spend their own money on their people and not on expanding their miltary forces and capabilities.

[Rik]

Not to mention giving Unite £17M to modernise, so that they could make an £11M donation to Labour...

[Clive]

    

[sam]

I agree we dont give it for miltary use Sam but isnt it a bit like when you see someone begging and say I will buy you a burger and a coffee but they decline as they only want money so that they can buy booze or drugs ?
If we didnt give these countries the money then they would have to spend their own money on their people and not on expanding their miltary forces and capabilities.

Well that's not analogous at all. The money is directed directly to projects - its not like we just go here <insert name of country> do what you want with it. We don't care. Any public money in the UK requires a lot of reporting so I'm pretty sure we know the money is being spent in the right place. That said, yes I guess if we didn't give money for good causes then there would be less overall, so indeed military budgets could be made smaller... however, something tells me all that would mean is that the military budget would stay the same and people would go hungry. I dunno. I just feel that we are doing the right thing. We can't stop people being pricks but we can be a nice country. Though, maybe we need to sort or own house out... though you can't just pull the plug. The people at fault here aren't the people needing the funds its generations of Britain s not being able to do simple mathematics.

[Simon]

I think you're probably right, Sam, in that, if stopped giving foreign financial aid, it's the people who need it most who would suffer, not the governments.  That said, we do need to look after our own first, and we need to get our own house in order, as a matter of priority. 

[sam]

Tis a shame that I don't think any of the offerings at the election will do that. They are all backwards thinking.

According to (and I'm not sure I entirely trust this page but I've not got time right now, though they do quote "The current numbers are based on HM Treasury’s PESA for 2009. The next update will be made after the PESA 2010 is published in April or May 2010."): http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_defence_spending_30.html we spend £43.6 bn on defence! Yikes and £16.0 on "protection"

[Sandra]

Well that's not analogous at all. The money is directed directly to projects - its not like we just go here <insert name of country> do what you want with it. We don't care. Any public money in the UK requires a lot of reporting so I'm pretty sure we know the money is being spent in the right place.

Not sure how well our government checks up on these things Sam.
I know it wasnt government money but look at the recent disclosure of how much of the money raised by band aid went to buy arms and how little actually went where the people giving it thought it was going to  

[sam]

well I guess you can't entirely control these things. But I think powers like Indian are less likely to have that money diverted by war lords. Also I'm pretty sure we follow were the money goes... but end of the day people are people and you know... people just need to have moats to protect their homes.

[Simon]

Live Aid was 25 years ago.  Hopefully we have learned since then.