International Aid

I saw two reports last week
1) Donor countries pledge $250 million for Somalia
2) Donor countries pledge $5 billion for pakisthan
I checked up the population or the two countries, Somalia's population is 25 million and Pakisthan's is 250 million so if we do the math, the aid equates to 10 million per person in Somalia and 20 million per person in Pakisthan, this doesnt make any sense, I mean, if someone gave everybody 20 million, nobody would have to do any work, nothing, even if the money bears 2% interest they could feed 20 generations without any problem, something doesnt make sense here.
I need to research this aid thing, it definitely sounds fishy.

Update
Yes it is fishy, as my friend pointed out, $250million/25 million is not $10 million, its $10, must have been due to the total loss of the brain cells in quarter 4, section 3 neuron 2. Oh well, must be the alcohol, must be the alcohol.....
That being said, how does international aid work, there must be more than just humanitarian goodwill, are the billions given as international aid actually worth it, does it really benefit the actual people who need it, how much of the aid really effective, what are the hidden strings and are those strings worth the help rendered or taken.

The Super Rich Nehru Family

I am reading discovery of India written by Jawaharlal Nehru, in the book Nehru says that during the height of the struggle when everybody was in jail, he was freed so that he could be with his wife (who was in a hospital) in Germany and Switzerland for 6 months. The devil that I am, I ignored the human angle of a husband spending time with his sick wife, what struck me though was, Nehru, who did not have any income at that time, who was also supporting his daughter studying in London, who was making regular trips to London and Paris, must have have been one super rich unemployed person. One must accept that all this needed a lot of money, where did all of that come from? flight charges, living expenses, hospital expenses, medicines, rent, college fees........

That brings me to another question, who funded our independence struggle, most of the freedom fighters never had jobs, they were usually in meetings, jail, or walking the streets, how did they feed their families, one can understand the super rich gandhis and nehru, but the rest of the freedom fighters, where was the money coming from?

It also brings me to the current finances of the remaining members of the Nehru family, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, (lets leave Priyanka out for now as she isnt in politics). Both of them are worth crores of rupees without a single honest job in their lives, where is all this money coming from, is there some hidden stash of gold and precious stones, or some bank account in Switzerland (this place keeps coming up in their family history for some reason). Extrapolating to the other politicians who show crores of rupees in their bank accounts and assets. where are all these people making money, they sport more than 100% returns, all during the time they were either supposed to be jobless or working for the government with simple wages.
I guess the money is in politics, the common man works his ass off for what, when he could be a rabble rouser and make millions

Indian artifacts, gandhi and culture

Much has been going on about Gandhi's articles going under the hammer outside India, his pencil, underwear, spectacles and now even his drop of blood. The big question to ask is, who is Gandhi, is he the drop of blood, is he the underwear or is he the pencil he used? It is easy to give values to these artifacts but the real Gandhi is the spirit of ahimsa (non voilence) satya (truth), seva (service) and sacrifice, non of which can ever go under any hammer. Why then are we fretting ourselves silly over these other artifacts, in fact, I believe, we would honour Gandhi more if we took the money or resources we would spend on that auction and fund the education of some poor children in India. That guesture will keep the spirit of Gandhi alive.
We could stop there, but there is another aspect to this issue, maybe not so much for Gandhi's artifacts but for other pieces of our culture which are routinely auctioned all over the world. A friend of mine used to say, today its a painting, tomorrow its a statue, soon an Indian will have to travel to a museum outside India (and pay them money) to view the culture of India. That will be a sad day, our youth who are slowly losing touch with our culture, will soon forget who we were, what we did, and why the world was in awe of India. This is one reason why we need to keep our cultural artifacts within India.