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The Print
3 days ago
- Business
- The Print
Chandrababu Naidu is dreaming new dreams at 75. What other CMs are missing
That was in 2000. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) provided crucial support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government then. Garg was the director of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the finance ministry. He writes that the hoarding of resources 'was clearly unfair and lopsided.' The World Bank assistance, specifically cheaper credits from the International Development Agency (IDA), was meant for low-income and poorer states. 'Using the efficiency of his administration and his political clout, Chandrababu Naidu was able to manoeuvre the system in Delhi, including the DEA, to divert a disproportionate part of the Government of India budget and external assistance to Andhra Pradesh,' writes Garg. Chandrababu Naidu bays for my blood'—This is a subhead in Subhash Chandra Garg's new book No, Minister . In the section, the former finance secretary of India writes how the Naidu-led Andhra Pradesh had 'cornered more than 40 per cent of the total portfolio of projects' approved by the World Bank in 1999–2000. He has cited another example. In 2001, the Andhra Pradesh Structural Adjustment Loan (SAL) for $250 million was being negotiated with the World Bank. The package also included a $100 million grant from the Department for International Development (DFID) to India. The DFID grant and the World Bank loan were to go to Andhra Pradesh on the standard 70:30 loan–grant ratio. The Naidu-led government, however, reached an understanding with the DFID—without the DEA's concurrence—to make it a 100 per cent grant. Garg wouldn't agree to it; he got them to agree to the DEA's terms. Two days after the negotiations were completed, the DEA Secretary asked Garg to again submit the Andhra file to him. The file came back with orders, approved by the finance minister, that an exception be made in the case and that the DFID grant be given to Andhra Pradesh as a 100 per cent grant. 'Evidently, on his return to India, Chandrababu Naidu had moved heaven and earth and forced the government at the highest level to agree to his completely unjustified demand,' writes Garg. 'The utter disregard for fair distribution of central government resources to all the states and the manic zeal and insistence to grab all resources for Andhra Pradesh were disturbing,' he writes. V Srinivas, private secretary to then finance minister Jaswant Singh, later told Garg that VS Sampath, the Andhra finance secretary who went on to become the chief election commissioner of India, sought his help to 'find ways to fix Subhash'. Nobody would be surprised to read ex-IAS officer Garg's account of how Chandrababu Naidu used his clout in the Vajpayee government to wrangle anything and everything from the Centre for his state. Garg's counterparts in other departments would have similar stories to tell. Let me cite just one more example here. Of the 4 million tonnes of rice the Centre sanctioned for the Food for Work programme between September 2001 and April 2002, Andhra alone got 2.15 million tonnes, 53 per cent of the total. And then it got one million tonnes more. Cut to 2025. Naidu hasn't changed. Only that it's now the Narendra Modi-led government that is going out of its way to please the Andhra CM. The Centre has already committed Rs 15,000 crore for Phase I of the Amaravati capital project. The state has secured Rs 12,157 crore from the Centre to support the first phase of the Polavaram irrigation project. In May, PM Narendra Modi laid the foundation for central projects worth Rs 5,000 crore, including a missile testing centre, Unity mall, Rail overbridge and six national highway projects in Andhra. And these are early days yet. Modi 3.0 still has four years left, and Naidu will continue to be vital for its survival. Also read: Chandrababu Naidu is important in both Centre and state. He is his own double-engine now Political opportunism or Andhra First? The former finance secretary of India has only revived an old debate. Chandrababu Naidu's political rivals and critics have a long list of his political 'betrayals'— marrying NT Rama Rao's daughter and then leaving the Congress to join the TDP; ousting NTR to become the CM; leaving the United Front to support the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998; Lok Sabha Speaker GMC Balayogi from the TDP allowing then Odisha CM Giridhar Gomang (who was yet to resign as MP) to vote against the confidence motion, which ended up bringing the Vajpayee government down in 1999; joining the NDA in 1999 Lok Sabha election to reap the electoral dividends of the Kargil War; demanding Narendra Modi resign as Gujarat CM post-2002 riots to joining hands with him ahead of the 2014 election; leaving the NDA for the Congress five years later only to re-embrace Modi before 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. It's certainly a long list. Naidu's critics would call them examples of political opportunism. His admirers would cite them as examples of his brilliant political acumen and his ability to play bigger national parties to his advantage. And, ex-IAS officer Subhash Garg as a neutral observer is only the latest to certify that Andhra Pradesh has made the biggest gains from Naidu's political somersaults. I call it his Andhra First politics. Take a look at this report by India Today in May 2002: 'Over the past five years, Naidu has managed to get the Central ministries to pour over Rs 40,000 crore into Andhra Pradesh. While the Central loans have doubled in five years from Rs 1,575.6 to Rs 3,189.9 crore, grants have jumped from Rs 1,528 crore to Rs 3,424.1 crore and external assistance has trebled from Rs 1,118 to Rs 3,640 crore. That the state has cornered a lion's share of resources is proved by just one statistic: while Central grants to all states increased by only 2.6 per cent between 2000-1 and 2001-2, Andhra Pradesh's share rose by 34 per cent.' The report quoted Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury as saying that Naidu's success in extracting resources was due to 'a weak Centre vulnerable to political blackmail'. When you talk to Congress MPs today, as the Modi-led government showers Naidu's Andhra with generosity, they echo similar sentiments. But ask the people in Andhra Pradesh. They would repeat the Onida TV slogan: 'Neighbour's envy, owner's pride.' Also read: Nobody should doubt Chandrababu Naidu's determination. If anything, they should fear it What other CMs need to learn from CBN Chandrababu Naidu, 75, is the third-oldest CM in India today—after Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan, 80 and Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, 76. CBN, as he's known in the state, could afford to rest on his laurels. Creating something like Cyberabad and Genome Valley in Hyderabad would have been a lifetime achievement for any CM. Instead, he is setting new challenges for himself. 'Same things (liked Cyberabad) can't be created but improved versions (can be brought),' Naidu told me in an interview last month. It's not just the creation of the new capital city of Amaravati. CBN has now set out to build India's first quantum computing valley. He has launched a space policy to leverage Sriharikota's strategic location in Andhra Pradesh. It aims to attract investment worth Rs 25,000 crore in space-linked industries. He is very optimistic about his Zero Poverty-P4 (Public-Private-People Partnership) programme. I could tell this by the child-like excitement in his voice when he was telling me about P4. At a time when most Opposition leaders seem to be convinced that poverty can be eliminated only when the rich are made poor, Naidu's P4 is an interesting idea. You don't have to be an Adani or Ambani to participate in it. If you have surplus money to spare, help a family, mentor them. You can do it at the community level, too. What differentiates CBN from other CMs is ideas—original, imaginative and innovative. Look at his counterparts in other states. Most of them are doing the same things, often aping each other. At 75, Naidu stands apart. 'Imagination has no age,' wrote senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary Ram Madhav, quoting Walt Disney, in a column in The Indian Express. He was building a case for PM Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to ignore the unwritten 75-year age ceiling for holding office. Age doesn't matter unless you are a cheese, wrote Madhav. It's true. As I mentioned, Naidu's much younger counterparts in other states already look jaded and spent in terms of originality or ideas or imagination in policymaking. Is Modi 3.0 any different? That's food for thought for another column. DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal. (Edited by Theres Sudeep)
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US isn't first country to dismantle its foreign aid office − here's what happened after the UK killed its version of USAID
The Trump administration's dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on March 18, 2025. The court order to pause the agency's shuttering came days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that 83% of its programs had been cut. USAID was created in 1961 as the lead agency for U.S. international development. Until recently, it funded health and humanitarian aid programs in more than 130 countries. Despite the administration's claim of cost-cutting, USAID was a relatively small and economical operation. Its US$40 billion budget accounted for just 0.7% of annual federal spending. Congress also required regular reporting and evaluations on USAID, helping to ensure substantial oversight of how it spent its taxpayer dollars. USAID's swift destruction has sent shock waves across the globe. But as a scholar of the global humanitarian aid sector and donor agencies, I know this assault on foreign aid is not unprecedented. In June 2020, Boris Johnson, then the prime minister of the United Kingdom, used similar claims of budget-tightening to effectively close the Department for International Development, Britain's equivalent of USAID. Both the U.S. and British foreign aid programs have long prompted heated debates over the proper relationship between development, diplomacy and national security. The U.S. and Britain have long been among the top five providers of development assistance worldwide, and both USAID and DFID have played leading roles in the development community. Countries give foreign aid for both altruistic and self-interested reasons. Treating global diseases and addressing civil conflicts is a way for wealthy Western governments to limit threats that could destabilize their countries, as well as the rest of the world. It also burnishes their reputation and encourages cooperation with other governments. Scholars from across the political spectrum and around the world have questioned the general efficacy of foreign assistance, arguing that these programs are designed to serve the interests of donors, not the needs or recipients. Other development experts contend that foreign aid programs, while imperfect, have still made meaningful progress in improving health, education and freedoms. Britain's DFID was created in 1997 as an independent, Cabinet-level department deliberately independent of partisan politics. It quickly developed a reputation as a model donor, even among skeptics of international aid. For example, a staffer at the international medical charity Doctors without Borders told me in a 2006 interview that he had scoffed at the idea of a politics-free aid agency. Yet, he said, he had found DFID 'relatively easier to work with' than other donors. 'I have never heard of someone being told, as a result of accepting DFID funds, what to do, either explicitly or behind closed doors,' he told me. But its good reputation could not protect DFID. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson announced that DFID would merge with the Foreign Office, Britain's equivalent of the State Department, to create a new government agency. By uniting aid and diplomacy, Johnson said, the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office would get 'maximum value for the British taxpayer,' and he cited the economic impact of COVID to justify his decision. Foreign aid dropped sharply after the merger, from 0.7% of Britain's gross national income to 0.5% – a cut of about US$6 billion. Development professionals decried Johnson's merger, arguing it could not have happened at a worse time, with the pandemic heightening the need for global health funding. And coming shortly after Brexit, Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, DFID's demise further called into question Britain's commitment to global cooperation. Five years later, it's not clear that dismantling DFID has made British foreign aid more efficient or effective, as Johnson pledged. 'We have seen evidence of where a more integrated approach has improved the organisation's ability to respond to international crises and events, which has led to a better result,' reads one 2025 report by the U.K.'s National Audit Office. Yet, the auditors add, the British government has spent at least £24.7 million – US$32 million – to merge its aid and diplomacy offices, and it failed to track these costs. Nor did the leaders of the merger set out a clear vision for its new purpose. Britain's slimmer new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has also relinquished the U.K.'s past leadership in research and expertise, largely due to pay reductions and restrictions on hiring non-British nationals. From the outset, DFID had invested substantially in building expertise in global development, particularly in conflict-ridden states. In 2001, for example, it spent almost 5% of its budget – an unusually high amount – on research and policy analysis to design and assess its programs. DFID produced regular case studies of the projects it funded, which included getting Syrian refugee children back in school, building roads that help Rwandan farmers move their products to market, and providing health care after Pakistan's 2010 floods. Given the 'development expertise that was lost with the merger,' the U.K. government can no longer conduct 'the kind of rigorous, long-term focus necessary to make a real impact,' said the Center for Global Development in a recent report. A 2022 study suggests that DFID's dismantling was a fundamentally political move, 'divorced from substantive analysis of policy or inter-institution relationships.' Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the leftist Labour Party, initially promised to boost British foreign aid. But in early March 2025, he backtracked, announcing instead a further cut to foreign aid. By 2027, the U.K. government will spend just 0.3% of its budget on overseas aid. That's roughly $11 billion less than before the merger in 2019. USAID's budget was much larger than DFID's, and the administration apparently wants not to streamline U.S. foreign aid but halt it almost entirely. If this effort succeeds, it will have even more severe effects worldwide, at least in the immediate term. The global health programs administered by USAIDm which combat diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have received bipartisan and global praise. The PEPFAR program, which USAID helps administer, distributes antiretroviral drugs worldwide. It alone has saved 25 million lives over the past two decades, including the lives of 5.5 million babies born healthy to mothers with HIV. Development professionals tend to see independent government agencies such as USAID and DFID as better able to prioritize the needs of the poor because their programming is run separately from partisan policies. Yet standalone agencies are also more visible – and so more vulnerable to political targeting. DFID was a clear and easy target when Johnson began his pandemic-era budget-slashing. USAID is now suffering a similar fate. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sarah Stroup, Middlebury Read more: DfID merger with Foreign Office signals shift from using aid to reduce poverty to promoting British national self interest USAID's apparent demise and the US withdrawal from WHO put millions of lives worldwide at risk and imperil US national security USAID's history shows decades of good work on behalf of America's global interests, although not all its projects succeeded Sarah Stroup does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
