India refusing Aid for Tsunami relief

This one is especially for you Santosh: Indian PM gracefully refusing foreign aid for Tsunami relief and saying that India can manage the relief measures on its own, to me seems like a major step in the right direction. From the time when for everything we looked at World Bank or IMF funding, and when each calamity hitting us made us more dependent on the first world nations, to moving to a situation when in the face of the one of world’s largest calamity, standing up and declining for any aid coming on its way and not only taking care of your own people but also sending aid to the neighboring countries who have been badly hit along with us, it is a giant leap in terms of nation’s psyche if nothing else.



If I have to compare this step to the growth of an individual, it is like an adolescent stepping into adulthood, and refusing to take help and instructions from parents or elder siblings, with a confidence that now he is grown up enough to take care of himself even in his time of grief and in face of lows in life, at the same time feeling responsible enough to take care of younger / not so strong siblings as and when he thinks they need his help, understanding their helplessness and grief.