NEW DELHI (AFP) – India rejected US President Donald Trump’s comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, saying on Thursday (Jan 3) that New Delhi has provided US$3 billion (S$4.1 billion) in development assistance to the war-torn country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US President on Wednesday took a swipe at what he claimed were Mr Modi’s frequent comments on building the library: “You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“And we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, thank you for the library.’ I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan,” Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A statement provided by government sources in New Delhi said “India plays a significant role as a development partner” in Afghanistan, with projects aimed at achieving “a tangible improvement in the lives of its people”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the “largest donor in the region”, New Delhi has helped with infrastructure projects, humanitarian assistance and economic development, the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highlights include a 218km road, a dam providing irrigation to farmers and training programmes for more than 3,500 Afghans in India.ADVERTISING<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Delhi has also provided 1.1 million tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan as well as a 400-bed children’s hospital built in 1972 and renovated after the fall of the Taleban in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Ram Madhav, general secretary of Mr Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Twitter that India was “building lives” in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Trump should know that while he is decrying every other help in (Afghanistan), India has been building not only libraries, but roads, dams, schools and even Parliament building,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Ahmed Patel, a lawmaker and a senior member of the opposition Congress party, tweeted that the “tenor and tone” of the US leader’s remarks was “not in good taste & is completely unacceptable”.
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NEW DELHI (AFP) – India rejected US President Donald Trump’s comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, saying on Thursday (Jan 3) that New Delhi has provided US$3 billion (S$4.1 billion) in development assistance to the war-torn country. The US President on Wednesday took a swipe at what he claimed were Mr Modi’s frequent comments… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2791,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions\/2791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}