Passing of the Hump

Passing of the Hump THE SCOPE of the Aid-India Consortium is being widened to include food, which had been kept out so far because it was covered by the special exigencies of PL 480 in the US and the prior arrangements of the Colombo Plan, under which wheat grants were given by Canada and Australia. This development was, perhaps, inevitable with the decline of US agricultural surpluses and the gradual withering away of the Colombo Plan. The insistence on arbitrarily defined "normal commercial imports'' as a condition of PL 480 aid and the enlargement of deficits in India itself, in any event, made an impact on the foreign exchange position which the Consortium could not possibly ignore. The broader idea of the Consortium covering the whole economy is a mixed blessing even from the viewpoint of those devoted to the hump theory of massive foreign aid. It ensures