ABSTRACT
India is a rising power, but a very special one. It is still a poor country receiving significant amounts of aid from the Global North, but at the same time it has for many years extended aid to countries of the Global South. This form of aid has been expanded in recent years and it has produced a peculiar complex set of contradictory foreign policy considerations. The two-faced aid policies that have accompanied the expansion of aid have displayed many contradictory features. In addition, flows of aid tend to combine a broad mixture of motives and potential influences both at home and abroad, domestic and foreign. India’s own aid policies have displayed many similarities with those traditional motives from Northern donors that India itself has objected to. During the Modi government India’s aid ambitions have been tied closely to geo-strategic considerations but it seems to have lost momentum since 2015.
