Why Chandrayaan-3 Landing Made '45 Trillion' Trend On Social Media? Explained

The landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the Moon attracted international attention, with many countries congratulating ISRO scientists for achieving something that was thought impossible till now. But on social media, a comment by a journalist started a debate around the aid the UK sends to India. Sophie Corcoran said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the UK should not send aid to India since it has an advanced space programme. She also said it's time "we get our money back".

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The post soon started gaining traction and users from India were quick to point that the UK should also return the money looted from India. They claimed the amount was $45 trillion.

The buzz soon caused '45 trillion' to trend on X.

The figure first came to limelight after a research done by economist Utsa Patnaik, and published by Columbia University Press, claimed that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.

It's a staggering sum. For perspective, the amount is 15 times more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK today.

Ms Patnaik calculated the sum after analysing nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade.

According to a news report published in The Guardian in March this year, the UK's aid to India was meant to have stopped in 2015 after India said it did not want it, but a review by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact said that around 2.3 billion pounds (Rs 23,000 crore) in UK aid went to India between 2016 and 2021.

This included the provision of loans by the government-run British International Investment to mainly smaller companies.