India, Oct. 21 -- In 1941, soon after he secured an unprecedented third term as president of the United States, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) mobilised the US Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act. Its context and history are storied. The British prime minister famously wrote to FDR requesting material assistance from the United States to fight Nazi Germany - "the moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay [to fight the war]". FDR knew he would not get the American public's approval to send troops to the War (Pearl Harbor was still a few months away). But the importance of securing the world's shipping lanes, chokepoints, manufacturing hubs and urban megalopolises was not lost on the US President. Thus, the Lend-Lease Act took form, resulting in the supply of "every conceivable" material from the US to Britain and eventually, the Allied Powers: "military hardware, aircraft, ships, tanks, small arms, machine tools, equipment for building roads and air strips, industrial chemicals, and communications equipment." US Secretary of War Henry Stimson defended the Act eloquently in Congress. "We are buying.not lending. We are buying our own security while we prepare," Stimson declared....