It’s entirely relevant. The last paragraph of the article makes the same claim about the state of the libraries.
From another part:
> Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that the removal of books from South Asia through programmes like PL-480 "creates knowledge gaps", as researchers from there often need to travel to the West to access these resources.
The knowledge gap is that America has the books and India doesn’t. If the books had stayed in India, I think that would have closed the knowledge gap because nobody would have them. They would have been lost just like the other copies of the books.
They said “antiquated books”. Wikipedia suggests that’s more than 100 years old. The program is more than 60 years old. I’m sure some of the million-plus books that were sent over are antiquated by now, if they weren’t already. The restriction was only on manuscripts.
From another part:
> Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that the removal of books from South Asia through programmes like PL-480 "creates knowledge gaps", as researchers from there often need to travel to the West to access these resources.
The knowledge gap is that America has the books and India doesn’t. If the books had stayed in India, I think that would have closed the knowledge gap because nobody would have them. They would have been lost just like the other copies of the books.