“You tend to hear the worst 5% of the Pakistan story 95% of the time.”
The above is a quote attributed to Pakistani Entrepreneur Monis Rahman in Aug 8, 2011 Forbes Magazine story titled “Want to Start a Company in the World's Sixth-Most Populous Country? Time to Move to Pakistan”.
On Pakistan's 64th birthday today, there is a lot of coverage by the traditional media focused on "the worst 5% of the Pakistan story". To help my readers piece together the full story of Pakistan this August 14, 2011, I am writing today to present some of the key parts of the rest of the 95% of the Pakistan story that gets little or no coverage.
Let's start with some of the key indicators of progress Pakistan has made since independence in 1947.
1. Health & Wealth:
The health and wealth of a nation depend on availability of good nutrition and access to health care and education, which in turn rely on economic growth to support needed public and private social spending.
The most basic indicators of progress, such as the life expectancy and per capita incomes of many nations, have been compiled and brought to life in animations developed by Professor Hans Rosling and posted on gapminder.org.
The Gapminder animations show that life expectancy in Pakistan has jumped from 32 years in 1947 to 67 years in 2009, and per Capita inflation-adjusted PPP income has risen from $766 in 1948 to $2603 in 2009.
2. Literacy:
Literacy is also a very important indicator of progress. Though the literacy in Pakistan has increased from about 10% in 1947 to about 60% today, it remains dismally low relative to many other nations.
However, a closer examination of literacy data by age groups shows that the literacy rates are rising by every generation:
Over 55 years 30% literate
45-55 40%
35-45 50%
25-35 60%
15-25 70% (Male 80%, Female 60%, UNICEF)
Rural and Female illiteracy are the biggest challenges.
3. Poverty, Hunger and Inequality:
The World Bank ranks Pakistan among lower-middle-income nations with per capita income exceeding $1000 a year.
Pakistan is still a country with significant population of poor people. However, its recent levels of poverty are among the lowest in South Asia.
The 2011 World Bank data shows that Pakistan's poverty rate of 17.2%, based on India's current poverty line of $1.03 per person per day, is more than 10 percentage points lower than India's 27.5%. Assam (urban), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are the only three Indian states with equal or slightly lower poverty rates than Pakistan's.
Based on hunger data collected from 2003 to 2008, The International Food Policy Research (IFPRI) has reported that Pakistan's hunger index score improved over the last three consecutive years reported since 2008 from 21.7 (2008) to 21.0 (2009) to 19.1 (2010) and its ranking rose from 61 to 58 to 52. During the same period, India's index score worsened from 23.7 to 23.9 to 24.1 and its ranking moved from 66 to 65 to 67 on a list of 84 nations.
Pakistan is also more egalitarian than its neighbors. The CIA World Factbook reports Pakistan’s Gini Index has decreased from 41 in 1998-99 to 30.6 in 2007-8, lower than India's 36.8 and Bangladesh's 33.2.
4. Pakistan's Economy:
Pakistan state was broke in 1947 because India refused to give Pakistan its share of Sterling reserves. The situation was so bad that Pakistani govt couldn’t pay employees. In this first existential crisis, the Habibs bailed out Pakistani state by lending Rs. 80 million, more than half of Rs. 150 million budget.
Today, Pakistan's economy is the 27th largest in the world. As Part of "the Next 11" group of nations, it is one of the top 15 emerging economies (BRICs+Next11) picked by Goldman Sachs. Goldman forecasts Pakistan to be among the top 20 biggest economies in the world by 2025.
Since 2008, Pakistan's economy has been suffering from a serious stagflation, a very bad combination of slow growth and high inflation. But the history tells us that this current situation is not normal for Pakistan. After all, it's Pakistan's robust economic growth that has enabled significant progress based on the health and wealth indicators outlined earlier.
Beginning in 1947, Pakistani economy grew at a fairly impressive rate of 6 percent per year through the first four decades of the nation's existence. In spite of rapid population growth during this period, per capita incomes doubled, inflation remained low and poverty declined from 46% down to 18% by late 1980s, according to eminent Pakistani economist Dr. Ishrat Husain. This healthy economic performance was maintained through several wars and successive civilian and military governments in 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s until the decade of 1990s, now appropriately remembered as the lost decade.
In the period from 2000-2007, here's what the IMF agreed to in 2008 as part of the nation's bailout:
Pakistan became one of the four fastest growing economies in the Asian region during 2000-07 with its growth averaging 7.0 per cent per year for most of this period. As a result of strong economic growth, Pakistan succeeded in reducing poverty by one-half, creating almost 13 million jobs, halving the country's debt burden, raising foreign exchange reserves to a comfortable position and propping the country's exchange rate, restoring investors' confidence and most importantly, taking Pakistan out of the IMF Program.
5. Science and Technology:
Here are some of the facts about Pakistan's progress in science and technology that never make the headlines in the mainstream media anywhere, including Pakistan:
-Pakistan has been ScienceWatch’s Rising Star for scientific papers published in various international journals.
-Pakistan is among a handful of nations with dozens of scientists working on CERN’s high-profile SuperCollider Project. Several SuperCollider components were built in Pakistan.
-Jinnah Antarctic Station puts Pakistan among a dozen nations doing research in Antarctica.
-Pakistan’s IT Industry is worth $2.8 billion and growing
-Pakistan leads the world in biometric IT services with the world’s biggest biometric database.
-Top-selling Blackberry application was developed by a Pakistani company Pepper.pk
6. Arts, Literature & Culture:
There has been an explosion of the uniquely Pakistani arts and literature:
-Sachal Orchestra, a Lahore Jazz Group, is topping western music charts
-Regular book fairs, music concerts, fashion shows & theater group performances
-UK’s Granta Magazine Special Issue Highlights Successful Pakistani Authors’ Books Published in Europe and America. Examples: Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), Daniyal Mueenuddin (In Other Rooms, Other Wonders), Kamila Shamsie (Burnt Shadows), Mohammad Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes) and Nadeem Aslam (The Wasted Vigil) who have been making waves in literary circles and winning prizes in London and New York.
7. Heavy Manufacturing:
Pakistan has a significant heavy industry today. For example:
-Autos, Motorcycles, Tractors, Buses, Trucks (Auto Sales Up 61% in July, 2011)
-Steel
-Nuclear Reactors (Khushab)
-Aircrafts
-Ships
-Unmanned Drones (UAVs)
-Army Tanks
-Ballistic and Cruise Missiles
8. Natural Resources:
Pakistan is rich in energy and mineral resources.
-US Dept of Energy estimates 51 trillion cubic feet of shale gas mostly in Sindh. And there's good potential for shale oil in the country.
-Vast coal reserves at Thar for cheap electricity
-Huge deposits of copper, gold, iron and rare earths at Reko Diq, Dilband and Saindak in Balochistan
-High sustained wind speeds of 13 to 16 mph along the Arabian Sea coastline
-Lots of sunshine everywhere all year round
-Significant hyrdo energy potential
9. Strong Society:
The Habibs bailed out Pakistani state in 1947.
Now, let's see how Edhi doing it in 2011. Here's quote from Anatol Leiven's "Pakistan: A Hard Country":
"There is no sight in Pakistan more moving than to visit some dusty, impoverished small town in arid wasteland, apparently abandoned by God and all sensible men and certainly abandoned by the Pakistani state and its own elected representatives- to see the flag of the Edhi Foundation flying over a concrete shack with a telephone, and the only ambulance in town standing in front. Here, if anywhere in Pakistan, lies the truth of human religion and human morality".
Lieven says Pakistanis donate 5% of the GDP for charitable cause, making Pakistanis the most generous people in the world. As a benchmark, philanthropy accounts for 2.2% of gdp in the United States, 1.3% in the UK, 1.2% in Canada and 0.6% in India.
10. Weak State:
Unfortunately, Pakistani state, run by politicians and their hand-picked civilian administrators, is weak, incompetent and ineffective.
The Pakistani military and the civil society bails out the state each time it is found lacking. Examples include the earthquake in 2005 , Swat takeover by Taliban insurgents in 2009, and massive floods in 2010. In each of these cases, the politicians and the civilian administrators abandoned the people and the world media declared Pakistan a failed state on the verge of total collapse. But they were proved wrong.
The military launched the rescue and relief efforts by deploying all of its resources, and then the NGOs like Edhi Foundation stepped in to help the people stand on their feet again.
Summary:
While the worst 5% of the Pakistan story gets all the headlines, the reality of Pakistan today as vibrant society and a strong nation gets ignored by the mainstream media. The real story of Pakistan is the resilience of its 180 million citizens who continue to strive to make it better and stronger.
The Taliban who get all the coverage do not pose an existential threat to Pakistan. Generations of military families have periodically fought FATA insurgencies. For example, Shuja Nawaz, the author of Crossed Swords says that his grandfather, his uncle and his cousin have all been deployed in Waziristan by the British and later Pakistani governments in the last century and a half. American withdrawal from the region will eventually calm the situation in Waziristan, and the rest of the country.
Climate change and the growing water scarcity are the main long-term existential threats to Pakistan and the region. Water per capita is already down below 1000 cubic meters and declining
What Pakistan needs are major 1960s style investments for a second Green Revolution to avoid the specter of mass starvation and political upheaval it will bring.
Note: Click here to get a pdf version of my presentation at P.A.C.C. in San Jose, CA.
Here's a video of Riaz Haq's interview on Aug 14, 2011:
Wide Angle Zoom: Formation and Future of Pakistan by wbt-tv
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Ishrat Husain: Structural Reforms in Pakistan's Economy
Pakistan's Economic Performance 2008-2010
Incompetence Worse Than Corruption in Pakistan
Pakistan's Circular Debt and Load Shedding
US Fears Aid Will Feed Graft in Pakistan
Pakistan Swallows IMF's Bitter Medicine
Shaukat Aziz's Economic Legacy
Pakistan's Energy Crisis
Karachi Tops Mumbai in Stock Performance
India Pakistan Contrasted 2010
Pakistan's Foreign Visitors Pleasantly Surprised
After Partition: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
The "Poor" Neighbor by William Dalrymple
Pakistan's Modern Infrastructure
Video: Who Says Pakistan Is a Failed State?
India Worse Than Pakistan, Bangladesh on Nutrition
UNDP Reports Pakistan Poverty Declined to 17 Percent
Pakistan's Choice: Talibanization or Globalization
Pakistan's Financial Services Sector
Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers
Pakistan's Decade 1999-2009
Pakistan's Other Story
South Asia Slipping in Human Development
Asia Gains in Top Asian Universities
BSE-Key Statistics
Pakistan's Multi-Billion Dollar IT Industry
India-Pakistan Military Comparison
Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan
Pakistan Energy Crisis
IMF-Pakistan Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies
46 comments:
Riaz,
Lots of good data and information. Thanks.
Here's an interesting perspective by a Reuters' blogger on "Pakistan's Growing Democracy":
Pakistani politics can be infuriating, petty, violent and often downright incomprehensible. So it is easy to miss what is actually quite a remarkable transformation in the way it governs itself. For perhaps the first time in its 64 years of existence, Pakistan is trying to figure out in detail how to make democracy work.
In a country traditionally dominated by the centralising authority of the military, the government which took office in 2008 is devolving power to the provinces. It is talking about breaking up Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province and traditional recruiting ground of the army, by creating a new Seraiki province in south Punjab. It is extending some political rights into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) by reforming the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations, a British colonial-era system designed to control rather than govern the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
In other words, it is introducing into the system mechanisms which, in theory at least, make it easier for people to negotiate their disputes with the state without taking up arms. By decentralising, it could also become harder for the army to launch a military coup (though it currently shows no inclination to do so), thus beginning the process of making democracy irreversible. And perhaps most importantly, it offers a way of accommodating Pakistan’s ethnic diversity.
As Pakistani columnist Mosharraf Zaidi wrote this month, “decentralisation has been, stealthily, one of the central and most definitive issues in Pakistani democracy.” And whatever the petty and self-serving politics behind the various positions taken by different political parties, he wrote, “Pakistanis should be pleased that decentralisation represents the very heart of political discourse in Pakistan in 2011.”
Riaz:
Thanks for another good article. Perhaps, it is Pakistan's "secret" standing among other countries that is the cause of all the flak that Pakistan is getting. Obviously, India considers this to be a direct threat. And there are others who do not wish an
independent and powerful Pakistan to exist.
You will agree that the main cause of all this Pakistan's unpopularity is not entirely because it is a Muslim country. But rather it is because Pakistan from 1947 has done a very poor job of marketing itself. Pakistan's Achiles heel is PR, PR, PR.
Moin: "Pakistan's Achiles heel is PR, PR, PR"
Clearly, PR incompetence is Pakistan's problem. But there are other more serious problems of indifference and corruption of the inept leadership as well.
Most other countries have serious problems too. India, for example.
If the world media focused on the worst 5% of the India story 95% of the time, the narrative would go something like this:
"After 64 years of independence, India remains home to the world's largest population of poor, hungry, illiterate and sick people."
And this narrative is very easily supported by facts and data from multiple credible sources which I have written about at http://www.riazhaq.com/2010/08/63-years-after-independence-india.html
Riaz, Very good article.
Moin, Yes bad PR is a big issue for Pakistan but bad governance is even bigger issue. This problem needs to be fixed soon or this is start of a new "lost decade" for Pakistan. Thanks, Haseeb
Riaz
I think instead of focusing on bashing India, Pakistan Government should focus its energies on letting its own people know the 95% of things they can be proud of. Once the people are positively energized and upbeat about Pakistan's future the 5% bad things will automatically get pushed back or marginalized.
Ayub Khan was a great PR man. Though, Pakistan did not have much in those days, Ayub Khan, made Pakistan look so big and important that Britain and America were eating out of his hands.
I am not saying PR is everything but only noting that if Pakistan did half as much PR as India does now we would look so much better in the eyes of the world.
Mainstream US media dominate the world because of their size and their power.
It was Henry Kissinger who once said that there is only one thing worse than being a US adversary; it's being a US ally.
Israel is probably the only exception to the above rule because of US domestic politics.
The American media are known to follow their preferred narrative inspired by Washington's agenda....the best example of such narrative and resulting biased coverage is their reporting on Arab-Israel conflict.
Anything that does not fit their narrative simply gets ignored, or put in small print on the inside pages, never making the headlines.
Here are very few examples of those who sometimes question this western narrative and the resulting coverage.
William Dalrymple on Aug 14, 2007:
In the world's media, never has the contrast between the two
countries appeared so stark: one is widely perceived as the next great
superpower; the other written off as a failed state, a world centre of
Islamic radicalism, the hiding place of Osama bin Laden and the only
US ally that Washington appears ready to bomb.
On the ground, of course, the reality is different and first-time
visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country's
visible prosperity. There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than
in India, fewer beggars, and much less desperation. In many ways the
infrastructure of Pakistan is much more advanced: there are better
roads and airports, and more reliable electricity. Middle-class
Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their
equivalents in India.
Alaistair Scrutton, Reuters, 2010:
At times foreign reporters need to a give a nation a rest from their
instinctive cynicism. I feel like that with Pakistan each time I whizz
along the M2 between Islamabad and Lahore, the only motorway I know
that inspires me to write.
And this is Pakistan, for many a "failed state." Here, blandness can
inspire almost heady optimism.
Built in the 1990s at a cost of around $1 billion, the 228-mile
(367-km) motorway -- which continues to Peshawar as the M1 -- is like
a six-lane highway to paradise in a country that usually makes
headlines for suicide bombers, army offensives and political mayhem.
Indeed, for sheer spotlessness, efficiency and emptiness there is
nothing like the M2 in the rest of South Asia.
It puts paid to what's on offer in Pakistan's traditional foe and
emerging economic giant India, where village culture stubbornly
refuses to cede to even the most modern motorways, making them
battlegrounds of rickshaws, lorries and cows.
There are many things in Pakistan that don't get into the news. Daily
life, for one. Pakistani hospitality to strangers, foreigners like
myself included, is another. The M2 is another sign that all is not
what it appears in Pakistan, that much lies hidden behind the bad
news.
NPR's Madhulika Sikka 2010
..But one thing I do want to talk about in the, you know, what is our
vision of Pakistan, which often is one dimensional because of the way
the news coverage drives it.
But, you know, we went to visit a park in the capital, Islamabad,
which is just on the outskirts, up in the hills, and we blogged about
it, and there are photos on our website. You could have been in
suburban Virginia.
There were families, picnics, picnic tables, you know, kids playing,
stores selling stuff, music playing. It was actually very revealing, I
think for us and for people who saw that posting, because there's a
lot that's similar that wouldn't surprise you, let's put it that way."
Pakistan has exported $750 million software solutions last year, according to Pakistan Software Exports Board. This is a huge increase over $169 million reported in 2007-2008.
It should be noted that Pakistan uses BPM5 balance of payments method for reporting software and IT exports, and BPM5 significantly understates the value relative to BPM6 (MSITS) method used by RBI India.
BPM 6 (MSITS) includes sales to multinationals operating within the country, earning of overseas offices & salaries of non-immigrant overseas workers to export revenue.
Riaz
I agree. Thanks.
“You tend to hear the worst 5% of the Pakistan story 95% of the time.”
You base your arguments on a desperate hope that the media is to be blamed - and that the situation is far better. And you a quote a member of an oligarchy that you were only too critical of - a few days back.
" Pakistan from 1947 has done a very poor job of marketing itself. Pakistan's Achiles heel is PR, PR, PR."
Moin, PR?! really ?! that's the only weakness? Not an economy that has borrowed 11 times from the IMF and refuses to grow beyond 3%? Not fundamentalism? Not the friction in Sindh? Not radical Islam in NWFP? Not secessionism in Balochistan? Not internal security - with Obama being killed in abottabad?
You are living in fool's paradise.
"After 64 years of independence, India remains home to the world's largest population of poor, hungry, illiterate and sick people."
This is statement reeks of emasculation to a point of crisis and desperation. India suffers from several handicaps, as you have so geenerously articulated.
However, India has made big leaps in various sphere which warrant a voice on the proverbial high table. India's space program, Nano, IT hubs, robust economy, military capabilitites - to name a few.
Even if one were concede to your arguments, based on twisted facts, that pakistan performs better on socio economic indicators - the areas where pak has its nose ahead are too far and few between. But outside of these consolation "victories" what has Pak achieved that warrants a a place next to the BRIC or BASIC nations?
Pak is nothing more than a strategically positioned mass of land - that has achieved little, and promises less.
Ashmit: "Pak is nothing more than a strategically positioned mass of land - that has achieved little, and promises less."
Thank you!
I see your comment as a confirmation of the fact that Pakistanis have achieved enough in the last 64 years to deserve such venom from the rabidly partisan and hateful Indians like you.
Here's a VOA report about Clinton and Panetta on US-Pakistan relations:
.. at a public forum with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Washington’s National Defense University, the defense chief was unusually candid about U.S. problem issues with Pakistan.
Panetta said Pakistan has "relationships” with the Haqqani network - militants based in western Pakistan who conduct cross-border attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and with Lashkar-e-Taiba militants who have attacked India.
Both groups are listed by the United States as terrorist organizations. Despite complaints that Pakistan has withheld visas for U.S. citizens being posted there, Panetta said the relationship remains essential.
“There is no choice but to maintain a relationship with Pakistan," said Panetta. "Why? Because we are fighting a war there. We are fighting al-Qaida there. And they do give us some cooperation in that effort. Because they do represent an important force in that region. Because they do happen to be a nuclear power that has nuclear weapons, and we have to be concerned about what happens with those nuclear weapons. So for all of those reasons, we’ve got to maintain a relationship with Pakistan.”
Secretary of State Clinton said the Obama administration considers relations with Pakistan to be of “paramount importance.”
She said there have been “challenges” in bilateral ties for decades with valid complaints on both sides, and that she credits the Islamabad government with lately recognizing its shared interest with Washington in confronting terrorism.
“I was very pleased when the Pakistanis moved into [the] Swat [Valley] and cleaned out a lot of what had become a kind of Pakistani Taliban stronghold," said Clinton. "And then they began to take some troops off their border with India, to put more resources into the fight against the Pakistani Taliban. Now, as Leon [Panetta] says, we have some other targets that we discuss with them - the Haqqanis, for example. And yet it’s been a relatively short period of time, two-and-a-half years, when they have begun to reorient themselves militarily against what is, in our view, an internal threat to them.”
The State Department on Tuesday designated a key Haqqani network commander - Mullah Sangeen Zadran - a terrorist under a 2001 White House executive order, freezing any U.S. assets he has and barring Americans from business dealings with him.
At the same time, Sangeen was designated a terrorist by the U.N. sanctions committee, which will subject him to a global travel ban, an asset freeze and an arms embargo.
A State Department statement said Sangeen, is a “shadow governor” of Afghanistan’s southeast Paktika province and a senior lieutenant of network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. It said Sangeen has coordinated the movement of hundreds of foreign fighters into that country and that he is linked to numerous bomb attacks and kidnappings.
Which components has Pak made for CERN?
Anon: "which components has Pakistan made for CERN?"
Here's a post on CERN website regarding Pakistan's contribution to various CERN projects:
Co-operation with Pakistan was pioneered by CMS, and has expanded continuously over the past 15 years to include ALICE and ATLAS as well as to the accelerator sector (SPL (Linac4) and CLIC), making Pakistan a significant partner for CERN. For CMS, Pakistan built the Magnet feet, contributed to the Tracker alignment, and built and installed 320 Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC), as well as contributing to CMS computing, the WLCG and data analysis. Pakistan has also built various mechanical components for ATLAS and for the LHC.
Co-operation with the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology Nuclear Engineering Division (PINSTECH) in the area of radioprotection is being organized. Several high-level Pakistani officials have visited CERN, including President Musharraf in January 2006.
Discussions are on-going with Commission on Science and Technology for sustainable development (COMSATS) for the setting up of a version of the CERN physics teachers programme in Islamabad.
Agreements have been signed covering Pakistani contributions to LHC commissioning and Linac4.
http://international-relations.web.cern.ch/international-relations/nms/pakistan.html
Here's an excerpt from Dr. Ishrat Husain's lecture remembering Pakistan finance minister Shoaib in 2009:
The period from 1958 to 1969 during which President Ayub ruled and Mr.
Shoaib served as Finance Minister for most of these years is considered as the
golden era of Pakistan’s economic history. The period had strong macro
economic management and the economic indicators were extremely impressive.
Agriculture grew at a respectable 4 percent while remarkable rates were
achieved in manufacturing (9 percent) and trade (7 percent) GNP growth rates
exceeded 6 percent on average throughout the period. Economic growth was
very strong on all fronts.
Structural changes that took place under the stewardship of Mr. Shoaib
laid the foundation for Pakistan’s subsequent economic performance.
Manufacturing sector which was quite nascent increased to nearly 15 percent of
DGP. Pakistan’s economic model was considered a benchmark for the
developing countries. By the end of the decade, Pakistan’s manufactured
exports wee higher than the combined manufactured exports of the Philippines,
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is purely a matter of conjecture as to where
Pakistan would have stood today in terms of per capita incomes if it had
continued the economic policies of 1960s.
A country’s economic outcomes depend upon a host of factors (a) Initial
resource endowment; (b) External environment; (c) Strategy and policy
framework; (d) Administration capacity; (e) Political stability.
Pakistan inherited a weak resource endowment as the part that
constituted India was relatively advanced in terms of natural, human and physical
resources while the two wings of Pakistan separated by 1,000 miles of Indian
territory were quite backward.
Delivered as the 19th Shoaib Memorial
External environment facing Pakistan in the decade of the 1960s was
mixed. The war of 1965, however, caused immense economic damage to
Pakistan and foreign aid flows did suffer in the post 1965 period.
The strength of the economic performance in this decade can mainly be
explained by the strategy and economic policies pursued during this period, the
efficiency with which these policies were executed due to improvement in
administrative capacity and the political continuity and stability that prevailed until
late 1968.
------------
Economic policies pursued by Ayub-Shoaib administration in the 1960s
were outward-oriented, liberal and supportive of the private sector. State played
a facilitating and enabling role by providing incentives, supplying infrastructure
(particularly in irrigated agriculture), institutions and technology. Macroeconomic
management was sound and prudent and fiscal and external balances were
managed well. Inflation remained in check and the annual rate of growth in
prices was only 3.3 percent. However, rapid economic growth and
industrialization resulted in income inequalties and regional disparities that had
serious political repercussions subsequently. Social sectors were neglected and
industries for capital goods were not set up. Import substitution strategy had a
positive pay off but also nurtured rent-seeking and pressures for protection
against external competition thus masking the inefficiencies of domestic
industries. Exchange rate policies created distortions and arbitrage
opportunities. But the positive contribution that made Pakistan self-sufficient in
wheat and rice was the adoption and diffusion of Green Revolution technologies
that also helped uplift the living standards of the rural population.
From Javed Burki Op Ed in Express Tribune
http://tribune.com.pk/story/236961/preparing-the-population-for-a-modern-economy/
For a country that now has the reputation of neglecting the development of its vast human resource, it is possible to reach a somewhat different conclusion about the preparedness of the workforce. When the data for the schooling of the young is examined in some detail, and in the context of what is occurring in other countries of South Asia, Pakistan seems well positioned to develop a modern economy. The data used here are from the work done by the economists Robert Baro and Jhong-Wha Lee at Harvard University. Looking at this data, it appears that compared to other large countries of South Asia, Pakistan is doing better in an area that could be tremendously important for its economic and social future.
In 2010, India had 67 per cent of the 15-plus age group in school while Pakistan had 62 per cent. However, it is at the other end of the educational spectrum — what educationists call the tertiary stage — that Pakistan seems to be doing considerably better than other South Asian countries.
In 1950, for India and Pakistan, the proportion of people attending tertiary institutions was 0.6 per cent. Since this has increased to 5.8 per cent for India, a ten-fold increase, and to 5.5 per cent for Pakistan, a nine-fold growth. For Bangladesh, the increase was spectacular, a twenty-fold growth. However, it is the impressive increase for Pakistan that provides the element of surprise.
Pakistan does well in one critical area — the drop-out rate in tertiary education. Those who complete tertiary education in Pakistan account for a larger proportion of persons who enter school at this level. The proportion is much higher for girls, another surprising finding for Pakistan.
With a considerably lower drop-out rate at the tertiary level, it is not surprising that the number of years students spend in school in Pakistan (5.6 years) is higher than that in India (5.1 years) but a bit lower than that for Bangladesh ( 5.8 years). For tertiary education alone, Pakistan’s youth spend more time being educated than those in Bangladesh and India.
It is in the last two decades that the real brake occurred in Pakistan. The proportion of the 15-plus age group receiving tertiary education in Pakistan increased from only 2.4 per cent in 1990 to 5.5 per cent in 2010. The proportion of students completing tertiary education in Pakistan is 41 per cent higher than that for India. Better performance, when measured in terms of the proportion of the population receiving tertiary education, matters a great deal for the economic future. As Baro and Lee point out, the estimated rate of return is very high for tertiary education, close to 18 per cent. This is only 10 per cent for secondary education and almost zero for primary education. The state, by only concentrating on primary education, is not buying a better future for the citizenry. It must make it possible to develop tertiary education as well.
http://www.barrolee.com/
US funding of huge dam project in Pakistan angers India, according to Miami Herald:
ISLAMABAD -- Even as U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on anti-terrorism programs is withering, the United States is considering backing the construction of a giant, $12 billion dam in Pakistan that would be the largest civilian aid project the U.S. has undertaken here in decades.
Supporters of a U.S. role in the project say American participation would mend the United States' tattered image, going a long way toward quieting widespread anti-Americanism amid criticism that the U.S. lavishes money on Pakistan's military while doing little for the country's civilian population.
Approval of the project still faces many hurdles. India objects to the dam because it would be in Kashmir, an area that India also claims. The project also is likely to face opposition from Pakistan's critics in the U.S. Congress, who've called for all aid to be cut off after Osama bin Laden was found hiding in northern Pakistan earlier this year. Recent Pakistani actions, including allegations this week that Pakistan had allowed Chinese military experts to inspect the wreckage of an American stealth helicopter that crashed in the bin Laden compound, are likely to inflame such criticism.
Still, proponents of U.S. aid for the project recall that the United States was popular in Pakistan in the 1960s and '70s, when Washington backed the construction of two enormous dams, Tarbela and Mangla.
"Getting involved in a long-term project like this is very compelling for us," said a senior U.S. official who asked not to be identified because no final decision on the project has been made. "This would be a huge demonstration of our commitment to Pakistan and our faith in the country's future."
The Diamer Basha dam would provide enough power to overcome Pakistan's crippling electricity shortage. Proponents of the project also claim that its water storage capacity, in a 50-mile-long lake that would be created behind the dam, would be so great that it would have averted last's years devastating floods, which deluged a fifth of the country, pushed 20 million people out of their homes and caused an estimated $10 billion in damage.
The U.S.-Pakistani alliance since 2001 has been plagued by accusations in Washington that Islamabad is playing a "double game" by secretly supporting Afghan insurgents, while Pakistan thinks it's been bullied into acting against its own interests and that it's been unfairly blamed for American failures in Afghanistan. The unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden in May humiliated Pakistan's powerful military, causing anti-terrorism cooperation to be all but halted.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/16/2361801/us-considers-funding-pakistani.html#ixzz1W4Cr14es
Here's a summary of BMI research report on Pakistan's electricity sector:
The new Pakistan Power Report from BMI forecasts that the country’s power consumption will rise from 77TWh in 2010 to 112TWh by the end of the forecast period, representing average annual growth of 3.9% in 2011-2020. After power industry usage and system losses, we see a supply surplus rising from the estimated 19TWh level seen in 2010 to 28TWh by 2020, assuming 3.9% average annual growth in power generation during the period.
Pakistan’s power generation in 2010 is put by BMI at 95.4TWh, having recovered strongly from the depressed 2009 level of 89.2TWh. BMI is forecasting an average 4.2% annual increase to 117.1TWh between 2011 and 2015. Thermal generation, comprising coal, gas and oil, is expected to increase by an average annual 2.3% during the period to 2015, but growth looks set to accelerate later in the decade.
We expect gas-fired power generation to climb 4.0% a year between 2011 and 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 4.7% forecast to 2020. Gas-fired generation should therefore reach 47.7TWh by 2015 and 62.1TWh by 2020. The share of total power generation should therefore increase from 41.1% to 44.4% by the end of the forecast period. Under the 25-year Energy Security Plan, the government is aiming for 77.8GW of new gas-fired generating capacity by 2030, representing by far the greatest area of growth for power generation. Over the longer term, conversion of older oil plants to gas should mean oil takes a smaller slice of the power pie. It currently accounts for around 30.4% of total generation, falling to a maximum of 24.5% by 2015 thanks to greater gas, hydro and nuclear expansion.
The 25-year energy security plan envisages an increase in nuclear power generation of up to 8.8GW by 2030. The plan predicts the share of nuclear power would increase to 4.2% of the country’s total energy mix. BMI suggests that 2010 nuclear power generation was 2.7TWh, rising to 2.9TWh by 2015 and to 3.2TWh by 2020. Pakistan has huge hydro-electric potential of an estimated 42GW, but currently boasts under 7GW of installed capacity. Power generated varies depending on the extent of the country’s droughts. It has been forecast that US$20bn would be needed to exploit fully hydro-power resources.
Pakistan now shares eighth place with Malaysia in BMI’s updated Power Business Environment Ratings, thanks to its relatively high level of renewables (mostly hydro) usage. Several country risk factors offset the industry strength, but the country is in a good position to keep clear of the Philippines below.
http://www.bizreportshop.com/product/bmi/Pakistan-Power-Report-Q2-2011_180580.html
Here's a Dawn report on the launch of Pakistani economist Shahid Javed Burki's book "South Asia in the new World Order" in Singapore:
ISLAMABAD: Renowned economist and scholar Shahid Javed Burki said that Pakistan’s economy can catch up fairly fast to the developed world, as compared with India, by adopting proper policy and fully mobilizing the available rich natural and human resources.
He was addressing the launching ceremony of his book ‘South Asia in the new World Order’ in Singapore, said a message received here Thursday.
Burki said that Pakistan’s GDP growth had been double of India’s growth rate of 2-3 percent for four decades 1947-1987. He quoted a recent Harvard University study which has mentioned that Pakistan’s higher education sector was performing better than India and Bangladesh.
This, he attributed to the investment made by the private sector in education. Syed Hasan Javed, High Commissioner of Pakistan in Singapore who was guest honour on this occasion said South Asia is blessed with rich heritage and natural, physical and human resources.
He observed that the South Asian states could learn from Confucianism’s teaching of ‘Prosperity they neighbor’ and the role model of ASEAN, in order to promote regional cooperation in the economic sector.
Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy endorsed the views of Shahid Javed Burki and the High Commissioner in order to generate a new thought process in South Asia.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/25/pakistans-economy-has-rich-potential-to-grow-fast-burki.html
Here's a Dawn report on water storage capacity expansion efforts to add 20 million acre feet::
ISLAMABAD: With Pakistan increasingly becoming water deficient, Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has drawn up plans for creating capacity to store an additional 20 million acre feet (MAF) of water on ‘war footing’ to keep the economy floating.
The Irsa finalised recommendations in this regard with input from all its members after a former chairman of the authority, Fatehullah Khan Gandapur, set off alarm bells by declaring that Indus Water Treaty (IWT) of 1960 was almost dead because of excessive losses in storage capacity.
Mr Gandapur wrote letters to the president and prime minister in which he said: “The IWT ceases to function as Tarbela and
Mangla reservoirs have lost 6.6MAF of replacement storage due to silting.”
He criticised the team of bureaucrats currently engaged in negotiating the country’s water rights with India and said the officials were simply incapable of handling “an issue of national survival”.
“Blatant violations of the treaty by India by building dozens of low and high dams on all the six rivers and tributaries has exceeded the allowable storage limit of 4.19MAF fixed in the treaty,” he said. So far, the dams have created 10MAF of dead storage and 25-30MAF of live storage, depriving Pakistan of its water rights for Rabi and Kharif crops.
More high dams are under construction.
Sources told Dawn that on the directives of the president and prime minister, the government’s adviser on water and the Irsa members had a marathon briefing session with the former Irsa chairman early this week and finalised recommendations for creation of additional storage capacity. The recommendations would be submitted to the prime minister for approval.
The report on the recommendations says the situation will become worse in the next couple of years. That’s why it is imperative that an additional capacity of 20MAF be created on war footing to protect the agricultural economy.
The Irsa also warned the government about the proposed construction of around a dozen dams by Afghanistan on Kabul river and suggested that talks be initiated immediately with the Afghans for finalising an agreement to protect Pakistan’s water
rights.
The Irsa seconded Mr Gandapur’s proposal for construction of the 37MAF Katzarah Dam near Skardu because it was non-controversial and could enhance the expected life of the downstream dams and barrages, including Tarbela and Diamer-Bhasha.
The authority was also in agreement with Mr Gandapur’s suggestion that the multipurpose 8.5MAF Guroh Dop dam on river Panjkora near Chitral should be built for storing every year about 7-8MAF of water that ultimately falls into Kabul river.
This would stop water from Panjkora from going into Afghan territory. It said a water treaty with Afghanistan was important because Panjkora or Chitral river contributed more than 50 per cent of the Kabul flows.
Mr Gandapur also reminded the government of a report prepared recently by US Senator John Kerry cautioning about a water war in South Asia, saying India had 33 projects at various stages of completion on the rivers that affected the region. He warned that as a consequence of the continued violations of the IWT by India Chenab and Jhelum rivers would turn ‘seasonal’ and Pakistan would not be able to grow Rabi crop and early Kharif crop.
He alleged that the Pakistani authorities had ignored the construction of Uri-II project by India in occupied Kashmir which was an essential part of Kishenganga project. “Pakistani negligence will help India win the controversial Kishenganga case,” he said
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/19/water-storage-capacity-to-be-raised-by-20maf.html
Here's an MSN report on Sen Kerry's Report questioning "whether the IWT can address India''s growing use of the shared waters and Pakistan''s increasing demand for these waters for agricultural purposes":
Washington, Feb 23 (PTI) With an increase in demand for water and energy resources in both India and Pakistan, a Congressional report has questioned the long-term effectiveness of the Indus Water Treaty, which has been successfully implemented for more than six decades between the two South Asian neighbours.
"While the IWT has maintained stability in the region over water, experts question the treaty''s long-term effectiveness in light of chronic tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, where a significant portion of the Indus River''s headwaters originate," it said adding that as the existing agriculture system becomes more water-intensive and, in some areas, more inefficient, water may prove to be a source of instability in South Asia.
The report, "Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia�s Growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan," sheds light on the drivers of water scarcity in Central and South Asia and provides recommendations for how the US should strategically approach water-related issues, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Written by the majority staff of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the report draws attention to the growing problem of water scarcity in Central and South Asia and how it has the potential to exacerbate existing regional conflicts and lead to new ones.
"While much of our focus currently rests on Afghanistan and Pakistan, we must also consider the interests in the shared waters by India and the neighbouring five Central Asian countries �Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan," John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a statement.
"In addition, others question whether the IWT can address India''s growing use of the shared waters and Pakistan''s increasing demand for these waters for agricultural purposes," said the 28-page report.
"Signed in 1960, the IWT is considered as the world''s most successful water treaty, having remained relatively intact for 50 years and having withstood four Indo-Pak wars," it added. .
http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4951409
Here's a Washington Post story titled "Pakistan's Only True Living Hero" about Abdus Sattar Edhi:
His name is Abdul Sattar Edhi. He is a legend in Pakistan, where he has been hailed as a Mahatma Gandhi and Father Teresa — and denounced as an infidel, communist and madman. In a patronage-based nation where wealth and bluster often pass for leadership and cruelty is more common than mercy, he may be Pakistan’s only true living hero.
I first found my way to Edhi’s office in the summer of 2010. I knew little of him then, except that he had founded a free ambulance service for the public. At the scene of every train crash or terrorist bombing, Edhi Foundation ambulances always rushed about. I knew many Pakistanis admired him, and I had seen photos of an old man with the flowing white beard of a wise elder or a Muslim cleric.
I was not expecting the slyly subversive and cranky octogenarian who sat at his desk under a portrait of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He didn’t say much at first, but he handed me some photographs of a tiny girl with gashes in her face. She had been found in a garbage pit, partly eaten by dogs, and was rescued by his volunteers. Later she was sent abroad for surgery and adopted by a family in Canada.
“Some people strangle illegitimate children. Others just dump them to die. We believe there is no such thing as an illegitimate person,” Edhi said. Indeed, he had spent 40 years helping social outcasts, from unwanted infants to the unclaimed dead. He had opened programs for abandoned girls, AIDS patients and senile shut-ins. Far more than an ambulance service, it was a philosophy.
I asked whether he was a religious man, and he shook his head. “My religion is humanity. It is the only religion that matters,” he said. This was a startling statement to hear in an Islamic republic. Later, I learned that some Muslim clerics had banned mosques from helping Edhi, but that admirers greeted him as “maulana sahib,” a term of religious respect.
There were other contradictions: Edhi was the product of a prominent business clan, but he had been drawn early to a humbler calling. After serving briefly in Parliament, he grew disillusioned with politics and rejected organized charity as placating rather than empowering the poor. In the 1960s, he turned full-time to his fledgling mission in the slums.
“I decided not to knock on the door of the industrialists and the landlords, because they are the root cause of all our social problems,” he told me. “The rich have deprived the people of their rights, and the state does not take responsibility for their welfare. It is my dream to build a welfare state in Pakistan, but I have not seen it come in my lifetime.”
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He is not an easy man to be around, demanding that his acolytes give up even small luxuries. Yet his army of volunteers and ambulance drivers, some rescued from lost lives, revere him, and Bilquis, after four decades at his side, remains his tireless partner and ally.
Edhi, ever the crusader, still dreams of building a modern welfare state that will be at least another generation in the making, but his wife’s greatest joy is in saving one child at a time, and in pampering brides whom no one in Pakistan would once have thought fit to marry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pakistans-only-true-living-hero/2011/08/24/gIQAj6cRgJ_story_1.html
Here's an Op Ed in the News criticizing of Nawaz Sharif's Aug 13 speech at SAFMA:
Nawaz Sharif’s speech on Aug 13 at the Safma seminar “Building Bridges in the Subcontinent” continues to make waves two weeks later. Media attention has focused mainly on some of his observations which seem to question the basis of Pakistani nationhood. These remarks have caused surprise and consternation even among some long-standing supporters of the PML-N, which claims to be the successor of the party which led the Pakistan movement in pre-partition India. Hardly anyone from the top ranks of the PML-N, apart from the newly appointed spokesman, has sought to defend the party leader’s verbal escapade.
Pakistan and India, Nawaz said, had the same culture and heritage, ate the same food, spoke the same language and shared the same way of life. Despite the many things the people of the two countries had in common, he said, they were now separated by “a border”.
Even when allowance is made for the fact that Nawaz was addressing a mixed audience of Pakistanis and Indians on building bridges between them – in itself a totally desirable enterprise – his statement is offensive. And it is untrue because, though the Muslims and Hindus lived on the same soil for centuries, they inhabited two different spiritual worlds. Nawaz was in fact repeating many of the points made by the Congress Party of India – and refuted by the Quaid-e-Azam – during the Pakistan movement.
Almost as outrageous as Nawaz’s assertion about the Indians and Pakistanis having a common culture is his assertion that they worship (pujte hain) the same God. The Quran says something very different in Surah al-Kafirun: The believers worship not that which the non-believers worship, nor do the non-believers worship that which the believers worship. Nawaz should also know that the Muslims do not perform puja, as the Hindus do, but ibadat.
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Nawaz’s political judgment – never very sound, as seen in his selection of Musharraf as the army chief and then in the ham-fisted manner in which he tried to fire him – has been warped further by the trauma of his overthrow in 1999 and subsequent forced exile. That may be understandable at a human level. But such a flaw can be fatal in a national leader. If Nawaz cannot overcome this shock, he should return fulltime to his family business and leave politics to others.
The Indian government and media are delighted, and understandably so, at Nawaz’s Safma speech. But so also is a small section of the Pakistani media and “civil society” which labels itself pretentiously as the “liberals”. The newly coined English word lumpen-intelligentsia would be a more appropriate description for them. One of them, a star TV commentator, claimed last week that 99 percent of the people of Pakistan agreed with what Nawaz said. The remaining one percent, whom this analyst dismissed as the thekedar (self-appointed guardians) of the two-nation theory, were itching to nuke India, as he claimed. So much for objectivity and informed analysis.
Pakistan and India should indeed give up confrontation, learn to live as peaceful neighbours and try to build bridges of understanding. But denying the foundations of Pakistani nationhood, ignoring the threat posed by India and abandoning the Kashmir cause is certainly no way of going about it, as Nawaz seems to think. If he does not retract the unfortunate remarks he made on these issues, it is to be hoped at least that others in his party would disown them.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=65244&Cat=9
Here's a Dawn story on rapid broadband growth in Pakistan:
WASHINGTON: Pakistan is ranked as one of top countries that registered high growth rates in broadband Internet penetration among their populace, the latest worldwide data report for Q1 2010 to Q1 2011 says.
Serbia leads all countries surveyed with a 68% annual growth rate from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011, according to July 2011 Bandwidth Report with data on worldwide bandwidth penetration.
The figures were cited by Website Optimization, LLC, a leading website optimizing firm, sourced from Point Topic, a global broadband tracker, and reported by PRWeb.
Pakistan, which has seen a boom in its promising telecom sector and information technology services in recent years, recorded around 46.2 percent growth of subscribers and is placed fourth on the ranking list.
The closest South Asian country to Pakistan on the list of top countries is Sri Lanka at the 11th spot with its broadband penetration growing in 30s while India lags at the 14th place in terms of broadband growth.
Globally, only Thailand and Belarus had greater percentage expansion than Pakistan, apart from top-rated Serbia during the period.
Pakistan’s digital growth prospects have begun to look brighter lately.
Besides having a large bilingual (English and Urdu) Internet conversant population, Pakistan’s software companies have carved a niche internationally in recent years.
According to government figures, the country’s information technology exports totaled $1.4 billion in the last financial year.
Experts say the IT industry, which adds thousands of skilled workers every year, has the potential to hit multimillion export target within next five to ten years. Additionally, mobile phone and wireless Internet usage are also expanding rapidly.
The survey data shows that China continues to lead the world in total broadband subscribers. As of the first quarter of 2011, China had over 135 million broadband subscribers, with the US at over 88 million subscribers in second place. Japan, German, and France followed China and the US in total subscribers.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/30/pakistan-among-top-countries-registering-high-broadband-growth.html
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/1107/
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Business/31-May-2011/Pakistan-earning-US-14-bln-through-IT-exports-PM
just wait till 4G broadband launches next year.
see the fun then:D
incidentally in india we now have upto 1 Gbps to home in New Delhi.
It costs INR 4500/500GB @1Gbps then unlimited @ 50Mbps.
Report in Hindustan Times says that "more new born babies die in India annually than in any other country, even though the number of neonatal deaths around the world has seen a slow decline, a new study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said".
New born deaths decreased from 4.6 million in 1990 to 3.3 million in 2009,
and fell slightly faster in the years since 2000, according to the study led by researchers from WHO, Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The study, which covers a 20-year-period and all the 193 WHO member states, found that new born deaths - characterised as deaths in the first four weeks of life (neonatal period) – account for 41 % of all child deaths before the age of five.
Almost 99 % of the newborn deaths occur in the developing world, with more than half taking place in the five large countries of India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Congo.
"India alone has more than 900,000 newborn deaths per year, nearly 28 % of the global total," WHO said, adding that India had the largest number of neonatal deaths throughout the study.
Nigeria, the world's seventh most populous country, ranked second in new born deaths – up from fifth in 1990. Three quarters of neonatal deaths around the world are caused by pre-term delivery, asphyxia and severe infections, such as sepsis and pneumonia.
WHO pointed out that two thirds or more of these deaths can be prevented with existing interventions.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-records-highest-number-of-new-born-deaths-UN/Article1-740555.aspx
Here's a UKPA story of a Pakistani innovators harnessing the Internet for the poor:
One of the world's top young technology innovators is working to bring internet-style networking to millions of Pakistanis who don't have access to the web.
Umar Saif's efforts, which centre around giving ordinary citizens new ways to use a basic mobile phone, recently earned him recognition by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The trigger for his research was a 2005 earthquake in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir that killed 80,000 people and caused widespread destruction. The disaster coincided with his return to Pakistan after getting a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge.
Realising that rescue workers were having trouble co-ordinating, Saif, 32, devised a computer program that allowed people to send a text message - or SMS - to thousands of people at once. Users send a text to a specific phone number to sign up for the program, and then can message all the subscribers, allowing users to engage in the kind of social networking possible on the internet.
It has since blossomed into a commercial enterprise called SMS-all that is used by at least 2.5 million people who have sent nearly four billion text messages.
"You can do the sorts of things that we do on Facebook and Twitter," said Saif, now an associate professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
The company generates revenue by charging a small amount for each message. Saif has expanded the service to Iraq and Nigeria by working with telecommunication companies there.
Roughly 20 million Pakistanis use the internet, about 11% of the country's total population of 187 million. But there are more than 108 million Pakistani mobile phone subscribers.
"The thing to do is to bring whatever you have on the internet on the phone lines, because that is what gets used the most," said Saif.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gGB71MuxyPPnNQBdZ4xMfvksHuxA?docId=N0201411315222132958A
The article below is by Bryan Farris, an American who recently spent a month in Pakistan. Unlike most who 'visit' and discuss with armchair analysts he decided to 'feel' Pakistan. This country and its peoples have to be 'felt', not merely seen!
http://blog.acumenfund.org/2011/09/08/a-rubberband-kind-of-year-see-you-later-pakistan/
What most of the world fails to realize is just how beautiful this country is and how spectacular its people truly are. It is impossible to overlook the problems: Pakistan is facing lawlessness in Karachi, a violent political system, jaw-dropping inflation, an insufficient power supply and terrorists staking claim over the northern areas. These are real issues that do exist: but they do not define Pakistan—as much of the world would have you believe.
While it may be impossible to overlook the problems, it is (apparently) quite possible to overlook the splendor that a country like Pakistan offers.
Where else do you greet every stranger with the phrase “Peace be with you”?
Where else do you find BBQ Chicken Tikka that melts in your mouth?
Where else is being 20 minutes late considered on-time?
Where else can you see opportunity in every alley?
Where else do motorized scooters (100% of which are red hondas) weave in between cars which cruise past rickshaws, which veer around donkey-pulled carts, which are dwarfed by strutting camels?Where else can you buy seasonal fruit on every single street corner?
Where else do the echoes of a minaret bring an eerie peace to 4a.m. in the morning?
Where else do you find a people who take prayer so seriously, they start every flight with one?
Where else, but Pakistan?
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Pakistanis are hospitable. I’ve spent my entire time here living with a host family. At first I was a guest, but Jean, Wilburn, Asim, Maria, Susie, John, Ben, Thomas, Annie, Tashu and Ethan made me feel so welcome that they became family. I know I have a home here forever. Anywhere you go in Pakistan, people will welcome you with open arms (and probably a even a hug—from strangers too).
Pakstanis are loyal. I mean…crazy loyal. When you make a Pakistani friend, you’ve created a serious bond. Leaving is so hard because I feel such powerful ties with people here. For my farewell dinner, a co-worker (but really a new best friend), Jamshaid, made two 9 hour trips between our site in the flood affected areas and Lahore just to join for dinner. Another friend of mine who had moved out of Lahore months ago made a 250Km round trip to meet me for Sehri breakfast at 3am. I’ve never felt so honored.
Pakistanis love tea. If this isn’t self-evident, I don’t know what is. Pakistanis love to sit down, stir their chai and chat. Spending time with others and building quality relationships is so important. Back home people tend to fly through their days, but in Pakistan, every moment with another is cherished.
Pakistanis are optimistic. I’ve never been somewhere where young people were as energized about opportunities in their own country as here. There is a bright future ahead and Pakistan’s youth are driving it. A few friends of mine—Ali, Babar, Zehra, Saba, Jimmy, Khurram—have inspiring aspirations for change in PK.
This is the Pakistan that the world needs to come to know. Yes, there are terrorists and violence, and that can’t be forgotten, but if that is your perception, then you are judging a book by the headlines.
Sure, there are probably safer ways I could have spent this year, but then I wouldn’t have been stretched in the way that I have been.
Pakistan has become a part of me; it has forever changed me, my perspective on the world, and my trust in humanity.
Here’s to you PK.
Shukria, Allah Hafiz. (Thank you, may God protect you).
~Bryan
The number of children under five who die each year has plummeted from 12 million in 1990, to 7.6 million last year, according to Child Mortality Report 2011 prepared by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
About 21,000 children are still dying every day from preventable causes.
India leads the under-5 death toll with 1.7 million deaths, followed by Nigeria 861K, Dem Rep of Congo 465K, Pakistan 423K, China 315K, Ethiopia 271K and Afghanistan 191K.
In terms of deaths per 1000 live births, Pakistan is still at 87, compared with Bangladesh 48 and India 63.
Pakistan's rate of child mortality decline at 1.8% a year between 1990 and 2010 is among the slowest in the world, compared with 3% in India and an impressive 5.5% in Bangladesh.
Burkina Faso is at 176 deaths per 1000 live births, Angola 161, Afghanistan 149, and Nigeria 143 are among the highest in the world.
http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Mortality_Report_2011_Final.pdf
There are a lot of different figures and forecasts floating around different websites and publications that significantly overstate India's GDP and understate Pakistan's.
The figures I have posted in my recent blog posts were released in May 2011 by India and in July 2011 by Pakistan. This is the only apples-to-apples comparison that is valid. The rest is irrelevant.
Economic Survey of Pakistan 2010-11 puts the nation's population at 177 million and nominal gdp at $222 billion or $1254 per person.
And Economic Survey of India 2010-2011 says India's population is 1.2 billion and puts nominal GDP at $1.46 trillion or $1218 per person.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-31/news/29604458_1_capita-income-national-income-economy-at-current-prices
http://www.infopak.gov.pk/EconomicSurvey/Highlights.pdf
India's GDP is 1.72 trillion for 2011.
Anon: "India's GDP is 1.72 trillion for 2011."
Yes, you are right.
I just located a document by Economic Survey of India which puts it at INR 78.78 trillion which is about $1.75 trillion at INR 45 to a US dollar.
http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2010-11/echap-01.pdf
Here are some of the findings of a recent paper by Durre-e-Nayab of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) titled "Estimating the Middle Class in Pakistan":
Depending on the definition applied, it is found that the size of the middle class ranges drastically in the country, as can be seen from Table 2. Applying the definitions having solely an economic rationale, we find the middle class to range from 60 per cent of the population (Table 2, Definition One) to being totally non-existent (Table 2, Definition Five). Translating it in number of people, using the population base of 187 million as it stands on mid-year 2011 (USCB, 2011 and UN, 2009), the size of the middle class ranges from a huge 112 million to no one. This variability, as stressed earlier, reflects the complexities and
arbitrariness associated with defining and measuring the middle class.
Among all the definitions given above, Definition Eight and Definition Thirteen, based on gradation of income and expenditure per person per day, respectively, are currently the most
extensively used measure employed to estimate the middle class (as also used by Chun (2010) and Bhandari (2010) among others)3. This definition too, however, suffers from the same drawback of relying solely on one criterion. As also pointed out by Eisenhauer (2008), Atkinson and Bourguignon (1982), Kolm (1977), Bourguignon and Chakravarty (2003) and Gilbert (2003), being a part of the middle class should be ascertained by a person’s socio-economic attributes holistically. Income is an important aspect but other qualities like level of health, wealth,
education and specialised knowledge are also significant factors for constituting a class. Technically speaking too, most of the definitions suffer from serious drawbacks. For instance, the ‘quintile approach’ can be useful in measuring or comparing income or expenditure growth but cannot be used as a method to estimate the middle class as the size cannot shrink or expand and by definition would permenantly remain at 60 percent. Any denomination of the median income should also be used with caution in low income countries like Pakistan. Taking 75 per cent of the median income might lead to the inclusion of people below the poverty line in countries with very low income levels. In the above-stated definitions and resulting estimates there are issues with the lower bounds
set for inclusion in the middle class. While some of the definitions (like Definition Three and Five) set the limit too high4, resulting in a very small middle class or in the absence of a middle class altogether, there are other definitions that set the limit too low, like those that set the lower
bound at $2 per person per day. Does the middle class begin where poverty ends? Ravallion (2010: 446) supports, “the premise that middle class living standards begin when poverty ends”.
This paper, however, supports the argument forwarded by Horrigan and Haugen (1988:5) when they posit, “to ensure that the lower endpoint of the middle class represents an income
significantly above the poverty line”. The middle class should, hence, include only those households that do not face the risk of experiencing poverty at all, and are not just those who
are outside the the realm of poverty at a particular time.
http://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/Working%20Paper/WorkingPaper-71.pdf
Karachi's HDI is about 0.799, much higher than Pakistan's national human development index and comparable to European nations of Portugal and Poland, and higher than Malaysia's.
Here's a brief UNDP description of human dev in Pakistan:
According the Human Development Report 2010, Pakistan’s HDI value increased from 0.311 to 0.490 during 1980 to 2010, an increase of 58% or average annual increase of about 1.5% which ranked it 10 in terms of HDI improvement in comparison to the average progress of other countries. Pakistan’s life expectancy at birth increased by more than 9 years, mean years of schooling increased by about 3 years and expected years of schooling increased by almost 4 years. Pakistan’s GNI per capita increased by 92 per cent during the same period.
Pakistan’s 2010 HDI of 0.490 is below the average of 0.516 for countries in South Asia. It is also below the average of 0.592 for medium human development countries. From South Asia, Pakistan’s 2010 “HDI neighbours”, i.e. countries which are close in HDI rank and population size, are India and Bangladesh, which had HDIs ranked 119 and 129 respectively. Pakistan is also compared to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a high human development country.
http://undp.org.pk/about-pakistan.html
Here's a Dawn report on Pakistan's progress in human development since 1980:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been ranked 10th among the countries in term of human development improvement by the United Nations Development Programme’s 20th Human Development Report 2010.
Those among the 135 countries that improved most in Human Development Index (HDI) terms over the past 30 years were led by Oman, which invested energy earnings over the decades in education and public health.
The other nine “Top Movers” are China, Nepal, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Tunisia, South Korea, Algeria and Morocco. Remarkably, China was the only country that made the “Top 10” list due solely to income performance; the main drivers of HDI achievement were in health and education.
The UNDP report said that in Pakistan, between 1980 and 2010, the HDI value increased by 58 per cent (average annual increase of about 1.5 per cent).
“With such an increase Pakistan is ranked 10 in terms of HDI improvement, which measures progress in comparison to the average progress of countries with a similar initial HDI level”, it added.
Pakistan’s life expectancy at birth increased by more than nine years, mean years of schooling increased by about nine years and expected years of schooling increased by almost 4 years.
Pakistan’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita increased by 92 per cent during the same period. The relative to other countries in the region, in 1980, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh had close HDI values for countries in South Asia.
However, during the period between 1980 and 2010 the three countries experienced different degrees of progress toward increasing their HDIs states the Report.
The Report introduces the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which identifies multiple deprivations in the same households in education, health and standard of living.
The average percentage of deprivation experienced by people in multidimensional poverty is 54 per cent.
The MPI, which is the share of the population that is multi-dimensionally poor, adjusted by the intensity of the deprivations, is 0.275.Pakistan’s “HDI neighbors”, India and Bangladesh, have MPIs of 0.296 and 0.291, respectively.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/27/pakistan-among-top-10-nations-in-human-development-improvement.html
Here's an excerpt from Dr. Ishrat Husain's comp of India-Pak economy:
Pakistan is one of the few developing countries that has achieved an average annual
growth rate of over 5 percent over the six decades. Consequently, the incidence of poverty has
declined from 40 percent to 24 percent. The salient features of Pakistan’s economic history are
summarized below:
• A country with 30 million people in 1947 that couldn’t feed itself and had to import all its
food requirements is not only able to fulfill the domestic needs of 170 million people at a
much higher per capita consumption level, but also exports wheat and rice .
• An average Pakistani earned about $ 1050 in 2009 compared to less than $ 100 in 1947.
In US current dollar terms the per capita income has expanded almost ten fold.
• Agriculture production has risen five times with cotton attaining a level of more than 12
million bales compared to 1 million bales in 1947. Pakistan has emerged as one of the
leading world exporter of textiles.
• Manufacturing production index is well over 13,000 with the base of 100 in 1947. Steel,
cement, automobiles, sugar, fertilizer, cloth and vegetable ghee, industrial chemicals,
refined petroleum and a variety of other products are manufactured for the domestic
market and in many cases for the world market too.
• Per capita electricity generation has reached 10,160 kwh compared to 100 in 1947.
Pakistan’s vast irrigation network of large storage reservoirs and dams, barrages, link
canals constructed during the last five decades has enabled the country to double the area
under cultivation to 22 million hectares. Tubewell irrigation provides almost one third of
additional water to supplement canal irrigation.
• The road and highway network in Pakistan spans 250,000 km-more than five times the
length inherited in 1947. Modern motorways and super highways and four lane national
highways link the entire country along with secondary and tertiary roads.
• Natural gas was discovered in the country in the 1950s and 32 billion cubic feet of
natural gas is generated, transmitted and distributed for industrial, commercial and
domestic consumption accounting for 50 percent of the country’s energy needs.
• Private consumption standards have kept pace with the rise in income. There are 52 road
vehicles for 1000 persons relative to only one vehicle for the same number of population
in 1947. Phone connections have reached 100 million from almost scratch. TV sets which
were non-existent adorn 62 out of every 1,000 houses.
http://www.iba.edu.pk/News/speechesarticles_drishrat/Indo_Pak_economies_compared.pdf
Here's an excerpt from an interesting Op Ed in Foreign Policy Mag by Mosharraf Zaidi on Memogate:
...On both ends of the political spectrum in Pakistan, memogate will inspire high-strung, virtuoso performances, dripping with both the intellect and emotion that are signs of a people fully alive to the state of their country and the challenges it faces. Some will be appalled that someone (allegedly) sought an improved civil-military balance through cloak-and-dagger means. Some will be appalled that an attempt to fix this balance may force an elected government to toe the line of unelected soldiers and spies.
But ultimately, the vibrancy of Pakistani discourse is a good sign: Despite the menacing insecurity and instability that so many Pakistanis have endured in recent years, we can still have a robust, frank discussion about our problems.
Yet, as memogate consumes the national attention, three other robust debates are taking place across the country -- and they are just as important. In Sindh, the spiritual and political epicenter of the ruling PPP, a debate rages over what model of local government should be applied to the Pakistani megacity of Karachi. In Punjab, a province with a population of 90 million, the surging popularity of retired cricket star Imran Khan and his nationalist Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) party have captivated the national imagination with a message of hope for the future. Perhaps most heartening of all, in the Pakistani capital Islamabad this week, the much-maligned parliament, the most formal and most supreme of national institutions, just approved the Anti-Women Practices Bill of 2011, which bans and criminalizes many of the medieval customs that have so often enabled a systemic violation of women's rights. This is how politics is supposed to work, in a country where for decades it has not. ...
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Luckily, Pakistan is a big, and surprisingly resilient country. It can absorb mistakes. The accumulated mistakes of recent years have conspired to create some valuable points of national consensus. Pakistan's independent judiciary is not the only accessible example. Even when it comes to memogate, there is a rough consensus out there. Among even the most extreme partisans, no one has argued against the need to address and resolve the civil-military imbalance.
No one has argued that our institutions are particularly strong. No one will dare advocate that individuals should again be allowed to run government on a whim. In the deafening cacophony of dissent generated by the cutthroat, 24-hour news media in Pakistan, it is vital to remember just how much Pakistanis agree on.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/18/the_silver_lining_in_memogate
As per Economic Survey of Pakistan, roads have become the most important segment of transport sector in Pakistan. In 1947, reliance on roads was only 8%, however, currently, it accounts for 92% of national passenger traffic and 96% of freight. However, neglect of other modes of transportation (particularly Railways) in favor of improvement of the road infrastructure has been a prevalent problem in the country s transportation sector.
In the year 1996-97, Pakistan Railway had 10.45% share of passenger traffic and 5.17% of freight traffic, which has dropped to 9. 95% and 4. 72% respectively by the year 2006-07, according to Economic Survey of Pakistan.
Primarily on account of increasing preference for road transport by passengers as well as goods forwarders over rail transport and owing to a diversion of already scarce resources towards the expansion of the road network, the performance and condition of Pakistan Railways has declined and its share of inland traffic (if compared with the early 70s) has reduced from 41% to 10% for passenger and 73% to 4% for freight traffic.
The above qualitative and quantitative analysis reveals that Pakistan Railways has lost its significance and it is no more an attractive mode of transport. The railwaymen have to realise this fact and forget Railways has absolute benefits over road transport and that the Railways is the biggest mode of transport. It is a requirement today that rail transport is restricted to and enhanced on the corridors where long haul and mass scale traffic both for passengers and freights is available, and where there is sufficient revenue generation to bear the O&M (Operation & Maintenance) cost.
http://finance.kalpoint.com/economic-updates/exclusive-articles/railways-still-in-a-quagmire.html
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The government, in close collaboration with the World Bank, is preparing a detailed road map for revitalizing the cash starved Pakistan Railways that requires a multi-billion dollar injection over the medium to long term to ensure a complete turnaround, official documents available with The News disclosed on Sunday.
The government had constituted a Core Team, as specified by the Planning Commission, which was assigned to formulate a Pakistan Railways Issue Note (PRIN) based on a rapid governance analysis. According to the PRIN executive summary Pakistan Railways (PR) has been facing serious crisis since 2007-08 as its passenger traffic reduced by 16 percent and freight traffic (on a tonne-kilometer basis) by 70 percent. Revenues of PR has fallen by 6 percent while working expense increased by 80 percent with labor related costs and pensions being 120 percent of revenue in 2010-11.
Under the current organization structure and financial arrangement, the executive summary states, it would be very difficult for PR to even return to break-even on working expenses without radical surgery. In the absence of substantial reforms, PR will almost certainly suffer a continuing decline, slowly but steadily becoming almost irrelevant to the general economy of the country.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=10601&Cat=13
Pakistan Taliban battered and splintering, reports AP-CBS:
Battered by Pakistani military operations and U.S. drone strikes, the once-formidable Pakistani Taliban has splintered into more than 100 smaller factions, weakened and is running short of cash, according to security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland.
The group, allied with al-Qaida and based in the northwest close to the Afghan border, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last 4 1/2 years. Known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP, the Taliban want to oust the U.S.-backed government and install a hard-line Islamist regime. They also have international ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010.
"Today, the command structure of the TTP is splintered, weak and divided and they are running out of money," said Mansur Mahsud, a senior researcher at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Center. "In the bigger picture, this helps the army and the government because the Taliban are now divided."
The first signs of cracks within the Pakistani Taliban appeared after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a drone strike in August 2009, Mahsud said. Since then, the group has steadily deteriorated.
Set up in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban is an umbrella organization created to represent roughly 40 insurgent groups in the tribal belt plus al-Qaida-linked groups headquartered in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province.
"In the different areas, leaders are making their own peace talks with the government," Mahsud added. "It could help the Pakistani government and military separate more leaders from the TTP and more foot soldiers from their commanders."
The two biggest factors hammering away at the Taliban's unity are U.S. drone strikes and Pakistani army operations in the tribal region.
Turf wars have flared as militants fleeing the Pakistani military operations have moved into territory controlled by other militants, sometimes sparking clashes between groups. And as leaders have been killed either by drones or the Pakistani army, lieutenants have fought among themselves over who will replace them.
"The disintegration ... has accelerated with the Pakistan military operation in South Waziristan and the drone attacks by the United States in North Waziristan," Mahsud said, referring to the two tribal agencies that are the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban.
Another factor is the divide-and-conquer strategy Pakistan's military has long employed in its dealings with militants. Commanders have broken away from the TTP and set up their own factions, weakening the organization. Battles have broken out among the breakaway factions, and in one particularly remote tribal region the TTP was thrown out. These growing signs of fissures among the disparate groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban indicate the military's strategy could be paying off.
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Analysts predict that over time, however, the internecine feuding in the Pakistani Taliban will take a toll on militants fighting in Afghanistan, making it increasingly difficult for them to find recruits and restricting territory available to them.
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Cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan suffered a serious setback a week ago when NATO aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. The Nov. 26 incident seems certain to blunt any prospect of Pakistan taking direct steps to curb the Haqqani network, analysts say.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501712_162-57336276/pakistani-taliban-splintering-into-factions/
Pakistan is one of six countries invited to join UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) as a permanent member. The other 5 Invitees are Belarus, Finland, the Republic of Korea, Spain and Ukraine.
The committee now consists of 26 permanent members, including
.Argentina
•Australia
•Belgium
•Brazil
•Canada
•China
•Egypt
•France
•Germany
•India
Indonesia
•Japan
•Mexico
•Peru
•Poland
•Russia
•Slovakia
•Sudan
•Sweden
•UK
•USA
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N11/582/28/PDF/N1158228.pdf?OpenElement
Daily Times report on Pakistan joining international railway org:
As part of its endeavor to expand rail network to Europe, Central Asian Republics (CARs) and Middle East, Pakistan is set to become member of Intergovernmental Organization for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) soon, said Minister for Railways Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour on Sunday.
Talking to media, the minister said the federal cabinet had already given its consent for the membership.
Set up in 1985, OTIF was principally aimed to develop uniform law applicable to the international carriage of passengers and freight through traffic by rail.
Currently, 46 states are OTIF members. The European Union acceded to this uniform law, COTIF in July 2011.
The OTIF membership would help Pakistan to have contracts of carriage for the international carriage of passengers and goods, dangerous goods, use of vehicles, use of railway infrastructure and validation of technical standards and adoption of uniform technical prescriptions for railway material.
In this connection, a capacity building and awareness workshop was held here in which the top management of OTIF and ECO briefed the representatives of Ministries of Railways, Communication, Commerce, Finance and other stakeholders about the potentials of the membership and how to deal with the future matters.
Bilour said there was no bottleneck in getting the OTIF membership. He said now the Railways Ministry would move a summary to the Prime Minister for final approval and once the process is finalised, Pakistan would be in the position to expand its international rail operations to other regions.
The railways minister said the things were moving ahead smoothly and the membership process would be completed within two to three months.
He said as India was not yet a member of OTIF, Pakistan would also have a competitive edge to spread its trade route to the region that has vast potential for international trade.
The ECO countries route to Istanbul-Islamabad via Tehran is operating successfully, however some issues were identified while heading forward to other regions those would be resolved once the country becomes part of OTIF family, Bilour added.
He said currently eight trains were plying between Pakistan, Iran and Turkey having transit time of 11 days, but the service faced issues including lack of central monitoring mechanism to watch the running of trains, error in the preparation of railway receipts and mechanism to address the dispute between consignee, consignor and carrier. Bilour told media that the government was also working on new tracks including Peshawar–Jalalabad (140 km) and Chaman–Kandhar (107 km).
Bilour said the Railways Ministry was in touch with Islamic Development Bank involving the ECO Secretariat to rehabilitate Quetta-Taftan link to curtail transit time.
He said Pakistan having its border links with Afghanistan, Iran, China and India has the shortest link to Arabian Sea, as besides Karachi, Bin Qasim and Gawadar sea ports help increase maritime activity and bulk transportation to landlocked countries.The minister said the WTO regime, reconstruction of Afghanistan and rising trade links with CAR are compelling the needs to develop international corridors.
He said the government was now encouraging the private sector to invest in railways under public-private partnership mode in conformity with the assets especially shortage of locomotives, though efforts are also underway to restructure and corporatise the railways.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\12\12\story_12-12-2011_pg7_17
Here's a review of "Back to Pakistan: A 50 Years Journey" by Leslie Noyes Mass, a US Peace Corp volunteer:
Mass discovered a significantly different country: more education for young children, an exploding population, and a country not nearly as friendly to the United States as it was when she was there years ago. I wouldn’t call any of these changes a great surprise, yet I found Back to Pakistan totally engaging for the contrasts I have already mentioned—plus the mirroring of some of the experiences I encountered as a volunteer in Nigeria.
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Shift to 2009. Mass returns to Pakistan with several others, including people who were in the Peace Corps all those years ago. She’s been teaching for decades, earned a doctorate in early and middle school education, and retired from her job as director of an educational program at Ohio Wesleyan University. She’s a pro, accustomed to training teachers, which she and her friends will do in Pakistan for several months. They have been successful with making arrangements with The Citizens Foundation (TCF), a private organization that has set up several hundred schools across the country since the government-sponsored schools are sadly lacking. TCF has had major successes in the country, largely because of its curriculum and the dedication of its teachers who are women only.
Mass, thus, in 2009 is part volunteer, part educational expert, part tourist, keenly attuned to all the differences in the country from the first time she worked there. The activities with TCF are totally professional, and instantly rewarding. But it is an incident related to her by Ateed Riaz, one of the organization’s founding directors, that is most revealing to Mass (and to this reader), providing the context for the country’s education and development: “A friend of mine went to the city of Medina and went to a woman squatting on the floor selling something. He negotiated with her, but she would not sell to him. She said, ‘If you like it, buy it from that other tradeswoman. I will not sell it to you.’ So he got a local to come and talk to her in her own language. She talked to the local and explained that she had already sold enough that day and that other woman had not yet sold any, so I should buy from her. The message is clear: We need to help each other."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/30/pakistan-fifty-years-later/
Here are some of the lyrics of political song by Wasu, a Baloch from a remote village in Balochistan, and Pakistani singer-song writer Shehzad Roy:
Apne Ulloo Lyrics
[Wassu]
Quaid-e-Azam aya angrezo ko bhagaya
Pakistan banaya teera maah chalaya
Ziarat ke dourey par aya maut ne isko bulaya
Dunya aakhir fani chor dya usko
Jani sacha tha Pakistani
Karachi mein dafnaya poora dunya aya
phoolon ka chadar chadaya
phir noton par photo aya
goro ko tune bhagya
Quaid-e-Azam ke baad baba jo bhi aata hai
apna ulloo seedha karta hai
[Shehzad Roy]
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
[Wassu]
Liaquat Ali Khan aya usko aamro ne marwaya
Iskandar Mirza aya usne nahin chalaya
General Ayub Khan aya marital law lagaya
Mirza ko bahadur banaya
1965 ka jang laraya Shastri ko maar bhagaya
Aisa sabak seekha moo tod jawab dilaya
[Nehr] bhi banwaya isne bhi nahin chalaya
Sir baad mein aya Yahya Khan adha Pakistan ganwaya
Fauj ko qaid karwaya Bangladesh chinaya
Isne bhi nahin chalaya
[Shehzad Roy]
Taale, waadey, signal, dil sabkuch toda kuch nahin choda
kuch nahin choda
Do number kaamon mein bhi hum number two
hum number two
Kar Allah hoo
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
[Wassu]
Bhutoo sahab jab aya aisa nizam chalaya
Pehle qaidy chudaya zameen takseem karwaya
Haari aur mazdooro ko dilwaya
Miloo ko taala lagwaya one unit toodwaya
Sarkari khatam karaya roti kapre ka nara lagaya
Sarmayadaro ne socha isse kabhi na hoga
mansooba banaya Zia-ul-Haq mangwaya bhutto ko qaid karwaya
Kasuri ka case chalaya suli par latqaya
Sir Marshal Law lagaya Junejo ko mangwaya Wazeer-e-Azam banaya
Usko mazool karwaya referendum karaya Khud ko bhi chunwaya
Bhutto ko bhi bhagaya court mein tune lagaya jailon mein bandh karwaya
11 saal chalaya
[Shehzad Roy]
koi rule nahin hai rule yehi yeh baat sahi taariq ne ki
taariq ne ki
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
[Wassu]
Rangeene ne Rang dikhaya Jaahaz uska giraya Islamabad dafnaya
Ghulam Ishaq Khan aya mehangayi ko bharhaya 500rs bori aate ka bharhaya
Ghareebo ko bhookh maraya aik saal PPP ko diya usko mazool kya
Nawaz Sharif ko mangaya wazeer-e-azam banwaya uksko mazool karwaya
Moin Qureshi aya emandari nibhaya vote jald karwaya
Fauj ko bulwaya dhandhali se bachaya jeet gya hai PPP
Benazir jab aya bijli aur gas dilwaya thoda tankha barhaya
Farooq ko sadar banaya siyasi chakar aya farooq ko gussa aya
Assemblies khatam karwaya nigrah wazeer bhitaya
Nishan tha jiska cheetah Nawaz Sharif ne jeeta
Aaane mein aaya 300 tankha barhaya
Bhai logo ko danda chadhaya aathwi tarmeem khatam karaya
Aate ki kilat karwaya Aik peice PAKISTAN ka America se atta karwaya
Soobha Baluchistan ke zilah Chagi mein aitamy dhamaka karwaya
Pervez Musharaff aya Nawwz sharif ko hataya aghwah ka kais chalwaya
100 takhwa barhaya karzey wapis karwaya Nawaz Sharif ko qaid sunwaya
mulk badar bhi karwaya aisa kaam karwaya ke tarar ko tune bhagaya
khud ko tune sadar banaya referendum karwaya khud ko jeetaya
intekhabad karwaya Jamali sahab ko wazeer-e-azam banwaya
Jamali ne jurat aur bahaduri yehi dikhaya ke apna mohallah azad karwaya
[Shehzad Roy]
Sab hazm kiya sab khatam kya hum phir denge woh kaahe ge
Hum peeche hai hat jaye to backing to gayi voting bhi gayi
voting bhi gayi
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
Apne Ulloo kitne taire ap tak na hue yeh seedhe
Apne Ulloo korey korey woh yehi pe hai korey korey
[Wassu]
Shehzad Roy ne gaana banaya kisi ko samaj na aya
Angelina Jolie aya baba sab ko samaj aya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiExJqEQQ7M
Here are excerpts of an AP report taking about how much Pakistan has changed:
Pakistan appears on the brink of chaos again, with the judiciary and army bearing down on its elected leaders. But already the crisis has underlined how Pakistan has changed in recent years: The military can no longer simply march in and seize power as it has done three times over the last six decades.
As a result, opportunities remain for both sides to back down. The civilian government may be able to ride it out until elections now seen likely in late summer.
"If this were the '90s, there would have been a coup a year ago," said Moeed Yusuf of the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace.
A watchful media poised to hound the generals — and a populace under few illusions that the top brass can be saviors after failing so many times before — seem to have acted as a brake on any designs by the army. The judiciary itself, although regarded by some as out to get President Asif Ali Zardari, would not sanction a coup.
It's also unclear how much of an appetite the judges have for dismissing a government that heads a coalition with a solid majority in parliament and with just one year left before it has to call elections.
Opposition parties are happy to see the government weakened. But the country's largest party, that of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is no fan of the army and might not want to come to power on the shoulders of a military intervention.
"The status quo remains, despite all the institutions coming to a head. Every scenario you paint, there will be chaos and no one benefits," Yusuf said.
To be sure, tensions are higher now than they have ever been since Zardari took office in 2008, and the crisis could yet turn in unpredictable and dangerous directions. The political turmoil has all but paralyzed governance in the nuclear-armed country, hampering American hopes of rebuilding strained ties with Islamabad and securing its help with negotiating peace in neighboring Afghanistan.
Last week, coup jitters spread after the army issued an unusual warning of "grievous consequences" for the country over a scandal involving an unsigned memo sent last year to Washington asking for U.S. help in preventing a coup in the aftermath of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
But pundits and government critics alike have been predicting the imminent fall of either Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani or the government they head for much of the past four years. Each time, they have been proven wrong.
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Many observers suspect Zardari's party is happy to play up conflict with the army and the judges because it diverts attention from its paltry list of achievements in office. The party may even embrace the prospect of being kicked out because it would fire up its base ahead of elections.
The Pakistan People's Party has a long history of battles with the army. Benazir Bhutto's father, Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed by a military dictator in 1979. Zardari himself was elected on a massive sympathy vote after Benazir Bhutto's Dec. 27, 2007 assassination, which the party was happy to hint could have been orchestrated by elements of the army establishment.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-215_162-57360340/analysis-pakistani-crisis-shows-armys-limits/
Here are highlights of a presentation on Pakistan's cement manufacturing sector:
Beginning with just 500,000 tons in 1947, Pakistan's cement production almost tripled from 16 million tons in 2000 to 44 million tons in 2010.
At 145 Kg per person, Pakistan's cement consumption is up from 75 Kg in 2003, but still about half of the world per capita consumption average of 270 Kg.
http://www.slideshare.net/msaadafridi/cement-industry-of-pakistan
Pakistani political parties campaigning in FATA for the first time in history, reports Miami Herald:
For the first time ever, political parties have started campaigning for votes in the militant-infested tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, ahead of a general election likely within the next 12 months.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in August lifted a 64-year ban on political party activity in the seven federally administered tribal areas, saying the reforms would help defeat the "militant mindset" there.
However, the politicians leading party campaigns in the tribal areas fear that intimidation by the Taliban and human rights abuses by Pakistani security authorities could make a free and fair election virtually impossible.
In the tribal areas, "there is no political government, but one run by the security authorities ... who are responsible for the widespread disappearances of residents suspected of involvement in the insurgency," said Maulana Rahat Hussain, a former senator.
"As long as power remains delegated to them, the democratic process won't work," he said.
Hussain is leading electioneering in the tribal areas for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, or JUI. The country's most popular religious party, the JUI is a former ally of the Pakistani Taliban that broke with the group when it launched an insurgency in 2007. The Taliban subsequently started suicide attacks against the party's leadership, killing several prominent cleric-politicians, and only just missing its chief, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman.
The JUI has held political rallies across the tribal areas over the last two weeks, including one at Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban insurgents.
The mountainous Dattakhel area neighboring Mir Ali is also a haven for fugitive al Qaida leaders and has been a focal point of U.S. drone strikes since 2009.
Hussain said the Taliban distributed pamphlets in the area warning residents not to attend the rally in Mir Ali and threatened him personally. Photographs of JUI cleric-politicians in the company of women in fancy clothes — taken at a wedding — were also distributed in an attempt to defame them among their conservative base, he added.
Nonetheless, the JUI rally attracted an estimated 15,000 tribesmen, local journalists said.
JUI candidates — contesting as independents because of the ban on parties — won National Assembly seats in North Waziristan and neighboring South Waziristan in 1997 and 2008, the first elections held in the tribal areas in which all adults were allowed to vote. In practice, however, that meant only that males could vote, because tribal traditions prevented women from casting ballots.
Despite Zardari's reforms, the estimated 5 million residents of the region are still governed largely by 19th century British colonial laws and don't enjoy the fundamental rights guaranteed by Pakistan's constitution.
Most power remains in the hands of administrators known as political agents, who enforce law and order through tribal and clan councils that, in turn, are collectively responsible for the areas they live in. The agents use paramilitary forces to punish the clans and tribes, often by levying massive fines, demolishing homes and barring them access to settled areas of Pakistan, politicians said.
The reforms have set up an appeals process for residents to contest abuses, but only to a tribunal headed by a senior civil servant. They continue to have no access to Pakistan's Supreme Court — which would leave politicians no legal recourse to contest voting irregularities, secular parties said.........
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/30/2615874/parties-campaign-in-pakistans.html
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