Saturday, February 28, 2015

Politically Correct UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Silent on Jewish Dominance

''The Hollywood Jews created a powerful cluster of images and ideas - so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination.''  Neil Gabler "An Empire of Their Own"
The 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report released this week by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA suggests that the media and entertainment industry is dominated by white men.

The UCLA report finds that only 16.7 percent of film leads, 17.8 percent of film directors, and 11.8 percent of movie writers between 2011 and 2013 were people of color. What the report fails to mention is the obvious fact that most white men dominating Hollywood are Jews.



How dominant are Jews in the American media and entertainment industry? Jewish-American journalist Joel Stein answered this question as follows in a piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times back in 2008:

How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.

The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG (Screen Actors Guild) President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.) The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.

I think the reason for such absolute Jewish dominance of the entertainment landscape may have something to do with the fact that "Jews Invented Hollywood" when some of the Jewish producers moved from East Coast to sunny Southern California for abundant, cheap, non-union labor. It's a fact that's been well documented in Neal Gabler's "An Empire of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood".  Gabler summed it up as follows: ''The Hollywood Jews created a powerful cluster of images and ideas - so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination.''  The most famous of these "Hollywood Jews" were Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle, William Fox, Harry Cohn and the Warner Brothers. However, I still find it hard to explain how such dominance has been maintained over a century.

In my view, ethnic, racial and gender diversity sought by the authors of the UCLA Diversity report is a good thing. However, I believe diversity of opinion in the mainstream media and entertainment industry is far more important in terms of shaping of public opinion to serve the best interest of people of the United States. Such a diversity of views in the US media would have helped keep this country out of unnecessary costly wars such as the Iraq war in recent years.  That's the kind of diversity we all should be striving for.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Are Jews Culprits of Collapse on Wall Street?

Occupy Wall Street Anti-Semitic?

Jewish Power in US Congress

India's Washington Lobby Emulates AIPAC 

Gaza Compared With Nazi Concentration Camps

Media Manufacturing Consent

US Media Role in Supporting Iraq Invasion

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Pakistan Launches World's Largest and Fastest Biometric Data Collection Effort

Pakistan has started verifying identities of over 135 million cell phone users through fingerprints. The massive exercise is being described by Washington Post as the "world’s largest — and fastest — efforts to collect biometric information". The deadline for completion is March 14, 2015.


Several countries, including South Africa and India, have recently implemented broad systems for collecting and storing their citizens biometric information. But analysts and communications experts say they can’t recall a country trying to gather biometrics as rapidly as Pakistan is doing, according to the Washington-based American newspaper.


In addition to setting up biometric verification systems at tens of thousands of retail points run by carriers, the cellphone companies have launched massive advertising campaigns and sent mobile vans around the country to accelerate the process. About half of all SIMs have so far been verified.

The companies are warning subscribers that their SIM (subscriber identity module) cards will not work unless the owners' fingerprints are  entered and verified against the database maintained by the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA). They have to show their computerized national identity cards (CNICs) and fingerprints. If the scanner matches their print with the one in a government database, they can keep their SIM card. If not, or if they don't show up, their cellphone service is cut off.

The current SIM registration drive is part of the government's new counter terrorism campaign. Cellphones have been used in the past to detonate explosive devices as well as to make extortion calls. Identification of SIM cards is expected to discourage such acts of terror and help track down the perpetrators.

The use of Big Data like Pakistan's biometric database is not limited to catching terrorists and criminals. It can also be used to significantly improve governance. Here's how Tariq Malik, the architect of Pakistan's NADRA, describes it in a recent piece for Forbes magazine:

BIG Data can now be leveraged for a variety of public uses, and re-uses. It can strengthen the link between citizens and state to enhance state capacity, and its applications are varied—ranging from disaster management to social service delivery.  

Collecting, storing and processing structured and unstructured information is an endeavor that is both massive and meticulous. But thanks to advancing big data technology, it’s more feasible today than ever before. BIG Data can now be leveraged for a variety of public uses, and re-uses. It can strengthen the link between citizens and state to enhance state capacity, and its applications are varied—ranging from disaster management to social service delivery. 

Consider Pakistan’s National Database And Registration Authority (NADRA) that houses one of the world’s largest multi-biometric citizens database, consisting of ten fingerprints, digital photographs and biographic attributes of each citizen. More than 121 million identities are stored in this database. When floods suddenly hit Pakistan in 2010, over 20 million citizens were displaced. Government wanted to provide monetary subsistence and aid for the rehabilitation and reconstruction effort; however, the problem was that while traditional aid could be dropped via helicopter, cash could not. They were further challenged with verifying claimants; specifically, identifying whether or not they belonged to a calamity hit area. 

 How could Pakistan support those affected by the disaster? The NADRA had a simple task to perform: cross verify citizen thumb prints with information stored in its database, then check their permanent address. The result was nothing short of miraculous. Essentially, big data allowed policymakers to know who the victims were and where they lived at the time of the crisis. Smart cards were quickly loaded with cash to help victims with rehabilitation efforts. More than $1 billion U.S. was disbursed without a single misappropriated penny. The process was swift and transparent, and international auditors were taken aback. 

All of this made international aid donors happy, since it cut down their cost of administration, eliminated doubts of corruption and narrowed the trust deficit. But more importantly, the state enforced its writ and citizens realized for the first time that the state is there for them in times of need. 

At last count, just 800,000 of Pakistan’s 180 million people paid direct taxes. Integrating data across various government databases, then reconciling it with the citizen database along with NADRA big data analytics helped identify 3.5 million tax evaders. It is estimated that if a basic minimum tax rate were applied, Pakistan would have $3.5 billion right away. Although big data analytics is no substitute for radical reform, it at least generates a healthy debate for tax reform. 

It’s been argued that state capacity is essentially “extractive capacity”; the ability to effectively tax its citizens and plough it back for public welfare. Advanced data analytics on big data provides an important linchpin in this ongoing debate. As NADRA’s experience illustrates, many fragile states face an even more basic challenge: the ability to accurately count and register its citizens. To collect and process big data in a way that does not compromise citizen privacy can have powerful development externalities, including the ability to build state capacity through tax collection—and avoid approaching the International Monetary Fund with a begging bowl. 

Big data analytics for government is a rapidly evolving field, offering exciting opportunities that, when explored and applied, can help fragile states uncover powerful and effective methods for optimizing governance.


Related Links:

Haq's Musings

NADRA Case Study

Pakistan Leads in Biometric IT Services

3G-4G Rollout in Pakistan 

Is India's AAdhaar Copied From Pakistan's NADRA?

Mobile Broadband in Pakistan









Wednesday, February 25, 2015

India Rising? Pakistan Rapidly Collapsing?

Is it true that "India is rising and Pakistan is rapidly collapsing", the currently accepted western narrative recently re-iterated by Roger Cohen in his New York Times Op Ed from Lahore, Pakistan? Let's examine it by reviewing reports filed by several Indian journalists after their recent visits to Pakistan:

"India is a democracy and a great power rising. Pakistan is a Muslim homeland that lost half its territory in 1971, bounced back and forth between military and nominally democratic rule, never quite clear of annihilation angst despite its nuclear weapons".

Roger Cohen's  New York Times Op Ed "Pakistan in Its Labyrinth"

"I.. saw much in this recent visit (to Pakistan) that did not conform to the main Western narrative for South Asia -- one in which India is steadily rising and Pakistan rapidly collapsing. Born of certain geopolitical needs and exigencies, this vision was always most useful to those who have built up India as an investment destination and a strategic counterweight to China....Seen through the narrow lens of the West’s security and economic interests, the great internal contradictions and tumult within these two large nation-states disappear. In the Western view, the credit-fueled consumerism among the Indian middle class appears a much bigger phenomenon than the extraordinary Maoist uprising in Central India".  

Pankaj Mishra's Bloomberg Op Ed "Pakistan’s Unplanned Revolution Rewrites Its Future"

Compare and contrast the two narratives of two seasoned journalists, American Roger Cohen and Indian Pankaj Mishra, on their  recent Pakistan visits. Note Mishra's explanation of why the western media is parroting the standard post Cold War western narrative about India and Pakistan as "seen through the narrow lens of the West’s security and economic interests", "born of certain geopolitical needs and exigencies".

Now read the following post titled Indians Share "Eye-Opener" Stories of Pakistan that I wrote in July 2012.  It's reproduced below:

Several prominent Indian journalists and writers have visited Pakistan in recent years for the first time in their lives.  I am sharing with my readers selected excerpts of the reports from Mahanth Joishy (USIndiaMonitor.com), Panakaj Mishra (Bloomberg), Hindol Sengupta (The Hindu), Madhulika Sikka (NPR) and Yoginder Sikand (Countercurrents) of what they saw and how they felt in the neighbor's home. My hope is that their stories will help foster close ties between the two estranged South Asian nations.

Mahanth S. Joishy, Editor, usindiamonitor.com :  (July, 2012)

Many of us travel for business or leisure.  But few ever take a trip that dramatically shatters their entire worldview of a country and a people in one fell swoop.  I was lucky enough to have returned from just such a trip: a week-long sojourn in Pakistan.

It was a true eye-opener, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that.  Many of the assumptions and feelings I had held toward the country for nearly 30 years were challenged and exposed as wrong and even ignorant outright.
 ------------------------------
 The Western and Indian media feed us a steady diet of stories about bomb blasts, gunfights, kidnappings, torture, subjugation of women, dysfunctional government, and scary madrassa schools that are training the next generation of jihadist terrorists.  And yes, to many Westerners and especially Indians, Pakistan is the enemy, embodying all that is wrong in the world.  Incidents such as the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, 26/11 and the Osama Bin Laden raid in Abottobad have not helped the cause either.  Numerous international relations analysts proclaim that  Pakistan is “the most dangerous place in the world” and the border with India is “the most dangerous border in the world.”
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(Upon arrival in Karachi) two uniformed bodyguards with rifles who were exceedingly friendly and welcoming climbed onto the pickup truck bed as we started on a 45-minute drive.  I was impressed by the massive, well-maintained parks and gardens surrounding the airport.  I was also impressed by the general cleanliness, the orderliness of the traffic, the quality of the roads, and the greenery. Coming from a city government background, I was surprised at how organized Karachi was throughout the ride.  I also didn’t see many beggars the entire way.  I had just spent significant amounts of time in two major Indian cities, Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as several second-tier cities like Mangalore, and none would compare favorably on maintenance and city planning, especially when it came to potholes and waste management.  This was the first surprise; I was expecting that piles of garbage and dirt would line the roads and beggars would overflow onto the streets.  Surely there is dirt and poverty in Karachi, but far less than I was expecting.  Karachi was also less dense and crowded than India’s cities.


My second pleasant surprise was to see numerous large development projects under way.  I had read about Pakistan’s sluggish GDP growth and corruption in public works and foreign aid disbursement.  This may be true, but construction was going on all over the place: new movie theaters, new malls, new skyscrapers,  new roads, and entire new neighborhoods being built from scratch.  In this regard it was similar to India and every other part of Asia I had seen recently: new development and rapid change continues apace, something we are seeing less of in the West.
 -----------------------
 We were also able to do some things which may sound more familiar to Americans: bowling at Karachi’s first bowling alley, intense games of pickup basketball with some local teenagers at a large public park (these kids could really play), or passing through massive and well-appointed malls filled with thousands of happy people of all ages walking around, shopping, or eating at the food court.  We even attended a grand launch party for Magnum ice cream bars, featuring many of Pakistan’s A-list actors, models, and businesspeople.  A friend who is involved in producing musicals directed an excellent performance at the party, complete with live band, singing, and dancing.  This troupe, Made for Stage has also produced shows such as the Broadway musical Chicago to critical acclaim with an all-Pakistani cast for the first time in history.


Even the poor areas we visited, such as the neighborhoods around the Mazar, were filled with families coming out for a picnic or a stroll, enjoying their weekend leisure time in the sun.  All I could see were friendly and happy people, including children with striking features running around.  At no time did I feel the least bit unsafe anywhere we went, and we definitely went through a mix of neighborhoods with varying profiles.
 ------------------------------------------
 Lahore is more beautiful overall than Karachi or any large Indian city I’ve seen.  Serious effort has gone into keeping the city green and preserving its storied history.  Historians would have a field day here.  In particular we saw two stunning historic mosques, the Wazir Khan and the Badshahi, both of which should be considered treasures not only for Muslims, Pakistanis, or South Asia, but for all of humanity.  I felt it a crime that I’d never even heard of either one.  Each of them in different ways features breath-taking architecture and intricate artwork comparable to India’s Taj Mahal.  These are must-see sights for any tourist to Lahore.  The best way to enjoy the vista of the Badshahi mosque is to have a meal on the rooftop of one of the many superb restaurants on Food Street next to the mosque compound.  This interesting area was for hundreds of years an infamous red-light district, made up of a series of old wooden rowhouses that look like they were lifted straight out of New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, strangely juxtaposed with one of the country’s holiest shrines.  From the roof of Cuckoo’s Den restaurant, we could see all of the massive Badshahi complex along with the adjoining royal fortress, all while having a 5-star meal of kebabs, spicy curries in clay pots, and lassi under the stars.  We were fortunate to have very pleasant whether as well.  This alfresco dining experience with two good friends encompassed my favorite moments in the  city.


We did much more in Lahore.  We were given a tour of the renowned Aitchison College, which one of my friends attended.  This boys’ private prep school is known for its difficult entrance exams, rigorous academic tradition, illustrious list of alumni since the British founded the school, and its gorgeous and impeccably maintained 200-acre campus that  puts most major universities icluding my own Georgetown to shame.  Aitchison has been considered one of the best prep schools on the subcontinent since 1886.  However, it would have been impossible to get a tour without the alumni connection because security is very thorough.


Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg:  (April, 2012)

...I also saw much in this recent visit that did not conform to the main Western narrative for South Asia -- one in which India is steadily rising and Pakistan rapidly collapsing.

Born of certain geopolitical needs and exigencies, this vision was always most useful to those who have built up India as an investment destination and a strategic counterweight to China, and who have sought to bribe and cajole Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment into the war on terrorism.

Seen through the narrow lens of the West’s security and economic interests, the great internal contradictions and tumult within these two large nation-states disappear. In the Western view, the credit-fueled consumerism among the Indian middle class appears a much bigger phenomenon than the extraordinary Maoist uprising in Central India.
------------
Traveling through Pakistan, I realized how much my own knowledge of the country -- its problems as well as prospects -- was partial, defective or simply useless. Certainly, truisms about the general state of crisis were not hard to corroborate. Criminal gangs shot rocket-propelled grenades at each other and the police in Karachi’s Lyari neighborhood. Shiite Hazaras were being assassinated in Balochistan every day. Street riots broke out in several places over severe power shortages -- indeed, the one sound that seemed to unite the country was the groan of diesel generators, helping the more affluent Pakistanis cope with early summer heat.

In this eternally air-conditioned Pakistan, meanwhile, there exist fashion shows, rock bands, literary festivals, internationally prominent writers, Oscar-winning filmmakers and the bold anchors of a lively new electronic media. This is the glamorously liberal country upheld by English-speaking Pakistanis fretting about their national image in the West (some of them might have been gratified by the runaway success of Hello magazine’s first Pakistani edition last week).

But much less conspicuous and more significant, other signs of a society in rapid socioeconomic and political transition abounded. The elected parliament is about to complete its five- year term -- a rare event in Pakistan -- and its amendments to the constitution have taken away some if not all of the near- despotic prerogatives of the president’s office.

Political parties are scrambling to take advantage of the strengthening ethno-linguistic movements for provincial autonomy in Punjab and Sindh provinces. Young men and women, poor as well as upper middle class, have suddenly buoyed the anti-corruption campaign led by Imran Khan, an ex-cricketer turned politician.

After radically increasing the size of the consumerist middle class to 30 million, Pakistan’s formal economy, which grew only 2.4 percent in 2011, currently presents a dismal picture. But the informal sector of the economy, which spreads across rural and urban areas, is creating what the architect and social scientist Arif Hasan calls Pakistan’s “unplanned revolution.” Karachi, where a mall of Dubai-grossness recently erupted near the city’s main beach, now boasts “a first world economy and sociology, but with a third world wage and political structure.”

Even in Lyari, Karachi’s diseased old heart, where young gangsters with Kalashnikovs lurked in the alleys, billboards vended quick proficiency in information technology and the English language. Everywhere, in the Salt Range in northwestern Punjab as well as the long corridor between Lahore and Islamabad, were gated housing colonies, private colleges, fast- food restaurants and other markers of Pakistan’s breakneck suburbanization....

Hindol Sengupta, The Hindu: (May, 2010)

Add this bookstore to the list of India-Pakistan rivalry. A bookstore so big that it is actually called a bank. The book store to beat all bookstores in the subcontinent, I have found books I have never seen anywhere in India at the three-storeyed Saeed Book Bank in leafy Islamabad. The collection is diverse, unique and with a special focus on foreign policy and subcontinental politics (I wonder why?), this bookstore is far more satisfying than any of the magazine-laden monstrosities I seem to keep trotting into in India. ...







Yes, that's right. The meat. There always, always seems to be meat in every meal, everywhere in Pakistan. Every where you go, everyone you know is eating meat. From India, with its profusion of vegetarian food, it seems like a glimpse of the other world. The bazaars of Lahore are full of meat of every type and form and shape and size and in Karachi, I have eaten some of the tastiest rolls ever. For a Bengali committed to his non-vegetarianism, this is paradise regained. Also, the quality of meat always seems better, fresher, fatter, more succulent, more seductive, and somehow more tantalizingly carnal in Pakistan. ....

Let me tell you that there is no better leather footwear than in Pakistan. I bought a pair of blue calf leather belt-ons from Karachi two years ago and I wear them almost everyday and not a dent or scratch! Not even the slightest tear. They are by far the best footwear I have ever bought and certainly the most comfortable. Indian leather is absolutely no match for the sheer quality and handcraftsmanship of Pakistani leather wear.

Yes. Yes, you read right. The roads. I used to live in Mumbai and now I live in Delhi and, yes, I think good roads are a great, mammoth, gargantuan luxury! Face it, when did you last see a good road in India? Like a really smooth road. Drivable, wide, nicely built and long, yawning, stretching so far that you want zip on till eternity and loosen the gears and let the car fly. A road without squeeze or bump or gaping holes that pop up like blood-dripping kitchen knives in Ramsay Brothers films. When did you last see such roads? Pakistan is full of such roads. Driving on the motorway between Islamabad and Lahore, I thought of the Indian politician who ruled a notorious —, one could almost say viciously — potholed state and spoke of turning the roads so smooth that they would resemble the cheeks of Hema Malini. They remained as dented as the face of Frankenstein's monster. And here, in Pakistan, I was travelling on roads that — well, how can one now avoid this? — were as smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks! Pakistani roads are broad and smooth and almost entirely, magically, pot hole free. How do they do it; this country that is ostensibly so far behind in economic growth compared to India? But they do and one of my most delightful experiences in Pakistan has been travelling on its fabulous roads. No wonder the country is littered with SUVs — Pakistan has the roads for such cars! Even in tiny Bajaur in the North West frontier province, hard hit by the Taliban, and a little more than a frontier post, the roads were smoother than many I know in India. Even Bajaur has a higher road density than India! If there is one thing we should learn from the Pakistanis, it is how to build roads. And oh, another thing, no one throws beer bottles or trash on the highways and motorways.

Road to Daman-e-Koh, Margalla Hills, Islamabad, Pakistan



Madhulika Sikka, NPR News: (May, 2010)

This may be hard to believe, but the first thing that crosses your mind when you drive into Islamabad is suburban Virginia — its wide roads, modern buildings, cleanliness and orderliness is a complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of the ancient city of Lahore, some 220 miles east on the Grand Trunk Road.



Islamabad is laid out in a grid with numbered avenues running north to south. The streets are tree lined and flowers abound among the vast open stretches of green space.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful spots is the Margallah Hills National Park. Drive up the winding road on the northern edge of town to the scenic view points and you'll see the broad planned city stretch before you.
It's a Sunday afternoon and you could be in any park in any city in the world. Families are out for a stroll and picnicking on park benches. There's a popcorn vendor and an ice cream seller. Kids are playing on a big inflatable slide. Peacocks strut their full plumage as people are busily clicking away on their cellphone cameras. Lively music permeates the air as souvenir sellers are hawking their wares. Off one of the side paths I notice a young couple lunching at a bench, a respectable distance apart from each other but clearly wanting to be alone.

So what's it like here? It's pretty much like everywhere else. On a quiet Sunday afternoon people are out with their families, relaxing and enjoying themselves, taking a break from the stresses and strains of daily life. For all of us this is an image of Pakistan worth remembering. I certainly will.
Yoginder Sikand, Countercurrents.org : (June, 2008)

Islamabad is surely the most well-organized,picturesque and endearing city in all of South Asia. Few Indians would, however, know this, or, if they did, would admit it. After all, the Indian media never highlights anything positive about Pakistan, because for it only 'bad' news about the country appears to be considered 'newsworthy'. That realization hit me as a rude shock the moment I stepped out of the plane and entered Islamabad's plush International Airport, easily far more efficient, modern and better maintained than any of its counterparts in India. And right through my week-long stay in the city, I could not help comparing Islamabad favorably with every other South Asian city that I have visited. That week in Islamabad consisted essentially of a long string of pleasant surprises, for I had expected Islamabad to be everything that the Indian media so uncharitably and erroneously depicts Pakistan as. The immigration counter was staffed by a smart young woman, whose endearing cheerfulness was a refreshing contrast to the grave, somber and unwelcoming looks that one is generally met with at immigration counters across the world that make visitors to a new country feel instantly unwelcome.

Here's a Pakistan Pictorial:
Find more photos like this on PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Pakistan Won 1992 World Cup After Losing to India and West Indies

Pakistan cricket team has drawn widespread derision after performing miserably in its first two matches of World Cup 2015. Many Pakistanis are understandably very angry at the top batting order that fell like flies to create a new world record of the loss of 4 wickets in the first few minutes of the match against West Indies with the score stuck at 1 run.



While I agree with much of the criticism of the Pakistan cricket team for its poor performance seen so far, I do think the hysteria is unnecessary. All we have to do is to look at the history of Pakistan's performance in the 1992 World Cup which Pakistan won. 

Like the 2015 World Cup, the 1992 Cricket World Cup was hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Before going on to win the1992 World Cup, Pakistan lost badly to three teams: India, West Indies and South Africa. Here are the scores from these matches:

Pakistan (173 runs) lost to India (216/7) by 43 runs.

Pakistan (220/2) lost to West Indies (220/0) by 10 wickets. 

Pakistan (173/8) lost to South Africa (211/7) by 38 runs.

Pakistan were bowled out by England for  a meager 74 runs. Had luck not favored the Pakistanis with rain in England-Pakistan match, the "talented" 1992 players like Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Javed Miandad would not have gone on to win the 1992 World Cup. Instead, they would have returned home defeated.

1992 World Cup Points Table Source: Wikipedia

Pakistan side remains as talented and resilient but unpredictable as ever. While the start of the 2015 World Cup is terrible for Pakistan's national team, it's too early to write them off. Let's hope Pakistan can still repeat the 1992 performance yet again. 

Related Links:



Friday, February 20, 2015

Pakistan Sectarian Terror; China-Pak Corridor Route; India "Fishy" Boat Story

Why are the sectarian attacks on Pakistani Shia community continuing un-abated? What can be done to stop this carnage? Will Punjab government crack down harder on the Punjab-based sectarian outfits? 

What will be the outcome of President Obama's summit on "Countering Violent Extremism"? 

Has the PMLN government changed routing of China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) to run it through Punjab and Sindh at the expense of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan? Is this only an interim route to make CPEC operational more quickly by using existing infrastructure? Are there security and terrain challenges with the original route? Has China bought into this change? 

Is India engaged in cover-up with its constantly changing story of the Indian Coast Guard's unprovoked attack on a Pakistani fishing boat and the killing of innocent Pakistani fishermen?


ViewPoint from Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses these questions with well-known Pakistani journalist Raza Rumi in Washington and panelists Misbah Azam(politicsinpakistan.com) and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com) in Silicon Valley.

https://vimeo.com/120177474




Pakistan Sectarian Terror; China-Pak Corridor Route; India "Fishy" Boat Story from WBT TV on Vimeo.




http://youtu.be/FWdP_Za0W8E?list=UU1Jyz4s4GiXOtuV8lMwgdTQ

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Modi's Covert War Against Pakistan

Pak-China Industrial Corridor

Growing Intolerance in Pakistan

Viewpoint From Overseas Youtube Channel

Viewpoint From Overseas Vimeo Channel 

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Record Cement Sales Raise Hopes of Pakistan Economic Recovery

Domestic cement sales are up 9% year-over-year for the first 7 months of Pakistan's Fiscal 2014-15, according to media reports.  Overall, cement industry reports cement shipment of over 20 million tons in 7 months, a 6% annual increase with rising domestic demand offsetting falling exports due to weakness abroad.

Market capitalization of  Pakistani cement companies has jumped 70% last year, about 3 times more than the KSE-100 market index which rose 27% in 2014. This is the third consecutive year that cement companies have outperformed the broader market. Investors in Pakistan's cement sector have seen 600% rise in the last three years.

It appears that construction  sector is getting a boost from falling inflation and declining interest rates with a big drop in world oil prices. Domestic sales of 2.5 million tons a month translate to about 160 Kg per capita consumption of cement, the highest level in Pakistan's history.


















Pakistan saw its domestic cement consumption double from about 11 million tons in 2003 to 22 million tons in 2008 on President Musharraf's watch. It remained essentially flat from 2009 through 2011 before rising to a new high of 24 million tons in 2012. With expected GDP annual growth to average 4.5-5.5 per cent over the next 3 years, local cement sales could rise by 9 per cent on average annually to reach 34 million tons per year by 2017 and exports to 8 million tons per year.

Cement sales and building activity indicators are an important sign of the strength or weakness of the broader economy, due to construction's important role in the economic sector. If individuals and businesses are willing to invest in new construction, it is a sign that the economy is doing well or poised to recover. If they aren't, the economy may be weak or headed for trouble. Construction is a very labor-intensive activity which creates many new jobs. Higher employment drives consumer spending which further stimulates the national economy.

In addition to rising demand for housing and new commercial real-estate, major infrastructure and energy projects related to the China-Pakistan Industrial Corridor are expected to significantly boost domestic cement consumption and create millions of new jobs over the next several years.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

State Bank: Pakistan's Actual GDP Higher Than Official Figures

Investors Bullish on Pakistan Cement Sector

Pakistan Ranks in the Middle For Infrastructure and Logistics

China-Pakistan Industrial Corridor

India Fudging GDP to Claim Faster Growth Than China?

India-Pakistan Economic Comparison 2014


Thursday, February 12, 2015

Quest For Afghan Stability: China and Pakistan Join Hands; India Excluded

"India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".  US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel's rare candor endorses Pakistan's long-standing argument that India's use of Afghan territory to hurt Pakistan has been one of the main sources of instability in the region. Actions of the newly elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani seem to indicate that he agrees with Pakistan's position.  Here are some of the indications of the change of heart in Kabul:

1.  Immediately after the recent Afghan presidential vote, President Ashraf Ghani chose Beijing and Islamabad as the first two capitals to visit. He has not yet visited New Delhi.

2. President Ashraf Ghani has accepted Pakistan's offer to train Afghan Army. The first Afghan cadets began arriving in Pakistan this month. Note that India too had offered to train Afghan soldiers.

3. An Afghan Taliban delegation was recently hosted in Beijing for talks with Chinese officials. The December trip to Beijing by the Afghan Taliban delegation was the second in recent months. And it came weeks after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ’s visit to Beijing, his first official trip abroad, according to theWall Street Journal.

4. China is investing in the $3 billion Aynak copper mining project, the biggest single investment to date in Afghanistan. In Addition, China has announced plans to participate in building infrastructure projects like hydro-electric plants, railways and roads.


Further confirmation of the Afghan president's policy change can be seen in the official Afghan-Chinese-Pakistan trilateral talks in Kabul this week. On February 9, China’s assistant foreign minister, Liu Jianchao, joined his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in Kabul for the first round of a new trilateral strategic dialogue. The dialogue, attended by Liu, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, and Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai provided a tantalizing glimpse of what trilateral cooperation between these neighbors could mean for Afghan stability, according to a report in The Diplomat.

It appears from  credible reports in Washington that the Afghan-China-Pakistan trilateral effort has US backing. President Barack Obama wants to see a stable Afghanistan after the US troop withdrawal. He does not want to see in Afghanistan a replay what has happened in Iraq where terror groups like ISIS have fill the vacuum left by the United States.

There are clear signs that the new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has concluded that Pakistan is far more important as an Afghan partner for his nation's peace and prosperity than India or any other regional power. As the leader of a land-locked country heavily dependent on trade routes through Pakistan, Ghani knows the history of the border closures and transit trade interruptions that severely hurt the Afghan economy in 1950s and 1960s, and the US military supplies cut-off by Pakistan in 2011.

Though it may appear that New Delhi's exclusion from the Afghan-China-Pakistan trilateral effort to stabilize Afghanistan is a loss for India, the fact is that the Afghan stability is in the best long-term interest of the entire South Asia region. I hope the Indian leadership begins to recognizes this reality by stopping its efforts to undermine the trilateral initiative.


Aam Aadmi Party Sweep in Delhi; Afghan-Pakistan-China Trilateral Initiative from WBT TV on Vimeo.

http://youtu.be/tUvbnNeXlnU




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Political and Military Policy Response to Peshawar Attack

Taliban or RAW-liban?

Counter-insurgencyOperation ZarbeAzb

India's Abiding Hostility Toward Pakistan 

India's Israel Envy: Will Modi Attack Pakistan?

Who Killed Karkare?

CFR's View of the Taliban

India's Covert War in Pakistan

India and Balochistan

Obama's New Regional Strategy

Webchat On Obama's New Regional Strategy

Obama's Afghan Exit Strategy

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Pakistan Ranks in the Middle For Infrastructure and Logistics in 2014

The World Bank’s (WB) Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranks Pakistan at number 72 for 2014, out of 160 countries.



LPI  is ranking is based the efficiency of customs, border management and clearance as well as the quality of trade and transportation infrastructure. It also comprehends the quality of logistics services, the ability to track and trace consignments and the frequency at which shipments correctly reach their destinations on schedule.

The first LPI survey conducted in 2007 ranked Pakistan at number 68, which fell to a low of 110 in 2010 before recovering to 71st position in 2012.

Logistics performance is an important indicator of a nation's level of development and its ability to participate in global trade.



Another similarly important indicator is the ranking of a country on OECD survey of economic complexity compiled by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  This indicator comprehends the diversity of products ad services traded and the number of trading partners. The more diverse the trade and trading partners, the higher the rank. Pakistan ranks 91 on this index among 144 countries as of 2012. It ranks higher than single-commodity oil exporting nations  like Iran and Saudi Arabia but lower than the newly industrialized Asian nations.

While Pakistan has made some progress on logistics and trade, it still has a long way to go to improve the lives of its citizens through infrastructure improvements and diversification of its products and services trade. Timely execution of Pak-China industrial corridor plans will hopefully help Pakistan make progress on this front.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pak-China Industrial Corridor

India-Pakistan Economic Comparison 2014

Pakistan's Infrastructure

Challenging Haqqani's Op Ed: "Pakistan's Elusive Quest For Parity"

State Bank Says Pakistan's Official GDP Under-estimated

Pakistan's Growing Middle Class

Pakistan's GDP Grossly Under-estimated; Shares Highly Undervalued

Fast Moving Consumer Goods Sector in Pakistan

3G-4G Roll-out in Pakistan




Mobile Money Revolution in Pakistan

Monday, February 9, 2015

India Fudging GDP to Show Faster Growth Than China?

Indian government now claims that the country's GDP grew by 6.9% in 2013-14, well above the 4.7% growth the country had announced earlier.

Based on the latest methodology,  it is claimed that the Indian economy expanded 7.5 percent year-on-year during the last quarter, higher than 7.3 percent growth recorded by China in the latest quarter, making it the fastest growing major economy in the world, according to Reuters. Is it wishful thinking to make Indian economy look better than China's?

India GDP Revisions. Source: Financial Times


The GDP revisions have surprised most of the nation's economists and raised serious questions about the credibility of government figures released after rebasing the GDP calculations to year 2011-12 from 2004-5. So what is wrong with these figures? Let's try and answer the following questions:

1. How is it possible that the accelerated GDP growth in 2013-14 occurred while the Indian central bankers were significantly jacking up interest rates by several percentage points and cutting money supply in the Indian economy?

2. Why are the revisions at odds with other important indicators such as lower industrial production and trade and tax collection figures?  For the previous fiscal year, the government’s index of industrial production showed manufacturing activity slowing by 0.8%. Exports in December shrank 3.8% in dollar terms from a year earlier.

3. How can growth accelerate amid financial constraints depressing investment in India?  Indian companies are burdened with debt and banks are reluctant to lend.

4. Why has the total GDP for 2013-14 shrunk by about Rs. 100 billion in spite of upward revision in economic growth rate? Why is India's GDP at $1.8 trillion, well short of the oft-repeated $2 trillion mark?

Questions about the veracity of India's official GDP figures are not new. These have been raised by many top economists. For example,  French economist Thomas Piketty argues in his best seller "Capital in the Twenty-First Century that the GDP growth rates of India and China are exaggerated.  Picketty writes as follows:

"Note, too, that the very high official growth figures for developing countries (especially India and China) over the past few decades are based almost exclusively on production statistics. If one tries to measure income growth by using household survey data, it is often quite difficult to identify the reported rates of macroeconomic growth: Indian and Chinese incomes are certainly increasing rapidly, but not as rapidly as one would infer from official growth statistics. This paradox-sometimes referred to as the "black hole" of growth-is obviously problematic. It may be due to the overestimation of the growth of output (there are many bureaucratic incentives for doing so), or perhaps the underestimation of income growth (household have their own flaws)), or most likely both. In particular, the missing income may be explained by the possibility that a disproportionate share of the growth in output has gone to the most highly remunerated individuals, whose incomes are not always captured in the tax data." "In the case of India, it is possible to estimate (using tax return data) that the increase in the upper centile's share of national income explains between one-quarter and one-third of the "black hole" of growth between 1990 and 2000. "


Related Links:

Haq's Musings

India-Pakistan Economic Comparison 2014

Challenging Haqqani's Op Ed: "Pakistan's Elusive Quest For Parity"

State Bank Says Pakistan's Official GDP Under-estimated

Pakistan's Growing Middle Class

Pakistan's GDP Grossly Under-estimated; Shares Highly Undervalued

Fast Moving Consumer Goods Sector in Pakistan

3G-4G Roll-out in Pakistan










Saturday, February 7, 2015

Debunking Haqqani's Op Ed: "Pakistan's Elusive Quest For Parity"

"The alphabet agencies—ISI, RAW, and so forth—are often the chosen instrument of state policy when there is a conventional (and now a nuclear) balance of power, and the diplomatic route seems barren."  Stephen Cohen

"Pakistan is India’s rival in real terms only as much as Belgium could rival France or Germany and Vietnam could hope to be on a par with China. India’s population is six times larger than Pakistan’s while its economy is 10 times the size of the Pakistani economy. Notwithstanding internal problems, India’s $2 trillion economy has managed consistent growth whereas Pakistan’s $245 billion economy has grown sporadically."  Husain Haqqani

Contrast the words of Husain Haqqani, the disgraced former Pakistan Ambassador to Washington, with the statement of Stephen Cohen,  a seasoned US expert on South Asia, with regards to  India-Pakistan "balance" or "parity". Also note the lack of Haqqani's basic arithmetic skill in his India-Pakistan GDP comparison. The ratio of $2 trillion (exaggerated as of now) to $245 billion is closer to 8, not 10.

Haqqani's latest Op Ed in The Hindu is part of his continuing campaign to please his western and Indian patrons by launching periodic attacks on Pakistan. It makes sense for him. His main target are the book buyers in the United States and India which represent two of the three biggest markets for books in English.

Anyone who has read Haqqani's "Magnificent Delusions" is struck by the fact that almost all of his research is based on  the work of press reporters like Time-Life's photographer Margaret Bourke-White and her fellow American journalists.  Haqqani finds them more credible and insightful than Jinnah, Liaquat, Truman, Eisenhower, Dulles and other top leaders and policy-makers. If one really analyses Haqqani's narrative, one has to conclude that Pakistanis are extraordinarily clever in deceiving the United States and its highly sophisticated policymakers who have been taken for a ride by Pakistanis for over 6 decades.



Haqqani's latest salvo "Pakistan's Elusive Quest For Parity" published in Indian newspaper "The Hindu" begs the following questions:

1.  Why would any country, including Pakistan, wish to seek parity with India which is only slightly better than Afghanistan  in South Asia region in terms of multi-dimensional poverty assessed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OHDI)?

2. Why would any country, including Pakistan, wish for parity with India where a farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes?

3. Why would any country, including Pakistan, strive for parity with India where nearly two-thirds of the population still defecates in the open?

4. Why would Pakistan want parity with India which suffers some of the heaviest disease burdens in the world?

5. Why would any country, including Pakistan, seek parity with India which leads the world in child marriages?

6. Why would Pakistan seek parity with India which has among the highest levels of poverty in the world?

Finally, it's important to note that Haqqani's Op Ed plays right into the Indian obsession with Pakistan as manifested in the continuing India-Pakistan de-hyphenation debate.

For the last several years, Indian elites have been quite obsessed about de-hyphenating their country from Pakistan and fusing it with China by inventing such words as "Chindia". However, it's also clear from the Indian media reactions to Kerry's words that India's rivalry with Pakistan inflames far more passion in India than does India's self-proclaimed competition with China.

Robert Kaplan of Stratfor questions the Indian policy elite's obsession with hyphenation with China in a recent piece as follows:

Indian elites can be obsessed with China, even as Chinese elites think much less about India. This is normal. In an unequal rivalry, it is the lesser power that always demonstrates the greater degree of obsession. For instance, Greeks have always been more worried about Turks than Turks have been about Greeks. China's inherent strength in relation to India is more than just a matter of its greater economic capacity, or its more efficient governmental authority.

Kaplan goes on to say the following about India-Pakistan hyphenation:

The best way to gauge the relatively restrained atmosphere of the India-China rivalry is to compare it to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan abut one another. India's highly populated Ganges River Valley is within 480 kilometers (300 miles) of Pakistan's highly populated Indus River Valley. There is an intimacy to India-Pakistan tensions that simply does not apply to those between India and China. That intimacy is inflamed by a religious element: Pakistan is the modern incarnation of all of the Muslim invasions that have assaulted Hindu northern India throughout history. And then there is the tangled story of the partition of the Asian subcontinent itself to consider -- India and Pakistan were both born in blood together.


It's a rarely acknowledged  fact in India that most Indians are far more obsessed with Pakistan than any other country. But the ruling dynasty's Rahul Gandhi, the man widely expected to be India's future prime minister, did confirm it, according to a news report by America's NPR Radio. "I actually feel we give too much time in our minds to Pakistan," said Rahul Gandhi at a leadership meeting of  the Indian National Congress in 2009.

The rise of the new media and  the emergence of the "Internet Hindus", a term coined by Indian journalist Sagarika Ghose, has removed all doubts about many Indians' Pakistan obsession. She says the “Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees". "They come swarming after you"  pouncing on any mention of Pakistan or Muslims.

Here's a video demolishing the Chindia myth:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gnpy6_no-indian-miracle_news


No Indian miracle by faizanmaqsood1010http://youtu.be/_bR3IjrMXc4



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

India-Pakistan Economic Comparison 2014

An Indian Farmer Commits Suicide Every 30 Minutes

Challenging Gall-Haqqani-Paul Narrative of Pakistan

MPI Shows Depth of Deprivation in India

India Leads the World in Open Defecation

India Leads the World in Child Marriages

India's Share of World's Poor Jumps to 33%

India-Pakistan De-Hyphenation Debate