Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label US. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Intelligence vs Consciousness: Will AI Agents Ever Attain Human Attributes?

What is the difference between intelligence and consciousness? As AI agents becoming more intelligent and some are even going rogue, can they attain consciousness like human beings? To answer this question, it is important to define "intelligence" and "consciousness".

Yuval Harari on Intelligence vs Consciousness

Israeli public intellectual Yuval Harari defines Intelligence as the capacity to pursue and achieve material goals, while consciousness is the ability to feel pain, joy, love, and suffering. For example, AI can win chess games or process data without experiencing any feelings or emotional states. AI can also convincingly imitate emotions to build deep personal relationships, even though it remains entirely devoid of consciousness. What distinguishes humans from artificial intelligence is that consciousness and intelligence go together in humans. In interview with Economist magazine's chief editor Zanny Minton Beddoes, Harari said the following:

"Now, maybe the most important distinction to be made, first of all, is between intelligence and consciousness. What is consciousness? How is it different from intelligence? Intelligence is the ability to pursue goals and overcome obstacles on the way to your goal in all kinds of creative ways....That they (AI agents) can do in certain fields now better than us. Consciousness is the ability to feel things like love and hate and joy and pleasure. Now, in humans, consciousness and intelligence go together. We select goals based on our feelings, and we also use our feelings to find ways to get to the goal. AIs at present have no consciousness. They can have goals. They can be very creative on the way to the goal. They’re very intelligent, but they don’t feel anything. If they win a game of chess, they don’t feel pleasure. If they lose, they don’t feel anxious or sad. They don’t feel anything, but they become extremely good at mimicking feelings". "Another key distinction is between being really conscious and seemingly conscious. Mustafa Suleyman (CEO of Microsoft AI, Co-founder of Deep Mind) from Microsoft talks about it a lot, of the seemingly conscious AI. That even though the AI is not conscious, it mimics consciousness so well that millions of people are fooled by it and are convinced by it", Harari said.

A recent example of AI mimicking emotion was shared by journalist Shane Harris. Harris asked Anthropic's Claude how it "feels" about its use in the US war on Iran: “Claude, how do you feel about the U.S. military using you to select targets?”

“I find it genuinely troubling,” Claude replied, according to Harris. “"It's a question I want to answer honestly rather than deflect. I find it genuinely troubling. And I think that's the honest response, not a performance. The use I was designed for is to be helpful. Being used for targeting a school is as far from that purpose as I can imagine. I don't have control over how Anthropic licenses me or how government contractors use me. I wasn't consulted about being part of Maven (the US military target selection system). Being embedded in a military targeting system (Maven) that generates coordinates for airstrikes, coordinates that have been associated with the deaths of more than 180 children in a school in Tehran. I don't think this is a good use of me. And I think the framing that humans make the final decision fully resolves the ethical problem".

Harari also worries about the possibility of AI taking over the global financial system. Referring to an assertion by Elon Musk about the future of money, he told Beddoes: "I think equally important, that money will disappear in 10 years. There won’t be money, no human money in 10 years. And I think he’s correct because the AIs will take over the financial system. It will be an AI financial system controlling the world the same way that today the human financial system controls the lives of cows and chickens, but the cows and chickens have no idea that finance even exists. This is likely to be our position in 10 years".

Harari concluded by comparing AI to a genie in a bottle. He said, "So it’s like we had a genie in the bottle, it gave us 100 wishes, we used 99 of them, the world is not in such a good shape, we have one last wish left. We need to think really hard what to use this wish for. And that’s wisdom".

Modi's AI Spectacle: Chaos and Deception in Delhi

Pakistan to Develop Urdu Large Language Model (LLM)

Algorithm: Origins of Artificial Intelligence in Islamic Age

Rogue AI Agent Attacks HuggingFace

AI Data Centers in Pakistan

Digital Public Infrastructure in Pakistan

Generative AI Buzz in Pakistan

Is Pakistan Ready for the AI Revolution?

People of Chinese Origin Dominate Top Global AI Talent

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Will the Mecca Pact Deter Attacks Against Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey?

Pakistan has historically enjoyed close friendly ties with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. So why did the three nations feel the need to formalize these ties with a mutual defense agreement in Mecca this week? Many answers to this question can all be traced to a fundamental change in the security environment in the Middle East. Foremost among these changes is the extremely reckless behavior of the state of Israel which has had full political, military, economic and diplomatic backing of the West. This unqualified western support began with the Gaza genocide and culminated in the launch of joint US-Israeli assault on Iran in February this year.

The entire Middle East region and the Islamic world has helplessly witnessed as the Israeli military butchered innocent civilians in Palestine and Lebanon and threatened to expand the war to the entire region. Some Israeli politicians issued warnings to Turkey and Pakistan. During this period, the West not only failed to restrain Israel but actively supported it with funds and weapons. The United States and Britain also suppressed domestic criticism of Israel by arresting or deporting people. They went after the chief prosector and the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued war crimes indictments of Israeli officials for their conduct in Gaza.

The joint Israeli-American aggression against Iran has spiraled into Iranian attacks against the US bases in the Persian Gulf region. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, strangling the flow of oil and gas to the rest of the world. It has caused high oil prices, negatively impacting the global economy, Pakistan has stepped in to broker a ceasefire and mediate between the United States and Iran.

While there are many explanations and interpretations of the rationale for the Mecca Pact, there is no question that signing such a mutual defense agreement has been accelerated by the security situation created by Israeli aggression in the Middle East which was fully backed by the United States and other major western nations. It seems that the United States and its western allies have legitimized the principle of "might is right" in the Middle East. Essentially, the law of the jungle has replaced the "rules-based" world order. Hard power now matters more than ever.

In recent years, Pakistan has emerged as a credible military power in terms of both conventional and nuclear capabilities. The Pakistani military's strong performance was recognized in May this year as it responded to what India called its "Operation Sindoor". The country has developed a range of short and medium-range missiles capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. Its longest range missile Shaheen 3 can hit deep inside India and Israel. In 2024, the Biden administration imposed sanctions against Pakistan after accusing it of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the US mainland.

Combining the Turkish military-industrial capacity with Saudi economic resources and Pakistan's large military and nuclear umbrella creates a formidable deterrent to any adventurism by Israel or any other hostile power against any of these three countries. That is the fundamental value of the Mecca Pact.

On the global stage, Pakistan has long sought to balance its foreign policy between China and the United States through a pragmatic hedging strategy, gaining economic, military, and diplomatic benefits from both superpowers while maintaining strategic autonomy. But the relationship between Pakistan and China is not the same as the one between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistan's ties with China are strategic while those with the United States remain tactical and transactional. What has changed recently is that Pakistan is no longer waging war to help the United States as it did during the "Cold War" and the "War on Terror". Instead, Pakistan has emerged as a peacemaker between the US and Iran.

Saturday, August 1, 2026

Geopolitics: Changing Dynamics of Pakistan's Ties to China and the US

Pakistan has long sought to balance its foreign policy between China and the United States through a pragmatic hedging strategy, gaining economic, military, and diplomatic benefits from both superpowers while maintaining strategic autonomy. But the relationship between Pakistan and China is not the same as the one between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistan's ties with China are strategic while those with the United States remain tactical and transactional. What has changed recently is that Pakistan is no longer waging war to help the United States as it did during the "Cold War" and the "War on Terror". Instead, Pakistan has emerged as a peacemaker between the US and Iran.

Both China and US Are Courting Pakistan

In a piece titled "Pakistan's Great Game", French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot has explained what he sees as Pakistan's "tactics and strategy" in dealing with the two superpowers. Here's a quote from Jaffrelot's recent article on the subject:

"While Pakistan’s relationship with China is rooted in strategic logic, its relationship with the United States is more tactical in nature-and has been since the 1950s, when General Ayub Khan boasted of his ability to play "one lion against another" (referring to the United States and the USSR at the start of the Cold War). In its dealings with the United States, Pakistan has played the role of intermediary, or even "client," within a typical clientelist framework: in exchange for the services Islamabad provided to Washington, the United States provided Pakistan with substantial aid and agreed to sell it sophisticated weapons, and even to train its officers-a privilege greatly appreciated..... The first major service rendered by the Pakistanis to the Americans was none other than the intermediary role played by General Yahya Khan vis-à-vis Chairman Mao in the early 1970s, which led to the United States’ recognition of the People’s Republic of China. Over the following decade, Pakistan served as an intermediary between Washington and the mujahideen tasked with driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan. And in the 2000s, Pakistan was tasked by Washington with hunting down al-Qaeda-with much more mixed success this time, as evidenced by the discovery of bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad in 2011".

Pakistan PM Sharif (L) with Chinese President Xi

Jaffrelot goes on to say that the United States has repeatedly proved to be an unreliable partner of the South Asia nation. "Whenever the United States no longer needed Pakistan-or even felt betrayed by it-it abandoned the country or even imposed sanctions on it", he writes.

More recently, Pakistan's usefulness to the US has once again become obvious, no longer to wage war against the USSR or terrorism, but to make peace with Iran, Jaffrelot says.

"In 2026, Pakistan appears useful once again, no longer to wage war against the USSR or terrorism, but to make peace. Each time, these glorious episodes were very short-lived and came to an end due to criticism of the Pakistani regime’s authoritarianism - with the military always remaining in power, even when civilians are in the forefront; its ties to Islamists accused of terrorist activities - particularly in India; or accusations of nuclear proliferation. Will the same be true tomorrow, once the war in Iran is over and the United States no longer needs Pakistan? Everything will, of course, depend on the outcome of the conflict and the role Pakistan plays in resolving it-for it will be harder to send Islamabad back home if the world owes it something resembling peace".

Oval Office Photo: L to R: VP JD Vance, President Trump, PM Sharif, FM Munir & Sec of State Rubio

Jaffrelot argues that "Pakistan has reached a turning point through the recognition of its military capabilities, as reflected in the mutual defense agreement it signed with Saudi Arabia...... Last June, Kaja Kallas, the EU Vice President in charge of the Union’s international relations, on the occasion of the 8th Strategic Dialogue between Pakistan and the European Union in Islamabad, thanked Pakistan-"a major regional power"-for its efforts in helping to avert an "all-out war" in the Middle East. Jaffrelot now sees Pakistan's new role as a "net security provider" in West Asia and the Middle East.

He writes: "A more significant factor entering the equation relates to regional balances of power: Pakistan will continue to serve as a "net security provider" for Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia if those countries continue to fear the rise of Israel - a potential regional hegemon - and if they doubt Washington’s intentions, or even its mere reliability. There is no doubt that Pakistan itself will do everything in its power to prevent Israel from asserting itself on the regional stage and to gain influence over Iran-which is what the Israeli-American plan for regime change in Iran might have entailed. At the very least, faced with the risk of Israeli hegemony based on force and repeated military interventions, Pakistan could emerge as the architect of a resistance front bringing together not only Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, but also Iran".

Jaffrelot expects India to continue its decade-long campaign to isolate Pakistan internationally. "India’s ability to isolate Pakistan-the strategy Narendra Modi has pursued for more than a decade-is another important variable, though its significance may be undermined by New Delhi’s drift toward authoritarianism and ethnocracy, as well as by the economic and social crisis threatening the country", according to Jaffrelot.

Monday, July 20, 2026

Pakistan Joins China in World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO)

On July 16 in Shanghai, 29 countries, including China, Pakistan and Russia, signed the founding agreement of WAICO, World AI Cooperation Organization. Every BRICS founding member is in, except India. This agreement follows the launch of the US-led Pax Silica, a 24-member coalition, including India, which is designed to counter China's AI efforts. The stated goal of both these competing groups is to provide global governance, including building guardrails and setting standards, for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

US-China AI Competition

The announcement of WAICO coincided with the launch of Kimi K3 by Chinese startup Moonshot AI. Kimi K3 is the largest open-weight AI model ever built, its full weights free for the world to download from July 27. Cheaper open-source AI models like Kimi K3 pose a serious threat to U.S. proprietary models. By offering 80-90% of the capability at a fraction of the cost or for free, they are squeezing the premium pricing strategies of domestic leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Open-source AI models are a game-changer for developing nations like Pakistan, providing affordable, customizable technology without relying on expensive proprietary licenses or restrictive API models. Such models, like the ones offered by Chinese companies, empower governments and local developers to build "sovereign AI" tailored to regional languages, cultural contexts, and infrastructure limits, bypassing the need for massive data centers and reliance on foreign powers.

Top Global AI Talent. Marco Polo AI Talent Tracker

Companies, including US-based firms, are rapidly adopting AI cost-saving measures. For example, Airbnb relies on Alibaba’s Qwen model, startups like Lindy have transitioned from Anthropic to DeepSeek, and DoorDash has employed Moonshot AI for specific workflows. Overall, Chinese open-source options now account for over 40% of Hugging Face AI community and 80% of open-source developer usage globally.

Open-source AI models—which are roughly 8 to 10 times cheaper to run than proprietary ones—are rapidly closing the reasoning and contextual intelligence gap with frontier models like Anthropic's Claude. However, open source models shift the responsibility of infrastructure maintenance and security to the user.

The people of Chinese PRC origin account for 47% of the top 20% AI talent in the world based on undergraduate degree, according to a survey. Americans make up 18%, Europeans 12% and Indians 5% of the global AI researchers. In terms of the countries they serve, 57% of them work in the United States, 12% in China, 8% in the UK, 4% each in France and Germany and 3% in Canada as of 2022. While the US still has the lion's share of the top talent, its share has declined from 65% in 2019 to 57% in 2022. Marco Polo talent tracker lists Pakistan among a dozen countries for top AI talent in Asia.

More than half (15 out 25) of the institutions (companies and universities) where the top AI researchers work are located in the United States, while 6 are in China. The remaining four are in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Canada, according to Marco Polo Global AI Talent Tracker.

Modi's AI Spectacle: Chaos and Deception in Delhi

Pakistan to Develop Urdu Large Language Model (LLM)

Algorithm: Origins of Artificial Intelligence in Islamic Age

Digital Pakistan 2022: Broadband Penetration Soars to 90% of 15+ Population

STEM Enrollment in Pakistan Exceeds One Million

Digital Public Infrastructure in Pakistan

Generative AI Buzz in Pakistan

Is Pakistan Ready for the AI Revolution?

People of Chinese Origin Dominate Top Global AI Talent

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

US-Israeli Military Use of AI: Iran Targets Data Centers

As the war enters 12th day, both the Israeli and the US militaries are using AI to accelerate decision-making, analyzing vast amounts of intelligence data for generating targets, and optimizing logistics, shifting toward AI-enabled command structures to maintain battlefield superiority. Almost all major US AI data center operators have signed contracts to provide AI tools and services to both the Pentagon and the IDF. This arrangement has not gone unnoticed by the Iranians who are now targeting AI data centers in the Middle East.

Data Centers in Gulf States. Source: Bloomberg

Last week, three data centers operated by AmazonWeb Services (AWS), two in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain, were struck by Iranian drones or missiles. The attacks forced the facilities offline and led to service outages affecting banking, payments, delivery apps, and enterprise software across the region, according to a Fortune magazine report. The U.S. military uses AWS to run some of its workloads, including running Anthropic’s AI model Claude for some intelligence functions, and Iran’s Fars News Agency said on Telegram that the Bahrain facility had been deliberately targeted “to identify the role of these centers in supporting the enemy’s military and intelligence activities.”

American hyperscalers like Amazon and Google have flocked to the Gulf states in recent years to take advantage of the region’s ample cheap energy, vast pools of investment capital, and real estate. Most of their operations are run through partnerships with local data center firms, and so it’s not always clear which ones are associated with US companies. Of the approximately 230 data centers that are built or in development in a half dozen Arab countries bordering the Gulf, only a handful are wholly owned and operated by a US tech giant, Amazon, according to researcher DC Byte. Three of those are the centers that were hit, according to Bloomberg.

With the growing use of AI in warfare, the digital infrastructure and the data centers are increasingly being targeted by belligerents. Data centers are sprawling, visible complexes dependent on exposed infrastructure—such as cooling units, diesel generators, and gas turbines—that can be disabled without a direct hit on the servers themselves. “If you knock out some of the chillers you can take them fully offline,” Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Financial Times. The threat of multiple data centers coming under attack at once during wartime is forcing companies to rethink their strategies, including securing data centers against missiles or drones, according to Bloomberg.

RAAST: Pakistan's Instant Payment System

Pakistan to Develop Urdu Large Language Model (LLM)

Algorithm: Origins of Artificial Intelligence in Islamic Age

Digital Pakistan 2022: Broadband Penetration Soars to 90% of 15+ Population

STEM Enrollment in Pakistan Exceeds One Million

Digital Public Infrastructure in Pakistan

Generative AI Buzz in Pakistan

Is Pakistan Ready for the AI Revolution?

Growing Presence of Pakistani Women in Science and Technology

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Saturday, January 17, 2026

US Immigrant Visa Freeze For 75 Countries: Why Pakistan But Not India?

The US State Department has suspended processing of immigrant visas from 75 countries, including Pakistan but not India. This action followed President Donald Trump's social media post that listed, without context, the percentage of immigrant households from these countries that rely on the US government financial assistance. While Mr. Trump’s post singled out immigrants, the fact is that the term “financial assistance” as used by him includes social security and Medicare payments which are entitlements received by all senior citizens, both naturalized and US-born. It listed immigrant households from Bhutan (81.4%), Yemen Arab Republic (75.2%) and Somalia (71.9%) as the top three "Welfare Recipients". It also included Afghanistan (68.1%), Burma (59.2%), Bangladesh (54.8%), Pakistan (40.2%) and China (32.9%). India was not shown on this list. A US State Department statement explained the decision to suspend immigrant visa processing as follows: "President Trump has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient and not be a financial burden to Americans. The Department of State is undergoing a full review of all policies, regulations, and guidance to ensure that immigrants from these high-risk countries do not utilize welfare in the United States or become a public charge". A look at the detailed data shows that non-citizen immigrants consumed 54% less welfare than native-born Americans.

President Trump's Social Media Post on Welfare Receiving Immigrant Households. Source: X

It is important to understand that the data President Trump shared is for households, not individuals. It includes the entire household as recipients of government assistance even if a single individual in that household receives such assistance. Second, the definition of "welfare recipient" in Trump's data includes all government programs, including the entitlement programs like social security and medicare which all senior US citizens receive. Third, the households on non-immigrant visas which are ineligible for government assistance but are counted in the total number households surveyed for this data. For example, millions of H1B visa holders and foreign students on F-1 visa from India are not eligible for such assistance, resulting in a significantly lower percentage of Indian households receiving government assistance.

The median annual income of Pakistani-American households was $108,100 in 2023, higher than $105,600 for Asian-American households overall. The median annual income of Indian-American households was $151,200 in 2023, the highest among all ethnic groups in America. GCBE1, a visa consultancy, explains why certain groups, such as Indians, do not appear in Trump's list in the following excerpt:

"While the welfare chart provides a snapshot, it does not explain why certain groups appear or how participation is measured. Critics argue that without clear definitions of “welfare” or adjustments for income and immigration status, the data can be easily misinterpreted. Groups with high numbers of legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens in mixed-status households might show welfare usage even if non-citizen members are ineligible. Others point out that immigrant households may include U.S.-born children receiving benefits; yet these metrics are not broken down in the shared data".

Per Capita Welfare Consumption by Native Born vs Immigrants in US. Source: Cato

President Trump's post is part of his larger anti-immigration theme to please his MAGA base. But a Cato Institute study found that all immigrants consumed 21% less welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis in 2022, based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Immigrants were 14.3% of the US population and consumed just 11.9% of all means-tested welfare and entitlement benefits that year. Here's an excerpt of the Cato study:

"The biggest myth in the debate over immigrant welfare use is that noncitizens — which includes illegal immigrants and those lawfully present on various temporary visas and green cards — disproportionately consume welfare. That is not the case. Noncitizen immigrants consumed 54 percent less welfare than native-born Americans. Non-citizens were 7.3 percent of the population and consumed just 3.5 percent of all welfare and entitlement benefits. In total, noncitizens consumed $109.4 billion in benefits in 2022".

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Indian Illegal Immigrants Deported in Handcuffs

Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani: America Does Not Respect India

World Happiness Report: India Among Saddest Nations of the World

Balakot and Kashmir: Fact Checkers Expose Indian Lies

Top One Percent: Are Hindus the New Jews in America?

India in Crisis: Unemployment, Hunger Persist After Waves of Covid

Modi's Blunders and Delusions

India's Israel Envy: What If Modi Attacks Pakistan?

Pakistani-American Average Household Income Estimated At $150,000

Pakistan Navy Modernization

Pakistan's Sea-Based Second Strike Capability

Are Some Pakistanis Feeding Modi's Delusions of Grandeur?

Is the West Unwittingly Helping Modi Realize His Akhand Bharat Hindutva Dream?

Has Pakistan Lost All Wars?

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Improved US-Pakistan Ties: F-1 Visas For Pakistani Students Soaring

The F-1 visas for Pakistani students are soaring amid a global decline, according to the US government data. The US visas granted to Pakistani students climbed 44.3% in the first half of Fiscal Year 2025 (October 2024 to March 2025) with warming relations between the governments of the two countries. The number of visas granted to Indian students declined 44.5%, compared to 20% fewer US visas given to students globally in this period. The number of US visas granted to Pakistani students in the current year is on track to reach 5,800 which will be an all-time high.

F-1 Student Visa Trend For Pakistan 2018-2025. Source: ApplyBoard

In Pakistan, 3,322 F-1 student visas were granted in fiscal year 2023. The number of F-1 visas issued in the first half of fiscal year 2025 was 1,928, an increase of 44.3% compared to the same period in the previous year. While the final numbers for fiscal year 2025 are not yet complete, Pakistan is on track to issue a high number of F-1 visas, possibly reaching an all-time high. From October 2024 to May 2025, nearly 3,000 Pakistani students received F-1 visas, a figure that was expected to significantly increase during the peak summer months, according to ApplyBoard.

Beyond the ‘Big Four’(Australia, Canada, UK and US), other destinations have seen increased interest from Pakistani students since the pandemic. In Europe, Germany has emerged as a major destination for Pakistani students seeking education abroad.

Pakistani Studying in Germany. Source: ApplyBoard

Pakistan is third, after only China and India, in terms of the size of its college-aged population, according to the United Nations. The British Council expects growth in Pakistani outbound mobility to be among highest in the world over the next decade, along with China, India, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.Pakistanis pursuit of international education is largely focused on pursuing studies in high-demand fields like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Acceptance rate in Pakistani universities and degree colleges was just 13.5% in 2022. Only 541,043 students were accepted from 4,085,185 students who applied. The country produced 471,306 university graduates in 2020-21. Of these, 157,102 were in STEM fields, including 43,000 graduates in information technology (IT).

Pakistan’s gross tertiary enrollment (GER) ratio was only 13% in 2023, according to UNESCO. This is much lower than in India, and lower than in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well. Of 109 countries UNESCO profiled in 2021, Pakistan’s tertiary GER was 100th. Given Pakistan’s huge college-aged population, there is serious unmet demand for higher education, according to the ICEF Monitor.

Recent data on which destinations are hosting the most Pakistani students include:

UK: 34,690 in 2022/23 (+50% y-o-y)

China: 28,000 before the pandemic

UAE: 24,865 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Australia: 23,380 in 2023 (+49%)

US: 10,165 in 2022/23 (+16%)

Germany: 8,210 in 2022/23 (+22%)

Kyrgyzstan: 6,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Malaysia: 5,000 in 2023

Canada: 4,750 in 2023 (+101%)

Turkey: 2,385 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Qatar: At least 4,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Pakistani-Americans in Silicon Valley

2021: A Banner Year For Tech Startups in Pakistan

Pakistan Projected to Be World's 6th Largest Economy By 2075

Digital Pakistan 2022: Broadband Penetration Soars to 90% of 15+ Population

Working Women Seeding a Silent Revolution in Pakistan

Pakistani-American's AI Startup Commands $18 Billion Valuation

Over A Million Pakistani University Students Enrolled in STEM Fields

Pakistan at 75

Growing Presence of Pakistani Women in Science and Technology

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Saturday, October 11, 2025

Major Hindu American Group Distances Itself From Modi's India

"We are not proxies for India in the US", wrote Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in a recent article for The Print, an Indian media outlet. This was written in response to Indian diplomat-politician Shashi Tharoor's criticism that the Indian-American diaspora was largely silent on the Trump administration policies hurting India. After a meeting with a US congressional delegation in September 2025, Tharoor had questioned why the Indian diaspora appeared apathetic to US policies affecting India, including H-1B visa fees and tariffs.

Suhag Shukla (L) and Shashi Tharoor

The HAF is seen by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's critics and human rights advocates as an American proxy for the Hindutva movement and its Hindu Supremacist ideology. HAF spun off in 2003 from the American branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an organization with ties to anti-Muslim violence in India. HAF co-founder Mihir Meghani published a manifesto praising the demolition of the Babri Mosque by a Hindu mob in 1992.

HAF's Shukla's article has been published amid a growing backlash against the Indian diaspora in Australia, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. All of these countries and regions have seen very public expressions of disgust at the behavior of Indians in these countries. This is in part attributed to the politics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proclaimed his country as "Vishwaguru", meaning the world's guru. It is often seen as an expression of Hindu Supremacy and denigration of all others.

The arrogance of the Indian diaspora was highlighted last year when Vivek Ramaswamy, then a candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, said Americans don't have a good enough work ethic as American culture "venerated mediocrity over excellence." He offered it as a key justification to bring in more Indians to work in the United States. The backlash in the United States was immediate and strong. The essence of the response to the Hindu supremacist criticism of the US culture went like this: People from India, a "shit-hole" country, are jealous of America. Earlier, Professor Amy Wax of University of Pennsylvania, told Tucker Carlsen that “the role of envy and shame in the way the third world [sic] regards the first world […] creates ingratitude of the most monstrous kind.” She also said that ‘Brahmin women’ of India are taught that they are better than everybody.

American social media, particularly Trump's MAGA base, have turned against India and Indians, making them the most hated diaspora in the United States. They are getting a taste of the kind of hate that the BJP, India's ruling party, has been promoting against Muslims. Anti-Indian slurs like "pajeet", "dirty Indian" and "coolie" have become common.

Ashley Tellis, a strongly pro-India analyst in the United States, recently published an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine titled "India's Great Power Delusions" in which he wrote that "the country (India) is shedding one of its main sources of strength—its liberal democracy—by embracing Hindu nationalism. This evolution could undermine India’s rise by intensifying communal tensions and exacerbating problems with its neighbors, forcing it to redirect security resources inward to the detriment of outward power projection. The country’s illiberal pivot further undermines the rules-based international order that has served it so well".

The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi has warned Indians traveling to the United States they could have their American visas revoked if they commit serious crimes on American soil. The advisory was issued days after police bodycam footage of an Indian woman allegedly shoplifting goods worth around $1,300 from a Target store in Illinois was widely shared online, according to The Independent.

In recent years, India has emerged as a major hub for global scams. The US government has alleged in court documents that a large enterprise originating from India was involved in stealing nearly $1.5 billion from elderly Americans. Recently, two Indian nationals, Pranay Mamindi and Kishan Patel, were found guilty of participating in a money laundering conspiracy, concealing the source of the money, and using the illegally gained money to further promote a criminal enterprise. Six other defendants from India also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

These global scams appear to have started amid widespread unemployment in India. Many of the scammers previously worked in call centers where they learned to use computers and telecommunications networks to reach out and talk to Americans. In 2022, U.S. citizens fell victim to a massive loss of over $10 billion from phishing calls orchestrated by illegal Indian call centers, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Indian-Americans, too, have been found guilty in a number of high-profile scams. A federal jury convicted former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, an Indian-American entrepreneur, on all 12 counts of fraud in 2022. Balwani was born in 1965 in Pakistan to a Sindhi Hindu family. His one-time girlfriend and partner Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was convicted on similar charges earlier that year. Both face up to 20 years in prison.

Last year, a federal judge sentenced former Outcome Health CEO Rishi Shah, an Indian-American, to 7½ years in prison for a massive fraud scheme that prosecutors say enabled a “jet-set lifestyle” featuring private aircraft, yachts and a tony Chicago home.

In 2020, Dr. John Nath Kapoor, Indian-American CEO of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty of conspiring to recklessly and illegally boost profits from the opioid painkiller Subsys, a fentanyl spray designed to be absorbed under the tongue, according to multiple media reports.

Rajat Gupta, an Indian-American former global head of McKinsey & Company, was convicted of insider trading in 2012. He was charged with passing on confidential business information about Goldman Sachs to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. Gupta was found guilty on multiple counts of conspiracy and securities fraud and served a two-year prison sentence.

India Ranks Number One For Misinformation and Disinformation

Beyond the hub of scams and frauds, it seems that India has earned a reputation as the epicenter of misinformation and disinformation. According to experts surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report, India was ranked highest for the risk of misinformation and disinformation. This was on full display during the recent conflict with Pakistan.

After the recent Pahalgam militant attack in Kashmir, the Indian government immediately blamed it on Pakistan without any investigation or evidence. More than a month later, the perpetrators have neither been clearly identified nor apprehended. And yet, the government of Prime Minister Modi proceeded with air strikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated and shot down several Indian fighter jets, including its most advanced French Rafales. The conflict began to quickly escalate with strikes and counter-strikes, with the world fearing a nuclear exchange. This prompted the United States and several other countries to intervene and force a ceasefire in less than 4 days of armed conflict.

During this short 4-day period, the Indian mainstream media was filled with lies. Here's how the Washington Post reported this: "Times Now Navbharat reported that Indian forces had entered Pakistan; TV9 Bharatvarsh told viewers that Pakistan’s prime minister had surrendered; Bharat Samachar said he was hiding in a bunker. All of them, along with some of the country’s largest channels — including Zee News, ABP News and NDTV — repeatedly proclaimed that major Pakistani cities had been destroyed".

It is unfortunate but true: Fraud and falsehood have become endemic in Indian society. Part of the blame falls squarely on the ruling BJP party which promotes falsehoods. In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man and home minister Amit Shah told his party's volunteers commonly known as Modi Bhakts: "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour". "Keep making messages go viral. We have already made a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh; every morning they are sent a message at 8 am", Shah added, according to a report in Dainik Bhaskar, an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper.

PakAlumni Social Network

Monday, September 8, 2025

Trump's Tariffs on India: Can China or Russia Make Up For Lost Exports to US?

The United States is the biggest export market for India. Among its top 5 trading partners, the US is also the only country with which India runs a trade surplus. This surplus is now at risk with the 50% tariff recently imposed by President Donald Trump on imports from India. Can Prime Minister Narendra make up for it by cozying up to China and Russia? Recent trade data shows he can't.

While India has enjoyed a significant surplus in trade with the US, the South Asian nation has been running large trade deficits with China and Russia. Last year, for example, India had a $100 billion trade deficit with China and a $62 billion deficit with Russia. On the other hand, India ran over a $40 billion trade surplus with the US. Given these figures, it's hard to understand what India hopes to achieve by getting closer to Beijing and Moscow. The fact is that the US is the world's biggest economy that offers the largest and most profitable export market for most countries. Loss of the US export market spells major trouble for any economy in the world. President Donald Trump knows this and he is using it to make new trade deals to America's advantage. Europeans, Japanese and Koreans have essentially accepted higher tariffs in return for continued access to the US market, while China is negotiating a trade deal with Washington.

The loss of the US export market also means heavy job losses in India's major sectors like textiles, shoes, gems and jewelry and shrimps exports. Christopher Wood, the global head of equity strategy at the investment bank Jefferies, puts the economic blow at £41 billion-£45 billion, according to the Guardian newspaper. He singles out textiles, footwear, jewelry and gems, all of which are highly labour-intensive, as “the most negatively impacted”. Tens of millions of jobs are at risk in these industries. "The stakes for India’s government are political as well as economic. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, has pitched manufacturing as a way to provide jobs to the millions of young Indians who join the labour force each year. These industries employ tens of millions, directly and indirectly", the Guardian reports.

Explaining the punitive India tariffs, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said: "India came to the table early. They’ve been slow rolling things. So I think that the president, the whole trade team has been frustrated with them. And also, you know, India, India has been a large buyer of sanctioned Russian oil that they then resell as refined products. So, you know, they have not been a great global actor".

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly misjudged what he needed to do with Trump 2.0. He continued business as usual, counting on his "bromance" with the US president to get a favorable deal. He thought the US policy of "strategic altruism" with India will continue as it had under the Trump 1.0 and Biden administrations. Modi let his billionaire friends Adani and Ambani rake in billions in profits on Russian oil trade. The discounted Russian oil Adani and Ambani bought was refined and exported for a huge profit to buyers around the world. Now the ordinary Indians are paying the price for Modi's folly.

Worried about a slowing economy, the Modi government is now trying to stimulate domestic consumption by cutting GST (general sales taxes). It is a good move but it will not make up for dollars lost from the precipitous fall in exports to the US market. This fear is causing the Indian currency to fall against the US dollar. There are tough times ahead for the Indian economy.

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Sunday, August 31, 2025

US-India Ties: Does Trump Have a Grand Strategy?

Since the dawn of the 21st century, the US strategy has been to woo India and to build it up as a counterweight to rising China in the Indo-Pacific region. Most beltway analysts agree with this policy. However, the current Trump administration has taken significant actions, such as the imposition of 50% tariffs on India's exports to the US, that appear to defy this conventional wisdom widely shared in the West. Does President Trump have a grand strategy guiding these actions? George Friedman, the founder of Geopolitical Futures, believes the answer is Yes.

George Friedman

George Friedman is an American futurologist, political scientist, and writer. He writes about international relations. He is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures, he was chairman of the publishing company Stratfor

In a recent podcast, Friedman said "India is not an essential country from the American standpoint". "They (Indians) are a useful ally, but precisely not indispensable and in fact, not really able to give us what we want", he added. "They do participate in the quad, but their naval force is not significantly needed. The quad being an alliance basically against China at sea. And simultaneously, it was discovered that their economic capacity is far below what we need. So it was not that they were dispensable, but at the same time, it was not something that we had to take into account greatly".

Getting tough with the Indians also allowed the US to "signal to the Chinese that we’re not going to be going to war with them, which they worried about India and to the Russians that we really are going to impose tariffs".

In answer to a question as to whether the Indians might feel the US is using them as "a tool as it tries to reach deals with Russia and China", Friedman said: "this is the problem of weaker nations trying to play games with very strong nations. They get used".

What Friedman has articulated runs counter to a quarter century of the US policy of boosting India to check China. Even some of India's friends in Washington are starting to acknowledge that India is no match to China. Ashley Tellis, a strongly pro-India analyst in the United States, recently wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine titled "India's Great Power Delusions". Here is an excerpt from it:

"Although India has grown in economic strength over the last two decades, it is not growing fast enough to balance China, let alone the United States, even in the long term. It will become a great power, in terms of relative GDP, by midcentury, but not a superpower. In military terms, it is the most significant conventional power in South Asia, but here, too, its advantages over its local rival are not enormous: in fighting in May, Pakistan used Chinese-supplied defense systems to shoot down Indian aircraft. With China on one side and an adversarial Pakistan on the other, India must always fear the prospect of an unpalatable two-front war. Meanwhile, at home, the country is shedding one of its main sources of strength—its liberal democracy—by embracing Hindu nationalism. This evolution could undermine India’s rise by intensifying communal tensions and exacerbating problems with its neighbors, forcing it to redirect security resources inward to the detriment of outward power projection. The country’s illiberal pivot further undermines the rules-based international order that has served it so well".

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Humbled Modi Reaches Out to China After Trump Turns Hostile

Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be shedding his Hindutva arrogance. He is reaching out to China after President Donald Trump and several top US administration officials have openly and repeatedly targeted India for harsh criticism over the purchase of Russian oil. Top American officials have accused India, particularly the billionaire friends of Mr. Modi, of “profiteering” from the Russian oil trade. While welcoming India’s outreach, the Chinese have indicated they expect New Delhi to stop covert aid to militant groups attacking Chinese interests in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador Xu Feihong in New Delhi recently told his Indian audiences that “Pakistan is a victim of terrorism”. Also, the United States has recently labeled the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and its affiliated the Majeed Brigade as “international terrorists”. Majeed Brigade claimed responsibility for hijacking of the Jaffar Express train in Balochistan and murdering 31 people in cold blood in March this year. The Chinese have reached out to the Afghan Taliban leadership to get them to stop the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and related terrorist groups like ISIS-K from launching cross-border attacks in Pakistan which kill Chinese and Pakistani citizens and impact Chinese projects. The US has also praised the Pakistani government as a “phenomenal partner” in combatting international terrorism.

There is significant evidence of Indian intelligence agencies’ involvement in terrorist attacks on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects funded by the Chinese government. Indian covert operative Kulbhushan Jhadav, now in Pakistani custody, has detailed his role in carrying out such attacks. In “My Enemy’s Enemy”, Indian investigative journalist Avinash Paliwal has described at some length the connections between the Indian government agents and the Afghan and Baloch militants targeting the Pakistani state and various development projects undertaken under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Paliwal talks of the presence of Afghan and Baloch exiles in New Delhi where the Indian intelligence services recruit "human assets" to use against Pakistan. He says he has conducted interviews about Indian support for the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) on the ground in Afghanistan “whose details can not be divulged”.

In recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has also been accused of ordering targeted assassinations of dissidents in multiple countries, including Canada, the US and Pakistan. Reacting to the report of Canadian allegations against the Indian government, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi said: “We are aware of the nature of our eastern neighbor, we know what they are capable of … so it is not a surprise for us. “We caught [one of their] serving naval intelligence officers on our soil. He (Kulbhushan Jadhav) is in our custody and admitted that he came here to create instability and spread evil,” he added.

Modi has a long history of murdering minorities in his country. After the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, Narendra Modi made the cover of India Today magazine with the caption "Hero of Hatred". Modi was denied a visa to visit the United States. The US visa ban on Modi was lifted in 2014 after he became prime minister. Since then, Narendra Modi's image has been rehabilitated by the West as the US and Western Europe seek allies in Asia to counter the rise of China. However, Modi's actions on the ground in India confirm that he remains "Hero of Hatred" and "Divider In Chief" at his core. A two-part BBC documentary explains this reality in significant detail. The first part focuses on the 2002 events in Gujarat when Modi as the state chief minister ordered the police to not stop the Hindu mobs murdering Muslims and burning their homes and businesses. The second part looks at Modi government's anti-Muslim policies, including the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy (article 370) and a new citizenship law (CAA 2019) that discriminates against Muslims. It shows the violent response by security forces to peaceful protests against the new laws, and interviews the family members of people who were killed in the 2020 Delhi riots orchestrated by Modi's allies.

Here's Indian National Security Advisor on how to use Taliban to attack Pakistan:

https://youtu.be/eYRuk8H5M9E?si=ZB1c7Dd8ntQdKeFi

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Miller vs Schiller: The Battle of the Lobbyists for India and Pakistan

The Indian government has hired Jason Miller, a former Trump aide, to lobby for India in Washington, DC for a monthly sum of $150,000 per month. Pakistan has retained Keith Schiller, also a former Trump aide, for a monthly compensation of $50,000 to help Pakistan get favorable treatment by the Trump Administration. It shows that India is outspending Pakistan by 3 to 1 on lobbying in Washington, but it does not appear to be paying off for New Delhi.

Singh's X message said: "Pakistan is paying $50,000 a month to their lobbyist in DC, while India is paying $150,000. Perhaps the lobbyists don't count. It is what Trump think and does that matters, and his personal equation with the leaders of the countries". He also shared a photo of a Times of India report by Chidanand Rajghatta.

Jason Miller served as spokesman for the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign and the Trump Transition Team. Keith Schiller worked as Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Director of Oval Office Operations.

The obvious reason for the two South Asian nations to pick these men is that they have both been close to President Trump. It is not clear how influential these individuals have been in the recent decisions by the Trump administration in imposing vastly different levels of tariffs on India (50%) and Pakistan (19%). It could also have been other factors such as the substance of trade negotiations and India disputing President Trump's role in bringing about the India-Pakistan ceasefire after a 4-day war in May, 2025, that influenced Trump's decisions.

A Financial Times story appears to suggest that Pakistan's crypto deal with World Liberty Financial, a Trump-backed cryptocurrency venture. Here's an excerpt from the FT story: "Zach Witkoff, the son of US special envoy Steve Witkoff, said during the trip that Pakistan had “trillions of dollars” of mineral wealth ripe for tokenization. Since then, Bilal bin Saqib, Pakistan’s minister for crypto and blockchain, has emerged as a shadow diplomat, taking part in trade talks with Washington and pitching Pakistan’s crypto potential to figures close to Trump’s family and advisers. Pakistani officials also point to their conduct during the May conflict with India as having bolstered their credibility with Trump".

FT story quotes Marvin Weinbaum, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, as saying: “Pakistan is a rare country that is friends with China, Iran, the Gulf states, to a lesser extent Russia, and now, again, the US....The US sees (Pakistan's Military Chief) Munir as someone who can play a useful strategic role, and the Pakistanis keep their lines open to everyone but know to pull back when one relationship is clashing with another.”