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

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Out of School Children: ASER Pakistan Reports Substantial Increase in Enrollment

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2025 national report, officially released on March 26, 2026, shows that the number of "Out of School Children" (OOSC) aged 6-16 years in Pakistan is now 5 million, not 25 million generally reported. "The findings on access are encouraging. Enrollment levels are high, with 92.2 percent of children aged 6–16 in school and only 7.7 percent out of school", says the ASER Pakistan 2025 report. ASER Pakistan is a citizen-led initiative, primarily led by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) in collaboration with various national and international partners to promote foundational learning. It also works closely with over 10,000 volunteers and numerous local civil society organizations such as the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), PAL Network (People's Action for Learning), UNESCO and federal and provincial government departments in Pakistan.

Enrolling Out of School Children in Pakistan. Source: ASER Via Bilal Gilani

The latest ASER report contains a table showing that the 6 to 16 age group has around 66 million boys and girls. Based on these numbers, the out of school children's population is now 5.3 million. Of the total number of enrollees, 62% attend government schools and 27% are in private schools.

Number of Out-of-School Children 6-16 Years is 8% (5 million). Source: ASER Pakistan 2025

The number of out-of-school Pakistani preschoolers in the 3-5 years age group is 41%, according to the ASER Pakistan 2025 Report. It indicates that most Pakistani parents do not send their children to school before age 6.

Number of Out-of-School Children 3-5 Years is 41%. Source: ASER Pakistan 2025

Earlier, the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) in December 2025 put the OOSC figure for children 5-16 years at 20 million. One important difference is the age bracket: ASER's figure of 5 million is for 6-16 years while the HIES figure of 20 million is for 5-16 years.

While the public spending on education remains low in Pakistan, the private sector spending is higher. Recent data indicates annual education expenditure exceeds Rs. 5 trillion ($18 billion), driven by roughly Rs. 2.8 trillion in household spending (private) and Rs. 2.23 trillion in government (public) funding, highlighting a major shift towards private financing.

The total (public+private) spending on education has been rising. In 2024-25 it was $18 billion in USD terms, twice the national defense budget of Pakistan. This appears to be driving higher school enrollment. In addition to increasing access, the key challenges for Pakistan include improving learning outcomes and reducing drop-out rates at higher grade levels.

Over a Million Pakistani University Students Enrolled in STEM Fields

Inspirational Story of University-Going Daughters of a Karachi Rickshaw Driver

Pakistan Survey Reveals Positive Trends in Health Sector

Pakistan's Total Education Spending Exceeds its Defense Budget

Inquiry-Based Learning in Pakistani Schools

Pakistan Scientific Output is World's Fastest Growing

How Grim is the Progress in Pakistan's Social Sector?

Pakistani Girl's Journey From Karachi Slum to Harvard

Pakistan's Large and Growing Civil Nuclear Program

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Over 1000 Pakistani Medical Grads Matched in US Residency Programs in 2026

Over 1000 Pakistani medical graduates have been matched in the 2026 NRMP (National Residency Matching Program), according to APPNA (The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America). This 2026 program was the largest in history, offering 44,344 positions to 53,373 registered applicants, with over 93% of spots filled. Among Pakistani medical graduates matched, Karachi's Dow Medical University graduates led the pack with 132 matches, followed by 109 from Lahore's King Edwards Medical University and 60 from Karachi's Aga Khan Medical College.

Top Pakistani Medical Schools in US Residency Programs. Source: APPNA

Nearly 3,000 Indian medical graduates made up the largest group among international medical graduates matched in US residency programs this year. Pakistanis were second with over 1,000 matches. Over 9,000 International Medical Graduates (IMGs) (including both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens) matched into U.S. residency positions, with non-U.S. IMGs seeing a 56.4% match rate.

Foreign Medical Residents at Parkview Hospital in Indiana. Source: Mary Bowden MD

This year, the presence of a large number of foreign doctors has become a political issue. In some programs, such as Parkview hospital in Indiana, 14 of 15 residents who matched in the internal medicine program are from foreign countries. 12 of them are from Pakistan. Another program at Baptist Hospital of Southern Texas, all 13 residents are foreign medical graduates. Of these 6 are from Pakistan.

Doctor Brain Drain. Source: Statista

Pakistani-American doctors make up the second largest population of foreign doctors in America. And they are quite successful. For example, Dr. Mansoor Mohiuddin, a 1989 graduate of Karachi's Dow Medical College, made global headlines when he implanted a pig heart in a patient at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Considered one of the world’s foremost experts on transplanting animal organs, known as xenotransplantation, Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, Professor of Surgery at UMSOM, joined the UMSOM faculty five years ago and established the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program with Dr. Griffith. Dr. Mohiuddin serves as the program’s Scientific/Program Director and Dr. Griffith as its Clinical Director.

Top Countries of Origin of Foreign Doctors in the US. Source: OECD

The pervasive presence of South Asian doctors in the United States is confirmed by OECD (Organization for Cooperation and Development) statistics on foreign doctors in OECD member nations. While India has remained the top source of foreign doctors since 2013, Pakistan has moved up from third to second spot in this period. As of 2016, there were 45,830 Indian doctors and 12,454 Pakistani doctors among 215,630 foreign doctors in the United States. India (45,830) and Pakistan (12,454) are followed by Grenada (10,789), Philippines (10,217), Dominica (9,974), Mexico (9,923), Canada (7,765), Dominican Republic (6,269), China (5,772), UAE (4,635) and Egypt (4,379).

In percentage terms, 21% of foreign doctors come from India, 6% from Pakistan, 5% each from Grenada, Philippines and Dominica and 4% from Mexico.

Pie Chart of Origins of Foreign Medical Graduates in US. Source: OECD

Many of these "foreign doctors" are US citizens, born and raised in the United States, who travel abroad to study at foreign medical schools. Their reasons vary from ease of admissions to lower costs. This is particularly true of the medical schools in the Caribbean nations.

Many Caribbean nations have established medical schools to especially cater to the demand from the United States. In 2007, Pakistan, too, set up Dow International Medical College as part of Dow University of Health Science (DUHS).

Indians and Pakistanis also make up the top two nationalities among 66,211 foreign doctors in the United Kingdom. There are 18,953 doctors from India, 8,026 from Pakistan, 4.880 from Nigeria and 4,471 from Egypt in the UK.

The list of 25,400 foreign doctors in Canada is topped by South Africans (2,604) followed by Indians (2,127), Irish (1,942), British (1,923), Americans (1,263) and Pakistanis (1,087).

There are 25,607 Pakistani medical school graduates currently working in all of the OECD member countries which are considered the rich industrialized nations. These Pakistani doctors account for 10.6% of 242,000 Pakistan-trained doctors practicing now. 74,455 Indian doctors working in OECD nations make up 7.3% of about 1,020,000 of all India-trained doctors in practice.

In spite of losing 10.6% of its doctors to "brain drain" compared to India's 7.3%, Pakistan still has more doctors per capita (1.1 per 1000 population) than India (0.7 doctors per 1000 population), according to the World Bank. Pakistani medical colleges admit 16,000 students a year compared to 92,000 in India.

As the populations age and demand for medical services grows in the West, more and more of it is being met by recruiting health care workers, including doctors and nurses, from the developing world.

Monday, March 23, 2026

Economist Magazine Editors: Propagandists For the Zionist Elite?

Right after October 7, 2023, Economist Magazine's Defense Editor Shashank Joshi posted X messages claiming that Hamas beheaded babies during the terrorist attack on Israelis. He has now deleted his posts. Instead of apologizing for joining the baseless Israeli propaganda campaign, Joshi has blamed it on "the fog of war", knowing fully well that this falsehood was used by the Israeli government to justify the Gaza genocide that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children. Here's what Joshi has now posted: "Some of these reports have turned out to be untrue, and yes, I was wrong to be as confident in what was reported as first-hand evidence as I was, particularly given the fog of war in those initial post Oct 7th days".

An X user Tom London dismissed Joshi's excuses as follows: . @shashj @TheEconomist

@zannymb when I heard the story that Hamas was said to have beheaded 40 babies I thought

1. This makes no sense at all. Where is the evidence?

2. This sounds like a fabrication to justify GENOCIDE

The Economist printing this is a journalistic crime of the gravest importance

Economist Magazine Cover Portraying Israel as Victim

Joshi's bias extends beyond the Middle East. Contrary to what most western reports, including the US Congressional report, concluded, Joshi claimed that India won a "military victory" over Pakistan in the 2025 clash that India dubbed "Operation Sindoor". He did concede, however, that Pakistan won a "diplomatic victory".

While the Joshi excuses and his denunciations are going viral, Tucker Carlson's podcast with Zanny Minton Beddoes, Joshi's boss at the Economist, has attracted attention in social media where she is challenged to explain the meaning of "Does Israel have a right to exist?", a well-known Israeli government's talking point to justify Israel's aggression against Palestinians and other nations in the Middle East. Here's the full exchange between the two on this subject:

MINTON BEDDOES: You are critical of the government of Israel. Do you believe in Israel’s right to exist? Would you consider yourself a Zionist in that narrow definition?

CARLSON: What does that mean, a right to exist?

MINTON BEDDOES: The existence of the political state of Israel.

CARLSON: But it has a right. What does that mean?

MINTON BEDDOES: That you think it should continue in its existence as a state right now. So you do not agree with Iran, for example.

CARLSON: Let me just ask, since you asked me the question, it’s fair for me to get you to define the term so I can answer it. You’ve asked two questions. The first was, do you believe Israel is a right to exist? And the second question was, do you believe Israel should continue to go on as a nation-state? And those are very different questions. So, I often hear the phrase–

MINTON BEDDOES: Having been created as a political entity in 1948–

CARLSON: Does it have a right to exist? Is that what you’re asking?

MINTON BEDDOES: I don’t want to get hung up on the right to– should it continue to exist. That’s what, that’s how I define narrowly–

CARLSON: Because the phrase you used was devised by the Israeli government, of course. Does it have a right to exist? And so my question to you would be, what does that mean?

MINTON BEDDOES: Why don’t you answer my question? It’s a very simple question.

CARLSON: I don’t know what your question is. Are you asking, does it have the right to exist or do I want it to exist? Do I seek its destruction?

MINTON BEDDOES: Fine. Answer it that way.

CARLSON: Well, of course I don’t seek its destruction. I’ve already said, as you know, because I said it to you, I don’t want Israel to be destroyed or have to use nuclear weapons.

Notwithstanding the Zionist propapaganda about the “right to exist” vis-à-vis Israel, it is not an international legal concept. Under international law, no state has a right to exist. On the other hand, the right of self-determination, which is the idea that all peoples have a right to determine their own fate by forming their own political entities, is a fundamental principle of international law. Israel is denying that basic right to the Palestinian people living under its military occupation.

British historian William Dalrymple has succinctly summed up The Economist magazine's troubles in his recent X post saying:

@TheEconomist has utterly destroyed its reputation with its deeply racist and profoundly bigoted coverage of the mass-murder of the people of Gaza. For six months we have seen issue after issue of scandalously one sided-coverage which has has made it complicit in the continued enslavement of the Palestinian people, the on-going seizure of their land, the systematic abuse of their human rights and the industrial slaughter of their innocent civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Shame on its senior editorial staff responsible for the travesty of inhumanity and bias. @zannymb

The Economist magazine is widely seen by critics as a tool of western imperialism. It has faced recent denunciation for a 2023 article labeling Latin American workers "unproductive" and "useless". During the Southern India famine of 1876-78, The Economist condemned British officials who imported food to feed starving people. The publication argued that providing such aid gave Indians the impression that "it is the duty of the Government to keep them alive".

Monday, March 16, 2026

Modi's Ex Chief Economic Advisor: India's Economy is 22% to 31% Smaller Than Official Claim

New research by several economists, including India's former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, finds that the country's GDP has been overstated by 22% to 31%. It says: "The level of (India's) real GDP is overstated by about 22% and the level of consumption by about 31%". "India's economy is thus smaller and the average standard of living significantly lower than official estimates indicate", it adds. The current GDP of India is less than $3 trillion, according to the authors.

Indian GDP Overstated by 22% to 31%. Source: PIIE

In a paper published by Peterson Institute for International Economics, the authors state that "India’s annual economic growth during the boom years between 2005 and 2011 may have been underestimated by about 1–1½ percentage points on average, and subsequent growth between 2012 and 2023 may have been overestimated by about 1½-2 percentage points". It means that India's actual annual GDP growth during Prime Minister Modi's government has been closer to 4%, not 6% as officially claimed. Pakistan's GDP growth rate has been about 3.5% during this period.

The authors explain that the estimation error is caused by two methodological issues. The first issue leading to the misestimation is that the economy’s formal sector has been used as a proxy for the vast informal sector, even though the latter was disproportionately hit after 2015 by demonetization, the introduction of the goods and services tax, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The second issue causing misestimation is that the deflators for many sectors have been based on commodity prices, which have moved sharply relative to others.

Ruling politicians in New Delhi continue to hype their country's economic growth even as the Indian currency hits new lows against the US dollar, corporate profits fall, electrical power demand slows, domestic savings and investment rates decline and foreign capital flees Indian markets. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has questioned India's GDP and independent economists Professors Arun Kumar and Ashoka Modi and investment banker Ruchir Sharma have detailed why the Indian official data can not be trusted. It seems that the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fast losing credibility by politicizing the civilian bureaucracy and the military brass to project their economic and military failures as successes.

IMF Gives C Grade to India's GDP Data

Beyond the disputed claim of being the "fourth largest economy", the Modi government's failure on the national health and wellness front is also getting more attention. “Air is unbreathable. Water is undrinkable. Food is adulterated. What’s the point of becoming the 4th largest economy?” asked India-American technology entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia in an X message recently. Gita Gopnath, Harvard professor of economics, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week that the economic impact of pollution on India is more severe than the effects of tariffs imposed on the country. “About 1.7 million lives are lost every year in India because of pollution. That’s 18% of the total deaths in India,” Gopinath said, quoting a World Bank study. “Even from an international investor’s perspective … the pollution holds you back.”

Unsafe Drinking Water in India Claimed as 4th Largest Economy. Source: DownToEarth

An international badminton tournament in India has brought global spotlight on the lack of basic hygiene in India. Foreign players complained about dusty floors, dirty courts, bird droppings and unhygienic conditions at the India Open in New Delhi. “I think the floors are dirty. There is a lot of dirt on the courts. There’s bird excrement. There are birds flying around in the arena,” said 28 year-old Denmark women’s singles player Mia Blichfeldt. Andres Antonson, world number three badminton player, withdrew from the India Open Super 750 in New Delhi for the third consecutive year, choosing to pay a $5,000 fine. He cited "extreme" hazardous air pollution in Delhi as the reason for skipping the mandatory tournament, arguing it is not a safe place to hold the event.

The IMF has recently expressed doubts about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP government's GDP data. It has particularly questioned the government's statistical methodologies, inflation measurement, and the estimates of the informal economy used in reporting the country's gross domestic product. Professor Arun Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University believes the IMF's concerns are valid. He thinks the real size of India's economy is only half of what is officially claimed. “The economy is almost 50% wrong – when the government says it’s $3.8 trillion, my estimate is it is probably still $2.5 trillion because we are overestimating the unorganized sector, which is actually declining. This is building up over a period of time,” Kumar told Indian journalist Karan Thapar.

In its recent assessment, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has given a "C" grade to India's national accounts. In particular, the IMF has raised the issue of the government using 2011-12 as the base year as being outdated, the discrepancy between production and consumption data and the use of Wholesale Price Index, and not a Producer Price Index, to deflate many economic activities to derive real GDP from nominal GDP.

Indian Firms Falling Corporate Profits. Source: Bloomberg

Corporate profits of Indian firms are growing at a much slower pace than the 8.2% GDP growth in its most recent quarter. Net income for Nifty 50 Index firms likely rose 1.1% in the three months through Dec. 31 from a year earlier, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the slowest pace in five quarters, weighed down by deteriorating margins for banks. Falling profits and declining currency are causing foreign capital to flee Indian markets. Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) pulled out over $20 billion from Indian equities in 2025, marking a severe, sustained withdrawal that has continued into 2026. Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has seen consecutive monthly outflows, including $1.67 billion in October and $446 million in November 2025. Investment banker Ruchir Sharma wrote about it in a Financial Times op ed titled "India needs to import more capital and export fewer workers". Ruchir wrote: "Most strikingly, corporate revenue normally grows (or shrinks) with the economy — in any country. But last year corporate revenue growth for listed companies in India decelerated to barely half the GDP growth rate"

Falling Indian Rupee. Source: Reuters

The source of the biggest error is the way India estimates the informal economy which, including agriculture, accounts for almost 45% of GDP. To do so, India uses the formal sector as a proxy to estimate the performance of the informal sector. But if the two sectors are moving in opposite directions, as has happened after demonetization, GST imposition and the pandemic, you could end up overestimating the unorganized sector.

Indian-American economist Ashoka Mody, author of "India is Broken", has argued that the current unemployment crisis in India is a direct result of the destruction of the informal sector, particularly the mom and pop stores that employed a large number of Indians.

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 (households 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. "

Saturday, March 14, 2026

India Hosts "Proud Islamophobe" Laura Loomer in New Delhi

Self-described "Proud Islamophobe" Laura Loomer was invited to speak this weekend at India Today Conclave, an annual conference sponsored by an Indian publication. Her speech focussed on what she called "Islamic Terrorism". She also apologized for anti-India racists X posts. To further please her Indian audience, she also engaged in Pakistan bashing. "Pakistan's biggest export to the world is Islamic terrorism, and I don't believe the US should be cozying up to the Pakistani government at all," she said.

Loomer is known to be very close to President Donald Trump. In her social media posts, she is also known for viciously attacking India and Indians almost as much as Muslims. But at the conference in Delhi, she apologized for her anti-India posts. She also deleted most or all such posts prior to showing up in India.

A Collage of Laura Loomer's anti-India Posts. Source: OpIndia

Loomer has described Indians as “third-world invaders” and questioned their place in the United States, claiming that America was built by “white Europeans.” She also mocked India’s sanitation practices. In one of the widely shared X messages, she questioned why Indians “still [defecate] in the water they bathe and drink from,” while another post mocked Indian immigrants as so-called “high-skilled” workers who supposedly come from a country without basic facilities. In her posts, she has referred to the “rape culture” in India. She asserts that Indians have a low IQ of just 76.

It was her "proud Islamophobe" label and her views on "Islamic terrorism" that attracted many Indians to find her fit to be given a spotlight in the Indian capital. When X briefly made users’ countries of origin public, several prominent pro-Israel accounts were found to be run from India, according to France24.

India has just 5.75% of global Twitter users but the country accounts for 55% of all anti-Muslim tweets, according to a report entitled "Islamophobia in the Digital Age" published by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) in 2022. It also found that the US, the UK, and India contributed a staggering 86% of anti-Muslim content on Twitter during a three-year period. It should be noted that both the US and the UK have a sizable Indian diaspora infected by hateful Hindutva ideology.

India Accounts For 55% of Islamophobic Tweets. Source: ICV

Individuals and organizations connected to the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) are active users of social media. They are working to promote India's divisive Islamophobic politics among the Non Resident Indians (NRIs) and their children. Hundreds of the RSS shakhas (branches) are now found in at least 39 countries around the world. Hindutva is a Hindu supremacist ideology inspired by 20th century Fascism and Nazism in Europe; it is very different from the ancient Hindu faith, according to American history professor Audrey Truschke who teaches Indian history at Rutgers University in the US state of New Jersey. Top Indian economists have raised alarm about it.

Active Twitter Users. Source: Statista

India has only 23 million Twitter users, 5.75% of 400 million Twitter users worldwide, but Indians generate more than half of all Islamophobic tweets in the world. Numbers published in Twitter’s advertising resources indicate that Twitter had 3.40 million users in Pakistan in early 2022. ICV counted 15,766 Islamophobic tweets geolocated to Pakistan in a three year period.

Executives at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, recently told human rights groups that they wouldn’t release the full India Hate Speech study for their own security. An earlier 2020 company study concluded that Hindutva groups support violence against Muslims and Christians & should be banned from the platform, according to the Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt of the Wall Street Journal story:

"Meta has for years faced criticism from rights groups and has been probed by authorities regarding the presence of hate speech on its platforms in India, where more than 300 million people use Facebook and more than 400 million are on its WhatsApp messaging service. Meta has said it invests significantly in technology to find hate speech across languages in India. In 2020, Meta’s safety team concluded that a Hindu nationalist organization in India supported violence against minorities and likely qualified as an organization that should be banned from Facebook, the Journal reported that year. Facebook didn’t remove the group following internal security-team warnings that doing so might endanger both its business prospects and staff in India".

Social Media Expose Ugly Face of Violent Hindu Extremism

Silicon Valley's Indian-American Congressman Rejects Hindutva

Silicon Valley Hindu Americans Rally in Support of Yogi, Modi

Rape of 8-year-old Asifa Bano in Kashmir

Vast Majority of Hindu Americans Support Modi

Modi's Extended Lockdown in Indian Occupied Kashmir

Hinduization of India

Brievik's Hindutva Rhetoric

Indian Textbooks

India's RAW's Successes in Pakistan

Riaz Haq 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

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Trump Leads America into an Unpopular War in the Middle East!

President Donald Trump joined Israel in yet another war of choice in the Middle East last week. Polls conducted in the United States immediately after the start of the Iran war show that the majority of Americans do not support it. A YouGov snap poll fielded Saturday — the day of the strikes — found 34% of Americans approve of the U.S. attacks on Iran, with 44% disapproving and 22% unsure. A CNN poll done soon after found that 59% of Americans disapprove of the war.

59% of Americans Disapprove of the Iran War. Source: CNN

It appears that President Trump has caved in to pressure from the Israelis to go to war against Iran, a fact confirmed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In answer to a question, Rubio essentially admitted that Israel forced the US into war with Iran. 'There absolutely was an imminent threat,' Rubio said. 'And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked (by Israel), and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.'

Majority of Americans Disapprove of Iran War. Source: YouGov

Support for prior US wars in the Middle East such as the Iraq war started in the low-mid 70% range in the beginning. Trump is starting at half of that in his attack on Iran — lower than where the average American was in 2013. It's clear that Americans' support for wars in the Middle East has rapidly declined.

President Trump's MAGA base is particularly incensed by what they see as abandonment of the "America First" promise he made during his presidential campaign in 2024. Many of them now accuse him of pursuing "Israel First" policies at the expense of ordinary Americans.

"Absolutely disgusting and evil," Tucker Carlson said about the joint US-Israel attack in an interview with ABC News. "This is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way."

"The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran??? How about ZERO you bunch of sick (expletive) liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars," said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she blasted the administration on US social media company X.

"We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ … Trump, (Vice President JD) Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again (MAGA)," she added.

Other MAGA figures joined the criticism, with podcaster Tim Pool and influencers Keith and Kevin Hodge writing, "President Trump has completely LIED to his voters, backstabbed our country and has disgraced his legacy beyond repair," reported TRT World.

One of the most effects of this war will most likely be on energy prices which have begun to spike already. Energy prices affect all other prices, fueling broader inflation. Rising prices will hurt the entire economy but their negative impact will particularly be felt by middle class households.

The average price for a gallon of regular gas is just shy of $3 right now, according to AAA, as reported by Marketplace. Tom Kloza, chief analyst at Gulf Oil, told Marketplace that “we’re gonna go in relatively short order to about $3.10 to $3.25,” he said. But if the conflict with Iran continues deeper into March and April, Kloza said prices might peak as high as $3.50 a gallon.

AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, is starting to lose its political power and influence in the United States. Several Congressional Democrats have recently refused campaign contributions from AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, according to media reports. “Democrats who once counted AIPAC among their top donors have in recent weeks refused to take the group’s donations”, says a New York Times story titled "Democrats Pull Away From AIPAC, Reflecting a Broader Shift". “AIPAC is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for some Democrats on Capitol Hill," it says. It cites the example of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the minority leader, who has long been endorsed by the hardline AIPAC, has now chosen to accept the support of J Street, the competing Israel lobby that advocates a two-state solution.

Results of Recent Poll of American Jews. Source: Washington Post

A recent poll conducted by the Washington Post has found that "most (American) Jews (61%) say Israel is committing war crimes — and 39% say genocide — while often distinguishing between the country and its leadership". American Jews are particularly unhappy with the current right-wing government of Israel. 68% give negative marks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership of Israel, with 48% it “poor” — a 20-percentage-point jump from a Pew Research Center poll five years ago.

Mamdani's resounding win in New York City, a city that has the world's second largest Jewish population after Tel Aviv, is particularly significant. It sends a clear message to American politicians, particularly Democrats, that they don't have to bow to hardline AIPAC to win elections.

Although the rebellion against AIPAC is mainly among Democrats, there's also growing anger among Trump's "America First" base who see the Trump Administration's policies as "Israel First". Prominent among Republican critics of Trump's pro-Israel policies are Republican Representatives Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, talk show host Tucker Carlsen and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of Anti-Defamation League, has blamed the shift in the US public opinion against Israel on popular social app TikTok. “We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem,” he said in a leaked audio recording. “The same brains that gave us Taglit, the same brains that gave us all of these amazing other innovations, need to put our energy towards this, like fast.”

TikTok is particularly popular among young people. It has carried viral short videos of the Gaza Genocide over the last two years. The pressure from the Israel lobby forced the sale of Chinese-owned TikTok to an American Zionist group led by Oracle's billionaire founder Larry Ellison. Ellison has given tens of millions of dollars to pro-Israel groups. He is reported to be among the six American Zionist billionaires supporting Israel's wartime economy.

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Friday, February 27, 2026

India-Israel Axis Threatens Peace in South Asia

The bonhomie between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, an indicted war criminal, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accused of killing thousands of Muslims, was on full display this week in Israel. Both leaders committed to supporting the Afghan Taliban regime which is accused of facilitating cross-border terrorist attacks by the TTP in Pakistan. Mr. Modi was warmly welcomed by Mr. Netanyahu as a "brother". “You are a great friend of Israel, … Narendra. You are more than a friend. You are a brother,” Netanyahu told Modi when both leaders addressed the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on Wednesday. In response, Mr. Modi said, “India stands with Israel, firmly, with full conviction, in this moment, and beyond" He was silent on the continuing genocide in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians since October 2023. Currently, India is Israel’s largest weapons buyer, sending billions of dollars into Israel’s defense industry each year. In 2024 as Israel waged its war on Gaza, Indian weapons firms sold Israel rockets and explosives that killed Palestinians, according to an Al Jazeera investigation.

Indian PM Modi Hugs Israeli PM Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Source: AP

In October 2023, Mr. Modi became the first foreign leader to call Mr. Netanyahu and offer his full support to Israel after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. He tweeted that he was "shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel", adding that "We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour". This tweet was posted immediately after the Hamas militants' unprecedented attack on Israel by air, land and sea. Modi's critics have noted that he has yet to tweet any condemnation of months-long killings of his fellow countrymen in Manipur which are continuing unabated. Nor has he issued any similar condemnation of the long and brutal Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. To those who know Modi, his reaction makes sense given the similarities between Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both leaders are extreme right-wing divisive politicians. Modi is a Hindu Supremacist and Netanyahu is a Jewish Supremacist. Both have a long history of murdering large numbers of Muslims living under their rule. Both are pursuing settler colonial policies; Modi in Kashmir and Netanyahu in Palestine.

More Americans Than Indians Have Negative Views Israel. Source: Pew

Meanwhile, the polls indicate that more Americans (53%) than Indians (29%) have negative view of Israel. Most Indians, particularly Hindu Nationalists, have suffered from what Shashi Tharoor calls "India's Israel Envy". Here's an excerpt of Tharoor's piece published in "Project Syndicate" in January 2009:

"Yet, when Indians watch Israel take the fight to the enemy, killing those who launched rockets against it and dismantling many of the sites from which the rockets flew, some cannot resist wishing that they could do something similar in Pakistan. India understands, though, that the collateral damage would be too high, the price in civilian lives unacceptable, and the risks of the conflict spiraling out of control too acute to contemplate such an option. So Indians place their trust in international diplomacy and watch, with ill-disguised wistfulness, as Israel does what they could never permit themselves to do".

In a piece titled "The Settler Colonial Alliance of India and Israel" published in The Nation, Indian journalist Deeksha Udupa interviewed Azad Essa, author of “Hostile Homelands” – The new alliance between India and Israel". Here's what Essa told Udupa:

"Kashmir is a perfect example of another region being turned into a sort of testing ground (for Israeli weapons and methods). Both India and Israel already share many tactics. They both attack journalists and criminalize civil society. They both exercise collective punishment on Palestinians and Kashmiris. They both maim protesters. In Palestine, protesters are shot in the limbs. In Kashmir, protesters are blinded by lead pellets. Israeli drones, sensors, surveillance, and machine guns are all there, and Israeli methods of controlling the population have long existed in Kashmir—so much so that India is now producing some of these Israeli weapons in factories across India.".

Azad Essa argues that the Israeli occupation of Palestine has served as a model that Indians are replicating in Kashmir. He says that Israeli weapons, developed and field tested on Palestinians, have been used in Kashmir. Here are a couple of excerpts from his book "Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel": :

"So how did India, which once considered Zionism a form of racism, become Israel’s number one weapons trade buyer, accounting for 42% of Israel’s arms exports since Modi came to power in 2014?* How did India, the first non-Arab state to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement that opposed colonialism and apartheid, simultaneously maintain its colonial occupation of Kashmir since 1947 and metamorphose into extolling Israel’s settlements as a model to colonize Kashmir with its own Indian settlers?"

"In the days leading to August 5, 2019 and in the weeks and months to come, Kashmir became a site of unfathomable cruelty. Thousands of Kashmiris were detained; pro-India politicians were placed under house arrest, pro-freedom leaders as well as minors were rounded up and thrown in jail. Young boys were shipped off to Indian prisons 1,500km away in Agra and Varanasi. Foreign journalists and international human rights groups were banned from access to Kashmir. The region was placed under a complete communication blackout. Cellular phones, Internet, landline services, and even the postal services were dismantled. News traveled by word of mouth. Journalists compressed photos and video onto memory cards and smuggled them out with passengers en route to Delhi. Schools, offices, banks, and businesses were closed for months. Life came to a standstill".

Here's India's JNU Professor speaking about illegal Indian occupation of Kashmir, Manipur and Nagaland:

https://youtu.be/KWp1E8xrY5E

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Modi's AI Spectacle: Chaos and Deception in New Delhi

The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, has been marred by chaos, confusion and deception. The events on the ground have produced unintended media headlines for India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to be seen as the "vishwaguru" (teacher of the world) in the field of artificial intelligence as well. First, there was massive chaos on the opening day, with long lines and sudden unannounced evacuation of exhibitors and attendees from the show floor for several hours. This, the Indian government said, was done for "VIP" security, a euphemism for Mr. Modi's "photo op" as he walked the venue halls alone for the benefit of the cameras for self-promotion. Mr. Modi then declared that "India is not just a part of the AI revolution, but is leading and shaping it". To support such claims, an Indian University presented a "robodog" bought from China as its "innovation", a blatant lie that was immediately caught by people on the social media, leading to the expulsion of the institution from the show.

5-Layer AI Stack

Let's examine Mr. Modi's claim to be "leading and shaping" the AI revolution. The artificial intelligence technology is a 5-layer stack, consisting of energy, AI chips, infrastructure, AI models and applications. Only two nations, the United States and China, have their own full 5-layer stacks. It's hard to see India as leading in any one of these layers.

Currently, the AI space is dominated by China, the US and a handful of hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. Any country wanting to jump on the AI bandwagon has to choose between the American and Chinese giants. Bloomberg put it best as follows:

"This, fundamentally, is a matter of sovereignty: Whether a nation’s AI systems can be independent of foreign authority. That danger was showcased in 2024, when members of Australia’s UniSuper pension fund had access to their accounts cut off due to a Google cloud misconfiguration. In October, Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud services — the world’s largest — also suffered a major shutdown, damaging its reputation".

Strict security restrictions at the Indian AI summit caused significant limitations on carrying personal items, including laptops and other electronic devices. In spite of such "strict security", some participants reported their exhibits and personal items stolen at the event. The fact that only cash was accepted for food and other services at the venue for the AI Summit makes a mockery of the Modi government's hype about India's digital public infrastructure (DPI).

India's Galgotias University of Uttar Pradesh Showed Chinese Robodog as its Own

There is a significant presence of Americans at the AI Summit in New Delhi. Major "hyperscalers" like Anthropic, Google and OpenAI and Microsoft executives are all attending. The American agenda at the conference was put very succinctly by Sriram Krishnan, Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, who said, "...We want to make sure that the world uses the American AI stack...We also want the world to use our AI model...We want all our allies, including India, to leverage our AI infrastructure."

Major US technology firms have announced plans to build large multi-gigawatt AI data centers in India that make enormous demands on energy and water for powering and cooling the energy-hungry beasts. They are facing strong resistance in US cities and towns because of concerns that they will divert precious water and power, increase the rates they have to pay and cause pollution. India appears to be welcoming them for the investment they bring, in spite of significant health and safety concerns. But the Americans will not guarantee "data sovereignty" to the Indian government for Indian consumers' data stored in these data centers.

President Donald Trump has recently scrapped greenhouse gas emission regulations to enable the use of fossil fuels to power AI data centers in the United States. But the local opposition by cities and towns continues to gather steam.

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