Strong Earnings Propel Pak Shares Index to 4 Years High

A string of strong earnings announcements by Karachi Stock Exchange listed companies and the Central Bank's 1.5% rate cut have helped the KSE-100 index gain 32% year to date. In the week ended on August 16, the benchmark index surged by 238.59 points, or 1.61 percent, to 51-month high of 15,000.08 points. This was the highest close since April 30, 2008.

Strong Earnings:

Last week, KSE-listed Indus Motors announced 57% jump in profits on record sales of Toyota Corolla cars.  It was followed by Lucky Cement Ltd. (LUCK), Pakistan’s largest producer of the building material, announcing 71 percent surge in profits to a record as an increase in domestic sales offset a decline in exports. Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), the country’s second largest oil and gas explorer, said its profits soared 30% to Rs40.9 billion in fiscal 2012. Strong earnings have also been reported by Unilever Foods and Bata shoes in the last few days.

Best Performing Market:

 So far in 2012 Pakistan is the best performing market in Asia surpassing the Philippines which was the top performer until June of this year.  Karachi stocks have also significantly outperformed all emerging stock smarket indexes, including Mumbai and Shanghai, in 2012.

 Rising Consumer Demand: 

 Meteoric rise of Engro Foods symbolizes strong consumer demand in growing package food sector. Its CEO Muhammad Afnan Ahsan has forecast 81% increase in net income in the current year ending December 31, 2012.  With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65 percent and a planned infrastructure investment in 2012 of eight billion rupees, Engro Foods has become the country's fastest growing local company catering to a wide range of consumers in Pakistan and overseas. 


Undeterred by the gloom and doom reports in the media, Pakistani consumers are continuing to spend and private consumption has now reached 75 percent of GDP. It rose 11.6% in real terms in 2011-12 compared with just 3.7% growth a year earlier , according to Economic Survey of Pakistan. In fact, many analysts believe that Pakistan's official GDP of  $220 billion is understated by as much as 50%, buttressing a recent claim by the head of Karachi Stock Exchange that Pakistan's real GDP is closer to $300 billion.

I believe that even a modest effort to increase tax collection can significantly improve Pakistan's state finances to support higher public sector investments in energy, education, health care and infrastructure.
 
 Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Underground Economy

 Pakistan Cement Sector Research Report

Tax Evasion Fosters Aid Dependence

Poll Finds Pakistanis Happier Than Neighbors

Pakistan's Rural Economy Booming

Pakistan Car Sales Up 61%

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

Land For Landless Women in Pakistan

Faith in Hard Work: Pakistanis Lead the World

A recent Pew Survey of 21 countries reported that 81% of Pakistanis believe in hard work to achieve material success. Americans are the second most optimistic with 77% sharing this belief followed by Tunisians (73%), Brazilians (69%), Indians (67%) and Mexicans (65%).

 The survey found that "faith in the work ethic is particularly weak in Lebanon, where only 32% of the public anticipates rewards from hard work, and in Russia (35%), Japan (40%), Italy (43%) and Greece (43%), all countries that have suffered greatly from the recent economic downturn. There is also little confidence in hard work in China (45%), despite the fact that it has economically outperformed every country in this Global Attitudes survey".

Reacting to the survey results, former corporate leader Asad Umar who recently left Engro Corporation to join Imran Khan's PTI, said, “Fundamentally, the survey reveals that Pakistanis haven’t lost faith in the country. The Pakistani youth believes that current problems are short-term and can be resolved.”

Fifty-one percent of Pakistani respondents in the survey described their personal economic situation as "good", down from 70% in 2008.  Only 9% of Pakistani participants assessed the national economic situation as "good", down from 41% in 2008.

Another survey titled "Pervasive Gloom About the World Economy" reveals that the vast majority of Pakistanis recognize that their country is facing economic difficulties and most hold the government responsible for it. Only 12% of Pakistanis are satisfied with the current direction of the country. However, 23% believe that Pakistan's economy will get better in the next 12 months. 26% expect it to remain the same and 43% think it will get worse.

Defying the prophets of doom and gloom, Pakistanis remain much more optimistic than the people of any of the 21 countries surveyed, including BRIC countries, that their hard work can bring them material success.It's this perpetual optimism and willingness to work hard that helps Pakistanis maintain their upward social and economic mobility.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Educational Attainment in Pakistan

Foreign Visitors to Pakistan Pleasantly Surprised

Pakistan's Infrastructure and M2 Motorway

India Pakistan Comparison 2011

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

What Pakistan Did Right

Branchless Banking Responds to Pakistan Floods

Pakistan's Rural Economy Recovering

Pakistan's Growing Middle Class

Pakistan is Too Big to Fail

FMCG Consumption Boom in Rural Pakistan

Pakistan Visits Open  Indian Eyes

British Pakistani Wins "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge"

A team headed by Professor Sohail Khan, a British Pakistani researcher at Loughborough University, won $60,000 second place prize for developing a toilet that converts human waste into biological charcoal, which can be burned, and clean water. The prize was announced on August 14, Pakistan's Independence Day, at Gates Foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Fair" in Seattle, Washington, which showcased dozens of similar projects aimed at creating an inexpensive and eco-friendly alternative to the flush toilet.

In response to the announcement, Professor M. Sohail Khan, Loughborough’s project lead, said, “It was the opportunity of a lifetime to present our research to Mr Gates and we are extremely honored to receive this prestigious award.”

Michael Hoffmann of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues won the top prize of $100,000. Caltech design uses solar power to run an electrochemical reactor that breaks down human waste to produce hydrogen gas. The gas can be stored and used to run the reactor at night or on cloudy days. according to Science Magazine.

 Third place prize worth $40,000 went to Yu-Ling Cheng of the University of Toronto in Canada and her colleagues whose design dehydrates and smolders solid waste, sanitizing it within 24 hours.

The current flush toilet design is not suitable in places where water supply and sewage pipe infrastructure is not widely available. This describes much of the developing world where open defecation is still common. A 2011 UNICEF report  said Indians make up 58% of the world population which still practices open defection.  India (638m) is followed by Indonesia (58m), China (50m), Ethiopia (49m), Pakistan (48m), Nigeria (33m) and Sudan (17m). In terms of percentage of each country's population resorting to the unhygienic practice, Ethiopia tops the list with 60%, followed by India 54%, Nepal 50%, Pakistan 28%, Indonesia 26%, and China 4%.

 Here's how Bill Gates describes his foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" on his thegatesnotes.com website:

When you think about it, the flush toilet is actually a pretty outdated sanitation solution. It was certainly an important breakthrough when it was created in 1775 by a Scottish mathematician and watchmaker named Alexander Cummings. Over the decades, it led to a sanitary revolution that helped keep deadly diseases like cholera at bay, saving hundreds of millions of lives. 

But the fact that four of every 10 people still don’t have access to flush toilets proves that—even today—it is a solution too expensive for much of the world. And in an era where water is becoming increasingly precious, flush toilets that require 10 times more water than our daily drinking water requirement are no longer a smart or sustainable solution. 

A big part of the challenge is technological. In addition to building new toilets that are affordable and sustainable, we have to develop solutions to empty these new latrines and treat the human waste. We also have to work closely with governments, businesses, and communities to stimulate demand for better sanitation, encourage investment, and create supportive public policies that will allow these innovative solutions to succeed.

Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce child deaths and disease and improve people’s lives. It is also something that can help wealthier countries conserve fresh water for other important purposes besides flushing. 

We don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m optimistic that we can and will solve this problem. I’m hopeful that this unusual summer fair will be a positive step toward that important goal.

Here are two video clips about "Reivent The Toilet" challenge:







Related Links:

Haq's Musings

World Water Day: Water Scarce Pakistan 

India and Pakistan: Off-Track, Off-Target on Toilets

Fixing Sanitation Crisis in India

Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan

Heavy Disease Burdens in South Asia

Peepli Live Destroys Indian Myths

India After 63 Years of Independence

Poverty Across India 2011

India Leads the World in Open Defecation

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan on 66th Independence Day

Pakistan has continued to offer much greater upward economic and social mobility to its citizens than neighboring India over the last two decades. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And Future.

New York Times' Sabrina Tavernise described the rise of Pakistan's middle class in a story from Pakistani town of Muzaffargarh in the following words:

For years, feudal lords reigned supreme, serving as the police, the judge and the political leader. Plantations had jails, and political seats were practically owned by families.

Instead of midwifing democracy, these aristocrats obstructed it, ignoring the needs of rural Pakistanis, half of whom are still landless and desperately poor more than 60 years after Pakistan became a state.

But changes began to erode the aristocrats’ power. Cities sprouted, with jobs in construction and industry. Large-scale farms eclipsed old-fashioned plantations. Vast hereditary lands splintered among generations of sons, and many aristocratic families left the country for cities, living beyond their means off sales of their remaining lands. Mobile labor has also reduced dependence on aristocratic families.

In Punjab, the country’s most populous province, and its most economically advanced, the number of national lawmakers from feudal families shrank to 25 percent in 2008 from 42 percent in 1970, according to a count conducted by Mubashir Hassan, a former finance minister, and The New York Times.

“Feudals are a dying breed,” said S. Akbar Zaidi, a Karachi-based fellow with the Carnegie Foundation. “They have no power outside the walls of their castles.”

GeoTV is illustrating  this welcome phenomenon of upward social mobility in Pakistan with a series of motivational "Zara  Sochiey" videos on young men and women who have risen from humble origins to achieve significant successes in recent years. Each individual portrayed in the series has overcome adversity and  focused on acquiring education as a ticket to improve his or her economic and social situation.

GeoTV videos feature a number of young men and women, including Saima Bilal, Kashif Faiq,  Qaisar Abbas and many others, to inspire and encourage other Pakistanis to pursue their dreams against all odds.

Contrary to the incessant talk of doom and gloom, the fact is that the level of educational attainment has been rising in recent decades.  In fact, Pakistan has been increasing enrollment of students in schools at a faster rate since 1990 than India, according to data compiled and reported by Harvard University researchers Robert Barro and Jhong-Wa Lee . In 1990, there were 66.2% of Pakistanis vs 51.6% of Indians in 15+ age group who had had no schooling. In 2000, there were 60.2% Pakistanis vs 43% Indians with no schooling. In 2010, Pakistan reduced it to 38% vs India's 32.7%.
 

Source: Harvard Business Review

As of 2010, there are 380 (vs 327 Indians) out of every 1000 Pakistanis age 15 and above who have never had any formal schooling. Of the remaining 620 (vs 673 Indians) who enrolled in school, 22 (vs 20 Indians) dropped out before finishing primary school, and the remaining 598 (vs 653 Indians) completed it. There are 401 (vs 465 Indians) out of every 1000 Pakistanis who made it to secondary school. 290 (vs 69 Indians) completed secondary school  while 111 (vs. 394 Indians) dropped out. Only 55 (vs 58 Indians)  made it to college out of which 39 (vs 31 Indians) graduated with a degree.

Education and development efforts  are beginning to bear fruit even in remote areas of Pakistan, including Federally Administered Tribal Areas.  The Guardian newspaper recently reported that FATA's Bajaur agency alone has 616 school with over 60,000 boys and girls receiving take-home rations. Two new university campuses have been approved for FATA region and thousands of kilometers of new roads are being constructed. After a recent visit to FATA, Indian journalist Hindol Sengupta wrote in The Hindu newspaper that "even Bajaur has a higher road density than India"

 Prior to significant boost in public spending on education during Musharraf years, the number of private schools in Pakistan grew 10 fold from about 3000 in 1983 to over 30,000 in 2000. Primary school enrollment in 1983 has increased 937%, far greater than the 57% population increase in the last two decades.

Unfortunately, there has been a decline in public spending on education since 2008, even as not-for-profit private sector organizations, mostly NGOs, have stepped up  to try to fill the gap.  Last year, a Pakistani government commission on education found that public funding for education has been cut from 2.5% of GDP in 2007 to just 1.5% - less than the annual subsidy given to the various PSUs including PIA, the national airline that continues to sustain huge losses.


Clearly, this is not the time for Pakistan's political leadership to let up on the push for universal education. The momentum that developed in Musharraf years needs to be maintained, even accelerated to get to the goal of 100% literacy and 100% enrollment of all children in Pakistan. Nothing less will do if Pakistan is to achieve economic competitiveness on the global stage.

Here are some of  GeoTV's Zara Scohiye video clips:

 



 



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Educational Attainment in Pakistan

Foreign Visitors to Pakistan Pleasantly Surprised

Pakistan's Infrastructure and M2 Motorway

India Pakistan Comparison 2011

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

What Pakistan Did Right

Branchless Banking Responds to Pakistan Floods

Pakistan's Rural Economy Recovering

Pakistan's Growing Middle Class

Pakistan is Too Big to Fail

FMCG Consumption Boom in Rural Pakistan

Pakistan Visits Open  Indian Eyes

Toyota Pakistan Auto Profits Up 57% in 2012

Indus Motor Company earned Rs. 4.3 billion in net income on sales of Rs. 75 billion in 2011-12, representing an increase 57% in net income and 25% in total revenue over previous year. The company that is 37.5% owned by Japan’s Toyota Motors sold over 55,000 cars during the financial year that ended on June 30, 2012, its highest ever for a single year. Both revenues and profits were the highest in the company’s history in Pakistan, according to media reports. Pakistan's total car market was about 235,000 units in July 2011-June 2012 period.

The domestic auto industry sold 178,753 cars, 23% more than last year. The rest of the demand was met by imports of 55,000 cars in fiscal year 2012, representing an increase of 50% over last year. In addition to durables like automobiles, companies in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) sector are also expected to report strong sales and earnings this year. Engro Foods has emerged emerged as the supercharged FMCG player with over 400 percent in bottom line in 2011, grabbing fourth position after Nestle, Unilever and Rafhan, and outpacing National Foods. The sector growth has been particularly well supported by strong rural consumption in recent years.

Here are a few key points excerpted from a recent Businessweek story on rise of the rural consumer supported by higher crop prices in Pakistan:

1. Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive Co. are sending salespeople into rural areas of the world’s sixth most-populous nation, where demand for consumer goods such as Sunsilk shampoo, Pond’s moisturizers and Colgate toothpaste has boosted local units’ revenue at least 15 percent.

2. “The rural push is aimed at the boisterous youth in these areas, who have bountiful cash and resources to increase purchases,” Shazia Syed, vice president for customer development at Unilever Pakistan Ltd., said in an interview. “Rural growth is more than double that of national sales.”

3. Consumer-goods companies forecast growth in Pakistan even as an increase in ethnic violence in Karachi has made 2011 the deadliest in 16 years for the country’s biggest city and financial center.

4. Nestle Pakistan Ltd. is spending 300 million Swiss francs ($326 million) to double dairy output in four years, boosted sales 29 percent to 33 billion rupees ($378 million) in the six months through June. “We have been focusing on rural areas very strongly,” Ian Donald, managing director of Nestle’s Pakistan unit, said in an interview in Lahore. “Our observation is that Pakistan’s rural economy is doing better than urban areas.”

5. Haji Mirbar, who grows cotton on a 5-acre farm with his four brothers, said his family’s income grew fivefold in the year through June, allowing him to buy branded products. He uses Unilever’s Lifebuoy for his open-air baths under a hand pump, instead of the handmade soap he used before. “We had a great year because of cotton prices,” said Mirbar, 28, who lives in a village outside south Pakistan’s Matiari town. “As our income has risen, we want to buy nice things and live like kings.”

6. Sales for the Pakistan unit of Unilever rose 15 percent to 24.8 billion rupees in the first half. Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Ltd.’s sales increased 29 percent in the six months through June to 7.6 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “In a generally faltering economy, the double-digit growth in revenue for companies servicing the consumer sector has come almost entirely from the rural areas,” said Sakib Sherani, chief executive officer at Macroeconomic Insights Pvt. in Islamabad and a former economic adviser to Pakistan’s finance ministry.

7.6 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “In a generally faltering economy, the double-digit growth in revenue for companies servicing the consumer sector has come almost entirely from the rural areas,” said Sakib Sherani, chief executive officer at Macroeconomic Insights Pvt. in Islamabad and a former economic adviser to Pakistan’s finance ministry.

7. Unilever is pushing beauty products in the countryside through a program called “Guddi Baji,” an Urdu phrase that literally means “doll sister.” It employs “beauty specialists who understand rural women,” providing them with vans filled with samples and equipment, Syed said. Women in villages are also employed as sales representatives, because “rural is the growth engine” for Unilever in Pakistan, she said in an interview in Karachi. While the bulk of spending for rural families goes to food, about 20 percent “is spent on looking beautiful and buying expensive clothes,” Syed said.

8. Colgate-Palmolive, the world’s largest toothpaste maker, aims to address a “huge gap” in sales outside Pakistan’s cities by more than tripling the number of villages where its products, such as Palmolive soap, are sold, from the current 5,000, said Syed Wasif Ali, rural operations manager at the local unit.

9. Palmolive's detergents Bonus Tristar and Brite are packed in sachets of 20 grams or less and priced as low as five rupees (6 cents), to boost sales among low-income consumers hurt by the fastest pace of inflation in Asia after Vietnam. Unilever plans to increase the number of villages where its products are sold to almost half of the total 34,000 within three years. Its merchandise, including Dove shampoo, Surf detergent and Brooke Bond Supreme tea, is available in about 11,000 villages now.

10. Telenor Pakistan Pvt. is also expanding in Pakistan’s rural areas, which already contribute 60 percent of sales, said Anjum Nida Rahman, corporate communications director for the local unit of the Nordic region’s largest phone company.




 Undeterred by the gloom and doom reports in the media, Pakistani consumers are continuing to spend and private consumption has now reached 75 percent of GDP. It rose 11.6% in real terms in 2011-12 compared with just 3.7% growth a year earlier , according to Economic Survey of Pakistan. In fact, many analysts believe that Pakistan's official GDP of  $220 billion is understated by as much as 50%, buttressing a recent claim by the head of Karachi Stock Exchange that Pakistan's real GDP is closer to $300 billion.

I believe that even a modest effort to increase tax collection can significantly improve Pakistan's state finances to support higher public sector investments in energy, education, health care and infrastructure.
 
 Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Underground Economy

Tax Evasion Fosters Aid Dependence

Poll Finds Pakistanis Happier Than Neighbors

Pakistan's Rural Economy Booming

Pakistan Car Sales Up 61%

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

Land For Landless Women in Pakistan

Haq's Crystal Ball: A Look at Pak Elections 2013

Political parties and pundits are catching the election fever as the current PPP-led coalition government in Pakistan is nearing the end of its term in February 2013.

Campaign rallies are being organized across the country by major political parties including Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League factions (PML N & Q), Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Awami National Party (ANP), Jamiat Ulama Islam (JUI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and others like Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), etc.



Overseas Pakistanis are getting into the spirit of elections as well. A WBT TV show called Viewpoint From Overseas recently interviewed me on the subject and asked for my analysis and predictions of winners and losers in 2013. Here's a summary of how I see the outcome of the upcoming elections in Pakistan:

1. Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) is likely to emerge as the single largest party with 90 or slightly fewer seats of the 272 general seats up for direct elections in 2013.

2. Pakistan Muslim League (N) would be competing with Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) for the second spot.

3. PPP is most likely to form the next coalition government with smaller parties like PML (Q), MQM and ANP.

4. PPP will essentially retain its vote bank in rural Sindh and Southern Punjab while MQM and ANP will carry urban Sindh and KP province respectively.

5. PML (N) will have real struggle getting overall majority in Punjab province.

6. There will be little change in Balochistan given the fact that the nationalists and insurgents are not ready to talk peace and participate in elections.

For detailed analysis, please watch this video:




Here's a more recent video on election strategies of PTI, PPP and PML(N) in the battleground province of Punjab:


Related Links:

Haq's Musings
Pakistan Rural Economy Showing Strength

Judicial Coup in Pakistan
Land for Landless Women Peasants

Imran Khan's Social Media Campaign

FMCG Companies Profiting From Pakistan's Rural Consumption Boom

Poll Finds Pakistanis Happier Than Neighbors

Politics of Patronage in Pakistan

Feudal Power Dominates Pakistani Elections

Indians Share "Eye-Opener" Stories of Pakistan

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

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

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

It was a true eye-opener, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that.  Many of the assumptions and feelings I had held toward the country for nearly 30 years were challenged and exposed as wrong and even ignorant outright.

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 The Western and Indian media feed us a steady diet of stories about bomb blasts, gunfights, kidnappings, torture, subjugation of women, dysfunctional government, and scary madrassa schools that are training the next generation of jihadist terrorists.  And yes, to many Westerners and especially Indians, Pakistan is the enemy, embodying all that is wrong in the world.  Incidents such as the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, 26/11 and the Osama Bin Laden raid in Abottobad have not helped the cause either.  Numerous international relations analysts proclaim that Pakistan is “the most dangerous place in the world” and the border with India is “the most dangerous border in the world.”

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(Upon arrival in Karachi) two uniformed bodyguards with rifles who were exceedingly friendly and welcoming climbed onto the pickup truck bed as we started on a 45-minute drive.  I was impressed by the massive, well-maintained parks and gardens surrounding the airport.  I was also impressed by the general cleanliness, the orderliness of the traffic, the quality of the roads, and the greenery. Coming from a city government background, I was surprised at how organized Karachi was throughout the ride.  I also didn’t see many beggars the entire way.  I had just spent significant amounts of time in two major Indian cities, Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as several second-tier cities like Mangalore, and none would compare favorably on maintenance and city planning, especially when it came to potholes and waste management.  This was the first surprise; I was expecting that piles of garbage and dirt would line the roads and beggars would overflow onto the streets.  Surely there is dirt and poverty in Karachi, but far less than I was expecting.  Karachi was also less dense and crowded than India’s cities.

My second pleasant surprise was to see numerous large development projects under way.  I had read about Pakistan’s sluggish GDP growth and corruption in public works and foreign aid disbursement.  This may be true, but construction was going on all over the place: new movie theaters, new malls, new skyscrapers, new roads, and entire new neighborhoods being built from scratch.  In this regard it was similar to India and every other part of Asia I had seen recently: new development and rapid change continues apace, something we are seeing less of in the West.

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 We were also able to do some things which may sound more familiar to Americans: bowling at Karachi’s first bowling alley, intense games of pickup basketball with some local teenagers at a large public park (these kids could really play), or passing through massive and well-appointed malls filled with thousands of happy people of all ages walking around, shopping, or eating at the food court.  We even attended a grand launch party for Magnum ice cream bars, featuring many of Pakistan’s A-list actors, models, and businesspeople.  A friend who is involved in producing musicals directed an excellent performance at the party, complete with live band, singing, and dancing.  This troupe, Made for Stage has also produced shows such as the Broadway musical Chicago to critical acclaim with an all-Pakistani cast for the first time in history.

Even the poor areas we visited, such as the neighborhoods around the Mazar, were filled with families coming out for a picnic or a stroll, enjoying their weekend leisure time in the sun.  All I could see were friendly and happy people, including children with striking features running around.  At no time did I feel the least bit unsafe anywhere we went, and we definitely went through a mix of neighborhoods with varying profiles.

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 Lahore is more beautiful overall than Karachi or any large Indian city I’ve seen.  Serious effort has gone into keeping the city green and preserving its storied history.  Historians would have a field day here.  In particular we saw two stunning historic mosques, the Wazir Khan and the Badshahi, both of which should be considered treasures not only for Muslims, Pakistanis, or South Asia, but for all of humanity.  I felt it a crime that I’d never even heard of either one.  Each of them in different ways features breath-taking architecture and intricate artwork comparable to India’s Taj Mahal.  These are must-see sights for any tourist to Lahore.  The best way to enjoy the vista of the Badshahi mosque is to have a meal on the rooftop of one of the many superb restaurants on Food Street next to the mosque compound.  This interesting area was for hundreds of years an infamous red-light district, made up of a series of old wooden rowhouses that look like they were lifted straight out of New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, strangely juxtaposed with one of the country’s holiest shrines.  From the roof of Cuckoo’s Den restaurant, we could see all of the massive Badshahi complex along with the adjoining royal fortress, all while having a 5-star meal of kebabs, spicy curries in clay pots, and lassi under the stars.  We were fortunate to have very pleasant whether as well.  This alfresco dining experience with two good friends encompassed my favorite moments in the city.

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

Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg:  (April, 2012)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hindol Sengupta, The Hindu: (May, 2010)

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

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

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

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

Madhulika Sikka, NPR News: (May, 2010)

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

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

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

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

 

Yoginder Sikand, Countercurrents.org : (June, 2008)

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

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

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American Shale Fracking Fuels Demand for South Asian Guar

Guar bean is so hard it can crack human teeth--a quality that makes it ideal for fracturing shale rock to extract oil and gas. Guar was eaten by the poorest of the poor or fed to animals in India and Pakistan before the shale oil and gas boom in North America dramatically increased its demand and pushed its price higher. It's also used to produce guar gum which is an ingredient of various sauces and ice cream as a thickening agent.

"Shortages of guar beans, an essential component in the shale gas ‘fracking’ process, have resulted in huge price hikes for the commodity in 2012,” said risk consultancy Maplecroft in a recent report. “This has hit the profits of oil and gas companies hard and a search is under way to find supply chain alternatives, such as direct farm contracts and man-made substances.”

India's National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) banned trading of guar futures in March this year after prices rallied nine-fold to a record US$1,680 per 100 kilograms, according to Bloomberg data. Over 95% of the world's supply of drought-resistant guar comes from the desert regions of South Asia. India produces a million tons a year making up 80% and Pakistan 15% of the world's supply. The rest comes from Sudan and the United States.

Higher prices are inducing farmers in India and Pakistan to plant more guar. Despite the expanding supply, however, many analysts believe that guar prices will remain high for the foreseeable future. Neil Beveridge, an oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, told New York Times that demand for fracking services should continue to grow rapidly as the industry expanded outside North America.

Both India and Pakistan are planning to develop their substantial reserves of shale oil and gas. India has 63 trillion cubic feet of shale gas and Pakistan has 51 trillion cubic feet, according to US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
 

Trican Wells Services of Calgary told Edmonton Journal that its bottomline would be directly hit by the elusive and expensive bean. “Average guar costs increased sequentially in the second quarter and we were largely unable to pass these costs on to our customers due to the competitive pricing environment,” the company said, explaining its larger-than-expected estimated loss of $24-million to $34-million.

Fracking companies are already looking for guar substitutes. Trican, for example, is looking to introduce a new hybrid fluid system that will reduce its guar usage. “We have started to see a reduction in guar prices  and we expect guar prices to continue to decrease throughout the remainder of 2012 as a result of the development of hybrid systems and guar substitutes, and the new guar crop that is expected to increase supply later in 2012.”

Rising demand and increasing prices of guar are already helping lift many Indian farmers out of poverty. A New York Times story highlights the life changes of  an Indian farmer "Sohan Singh’s shoeless children" who "have spent most of their lives hungry, dirty and hot. A farmer in a desert land, Mr. Singh could not afford anything better than a mud hut and a barely adequate diet for his family". The Times quotes Singh as saying, “Now we have enough food, and we have a house made of stone,”

The shale revolution now sweeping North America is helping change the fortunes of many poor farmers in South Asia. Bringing about the shale energy boom in India and Pakistan can overcome energy shortages and help millions more improve their lives.

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World Population: America Significantly Outweighs Asia

As the West frets about population growth in the developing world on World Population Day today,  it's also important to understand the impact of growing obesity on the planet.

Asia has 61 per cent of the world's population but only 13 per cent of the world's weight. In contrast, Americans make up only five per cent of the world's population but account for a third of the world's weight due to obesity, according to a recently published research paper.

 The researchers calculated the average global body weight at 137 pounds, but in North America the average was 178 pounds, while in Asia it was 57.7kg (127lb). In their report, the researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine worked out the weight of the global population at 287 million tonnes. They estimate that 15 million tons of this mass is due to people being overweight, and 3.5 million tons due to obesity.

The researchers found that Americans and Arabs are among the heaviest while Asians and sub-Saharan Africans are the lightest in weight.  It takes only 12.2 Americans to add up to a ton of weight while it takes 20.2 Bangladeshis to equal a ton of weight. The top ten heaviest include US (12.2) , Kuwait (12.19), Croatia (13.1), Qatar (13.0), Egypt (13.5), UAE (13.2), Trinidad & Tobago (13.8), Argentina (13.8), Greece (13.3) and Bahrain (13.6). The lightest include North Korea (19.0), Cambodia (17.9), Burundi (18.5), Nepal (19.8), Congo (18.7), Bangladesh (20.2), Sri Lanka (19.8), Ethiopia (18.9), Vietnam (19.7) and Eritrea (19.2).  Indians and Pakistanis do not show up in either of the two groups.

 In terms of average BMI (Body Mass Index), Pakistanis and Chinese are at 23, Indians 21 and Bangladeshis 20.5, all within normal range of 18.5 to 24.9. The average values of BMI for Europe, Middle East and North and South America are much higher.


One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ian Roberts, told the BBC: "When people think about environmental sustainability, they immediately focus on population. Actually, when it comes down to it, it’s not how many mouths there are to feed, it is how much flesh there is on the planet." "If every country in the world had the same level of fatness that we see in the USA, in weight terms that would be like an extra billion people of world average body mass," he added.

Source: Wall Street Journal

“We do not move our bodies so much but we are biologically programmed to eat,” Roberts told the Daily Telegraph. "We often point the finger at poor women in Africa having too many babies. But we've also got to think of this fatness thing; it's part of the same issue of exceeding our planetary limits."

 Americans are beginning to recognize and respond to the obesity epidemic by promoting healthier alternatives to fattening fast foods in school lunches and by encouraging greater physical activity. Unfortunately, Asians are moving in the opposite direction. Recent launch of Fatburger chain of restaurants in Pakistan is just one symptom of the rapid growth of American sugared drinks and fast food in Asian nations.

Given the fact that South Asians are known to be genetically predisposed to obesity-related diseases like diabetes and heart diseases, the growth of American fast food in Asia could spell disaster. It's time for the local health officials to start tackling obesity before it becomes an epidemic further straining the already inadequate and overburdened health care systems in India and Pakistan.

Here's a video of a recent TV discussion on population:


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Global Power Shift Since Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of a major shift in economic, military and political power from East to West.

  A research letter written by Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan, and published in the Atlantic Magazine shows how dramatic this economic power shift has been. The size of a nation's GDP depended on the size of its population and labor force in agrarian economies prior to the Industrial era.  With the advent of  the Industrial revolution, the use of machines relying on energy from fossil fuels dramatically enhanced labor productivity in the West and shifted the balance of power from Asia to America and Europe.

The shift in power was not just in economic terms. Enabled by machines such as steamboats and weapons like the repeating gun, the West engaged in long distance trade and warfare that led to the colonization and exploitation of Asia and Africa. The new colonies were used as a source of  cheap raw materials for European factories and the colonized people served as captive customers for their manufactured products.

History of Per Capita GDP of Selected Countries. Source: Angus Maddison

While development of Asian and African nations stagnated and their share of world GDP dropped precipitously, their colonial rulers in the West prospered. Social indicators like literacy and life expectancy showed little improvement in the colonies, according to data compiled by Professor Hans Rosling.  For example, his Gapminder.org animations show that life expectancy in India and Pakistan was just 32 years in 1947.  In Pakistan, it has  jumped to  67 years in 2011, and per Capita inflation-adjusted PPP income has risen from $766 in 1948 to about $3000 in 2011. Similarly, literacy rate in undivided India was just 12% in 1947. It has increased to about 67% in India and 62% in Pakistan for people 15 years and above.

Indicators such as per capita energy consumption and Internet usage confirm the rise of Asia, particularly Asian giant China's. China's per capita energy consumption now stands at 68 million BTUs, about a fifth of US per capita energy consumption, but it's rising rapidly. Pakistan is at 15 million BTUs per capita, Bangladesh at 6 million BTUs and Sri Lanka at 10 million BTUs.In terms of Internet access, China now tops the world with over 500 million users, more than twice the number of Internet users in the United States.  Among the world's top 20 are South Asian nations of India with 120 million Internet users and Pakistan with 30 million users, according to Internet World Stats.

While there has been progress on economic and social fronts in South Asia, the combined GDP of SAARC nation is still  accounts for less than 4% of the world GDP. China has significantly increased its share and now accounts for more than 10% of the world GDP marking the biggest economic shift since the Industrial Revolution. China's growing economic clout will ultimately translate into political and military power in the international arena.

All indications are that the pendulum of power has just begun its swing  eastward in the last decade. It could be a century or more before the effects of this swing are truly felt in terms of the exercise of economic, military and political power on the world stage. Meanwhile,  the 21st century is shaping up to be another American century in which United States'  extraordinary power will not go entirely unchallenged by multiple potential adversaries, including China.


Here's a video discussion on the subject:

http://vimeo.com/117657383



Vision 2047: Political Revolutions and South Asia from WBT TV on Vimeo.

Here's a video of a BBC documentary about Al Andalusia or Muslim Spain:

 

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